Another guitar based album from empreintes DIGITALes, not only that but the guitar is dramatically obvious! This is quite an surprising and unusual album — Parra is a classically trained guitarist who has become interested in “performance, creation and composition of contemporary pieces,” and electroacoustic music. He commissioned five well known composers to create tape pieces for him (largely from his own playing, I think) and then has played a live guitar solo over the top. The result is astonishing in its beautiful combination of the chopped microscopic drama of the tape with the skilled guitar playing; unusual in both its conception and its label — this is one of the more melodic works released through empreintes DIGITALes. A fiery skittery opening to La basilique fantome with Stéphane Roy a cloud of tiny fragments, the guitar is slick and smooth in comparison playing a strong rhythmic melody; another crescendo before an extended guitar solo over a density of notes that sounds like an organ; another climax before some rapid picking and improv playing over a little noisey tape before returning to the opening melody. Throughout there are occasional vocalisations. Another big electroacoustic in-yer-face opening after which Mauricio Bejarano’s D’or et de lumière becomes a more settled array of clicky creaks echoed stretched and hisses (including some notes) with spanish guitar. A lovely solo over soft cracking and clicking emphasises that these composers have considered the pieces not only as stand alone, but also taken in to account the requirements of a duet. A restrained climax includes some short string picking. A more obvious tape backing to Sol y sombra… L’espace des spectres from Francis Dhomont swirls and slides skitters and scintillates with a rapid strumming guitar; a melodic solo over scraping electro-environment, and there is a confusion between tape and guitar as they seem to trade improv licks to a rapid guitar and string scrape conclusion. A slow burning development opens Soledad droning and thudding with rapid soft scrape guitar, then rapid extended sounds from Gilles Gobeil that builds to a couple of very noisy climaxes with dramatic guitar, with whispering and breathing that creates a dramatic contrast to the opening. L’envers du temps with Robert Normandeau lays creaking taps spiralling smallnesses as a cloud against rapid guitar, both easing, then developing again in parallel with strange whizzing and guitar to a chittering scrape end. The premiere performance appears to have featured both the acousmatic pieces and the duets, and this would have made an interesting double release with the taped pieces alone on a separate disk. However, as it stands it is a remarkable performance by all concerned and represents a powerful introduction to acousmatic (and all the synonyms) music. A complex album and wonderful, while maintaining the genre’s intensity.

“3 visages de la musique électroacoustique” (Three faces of electroacoustic music) is a concert series held at the Chapelle de Boondæl (Brussels) from June 3 to 5, 2003. The June 4 concert features renowned harpsichord player vivie’ vinçent, who will present works by Coulombe Saint-Marcoux, Saariaho and Schaeffer.

An initial studio encounter, recorded live, makes up CD 1. Then both artists went to work to reprocess the raw material left out. Tétreault used obsolete tape recorders to create a analogue remix (analogique, CD 2). Otomo used an ultramodern computer to generate a digital reconstruction (numérique, CD 3).

A concert featuring three sound performances at Galerie Rad’a (Montréal) May 23, 2003, brings together artists Magali Babin, Christof Migone and François Muon Sagan under the theme “honorable object.”

Burgeoning local leftfield label No Type comes on strong with the second release in their ‘abstract’ series, proving that they are certainly a label to watch out for. On the first track, the half-hour long ambient epic Lift With the Knees, Canadian duo Coin Gutter (Emma Hendrix and Graeme Scott) manage to straddle the line between noise and ambient/concrète electronic music favouring mood over melody. Bursts of noise interrupt echoed and pitched-down classical string samples as operatic vocals and conversation samples are glitched and stuttered. Coin Gutter manage a restrained density that, at the same time, sounds pleasing to the ear. 8/10