Although Canadian pianist and composer Deschênes has been active for decades in various areas of new music, having undergone training with the likes of Pierre Schaeffer, Pierre Henry and Guy Reibel and founding CEC (Canadian Electroacoustic Community), besides being a main presence in many other collaborations and exhibitions, petits Big Bangs is her first official recording to date, and it’s all the more perplexing that this artist’s expression still hasn’t been duly diffused on a worldwide scale, like it happens for many less deserving but probably better connected entities. In the five pieces comprised by this DVD we experience both the technical mastery and, dare I say, the attitude of a woman that marks her own territory in different sonic regions with a blend of visionary elasticity and historical perspective. As a matter of fact, Deschênes uses many references — often liberally borrowing snippets of material from her colleagues’ output — to generate sound worlds that contain unpredictable expansions, infinite meanings and interpretations of a sensorial attack that often moves on the verge of schizophrenia, yet is dramatically charged with intense beauty, that kind of pleasure deriving from the sheer force of the elements, being them natural or studio-generated. Deschênes is able to exploit the multitude of shades of her electroacoustic palette by not limiting herself to theatricality (although human voice is often utilized to daze and confuse into further interconnections) and also by sapiently fusing actual instruments and tapework, like in Moll, opéra lilliput pour six roches molles in which clarinet, trombone and percussion contribute to a “transposition of children’s dreams of sea” with mind-altering results. Not an easy listen, for sure spiritually remunerative, petits Big Bangs is one of those sleepers that should instead be jet-propelled to a wider attention, as it belongs in the highest rank of contemporary acousmatics.

The alteration of sound is also the alteration of our perception, and no one better than Francis Dhomont can explain this parallelism while obtaining the most astonishing artistic results from it. The extremes of a studio manipulation have never sounded more effective: Dhomont’s ability to transform inorganic materials in something that sounds biotic — even natural, like in the virtual marine elements of Je te salue, vieil océan! — is the basis of his greatness. The five compositions of this CD present, in the composer’s words, structures that “attempt to avoid traditional music codes, disregarding their imperatives”. The subtle transformations and sudden changes of dynamics related to the sonic continuum of a piece like Chroniques de la lumière — almost half an hour of evolutions that range from the vague presence of aural symptoms to the imaginary representations of astral bodies — are enough to keep our fascination at full steam, just like kids left with their mouths agape when meeting something unexpected and wonderful. In that sense, the mechanism that links Dhomont’s music to our physical response is one that explores a system working through very simple principles, and for that very reason achieving the most important conclusions. These soundscapes satisfy both an aesthetic canon and the need of moving forward and finding new life in the creative dismemberment of a source which, at 81, this man still does with the cultural and scientific enthusiasm of a young student. Music with a high rate of emotional value in one of the best acousmatic releases of 2007.

The piece scènes, rendez-vous by Pete Stollery will be presented as part of the Hipersônica festival in São Paulo (Brazil) that will take place from August 14 to 17, 2007 (their website will be launched on August 13); and as part of the Futura festival that will take place from August 17 to 19th in Crest (France). You can listen to some online excerpts of his CD Un son peut en cacher un autre.

Nicolas Bernier will offer a performance of Ail et l’eau faille, his fisrt solo album, during CD launch of A_dontigny’s Geisteswissen­schaften, on June 13, 2007 at Saw Gallery in Ottawa.

The 3rd part of June 18, 2007 radio programme Électrain de nuit — broadcasted on France vivace (Radio France) and hosted by Christian Zanesi and David Jisse — will be dedicated to label empreintes DIGITALes. The music from the most recent releases by Mathew Adkins, Darren Copeland, Marcelle Deschênes, Gilles Gobeil, and Adrian Moore will be on air on Monday morning June 18 from 1 am to 4 am.

R(h)umeur collective, a radio work initiated by artist Maki was designed with short pieces (1 min.) realised by composers from all around the world. The 1st part of the piece was broadcasted last March on Radia. The 2nd part, composed thanks to the contribution of 23 artists — of whom Francis Dhomont — will be broadcasted on June 1, 2007 on Radio Grenouille. Note that the programme will be archived.