[…] electroacoustic music (as opposed to acoustic music) is now the dominant creative medium of music in much of the world. With this being the case, one would expect that contemporary masters of the medium would have appeared by now, the pioneering phase having been over for some time. Of course, this is the case, and there are several composers who fit nicely into this category. One of these is composer Elainie Lillios, and her mastery of the medium is aptly demonstrated in her excellent new CD, Entre espaces, released on the empreintes DIGITALes label. […]

After listening to Entre espaces, we know her as a composer and can come to a well-deserved appreciation of her work. […]

The audio quality of this CD is excellent. It has been mixed and mastered with a high regard for the original material, and retains a wonderfully wide dynamic range. It represents, I think, Lillios’s intentions in the best way possible that can be achieved with a stereo CD. Listening to Entre espaces takes the listener on an excursion not only through Lillilos’s recent work, but also through her imagination and technical prowess. It is a journey not to be missed. […]

A student of composer Yves Daoust, winner of various prizes for electroacoustic compositions and founder of the live electroacoustic quartet Theresa Transistor. He seems to me the typical sort of composer you’d find on this label. In 24-bit they present three of his pieces, Impasto, Parcelles 21 and Objet menacé. The first is the longest and a triptych about expressionist abstract painters (Pollock, Riopelle and Shiraga), and it sounds indeed like expressionist abstract music. Lots of sounds thrown together and then mixed, edited and treated further. At least that’s my best guess upon hearing this music. Sounds roll about like thunderous storms and walls of snow bursting into masses tumbling down the mountain. A nice piece for sure, but perhaps at forty-five some minutes all a bit long. Luckily Parcelles 21 — a revised version of Parcelles 1 and Parcelles 2 — provides a more quiet piece, but is also moving all over the place. It’s hard to say, in both of these pieces what it is that Bouchard is using sound wise. Field recordings perhaps, but also down right electronic matter, and maybe acoustic instruments being treated in one way or another. It’s hard to say, as the level of abstraction is quite high on this release. The final piece is Objet menacé and the cover says it’s a symphony for parking meters, and brings up the massive attack again of the first piece. While some of this music sounds alike what similar composers do on this label, but throughout I seemed to like this more than some of the others on the label, but it’s not easy to pin down why that is. Maybe it’s the level of disturbance, or the notion of improvising with his sound material and the editing thereof? Maybe it’s the overkill in sound anyway? I am not sure. Maybe it’s the heat that provides me from thinking straight.