Dominique Bassal‘s new album is released on empreintes DIGITALes, the label specializing in electroacoustic / acousmatic music and musique concrète since 1990. If you’re familiar with the label, you probably know what sort of sonic adventures to expect.

But Bassal obviously wanted ‘to throw a cat amongst the pigeons’ with Écraser l’autre (‘Crush The Other’), to shake up his fellow acousticians with provocative statements. There are quite a lot of those in the self-deprecating liner notes — some of which I will quote here:

“Acousmatic music exists only as the prisoner of an unsympathetic, exclusivist, and ascetic convention.[…] Shielded as I am by acousmatics’ total lack of exposure, I can allow myself to disobey any and all rules. So here’s my “process”: we still sound pretty bad. And why is that? Because acousmatic music is foremost the victim of a geek complex both deeply ingrained and highly paradoxical: the absolute rejection of emotional musical content, of an understandable narrative arc, of any compromise in terms of predictability.” […] Our avant-garde esthetics do not automatically turn sound materials into something listenable, let alone enjoyable.”

He then continues to rub some extra salt in the wound by stating that acousmatic composers wrongfully ignore (or avoid with disdain) the technical skills of commercial producers and the new tools being developed in other genres.

“And yet, some of those techniques are based on serious analytical research, for instance on treating potential conflicts — or unexpected collisions — between sound materials themselves and the human ear. And those techniques (often) work. […] A quick survey of the big names of acousmatic music shows that no one in the “community” has exhibited a fraction of the creative genius required to compete with the massive knowledge and techniques collectively gathered by pop music producers in recent decades.”

Ouch!

Does this mean that Bassal’s music on Écraser l’autre sounds different — more pop-oriented perhaps — from other releases on empreintes DIGITALes?

Not really, if you ask me — these fascinating soundscapes still perfectly fit the label. At times, parts may be more accessible than some of the more hardcore acousmatic music. And maybe Bassal used some of the ‘commercial’ producer’s techniques to achieve his results. As he says himself: “I’m not pretending I’ve gotten there yet, but it’s a fair step in the right direction… ”

In any case, this is not only a fun read (full text on the Bandcamp page), but it’s also a fun listen — especially if you can appreciate these kinds of wild-ride, abstract compositions created from amazing sounds.

Gilles Gobeil eher der neueren Generation zuzuordnen ist. Er setzt mehr auf Effekte und Überraschungsmomente. Seine Spaziergänge sind nichts für schwache Nerven, dafür aber umso spannender. Und unter Kopfhörern ist es schon der Wahnsinn, deswegen lieber laut mit den Lautsprechern!

Ein Thema zieht sich durch diese sieben Kompositionen: der Spaziergang. Es gibt ein Stück, das Folkmar Hein gewidmet ist und an seine langen Spaziergänge in Berlin und Umgebung erinnert [3]. Dann gibt es noch eine überraschende Geschichte über die Zeitreise, die in Chris Markers Film La jetée so wunderbar erzählt wird [1]. Und ich habe einen wunderbaren Spaziergang durch die fruchtbaren Improvisationen des Ensembles Déviation(s) gemacht, das ich wie Neuland zu kartieren versuchte [5]. Und dann gibt es noch die fantastische Reise an den Rand des Universums, die Stanley Kubricks Film 2001: Odyssee im Weltraum darstellt, geleitet vom Saxophon Yves Charuests [2]. Und nicht zu vergessen ein stilles Wandern durch Debussys Träumereien [6], begleitet von François Couture am Klavier, oder ein freundlicher Ausflug in die experimentelle Musik des verstorbenen Bildhauers Oscar Wiggli [7]. Schließlich nahm der Gitarrist Patrice Soletti die Herausforderung an, in Echtzeit auf den holprigen Pfaden eines 30 Jahre alten Projekts zu wandeln [4].

Contemporary musique concrète from Canada on Lames de fond (empreintes DIGITALes IMED 22178), credited to two Quebec musicians — the composer Martin Bédard, currently teacher at Montréal, and the flautist and composer Marie-Hélène Breault.

Bédard (he also made Topographies for this label in 2013) seems to be a real heavy-hitter; part of his philosophy is to “question the grammar of sonic organisation” in digital audio composition, and this sort of no-prisoners ethic might be detectable in the opening salvo Honey (Architectures From Silence No. 1). Prepare for about 18 mins of ruthless bombardment and remorseless sweeps of over-loaded, layered sound coming at you like 18 tidal waves. Apparently he drew inspiration from bees making honey; in the simple act of honey-production, he perceives a very lengthy and complex process, resulting in an elaborate structure. Plus it’s also rich in symbolism and a handy metaphor for various acts of transformation, which evidently occupy the mind and hands of any self-respecting digital composer today. Phew. I know I’m always asking for more “incident” in this genre of music, and now here it is in abundance.

Only slightly less exhausting is 𝄆Extensio:Warm:Up𝄇, co-composed with Breault, and showcasing her flute sounds — often radically transformed inside the digital workstation, reprocessed, recomposed and changed into something that’s both quite alien, and also amounts to a layered, impossible, hyper-orchestra of multi-dimensional flutes from beyond the Planet Jupiter. This one isn’t propounding a concept like the ‘Honey’ thing, and instead is mainly about technique and method — in this case loops and layers — applied to those moments when a musician is just warming-up before the main performance. (Fun fact: apparently this is how Marvin Gaye captured a great saxophone lick from a session man on What’s Going On, who thought he was just doodling away and yet ended up on the finished record.)

Another piece self-consciously drawing attention to its own method is Replica, drawing subtle distinctions between “pure instrumental sound and rebuilt sound” within its terrifying labyrinthine passages. It hopes thereby to make some philosophical point about being reborn and changed and yet remaining the same. A pretty overpowering, intense set, but these composers are working overtime to bring you profound sonic transformations, heaped up in abundance. From 2nd March 2023.

A wide-ranging electroacoustic performance artist, Emma hails from Derby (England) but studied her art in Birmingham, and has since worked at many other places.

As with fellow empreintes DIGITALes artist Ingrid Drese, this would seem to be Emma’s solo album debut, but unlike Ingrid’s long-form minutes, all of which are of a quite dynamic and sometimes startling nature, mixing up the obvious and the vastly manipulated. Thus she’s Leicester’s Louise Rossiter in her approach.

There’s certainly a lot to take-in when listening to works as dramatically crafted as these, which of course makes it engaging and well worth repeated listening.

A Belgian electroacoustic composer, rooted in more conventional forms (she was trained as a pianist) with quite a career behind her and, excepting a couple of tracks on various artists collections, here debuting with her first solo electroacoustic album. The four lengthy works presented here all feature use of sounds that have been totally mutated beyond their source recordings, being layered, twisted, multi-layered and/or folded over themselves, along with some recognisable sounds occasionally showing through — some traffic, breathy vocal expressions, aquatic, metallic, environmental and subterranean type sonics as well. Elements of Luc Ferrari and Michel Redolfi come to mind, yet it’s clearly a different and original mind at work here.

Yet another new name to me, and the first of three female artists on empreintes DIGITALes featured here. Ana’s a Montréal, Canada, based composer, and this would seem to be her second album, after the 2018 release Nano-Cosmos which I haven’t heard as yet.

Featuring eight tracks in its 62 minutes, Radiolaria ranges from a 1-minute piece of electronic gabble through to three much bigger works in the region of 11 to 14 minutes, and four more of a moderate length. The release starts with the startling sonic scatters of Mare Buchlae, which is quite possibly what the title implies, water sounds processed through the credited Buchla 200 synthesizer. That method of working seems to be the basis of much of the music here that mixes acoustics and electronics, some of it composed, some of it improvised. In all, it makes for quite different empreintes DIGITALes release.