Over 110 electroacoustic works were produced at the Métamorphoses d’Orphée studio. The wide stylistic diversity of these works will be the object of a concert January 15, 2004, featuring the works Metharcana by Stephan Dunkelman, Response by Panayiotis Kokoras, En déploiement by Dimitri Coppe, Vol d’Arondes by Francis Dhomont, Paradice by Sachiyo Takahashi, the premiere of Ici et là by Roald Baudoux, Mis by Jon Aveyard and finally the premiere of Cercle des rythmes vitaux by Ondrej Adamek. The concert will be held at Brussels’ Petit Théâtre Mercelis (Belgium).

Two Squirrelgirl releases are now available on electrocd.com: … And Rabbits Named Friday the debut full-length by Montréal’s own [sic], aka Jen Morris, and The Romance Is Over by The Sleazy Listeners, the result of a back and forth collaboration between Toronto and Trondheim.

A collaboration between Studio XX and Club Transmediale, Magali Babin and i8u will present a duo during the “Maid in Cyberspace” event, to be held in Berlin on February 4, 2004. They will also be presenting this work during the next edition of Rien à voir (15), to be held in Montréal from February 11 to 15, 2004.

The idea of a Canadian road movie may conjure up perversely disturbing images of defensive driving, speed limits rigidly observed and perfectly nice people encountered along the way. For the most part, that’s what Calon and Dumas deliver in these two pieces realised for Radio Canada’s L’Espace du son and Deutschland Radio in Berlin.

Made for the former, Le petit homme dans l’oreille presents its found materials with a minimum of manipulation. Wind, birds, snatches of conversation, background ambience from a threshermen’s reunion and stampede in Manitoba contribuate to a gently bucolic cross-country journey. At times the spirit of R Murray Schafer’s prolific music is invoqued but without his ambitious grandiloquence. The key emphasis here is on the human trace in the lanscape. An awesome landscape acoustic, stirred with breaths of air and occasional bird twitters, is suddenly transformed by the Doppler wail of a freight train, human voices are caught either in the boxy acoustic of a camper van or in the delicious echo of the Ouimet Canyon.

And so it goes, gentle and strangely uninvolving, like a long distance journey when fatigue and a drift of attention eases the miles by in affectless boredom. On Documents de surface, the human archaeology is minimal, replaced by animal and weather sounds. Canadian Pacific still puts in an appearance, but the action is more operatic with long naturalistic recitatives intersperced with choric effetcs from trees and watercourses and odd dramatic aria provided by birds.

As a radio experience, these are doutless compelling pieces. They’re more troublesome on CD. They could have done with some visual enhancement, possibly a CD-ROM of location photography or a virtual map of relevant routes.

Metaxu is a new project by Filippo Paolini and Maurizio Martusciello. This Italian duo have made important political statements on their rumors of war release. This album features tracks examining the thin line that exists between war & peace. Through their compositions it is evident that they have concerned themselves with pivotal moments of recent World History… especially the times when History itself seemed to end all at once. They examine chaos and violence through tones, loops, microtones and strangely composed drones and arranged keyboard lines. They examine the many tragedies of the world including those that have happened at Hiroshima, New York City and Sarajevo. These tracks are drenched with hints of darkness, pain and hope. The quietly interwoven clips of news and other spoken word statements scattered around the tracks makes it even more intense.

As a whole this CD is a relaxing yet challenging listen. The track titles are clearly pointing out the meanings behind the music, directing your attentions to events that we should be clearly remembering in the world. The music can be easily played in a set with Jeremy Boyle, Takagi Masakatsu, Tetsue Innue and newer pieces by Donnachea Costello.

A Todd Drootin által életrehívott Books on Tape formáció mindenképpen kielégíti a kiadója által támasztott feltételeket, miszerint alkotásai elég nehezen skatulyázhatóak be. A kanadai mûvész beatpunk néven jellemezte saját számait, ami nagyjából fedi is a valóságot, de ezzel együtt valami elektronikus dologra gondoljunk és akkor már képben is vagyunk. Helyenként a Kid 606 ugrik be, a váltások és a gegek terén, de itt azért nincs akkora zúzás, sõt az Oceania címû szám már majdnem downtempo, lehet rá bólogatni is. A 120 grammos, strandpapucskék bakelit 3 figyelemreméltó dalocskát tartalmaz a többit pedig a hamarosan megjelenõ, második Books on Tape nagylemez rejti.