“… the musicality of this electroacoustic piece lands me in pure auditory pleasure!” (Sonoloco Record Reviews, Sweden) Third Yves Daoust album on the empreintes DIGITALes label, Bruits (Noises) plunges in the reappropriation of everyday sounds dear to the composer since Anecdotes (1991), his first CD. Human voices, musical instruments and the unnumerable sonic fragments of our daily lives are the metal Daoust uses to forge caskets for his little gems. Inspiration for the title track, the city of Montréal is the arena from which the source material emerge, meet and clash. Automobile rumblings, jubilant crowds and children playgrounds burst out from the digital treatments in a touching and evocative aural portrait.

“Clair de Terre is fundamentally entertaining, a rare comment for electroacoustic music.” (All Music Guide, USA) Just after releasing a compilation of his major works on the Rephlex label (UK), Robert Normandeau presents his 4th album, an homage to the 20th century and the two art forms born out of it, cinema and musique concrète. An intimate work, dealing with his acoustic preoccupations since the late 80’s, Clair de terre transposes film techniques into acousmatic mouvements and uses the very personnal sound bank constituted by the composer throughout the years. The other two tracks lights a new aspect of Normandeau’s work. Indeed, even if he composed soundtracks for numerous plays, it is the first time one of them appears on CD.

“… he dramatically takes the listener through an experience that is both terrifying and serene.” (The WholeNote, Canada, 2002) In Francis Dhomont’s own words, Cycle du son (Cycle of Sound), his 5th empreintes DIGITALes album is a “… homage to the inventiveness of Pierre Schaeffer, who clearly created an upheaval in the world of music that has had no precedent.” Still at the forefront of theorists and practitioners in this “Ars Nova” that is acousmatic music, Dhomont delivers here three new works which completes, with the classic Novars, this cycle dedicated to musique concrète. Using excerpts from both Schaeffer’s Étude aux objets, the composers own very personnal sound bank and, as usual, delicious quotations from other composers, this “cycle of sound” establish itself as one of Dhomont’s major works, the fermata of the past century.

An historic CD gathering the complete work for tape by composer Micheline Coulombe Saint-Marcoux, Impulsion is the musical testimony of a pionner in electroacoustic music in Québec. Influenced by Iannis Xenakis, met during Expo ’67 in Montréal, she studies in modern mathematics and leaves for the GRM in Paris to work with director Pierre Schaeffer. In the 70’s, she was the only woman to teach musical composition in the Montréal area and her efforts lead to the construction of the first electroacoustic studio at Montréal’s music conservatory. Based on voice as a fragile instrument and unfolding larges sonic motions, Coulombe Saint-Marcoux’s compositions reveals a unique ear and sensibility, preoccupied by the involvement of women in modern music.

New Zealand born John Young’s interest consist mainly in acousmatic music, particularly to the interactions between natural sounds and their digital counterparts. Whether it is the human breath or the sound of wind, the souvenir of a swing game or the sound of rain, his acoustic images serves as a springboard for more abstract associations and juxtapositions where sonic manipulation access its own realm of sensibility, while keeping a natural resonance, a subtle and human apprehension of the world by sound.

“… one of the most talented and sensitive jugglers of sounds we’ve heard” (Sonoloco Record Reviews, Sweden). Since its release, Gilles Gobeil’s new disc, … dans le silence de la nuit…, attracts a lot of praises and attention. Dark and fascinating, his sonic universe routs bias and produces extraordinary sonic depth. Inspired by both readings (Proust, HG Wells, Verne) and travels (Venice), Gobeil’s compositions leaves the listener breathless with its moving images and secret atmospheres. 50 minutes expressly remastered for this edition, illustrated by Luc Beauchemin.