A connection between the electroacoustic academy and legions of more, uh, amateur practitioners of electronic composition is infrequently made, but this bold move by Rephlex brings it out into the open. Licensed from the hallowed Canadian label empreintes DIGITALes, which exists to document developments in electroacoustic and acousmatic music, this collection by celebrated Québécois composer Robert Normandeau is an object lesson in the infinite possibilities of sonic manipulation. Offen using the simplest source material — much herein is fashioned purely from the human voice Normandeau conjures windswept soundscapes of thrilling complexity. His sparkling array of sharply delineated sonic events and immaculate attention to spatial placement combine to produce music that effortlessly outguns most greyscale offerings from the laptop massive.

Vancouver native, Montréal-based Dolden’s L’ivresse de la vitesse (Drunk on Speed) proved as tantalizing as its title. Completed in 1993, this work came out of the electronic studio, and like the pump of an electric guitar at a rock concert, left listeners with the sort of buoyant exhaustion of having been there when something socially significant took place.

In many of its aspects, electroacoustic music follows a logic similar to classical music. In terms of duration, composers of both realms tend to favor length over conciseness, developing ideas in cycles or architectural compositions. Jean-François Denis and Claude Schryer, the two artistic directors of empreintes DIGITALes in 1990, gambled on the short attention span of the public and commissioned three-minute pieces to 25 composers. The resulting CD, Électro clips was one of the label’s first releases and stayed among its best sellers for many years. Moreover, the idea of a disc offering short works (songs, so to speak) by as many artists as possible was picked up by other labels in the field. About half of the composers represented here would record a full-length album for empreintes DIGITALes. Established names like Francis Dhomont and Hildegard Westerkamp touch elbows with newcomers like Stéphane Roy, Zack Settel, and Gilles Gobeil whose Associations libres provides one of the disc’s highlights. The palette of styles runs wild, from acousmatics to textbook musique concrète (John Oswald’s simple yet so charming Bell Speeds) to process-generated computer music (Daniel Scheidt). Highlights and curiosities include the aforementioned Oswald track (outside his plunderphonics, his electroacoustic works have rarely been released), John Oliver’s Marimba Dismembered, Roxanne Turcotte’s Minisérie (much stronger than her solo album), and a rare piece by Jean-François Denis, better known for his efforts to promote electroacoustic music in Montréal. In 1990, Électro clips gave a good snapshot of the genre’s community of composers, Canadian and abroad, but it also ages well.

Seven years after the release of Électro clips by the same record label, and flat on the 50th anniversary of musique concrète, empreintes DIGITALes released Miniatures concrètes, its second collection of three-minute works. Big names are cruelly absent this time, leaving only lesser-known composers in the roaster. Most were in their late 30s/early 40s, an up-and-coming age in the field of electroacoustic music. Some, like Jacques Tremblay and Ned Bouhalassa, were about to have their “big break” — solo albums released by the same label — while others would continue to go unnoticed. Yet, the average quality level is higher than on the previous CD, an impression probably resulting from a more focused, homogeneous approach (for example, there is no computer music this time). What is good about shorts like these is that good ideas don’t get exhausted, while bad ones don’t last too long. Highlights include Mark Wingate’s Pufferfish, Elainie Lillios’ Au deuxième étage (“On the Second Floor”), the almost ambient Aquaéra 1 by Stephan Dunkelman, and Ios Smolders’ playfully enigmatic Manga pour l’oreille (“Manga for the Ear”). Stand-out tracks are not as striking as the ones in Électro clips, and Miniatures concrètes does not hold the same historical importance (its vision of a short electroacoustic piece having been copied a few times since the 1990 CD), but it provides a more satisfying listening experience.

Autour (“Around”) focuses on Claude Schryer’s environmental compositions and concept of acoustic ecology. The first three works are presented as suites of short (generally under three minutes) vignettes made of orchestrated, unaltered sounds that recreate soundscapes. The idea is to convey a poetic image of a specific location through the use of its original sonic environments. Sounds are not electronically transformed (as in acousmatic music). The resulting music invites the listener to recreate the movies fitting these soundtracks. Musique de l’Odyssée sonore is a reworking of Schryer’s soundtrack for Louis Ricard’s movie Odyssée Sonore. El medio ambiente acústico de México is presented as a “soundwalk” in the streets of Mexico. The exotic setting makes this piece stand out. In Vancouver Soundscape Revisited, Schryer uses the recordings of the World Soundscape Project. The seven resulting fragments lack a general cohesion to be really interesting. The last piece on this CD is its highlight, not necessarily because of its artistic beauty, but for its originality and ambition. Autour d’une Musique portuaire stems from Musique Portuaire pour Sirènes et Cloches (“Harbor Music for Horns and Bells”), an environmental composition scored for six boats, two trains, and the bells from the Notre-Dame Basilica in Montréal. The premiere performance was recorded by Radio-Canada. Schryer and radio producer Hélène Prévost devised improvisational options for Jean Derome (baritone saxophone), Tom Walsh (trombone), and the composer (bass clarinet), recorded in a studio and gracefully mixed in the harbor symphony.