Beginning with crackled sound, almost abrasive and entirely disruptive, Labrosse and Tétreault shake the listener into thinking that one is listening to a new work by the electroacoustic duo Interface. But things take an entirely different turn within seconds, and interspersing the sound-cackle-crackles with silence leads the listener to humming and resonating melancholic spaces that can only be properly described as underwater caverns. In these caverns are Cave People; and they are composing music. It is a peaceful time, and by the time track 5, sponger, rolls around — these are very short tracks, all about two minutes or so in length, except for track 11, a coal eye, which is 10 minutes — I am fully immersed in the sketches of sound which paint a visual aura to the impressively wide range of experimentation found from track to track. For example, track 6, insomnia of a bed-bug, disrupts underwater-land and introduces radio static-hum which, in a playful mood, dances with the clicks of a clock. That the elements are cavorting with each other should come as no surprise, for like Interface, Tétreault and Labrosse are a live improv duo; but unlike Interface, they manage to maintain my interest by moving through different phases of sound as well as conceptual environments, easily handling slight noise and static, tones, hums, and clicks. Labrosse, according to the liner notes, works solely with “abstract elements.” I am not sure what the entails in terms of gear, the hazy blue picture of the duo leaves the details indiscernible. Tétreault works directly with turntables: no records, just manipulating the sounds to be found in the decks themselves. Given this palette, both Tétreault and Labrosse manage to construct a dramatic and engaging topology of sound which, for the most part, is in the experimental ambient genre, and in moves of inspired stage magic, know exactly when to end a sound that has lost its ability to engage the listener. A succinct and playful album of experimental madness which, despite — and perhaps because of — its overwhelming undertones of intelligence, does not force the listener into obscurity.

Turntablism that has absolutely nothing to do with hiphop. These soundconstructions come from the comunity around the Ambiances Magnétiques label, and that information ought to be enough to start some serious drooling on the avant-garde fanatics, such as myself. Diane Labrosse and Martin Tétrault are the soundsculptors on the Parasites album, and their tool, among modern electronic equipment and other toys, is the turntable. Not that it can be identified as such. But there are more unidentifiable aspects: where is the melody? Where is the songstructure? Where ends one track and begins another? The answer to all three: unknown. This completely improvised electronic soundscape varies in atmosphere and texture and does this without adding any kind of melody or structure. And why they bothered to cut things up into 15 tracks and name each track in both English and French as well, we’ll probably never know. I could mention that Bad Amoeba sounds like this and Stop Interfering! like that, but why? The sonic exploration goes by continuesly, without pauses. This adds to the hypnotic effect the music surprisingly has. When at first the soundscape tends to float by leaving anything lasting, at a certain moment you’re just getting into it, and you’ll slowly be sucked in the electronic swamp. And although there is a complete absence of melody or even a steady and comfortable drone, that swamp is far from unpleasant.