After studying harpsichord performance Yves Beaupré devoted himself to the building of harpsichords. The last twenty years he has builded about hundred instruments including spinets and virginals also. He is also interested in acoustic research on timbres and materials and since 1985 in sound recording. The material on this CD comes from six hours of tapes which he recorded during the construction of harpsichord. Recordings from the materials, the tools… used in this process. It needed only the skill of the musician afterwords to transform raw material into a composition. This has resulted into warm compositions which you can compare with ambient music. The sounds has the vibe of strings or the warm feeling of wood. The sounds are edited in such way that it creates musical compositions which sounds as it is improvised. Yet a hidden structure and rhythm transforms it into atmospheric compositions. This thanks to the computerised transformation of the recorded material. It is a wonderful CD with warm electronic transformed improvised music.

The compositions on this CD are very delicate. Within each track a different sound source is used to create a composition. In track no. 1 for example earthenware casseroles from the kitchen, cow-bells, metal rods, are used as instrument. In the beginning of the track you hear the natural sound of the casseroles when used as an instrument. Moving forward in the track the natural sounds are combined with electronic generated sounds. These intrusions within the nature of the sound highlight the nature of the material very fine. In all other tracks this is also applied, in no. 2 for example we hear recorded sounds of streets, nature and human activity as base for the composition. These sound sources are also slightly electronic adapted and added with electronic sounds. These electronic sounds appears undecided within the recorded sound source as it might happens daily on the streets and nature. These sounds adds and extra dimension and the composition would be wonderful as sound track for a movie. In track 3 foam is used as material. The several possibilities how you can handle this material is recorded and added with electronic generated sounds from the material. The composition is also stressful which highlights the typical sound that this package makes usually. Also in the latest 2 tracks the natural sounds of the used material is highlighted in the composition using this time wood and water.

This CD contains 5 tracks with a variety of musical compositions. Track 1 called Base Metals exist of waves of string and metal sounds. It is a creation of a soft atmosphere where single sounds dominates in a mostly tranquil environment. Yet the music is dominated by waves, it sometimes gets disrupted by strings and metal sounds which appears at once into the soft atmosphere and which gets slowly part of the waves. Track 2 Empty Vessels is a creation of a natural real life atmosphere using recorded outdoor sounds. You hear recording of birds, airplanes flying over, rain, bees… Slowly Smalley adds some musical tunes into the real life atmosphere which adds an extra dimension to the recordings. It sounds as the real life is transforming into the lowest forms of sounds. This CD comes with a cardboard box with a complete and full explenation how the music of each track is created. Therefore when we heard water sounds in track 3 & 4, we were able to read that this track is made with the sonic images of tides based on analogies between water and sound. Big words but how does it sound. It is a mix of tickering sonic sounds randomly repeated and wondering through each other. Some music is just to difficult to describe, also these two compositions. Track 3 is based upon pools and currents and is named Pools and Currents. The bubbles are created with the sonic sounds simulating an underwater reality. While track 4 is build upon waves and is named Sea Flight, recording of waves rea used as basis material and transformed into more electronical sounds that has lost almost its natural sound. For both the computer is used for the transformation of source material into the motions that is typical for these sounds. Pentes is track 5 and a very surprising composition the best I might say. Yet, again a difficult one to review. The basis material are transformed instrumental sounds, which again creates sonic sounds. The sounds are able to appear at once in moments of complete silent ness while some further the music is continuous with sounds waves. It is a creation of a landscape with several emotions ending in one single long note and fading away for ever in complete silence.

Electroacoustic sounds are the main theme in all the 5 compositions on this CD. The various sound sources makes the small variety in the compositions. Track 1 was made of some sound sources which were processed. It creates an electric sound in an ambient atmosphere. The atmosphere is important in this composition. In a first part the music is slow in a second part the pitch of the sounds are faster which highlights the rhythms. It ends in a combination of both parts. The atmosphere continuous in track 2 Dreamarena this composition creates a more dramatic atmosphere where sounds can fade away and a set of sounds are able to create a disturbing feeling. The composition creates mixed emotions with moments of relaxation and tension. Track 3 Study in Ink is the recording of sounds which a marker pen makes on a white board. Also this composition creates an atmosphere of relaxation and tension. With the returning high sounds of the marker pen on the board when pressure on the pen is high or low. Adrian Moore shows in all compositions that he is a master in adapting the sound sources which creates a high level of computerized music. In track 4 Foil-Counterfoil, foil is used as instrumental material for the composition. Recorded very close to the microphone so that the little sounds it makes can be captured and used for the sounds. The form of this composition is the same as the early ones. Also in his last composition he continues with the adaptation of sounds for the creation of an atmosphere of relaxation and tension. Here natural and street sounds are the recorded material. Sometimes used as they are, which slowly are transformed into electracoustic sounds or combined with adapted sound sources. This CD shows us that with a few simple sounds as those created with a marker pen, a high level musician should be able to use it for creating musical sounds.

These four journeys into the realms of electroacoustic music were first created in the composer’s Montréal studio and subsequently revised into their current states. They draw on literary resources such as Proust, Jules Verne and HG Wells as well as images from Italian travel though I’m not sure that having that as background information is any help when listening, except on Projet Proust, a track where the narrative is drawn from the first pages of Swann’s Way.

For example, the partially visual images from which Derrière la porte la plus éloignée… takes its genesis are very specific, albeit images which are also rooted in sound. How then do they translate into Gobeil’s own sonic terrain? He lists “the trickling of the ‘pozzo etrusco’ in Perugia” and “the hum of the ‘vaporetto’ in Venice” among the sounds which inform the piece and, to me, they create an entirely different ambience to those realised in the composition. Whilst there are occasional ‘trickling’ or ‘humming’ sounds it is more suggestive of an unlit journey, punctuated by near and distant crashing, through a more threatening soundscape. It is never a dull one, however, and leads into his Proust influenced piece. The narrative voice of Marc Béland offers short passages amid the metallic drones and disturbances that form the territory of this track. It is described as a ‘personal reading’ of the Proust pages and, again, you can hear what you want in the sound, whether or not you are familiar with the text. At one point a ghostly choir and bells drift into the foreground only to be submerged by a welter of grinding metal. Later electronic birdsong floats past the narrator and more forlorn metals announce a distorted voice/instrument. That too is suddenly truncated as are many of the sections throughout the piece.

I suppose HG Wells’ The Time Machine lends itself to the kind of ‘free adaptation’ that Gobeil has composed here on Point de passage. Again, it is a journey through a very metallic zone as the sounds speed up and slow down in a dark territory where you can not predict what will happen next. The final track Nuit cendre carries on the explorations of the previous track. The journey continues underground which, since it is an adaptation of A Journey to the Centre of the Earth, was to be expected. Gobeil constructs a threatening series of aural images and, as on all the other tracks, makes use of a variety of dynamics taking the listener from silence to dark rumblings in unfamiliar places. These troubled voyages are worth repeating because they draw the listeners in and allow them to make personal interpretations of what is happening. It may or may not correspond to your expectations or those suggested by the source material but in the end I don’t think that matters.

En choisissant de consacrer ce nouvel enregistrement à la ville de Montréal, Yves Daoust chemine un peu plus profondément dans sa logique, bâtissant plus qu’auparavant un lien visible entre ses deux passions: le son et l’image.

Si ses deux précédentes productions pour empreintes DIGITALes (Anecdotes, 91 et Musiques naïves, 98) étaient déjà empreintes de cinétiques… Bruits soulève dès les premières mesures l’idée de carte postale sonore. Quatre vues choisies, cadrées, dont la puissance eidétique et la richesse de sens émerveillent, étonnent ou intriguent… Sur Children’s Corner, on pensera aux travaux de Sibylle Pomorin voire Robert Iolini sur Soundscape (Scnd rec.) ou encore à certains travaux de déambulations sonores d’O’Rourke sur Cinéma pour l’oreille. L’album prend également une trajectoire environnementaliste (un environnement urbain) comme si Daoust se faisait le caméraman d’une virée dans Montréal un jour d’éclipse solaire. Une relation avec l’image qui jalonne d’ailleurs sa vie, puisqu’il fut designer sonore pour l’Office national du fim du Canada (ça ne s’invente pas), sans trop évoquer ses multiples collaborations sonores à des documentaires et films. Une approche multidisciplinaire, comme Michael Snow et Derek Jarman savent les apprécier.