Das kanadische Label empreintes DIGITALes beschäftigt sich mit Elektroakustik, Musique concrète und Audio Art. All diese Musiken verarbeiten neben den Klängen von Musikinstrumenten auch konkretes Tonmaterial wie Alltagsklänge und gefundene Geräusche. Der Kanadier Yves Beaupré ist nicht nur Cembalo-Bauer und -Spieler, sondern auch Klangsammler. So finden sich auf seinem Debüt neben Saiteninstrumentensounds auch im Rechner bearbeitete Klänge von Holz und Holzwerkzeugen. Francis Dhomont ist Pionier der elektroakustischen Musik und Schüler von Pierre Schaeffer. Die Herkunft der in „Cycle du son“ verwendeten Originalsounds ist im Gegensatz zu Beauprés Musik durch die elektronische Bearbeitung nicht mehr festzustellen. Bei allen Unterschieden im Umgang mit dem Klangmaterial ergeben sich zwei sehr dichte und spannende Hörstücke zwischen abstrakten Soundcollagen und instrumentalem Hörspiel. Oder einfach „Kino für die Ohren“, wie Francis Dhomont seine Musik nennt. 4/5

Frédérick Blouin, alias Oeuf Korreckt, aurait commencé à produire de la musique dans sa ville natale de Québec en parodiant avec des amis les musiques techno, hardcore et gabber. Quelques années plus tard, il présente sur disque ses compositions plus sérieuses (sic) avec Podweek, un amalgame de techno saccadé et de pièces plus lentes, presque aliénantes. C’est d’ailleurs dans cette dernière classe qu’il excelle, répétant béatement des sonorités aux harmonies doucement troublantes (voir entre autres Alright Well Okay). Bien qu’un peu simpliste, le produit fini demeure un pertinent mélange d’inspirations de l’étiquette Warp et de vieux techno. Réunissant des pièces de 1995 à aujourd’hui, il semble tout de même que Podweek fasse office d’exercice de style plutôt que d’album-concept. Une série d’essais tout de même fort singuliers et prometteurs.

Après quatre ans d’expérimentation sur le Web, No Type, une étiquette de musique électlonique avant-gardiste qui se spécialise dans les MP3, sort de l’ombre. Porté à boût de bras par le jeune David Turgeon, le projet notype.com rassemble une communauté d’artistes hors normes et prolifiques qui viennent de publier leurs premiers disques compacts. C’est du solide.

Il y a quatre ans, bien avant que le tsunami des MP3 ne déferle sur le continent, David Turgeon, de Québec, faisait déjà partie de ceux qui croyaient en ce format, si bien qu’il fonde sur le Web notype.com, une étiquette virtuelle de disques 100% virtuels… De Montréal, où il vit maintenant, David Turgeon heberge les œuvres de 70 projets et artistes différents. Ceux-ci exposent leurs «albums», des pages Web artistiques qui étalent des sélections de chansons et de pièces, classées selon toutes sortes de concepts, allant de la propagande anti-McDonald aux essais graphiques, simples et complexes. Tout ça, sous format MP3 et téléchargeable gratuitement. «J’aime que nos univers se recoupent, dans ce côté minimaliste, un peu naïf.»

Quand vient le temps d’expliquer notype.com, David Turgeon parle d’un «repaire de magiciens du son réputés trop louches pour l’industrie du disque. No Type a contribué à lancer des musiciens tels que Tomas Jirku, Books On Tape, Dick Richards, Claudia Bonarelli et Headphone Science», dit-il. «Le site est une collectivité orsanisée, un espace où les artistes peuvent partager leurs créstions», poursuit David Turgeon. Grâce à la collaboration de DIFFUSION i MéDIA, pilier important de la communauté électroacoustique et expérimentale du Québec, le label No Type se lance dans l’impression de «vrais» disques en faisant son entrée dans le catalogue de DIFFUSION i MéDIA, qui produit également les disques de l’étiquette empreintes DIGITALes. Tout comme la plupart des disques produits et imprimés par cette dernière, les disques de No Type ont aussi droit au traitement «i MéDIA», qui se distingue avec ses pochettes artisanales, un peu fragiles, mais ingénieuses.

Contrairement à la plupart des artistes qui côtoient DIFFUSION i MéDIA, No Type, en disque comme en MP3, n’explore pas l’électroacoustique, mais plutôt l’électronique expérimentale, le «glitch», le «noise» et toutes autres expériences de laboratoire tripatives qui plaisent aux oreilles de David Turgeon. De Magali Babin (Chemin de fer) à Oeuf Korreckt (Podweek), en passant par le projet morceaux_de_machines (liberum arbitrium) et une compilation d’artistes internationaux et québécois (The Freest of Radicals), le jeune directeur artistique a jugé bon d’enregistrer ceux qu’il préfère: «c’est difficile de définir mes critères, je penche pour ceux qui démontrent un certain sérieux dans leur démarche et qui s’impliquent beaucoup», raconte-t-il. En fait, s’il est soucieux d’une chose, c’est de ne respecter aucune règle de genre, en évitant autant que possible de sombrer dans le nombrilisme.

La tribu de No Type est composée de musiciens de Montréal, Québec, Vancouver, Baltimore, Brooklyn, Los Angeles, San Francisco et Saskatoon! Comme pour n’importe quelle étiquette qui se respecte, David Turgeon se permet de faire une sélection des gens qu’il veut voir évoluer dans sa communauté, en leur donnant les «clés» du site. Le site est gratuit et ne rapporte pas d’argent aux artistes qui y participent. David Turgeon n’ouvre tout de même pas les vannes à n’importe qui.

David Turgeon ne s’assoit pas sur ses lauriers, depuis la publication de ses quatre premiers CD. Il planifie déjà le lancement de trois disques vinyles de 12 pouces, destinés aux DJs intéressés à faire tourner la musique des artistes Books On Tape, Headphone Science et Claudia Bonarelli dans leurs «sets», d’ici la fin de l’été. Un autre disque compact est également prévu pour le groupe de Baltimore, themoonstealingproject, en novembre. On a déjà hâte d’entendre la suite!

Cache 2001 is a compilation disc with a difference. Rather than many labels’ “here’s some of our artists and their friends” approaches, this disc is a collection of works that were submitted to the Canadian Electroacoustic Community for inclusion in their JTTP project and competition. Moreover, they’re the cream of submissions, having been winnowed by an international jury that met via the web to decide what was worth including. This is, truly, cutting-edge stuff.

The music on offer here is superbly atmospheric. Nicolas Basque’s album-opener has some Atari-sounding beats that give an impression of time blurred, before giving way to what sounds like a flock of angry ducks. Guillaume Coutu-Dumont’s Arianne Secret is a soundtrack to a whispering gallery: half-heard whispers and a hissing suggesting a kettle or an overworked boiler create spy-images and mystery that’s matched by the remainder of the track’s Neubautenesque circular noisemaking. Robin Davies’ contribution sounds like a psychotic’s version of Pink Floyd’s Alan’s Psychedelic Breakfast — all Angel Heart menace and running-on-stones urgency. This is just a sample — the rest of the compositions are equally accomplished, making it hard to choose between them. Indeed, Cache 2001 has a sense of flow that’s unexpected in a compilation format.

Each piece is at least four minutes long, so there’s plenty of time to be absorbed into the worlds they create. For the most part, the subtlety and just-off-station tuning that seems present in some other artists’ works is present here. There are hints of things unsaid, vaguely-machinistic sounds that echo across landscapes with steam-pressed tension. As a portrait of modern life, the disc is terrifying, with only Martin Marier’s Matmos-like Avec ou sans parapluie lightening the mood.

What makes Cache 2001 more enthralling is the idea that all of the works here were, initially, designed for performance, not recording. The pieces were composed with live, concert-hall renditions in mind, and it’s intriguing to imagine exactly how some of these pieces would be played in public, without recourse to extensive preparation time and cut-and-paste technological solutions. This, perhaps, is what sets the pieces here apart from other electroacoustic or experimental discs I’ve heard: there’s no sense of chopping-for-chopping’s-sake. It’s natural, no matter how stuttered the tracks may become through evolution, whatever’s here makes sense.

If you’re looking to see where the next generation of electroacoustic composers are headed, then Cache 2001 is your disc. The possibilities suggested by this material are breathtaking.

Obstacle Phase 2 is actually a work of sound, video and animation, but this CD only presents the sound part. One long track of flowing, mostly dark sounds, with an occasional rhythm. The piece evolves quite slowly and has an ambient feel, but on close listening, one can hear subtle things that are not very ambient at all. Despite the dark sounds, the piece doesn’t have a gloomy atmosphere, it has a pretty concrete character. That’s what sets it apart from regular ambient. The rhythmic elements are very minimal, so there is no danger whatsoever of the track becoming flat or cheesy. The slow development of the work does not cause loss of attenttion, on the contrary: the tension is kept so well, that the whole piece is very captivating. I’m very sorry I missed the performance with the visuals, because if that was anywhere as good as this, it must have been a great show.

“Bait” disk: rumbling low end drones from Le Chien Borgne, which I found pleasing, and drawn in to the gently grinding noises contained within. James Schidlowsky’s Radio Collision seems like the logical progression on the previous piece. Nz-style drones swell & throb, with some scraping interjections. Tomas Jirku uses a pretty much unchanging relatively conventional beat with some sounds going on in the background, not enuff to pique my interest. Speech.Fake contrasts that with a piece of separated, more minimalistic audio artifact sounds that does a good job of impelling consideration on its own terms. Relatively quiet, and compellingly arranged, with lots of space between the sounds, with a nice somewhat louder part near the end. Julie Rousse mixes bell-tones, digital pops & more layers of sound to create an off-kilter feeling, and adding some surprising movements, very nice. The salvaged sound aesthetic continues with Eucci, with torn pieces of mangled sources juxtaposed to find another askew place. I am enjoying the somewhat abstact direction of this disk, continued by the almost out-of-control short piece of distortion by Viratone Ballad. Magali Babin contributes a piece with recognizeable dropping small objects and metal resonances, which I find oddly comforting and familiar by now. Some broken beats & ringing hi end tones by Camp, which seemed somewhat minor in this context. Claudia Bonarelli also uses fractured beats, and seems pretty tame in comparison to the earlier sound experiments. Ja_dijiste brings in an scratchy vinyls sound and other sources that skirt around the edge of expectations. A quiet, unsettling, insistently emerging mix. Next is Napalm Jazz, who raise stakes with an aggressive electronic assault. An enjoyable and well-placed contrast with its instrumental ensemble approach in the midst of this disk. Backstreet Noise sounds like someone working next door, so it is like they are playing on your wall, with the possibility of them or their tools emerging thru the room boundaries seems imminent. The use of muffled, distorted shards of voices adds to this effect. A joint piece by N.Kra & Em follows, evoking the leakage of otherworldy properties thru the hole opened previously. They’re here… Will they notice us? Jon Vaughn steps up to defend the gates with a peeling sheets of noise supported by a frontal rhythm. Gets a little same-y after awhile, after a promisingly threatening start. Interesting buildup from playfully busted up sonic debris to a strong rhythm by 833-45, monolithic rather than monotonous, and broken up by the more abstract, possibly found sounds. An unexpected instrumental piece by Kanovanik, using a conventional combo sound which doesn’t really seem to fit here. This would be the answer to the “which of these is not like the others” singsong query. It is a modestly tuneful jazz-imprv-y sounding tune, but why? Idmonster continues in the “band” mode with a bass guitar-heavy piece with backwards guitar, that again, seems lost or misplaced on this comp. V. V. ends the disk with a live-sounding piece comprised of percussive events, what sounds like a sheet-metal being bowed, small chimes, and progressing into unrecognizeability and sheer sound, with a “room” sound apparent during the quiet parts, overcome by cascades of white noise during the louder movements.

“Switch” disk: was impressed with the brief piece by Kalx, a rousing whit-ish noisey piece. Then depressed abruptly by the idm beats of Oeuf Korreckt, which was good, for idm, if u like that kind of thing. Sluts On Tape were an editing amalgamation that was darker and more varied… Loved the last 50 seconds or so. Octopus Inc bring it back to a more abstract setting, with what sounded like highly edited acoustic events. An intriguing piece, makes me curious for more (time to go download some mp3s?)… Alphacat realigns the stream to beats, with much reverby ambience circulating around the thumpisms, very atmospheric. Books On Tape present a piece with beats, but they are made out of pretty noisy sounds, and they keep things moving. I can imagine someone trying to dance to this, but… Good luck. A complex arrangement, with some somewhat predictable pacing. Someone passing by just said “pretty psychedelic music there” as morceaux_de_machines’ piece erupted from the speakers. Good stuff, hard to breathe, tho, its so densely packed… Claustrophobic. Hmm, and I have their full-length on tap for review next issue. Amazing piece, dense, metallic, onrushing, voices murmering things I am not sure I want to understand. Then we get to Martindx, an appropriately-placed respite of a piece which nonetheless takes us into a levitating plane, using common-sounding elements in a very peculiar and effective style- another winner. Dick Richards brings us back to earth with a less warped perspective on digital-sounding composition. Small sounds abound, placed repetitiously and layered intricately. Very subtle & effective… Chris Degiere was a kind of nondescript broken beats piece. Headphone Science continues the well-paced sequencing with its deliberate, somber, constrasts of slow tones and slippery rhythmic crunchies… Mmm, tasty, pass the milk. The interestingly named Gimp Gadget Oscillation are next with 6 minutes of modest mid-range beats. Themoonstealingproject… a little difficulty, I have to set aside a poor interpersonal experience with this guy… Mostly backwards sounds with some strange lo-fi loops off in the periphery, doesn’t really go anywhere for me. Time-stretched sonic mini-diorama from Diablatomica, very minimalistic, makes you listen for the slight variations, very nice, a standout. Kalx returns with another, more beat-oriented piece, which I found less striking than Soundtest which opened this disk. Infoslut comes in with a piece incorporated some serious sequencing, resulting in a majestic electronic orchestral arc-ing effect. After a 20 second pause (to set it apart?) N.Kra concludes the disk with a relentlessly concussive percussion & distorted sequences that were reminiscent of (a perhaps drived from?) the preset demos in cheap keyboards. Is Metroid a video game?