All your dreams are meaningless est un disque à écouter et à vivre. Je veux dire par là: ce n’est pas un album à poser sur la platine le temps qu’on plie son linge. Ne serait-ce que parce que le premier titre est une pièce instrumentale de trente-six minutes qui s’ouvre sur des larsens électroniques rebutants. Par la suite, Lift With the Knees (tel en est le nom) fait la part belle aux bruits divers, diversement reconnaissables (des pas… Quoi d’autre?), aux échos incertains et, bref, à l’évasion de l’intellect. Le duo canadien Coin Gutter, formé en 2000 par Emma Hendrix et Graeme Scott (Vancouver), fait preuve d’un talent certain pour nous faire divaguer à l’écoute de leurs paysages audacieux, aussi revêches qu’étincelants.

Le piano et la voix de la cantatrice, multipliés et interférés, offrent à Lullaby un goût inconnu et véritablement fascinant. Les compositions suivantes allient bruits, larsens, sons et voix, dans un grand bain (électroacoustique) lyrique et évanescent, tour à tour sombre et lumineux. Un disque qu’on redécouvre, inquisiteur, à chaque écoute, et qui se réinterprète selon notre humeur.

[…] molto meglio allora l’album del collega d’etichetta Todd Drootin, in arte Books on Tape, nel quale però — a dispetto del titolo — di blues non v’è traccia. Piuttosto un iper-cinetico e ruspante pot-pourri di dub, hip hop, spy-music e goicosi breaks fumettistici in saldo equilibrio sul filo d’un onnipresente sentore di sound design filmico (e poi date uno sguardo ai ringraziamenti che spaziano da Albert Ayler a David Bowie, da Art Ensemble of Chicago a Gang of Four…)

A qualche settimana di distanza dal deludente album in coppia con Robin Judge esce il nuovo album solista di Tomas Jirku, nel quale l’autore d’adozione canadese prova ad affrancarsi dal classico e soffocante marchio Deep Dub, contrassegno delle sue incisioni precedenti. E lo fa diversificando la proposta, ovvero incupendo ed increspando non poco l’atmosfera generale, vieppiù inserendo ambientazioni da colonna sonora (Input fluid, Psychosis) o intermezzi di stampo sperimentale. Non è un caso però che gli episodi più efficaci risultano quelli (Haloperidol, Tranylcypromine) che prendono l’andatura ciondolante dei materiali che gli hanno procurato stima e consensi nel recente passato.

After a fine album on Mitek, we hear from la Bonarelli again through this hazy/clear vinyl 10” e-p on No Type. And it’s once again quite good, doing electronic glitchdubs that may not be terribly original any more, but which are challenging listening experiences in their own right. One is actually pretty groovy. Which is nice…

La musique électroacoustique est comme la peinture abstraite, sa séduction ne réside pas dans le figuratif ou la mélodie mais dans les textures sonores, dans la jouissance du son brut. Claveciniste et facteur de clavecins, Yves Beaupré a été aussi conseiller musical et à la prise de son. Ceci l’amène à s’intéresser à la qualité sonore puis, par la suite, à se passionner pour l’électroacoustique. Humeur de facteur est le résultat de cette passion. Yves Beaupré nous invite à découvrir les sons et les bruits qui habitent son atelier. Un voyage insolite et intrigant.

Oeuf Korreckt’s CD Podweek is released by the label No Type as one of four upon the label’s launch. On this album Oeuf Korreckt (aka Quebec based Frédérick Blouin) has produced a variation of techno tracks from hardcore oriented to more melodic and ambient, but always with a strong rhythmical base and melodic content. For the creation of his music Oeuf Korreckt uses the currently quite obsolete pre-windows Tracker assemble software like Impulse Tracker or Scream Tracker. By using the Tracker software the tracks on this CD very much get a 1980’s techno pioneer vintage sound. Most of the instrument sounds have this particular 8 bit quality.

But by cleverly arranging various sounds it is possible, even with the cheap sounds from the Tracker software to produce full sounding and complex arrangements. Obviously in many compositions he uses an extra drumcomputer for the drumtrack. That way he has a broader palette of drum beats and control over percussion sound and mix. And many songs feature the typical computer-game sequences to complement the limited sound palette.

The way the tracks are mixed and the quality of the recordings varies. On some tracks he manages hardly to escape sounding like the background music of an early computer game. The Podweek Theme features could probably be transferred to a soundtrack with little effort.

Tracks, like Pochacco, Alright Well Okay or Four Channels sound as if they’re recorded straight from the Tracker software with a little added reverb for ambience. On other tracks like King of the Elephants and A Ride in Elephant City recording is more worked at. Percussive and sequenced sounds are mixed in the stereo field. The voice of a young boy makes Alright Well Okay more interesting to listen to.

The works on this CD date from 1995 to 2001, making it a kind of retrospective and they give a good impression of what Oeuf Korreckt is capable of. The Podweek CD also gives a good impression of the musical development in the period in which the recordings were made and the roots of this particular kind of electronic music. His early work tends to be more digital hardcore oriented with strong straightforward hardcore beats. King of the Elephants and A Ride in Elephant City both feature the well known Rotterdam hardcore beat also known as Gabber. His more recent work gets more melodic and rhythmically complex and resembles the work of Orbital, Black Dog Productions and even Kraftwerk.

With the Podweek CD Oeuf Korreckt has released his musical heritage of a little less than a decade. Because of using a limited set of musical tools the variation in sound is a bit small and the compositional limitations of the tracker software make that the whole record sounds a bit the same. And doing so the variation in emotional content of his songs is also limited. The limitations of his musical tools also are his strength. One has to listen more closely to his music to discover how his music was made. He succeeds in creating interesting and entertaining music by exploring the sonic and compositional boundaries of the quite obsolete Tracker PC software. Oeuf Korreckt is a master in his field.