Although Canadian pianist and composer Deschênes has been active for decades in various areas of new music, having undergone training with the likes of Pierre Schaeffer, Pierre Henry and Guy Reibel and founding CEC (Canadian Electroacoustic Community), besides being a main presence in many other collaborations and exhibitions, petits Big Bangs is her first official recording to date, and it’s all the more perplexing that this artist’s expression still hasn’t been duly diffused on a worldwide scale, like it happens for many less deserving but probably better connected entities. In the five pieces comprised by this DVD we experience both the technical mastery and, dare I say, the attitude of a woman that marks her own territory in different sonic regions with a blend of visionary elasticity and historical perspective. As a matter of fact, Deschênes uses many references — often liberally borrowing snippets of material from her colleagues’ output — to generate sound worlds that contain unpredictable expansions, infinite meanings and interpretations of a sensorial attack that often moves on the verge of schizophrenia, yet is dramatically charged with intense beauty, that kind of pleasure deriving from the sheer force of the elements, being them natural or studio-generated. Deschênes is able to exploit the multitude of shades of her electroacoustic palette by not limiting herself to theatricality (although human voice is often utilized to daze and confuse into further interconnections) and also by sapiently fusing actual instruments and tapework, like in Moll, opéra lilliput pour six roches molles in which clarinet, trombone and percussion contribute to a “transposition of children’s dreams of sea” with mind-altering results. Not an easy listen, for sure spiritually remunerative, petits Big Bangs is one of those sleepers that should instead be jet-propelled to a wider attention, as it belongs in the highest rank of contemporary acousmatics.

The alteration of sound is also the alteration of our perception, and no one better than Francis Dhomont can explain this parallelism while obtaining the most astonishing artistic results from it. The extremes of a studio manipulation have never sounded more effective: Dhomont’s ability to transform inorganic materials in something that sounds biotic — even natural, like in the virtual marine elements of Je te salue, vieil océan! — is the basis of his greatness. The five compositions of this CD present, in the composer’s words, structures that “attempt to avoid traditional music codes, disregarding their imperatives”. The subtle transformations and sudden changes of dynamics related to the sonic continuum of a piece like Chroniques de la lumière — almost half an hour of evolutions that range from the vague presence of aural symptoms to the imaginary representations of astral bodies — are enough to keep our fascination at full steam, just like kids left with their mouths agape when meeting something unexpected and wonderful. In that sense, the mechanism that links Dhomont’s music to our physical response is one that explores a system working through very simple principles, and for that very reason achieving the most important conclusions. These soundscapes satisfy both an aesthetic canon and the need of moving forward and finding new life in the creative dismemberment of a source which, at 81, this man still does with the cultural and scientific enthusiasm of a young student. Music with a high rate of emotional value in one of the best acousmatic releases of 2007.

La pièce scènes, rendez-vous de Pete Stollery sera présentée lors du festival Hipersônica à São Paulo (Brésil) qui aura lieu du 14 au 17 août 2007 (leur site Internet sera en ligne le 13 août); ainsi qu’au festival Futura, qui le suit de très près puisqu’il se tiendra du 17 au 19 août à Crest (France). Vous pouvez entendre des extraits audio en ligne de son disque Un son peut en cacher un autre.

Nicolas Bernier offrira en performance Ail et l’eau faille, son premier album solo, lors de la soirée de lancement du nouvel album Geisteswissen­schaften de A_dontigny, le 13 juin 2007 à la Galerie Saw à Ottawa.

La 3^e partie de l’émission Électrain de nuit du 18 juin 2007 — diffusée à France vivace (Radio France) et animée par Christian Zanesi et David Jisse — sera consacrée à l’étiquette empreintes DIGITALes. Y seront diffusées des œuvres des plus récents disques de Mathew Adkins, Darren Copeland, Marcelle Deschênes, Gilles Gobeil et Adrian Moore. Le 18 juin de 1h à 4h du matin.

R(h)umeur collective, une création radiophonique initiée par l’artiste Maki a été conçue à partir de pièces d’une minute composées par des artistes du monde entier. La 1^e partie de cette création a été diffusée au mois de mars dernier sur le réseau Radia. La 2^e partie, composée grâce aux contributions de 23 compositeurs — dont Francis Dhomont — sera diffusée le 1^er juin 2007 à Radio Grenouille. Après la diffusion radio, ce programme sera archivé.