Back in Vital Weekly 559 I introduced the Ekumen label, through a bunch of highly limited CDr releases. Much surprised I am now by seeing their first real CD release, by Nicolas Bernier and Jacques Poulin-Denis, who also made their mark on a compilation MP3 by the label. Étude n^o 3 pour cordes et poulies was created for a choreography by Ginette Laurin. Although there is no such indication, I think the two are laptop boys, despite the fact that we hear acoustic instruments such as a cello. Maybe of them plays it, but in all the digital processing that goes on it’s hard to believe that it’s just one laptop. So me thinks its sound file playback from a computer. Not that it really matters I think, since the music is very vibrant and lively. Things are in constant flux and movement in a live improvised acousmatic manner. The processing as such sound very much like that of the composers on empreintes DIGITALes but at the same time there is also a lot of improvised stuff going on. Occasionally they reach for the beat such as in Cor, in which everything falls into rhythmic groove of minimalist electronica. Throughout this is a very vibrant CD, with lots of ideas thrown about, but that makes perfect listening sense. We could now wonder what they dance looked like.

Avec Geisteswissen­schaften, A_dontigny aborde directement ou métaphoriquement un artiste (Koons, Turner), un mouvement (les abstractions américaine et française), un auteur (Nietzsche, Foucault, Derrida, Frege) voire même un concept (par exemple l’intraduisible notion de «Wirkungsgeschichtesbewusstsein») et crée un disque en marge à la fois de la musique électroacoustique «traditionnelle» et de l’électronica héritée des sous-cultures industrielle, punk et techno. Un festin partagé avec trois complices: Paul Dolden, Diane Labrosse et Jon Vaughn.

Le bassiste et directeur artistique du groupe de jazz contemporain [iks] est aussi connu des amateurs de musique électroacoustique, qui ont pu entendre ses œuvres à quelques occasions dans le cadre des concerts organisés par Réseaux. Ceux qui connaissent [iks] savent que le groupe ratisse large, et c’est le cas aussi pour Pierre Alexandre Tremblay, dont les œuvres regroupées sur cette première monographie (en DVD audio) ont un petit côté nettement plus «heavy» que la moyenne des productions électroacoustiques (ce n’est pas un reproche!), incluant même une participation du rapper Dice B.

8 recent works remastered in stereo, and also spatialized for “home theatres” in Surround 5.1. Toronto composer Darren Copeland says that “the journeys and stories conveyed in the works on this disc are united by a similar tension between abandonment and discovery.” From the tragic social and political events to historical changes and new meanings in trivial details, Copeland’s work cares for its subjects and presents it in world of sounds to listen to.

All the works were mastered by Ernest Cholakis, Numerical Sound, and are reproduced in very high fidelity (24-bit / 48 Khz) on DVD-Audio.

Bristish composer Adrian Moore continues his exploration into sound creation with this 2nd empreintes DIGITALes release. He writes that these new works are “a move forward, some new sounds, a different approach to texture and gesture and the nature of the dialogue that exists between composer and listener.”

Le 15 avril prochain l’installation Trade Winds, créée en février dernier, sera présentée dans le cadre du LARM — Nordic Sound Art Festival à Stockholm.