Une nouvelle édition augmentée de Portraits polychromes 2: Jean-Claude Risset a été publiée par l’Ina-GRM dernièrement. Cette édition est augmentée d’un texte de Fabien Lévy.

Belgian acousmatic composer Vande Gorne (Charleroi, 1946), who studied musicology and electroacoustic composition with Guy Reibel and Pierre Schaeffer, was attracted many years ago by the music of François Bayle and Pierre Henry, and also by “the revolutionary nature of this art form”. Question: is this really valid in 2008? Are we still able to get enthused by a kind of expression that keeps wandering around the same coordinates, although in different contexts? Exils replies both yes and no. The audio DVD lasts over 80 minutes, which in itself could be a problematic factor, if one that can be eliminated when the addressees are well prepared. Yet there is a fair chance of cutting out the majority of a potential audience by introducing extremely long pieces — mainly built upon spoken segments — and placing them smack dab in the middle of the program, which happens here with Fragments de lettre… and Exil, chant II, the latter based on texts by Saint-John Perse. As intellectually challenging as they might be, listening becomes a pretty heavy task after a while: 35 minutes of theatrically recited voices (although with background treatments) are almost a record in the record, a bit strident when compared with the brisk pace and colourful variety of the other tracks. In truth, Vande Gorne is very good in assembling snippets and mutating them into scarcely recognizable entities (another voice-related track, Vox Alia, is one of the disc’s most absorbing sections) but, above all, she has an evident penchant for indefinite abstraction, a field where her studio mastery shines brightly, just check the gorgeous spectra of Figures d’espace. I’d like sound artists to concentrate on the essence of the audio materials, not so much on the academic aspects, provided that sonic exploration is really their core interest. This would have been a great edition if only a little more concise and, in a way, less “literate”. As it stands, it remains an interesting testimony of this author’s vision.

Elsa Justel (Mar del Plata 1944) is an Argentine electroacoustic composer whose work I had never met before. On the press release, Horacio Vaggione correctly describes her music as “canvases made of minuscule yet consistently varied sounds”. While it’s true that the same could be told about the majority of the names active in the acousmatic field, this is a case in which the expert listener will likely detect new intriguing factors in apparently common structures. One of these elements is Justel’s prowess in choosing an efficient spatial collocation for every sonic event: each sound seems to possess a life of its own, even independent from the context of the composition, albeit that span is usually very short. The amorphous resonances found in the more percussively fragmented pieces — such as Puntos, comas y refritos — are sufficient in themselves to establish an aura of mystery in pieces whose architecture had already been planned amidst manifold shades and shapes. My favourite ones are Midi de sable, a study on the modification of the timbre of recorders (played by Joan Izquierdo in their alto, tenor, basset and contrabass versions) and Au loin… bleu, entirely based on processed and juxtaposed vocal snippets. Episodes that size up the real possibilities of a talented, if pretty much obscure artist who deserves to gain some notoriety in a rather overcrowded sector that often features people who destroy the beauty of a regular emission by transforming it into an insignificant crumble of noise. On the contrary, Justel appears as still interested in forms of elemental purity, and that’s a major plus.

[Article Summary] Louis Dufort’s videomusic piece Épochè, presented at Montréal’s Elektra Festival in 2008, encapsulates his experience of sound as duration and movement in space. The video, created in 3D programming, and presented on a huge screen, features music comprising transformed and abstracted brass sounds, sometimes massive and sometimes ethereal. His newest recording, Matériaux composés, is a DVD-Audio disc featuring 5.1 surround sound, which provides a three-dimensional listening space for the home listener. Dufort has collaborated with choreographer Marie Chouinard, creating major works which have received international recognition. He is also a member of Montréal Sound Matter, an artist collective that has produced several concerts and sound installations. He increasingly feels drawn to the sounds of acoustic instruments, inviting musicians to record in his studio. He has composed works for Quatuor Bozzini, Quasar saxophone quartet, and Ensemble de flûtes Alizé, among others. For Dufort, music is an aural and experiential phenomenon with links to the oral tradition of story.

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Jean-François Denis
Label empreintes DIGITALes

En 1990, lorsque j’ai fondé empreintes DIGITALes, le disque compact était alors “nouveau” et était une très bon média pour “déplacer” jusqu’à 75 minutes de musique (qualité du son, solidité du médium, poids et volume réduits). Par contre il restait clair dans mon esprit que ce support physique serait éventuellement remplacé, à son tour.

Internet existait déjà depuis plusieurs années à ce moment (courriel, échange de fichiers…), mais sa popularité n’a réellement commencé qu’après 1995, en s’accélérant jusqu’à nos jours. En parallèle l’accès à Internet s’est aussi grandement développé (disponibilité, vitesse, coût). Idem pour les ordinateurs personnels. Inventé au tout début des années 1990, le “mp3”, quoiqu’un recul dans l’évolution constante de la qualité sonore, a rapidement bénéficié du développement de cet accès, alors à basse vitesse, grâce à la “légèreté” des fichiers ainsi codés. Il a permis le phénomène de la démartérialisation de la musique.

Pourquoi faire des disques? Parce que le disque est un album, un recueil de pièces choisies et ordonnées (par les créateurs, par le producteur). Le disque est aussi un document visuel et éditorial, avec information, illustrations, photographies. Le disque laisse un trace palpable, réelle.

Par contre… Aujourd’hui la distribution du disque se transforme: de la boutique à la table de vente au concert; de la boutique à la vente par correspondance. Ce déplacement cause la fermeture des boutiques, et fait perdre l’habitude d’achat de disques. Le moyen d’écouter la musique se transfrome aussi: les lecteurs portables des disques compacts (ou de cassettes) sont remplacés par des lecteurs numériques. À la maison l’ordinateur se branche de plus en plus à la chaîne hi-fi.

À terme… À court terme, pour les amateurs de musiques de son (dont l’électroacoustique), la qualité sonore du “mp3” n’est pas suffisante. On sait qu’un prochain format “haute définition”, quel qu’il soit, comblera cette lacune. Aussi, à moyen terme, le disque et sa distribution seront (presqu’)entièrement démartérialisées. Les habitudes de “fréquentation”, de l’expérience de la musique sont autres. Mais le besoin d’une direction éditoriale, d’un choix artistique, restera. Les “maisons de disques”, sous ce vocale ou un autre, auront encore longtemps un rôle à jouer: faire découvrir la création musicale.

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