A student of composer Yves Daoust, winner of various prizes for electroacoustic compositions and founder of the live electroacoustic quartet Theresa Transistor. He seems to me the typical sort of composer you’d find on this label. In 24-bit they present three of his pieces, Impasto, Parcelles 21 and Objet menacé. The first is the longest and a triptych about expressionist abstract painters (Pollock, Riopelle and Shiraga), and it sounds indeed like expressionist abstract music. Lots of sounds thrown together and then mixed, edited and treated further. At least that’s my best guess upon hearing this music. Sounds roll about like thunderous storms and walls of snow bursting into masses tumbling down the mountain. A nice piece for sure, but perhaps at forty-five some minutes all a bit long. Luckily Parcelles 21 — a revised version of Parcelles 1 and Parcelles 2 — provides a more quiet piece, but is also moving all over the place. It’s hard to say, in both of these pieces what it is that Bouchard is using sound wise. Field recordings perhaps, but also down right electronic matter, and maybe acoustic instruments being treated in one way or another. It’s hard to say, as the level of abstraction is quite high on this release. The final piece is Objet menacé and the cover says it’s a symphony for parking meters, and brings up the massive attack again of the first piece. While some of this music sounds alike what similar composers do on this label, but throughout I seemed to like this more than some of the others on the label, but it’s not easy to pin down why that is. Maybe it’s the level of disturbance, or the notion of improvising with his sound material and the editing thereof? Maybe it’s the overkill in sound anyway? I am not sure. Maybe it’s the heat that provides me from thinking straight.

La 9^e BIMESP 2012 aura lieu en deux temps à São Paulo: neuf concerts consacrés à l’acousmatique du 27 août au 1^er septembre 2012 et trois concerts de musique mixte du 4 au 6 septembre. Au menu, trois concerts portraits — Francis Dhomont, Flô Menezes et François Bayle —, des concerts historiques — Années 60, Années 90, Années 2000 — avec, entre autres, des œuvres de Bernard Parmegiani, Christian Zanési, Hans Tutschku, Robert Normandeau, Jens Hedman, Gilles Gobeil… — et des concerts consacrés à des œuvres du Chili et du Studio PANaroma.

Le congrès ICMC 2012 aura lieu du 9 au 14 septembre 2012 à Ljubljana (Slovénie). Des centaines d’œuvres seront présentées aux différents concerts et en sessions d’écoute dont celles de Monty Adkins, David Berezan, Manuella Blackburn (Switched on), Elizabeth Hoffman (Soundendipities), Elainie Lillios et Pierre Alexandre Tremblay.