«De l’autre côté de l’Atlantique et basé à Montréal, le label Empreintes Digitales édite depuis bientôt 20 ans des albums de références en matière de musiques électroacoustiques, acousmatiques et concrètes.»

«Chroniques d’une séduction est une œuvre de Jacques Tremblay conçue autour du principe d’altérité. Une altérité aux facettes multiples dans laquelle la notion d’acceptation et de reconnaissance de l’autre dans sa différence a été vécue par ce musicien alors qu’il était en pleine séance de composition et que sa concentration à été troublée par des passants, des bruits divers de choses et de gens. Une expérience banale qui conduit souvent à l’agacement mais de troublée, l’écriture musicale de Jacques Tremblay, sera très vite inspirée, nourrie et enrichie. Cette prise de conscience deviendra le thème même de ce nouvel album judicieusement intitulé Chroniques d’une séduction. Je vous propose de nous retrouver autour de la machine à café, lieu de rencontres et d’échanges et qui peut devenir, pour les plus sages d’entre nous un lieu propice à l’altérité.»

Dans le cadre du congrès Nothing New, des œuvres de Gilles Gobeil et Francis Dhomont seront présentées en concert à la University of Huddersfield (Royaume-Uni) le 24 avril 2009. Entre autres au programme, Ombres, espaces, silences… (disponible sur Trois songes) de Gobeil, Novars (disponible sur Cycle du son) de Dhomont et Gesulado de Ludger Brümmer.

La collection brésilienne de disques Studio PANaroma — graduellement disponible dans notre boutique — a dernièrement lancé le disque VII CIMESP 2007 des lauréats du 7^e Concurso Internacional de Música Eletroacústica de São Paulo (CIMESP 2007).

Tremblay brings us three well crafted works on this cd, his first in ten years. It was well worth the waiting!

Jacques Tremblay is of the same generation as Ned Bouhalassa, whose [disc] we reviewed a few days earlier. Tremblay is a different character, though. Where Bouhalassa brings the street into the studio, Tremblay, to me at least, is more the composer who regards the studio as a laboratory where he brews and distils all kinds of sounds and then places them under a microscope and then continues with determination.

Tremblay is the kind of composer who picks up a theme and then turns it inside out, sound wise. The first work on this CD, for instance, concentrates on the word ‘café’ which in French means both ‘coffee’ and ‘pub’. This offers of course an interesting combination where on the one hand we hear ‘sound’ ground or granulated like coffee beans and then brought under heavy pressure to produce a strong ‘espresso’. On the other hand there are the sounds that we associate with a cozy pub/cafe.

The center piece of this release is Empathies entropiques. I must say, it is by far the best piece of this disc and luckily it continues to be so for more than 47 minutes. The work is divided up into eight parts. An interesting mix of field recording, editing thereof and electronics. Constantly moving and revolving. Beautiful.

Tremblay at several points uses the typical editing techniques that are common with acousmatic composers, especially the ED composers, but in general his style is personal and strong.

Rated: 8/10

Un concert rétrospectif du parcours musical de Jon Appleton a eu lieu le 19 mars 2009 au festival Electronic Music New York au Brooklyn College (ÉU).

Empreintes Digitales presents new works by Ned Bouhalassa, a new generation Canadian electroacoustic composer presenting gutsy and urban electroacoustic music. Definitely a leap forward!!

This prestigious Canadian label is renowned for its high quality sound releases. 95% of its artists have a degree in composition and lecture at some place in the world. The sound quality of the releases are sublime, 24-bit recording and mastering. The best you can get. Still, in the past few years I somehow had heard enough. It was all too shiny and also the software used by the composers and their semantics became somewhat too similar. There was a rather clear cut “Empreintes Digitales” sound. This release stands out from the crowd.

Bouhalassa, in the liner notes, writes that he imagines himself a giant who plays the city with a record player needle. The composer has an impressive career in scoring for film music as well, which helps to improve underscoring real life sounds and images, of course.

Bouhalassa makes a connection to contemporary city life and so takes the music out of the state of the art high tech studio. The center piece of the disc is the 34 minutes Urban Cuts featuring the work of poet Fortner Anderson and electronics added with cello (Delphine Measroch) and drums (Christian Olsen). The feel of this work is definitely ’urban’. It’s a journey (the poem tells about it) but not in the ’conventional’ acousmatic style. No, there are parts where the drums really work a groove, together with the basses that we know from the drum ’n’ bass area. These are alternated with the recitation by Anderson (himself) accompanied by field recordings and electronics. A true adventure for the listener with a firm musical background in modern dance music (like my kids, who enjoyed this a lot as well).

The other tracks on this disc, though as lengthy as ’urban cuts’ also breathe the outdoor, city atmosphere. Field recordings of the Berlin underground at some point grow out to become massive sound walls. Bouhalassa uses slamming doors as turning points in one of the other works, Impulse. It starts with the sound of a car driving away (immediate reference to Kraftwerk) and later doors are on several occasions breaks to a new soundscape. The city is almost always somehow the general background.

This is a very strong collection of works. May be so Bouhalassa regarded himself a DJ, selecting what he likes from his large collection of recordings. His choices are well made, and I hope Empreintes Digitales will allow more of such adventurous composers to release their work.

Rated: 9/10