I can’t really tell what elements Copeland uses to paint his white-noise pictures. Often the source material sounds watery—tides, rainstorms, etc.—but evolves into collages of industrial noise and the altered soundscapes of public spaces. Sometimes he layers storm upon storm, or warps and loops sounds that sound almost familiar but fail, despite persistent concentration, to resolve themselves into a distinct and recognizable pattern. These electroacoustic compositions make perfect listening while reading or relaxing—they’re passive enough to sooth, but full of details ready to ensnare a mind ripe for sonic distraction.

On Musiques naïves, Canadian electroaoustic composer Yves Daoust presents an interesting assortment of concert tape music. Impromptu is made of a flurry of MIDI messages triggering musical motives drawn from the works of Chopin. It is frenzied and saturated, meant to capture the “feverishness” of Chopin’s work. Il était une fois… (conte sans paroles) is a highly fanciful soundscape inspired by bedtime stories the composer once told his daughter. Water Music celebrates nature by focussing on the sound of water dripping for 13 minutes. Fantaisie commemorates 50 years of French national radio and draws its sonic material from archival recordings, very nostalgic I’m sure. All in all the stuff on Musiques naïves is evocative and imaginative, and it’s electroacoustic!

Electroacoustic music, or contemporary musique concrète, needs more practitioners like local Ned Bouhalassa, whose first commercial collection maps the evolution (1990-98) of a young composer straining to break free from the confines of an institutional music that allows everything in theory but usually ends up just sounding like theory (swoosh… whirr… crash!). What I really want to hear, though, is some of Bouhalassa’s latter-day delves into techno, hinted at here in 1997’s Constamment (autoportrait). (7/10)

After suffering through some other artists’ musical mediocrity, I equip myself for another empreintes DIGITALes experience. I’m immediately spooked by the opening track Hérésie ou les bas-reliefs du dogme, which has a roaring, jet-engine quality about it. With a barrage of aural effects entering and exiting the speakers, Tremblay does not hesitate to let loose on a stimulus overload, as this 20 minute piece shakes, shudders and roars, and then quietly diminishes, becoming a brooding animal (which I’m sure will charge out when I least expect it). Tremblay does not trip up after his opening piece, as Oaristys interjects keyboard strikes, tribal drumming interludes and more engimatic thought processes, which are hauntingly disturbing, yet cunningly engimatic, piquing your curiosity and keeping your attention. Tremblay enjoys sampling human voices and then slicing them into disjointed parts, like a mad French chef letting loose on his gamey-entree of the evening. By all means engaging, Tremblay’s own warped auditory explorations will leave you undoubtedly enlightened, but also spent and tired due to their forceful intrusions into your own soul. Beware, for Tremblay means business, and once Alibi slides into your CD player you can expect a swift transformation of your stereo system into some sort of strange stereophonic surgical tool which will inspect, probe and alter your human senses.

Aérosol by Ned Bouhalassa is rich in highly crafted sounds which are humorous, yet enticing, and always fully aware. Ned Bouhalassa demonstrates on Aérosol his mastery at creating strange and flowing pieces that interconnect with each other flawlessly. I believe that anyone who is slightly interested in strange music should own this disk.