The latest in a series of many brief compositions released by this peerless Canadian label who have played a major role in rejuvenating (more academic) electroacoustic music. Much of what they release are commissions from the French and Canadian governments or their appointees, who operate through some of the best electronic studios in the world. (No, Pierre Boulez is still in a world of his own, somewhere close to the sewers of Paris.)
Christian Calon is a member of the younger generation of electroacoustic composers most of whom have access to the latest sound modifiers and so, like their predecessors, have to approach their tools in very individualistic ways in order to sound different to the rest of their gang. Mr Calon has a full length CD [Ligne de vie] out on empreintes DIGITALes which is still quite groovy and which I still bung on once in a while as an interesting counterpoint to everything else I have accumulated. What I find interesting about a lot of contemporary electroacoustic music is the limitations the composers set upon themselves.
In this case [Les corps éblouis] Mr Calon sourced all sounds from an electric guitar and then he twisted them about, topsy-turvy like, using some quite accesible but still phenomenal software and additional devices, which make a guitar sound like anything but itself. The composition itself is 22 minutes long, but while listening to it I felt it had reached its level by about 17 minutes in. Then it built up again to another (less shattering) crescendo about a minute before the end. Absorbing stuff though.
