According to the words by Professor Pierre Alexandre Tremblay, La marée could be considered as a sort of collection of challenges between five different soloists and their antagonist, the loudspeaker, which trascends its possible reciprocity: “this uneven relationship is reminiscent of the fragility of sandcastles and other human constructions with their daily facing of the patience of the elements. Are these ephemeral joys many revenges over the ineluctable?” Right after you will have listened to the impressive dynamics of this “dialogues” between instrument and loudspeaker, you’ll think Tremblay’s one is just a rethorical question as the perpetual metamorphosis within each track could easily mirror the impetuosity of any kind of event, both “spiritual” or emotional and physical or natural, where the flair for real-time processing by Tremblay, who manages to move heaven and earth by quick and sometimes unpredictable sequences of dissonances and consonances, stillness and excitement, chaos and order, makes each composition really intense. The bass clarinet (played by Heather Roche) on La rupture ineluctable, the opening track of the first of the two cds, let me think about some stuff by Colin Stetson, Wade Matthews or João Pedro Viegas before the strife against loudspeakers gradually escalates over awesome electric interferences and resonant discharges, and some similaraties with other electroacoustic experiments can be perceived in the last piece of the second cd, Un clou, son marteau, et le béton, where piano tones got mingled with electric glops for an intense emotional soup by moving from vertiginous tumbles to suspenseful stagnations. The engaging soprano voice by Peyee Chen on the funny Still, Again, which performs many great stunts and a sort of artistic manifesto about the controversial concept of “okeyness” amidst bouncing balls, plastique-like noises, malleable piano tones, electronic strokes and noise interferences, could be mirrored by some precedent in the wide field of experimental music, but Tremblay’s explosive creativity culminates on the other two tracks where he also tests two invented instruments: the most fascinating integration is maybe Baschet-Malbos piano, which was extensively used on the occasion of a number of celebrative performances for John Cage centennial in 2012. This fascinating instrument and its flower-like head of stainless steel and polycarbonate cones has been played by Sarah Nicolls on the highly cinematic Le tombeau des fondeurs, while Jean-François Laporte’s Babel table elicits the labyrinthine vibrations on the tidal waves of Mono no aware.