It is too easily forgotten that Canada was, and in many ways continues to be, a world leader in the field of electronic-based electroacoustic music. In that rarefied discipline, we had a Toronto school, a Vancouver school and a Montréal school. Darren Copeland is one of the originators of the genre, and has taken part in all three of those regional schools, over a period of more than twenty years. Given the vast palette of sounds and reproduction techniques available, it is no surprise that Copeland’s new release on Empreintes Digitales is on a [DVD-Audio Surround 5.1]. That means you cannot play it on your CD player, nor can you listen to it on your CD Walkman. But if you do have the latest high tech home theatre system, here is a disc to test the reproductive capabilities of your equipment. Copeland’s pieces, compositions of one form or another, are helped by program notes disseminating the thrust of each. The frightening opening track deals with the terrorist attacks of September 2001 as subject matter, as well as using audio fragments from that busy news day as part of the sonic texture. Other pieces are longer and more laid-back, notably On a Strange Road, implying a surrealistic car trip. With this machine music, it is comforting to know that a human is behind it, nonetheless.