rien à voir (9): impressions

["david (alt)" <david.t@xxxxxxxx>]

for someone who usually doesn't go to live shows all that often, i've
certainly gone out of my way last week with the 9th edition of the
electroacoustic festival rien à voir (in montréal).  of course, one of
the reasons for this is that i was offered a free pass for my
participation to the young composers' show, so there was no reason to
miss a night, except for the tuesday (régis renouard larivière, whom i
missed to see die like a dog at the casa del popolo, a slightly
deceiving gig for me but that's another story).  so keeping in mind that
i had something of a positive bias towards this event (i work for these
guys), it was still an astounding experience.

on monday was the adrian moore show.  i knew adrian moore a little for
his recent empreintes digitales cd _traces_, which i had not put much
attention into before.  however, knowing he was going to include jonty
harrison's _klang_ in his solo set put high expectations in me.

before going any further though, i should explain a few things for those
who are not familiar with how rien à voir works.  4 electroacoustic
composers from around the world are invited for 1 night each.  each
night is comprised of 2 shows, one dubbed "carte blanche" (where the
composer selects works by other composers to be performed live) &
another which is a solo performance (some solos do include works from
other composers as well, so this form is not rigid.)  also, at the
beginning of each night, there is an interview with the composer which
gave us some precious insight into the music that followed.

so to get back to adrian moore: his carte blanche set was fairly good:
andrew lewis' _scherzo_ was an inventive piece treating the composer's
children's vocals ingeniously but somehow broodingly.  stéphane roy's
_crystal music_ was some fine abstraction, & elainie lillios' _arturo_
was another voice piece which was pulled off very well.

a good start, but his solo set blew it away.  his performance of _junky_
was especially well rendered; if a CD recording of it might come off
flat without the proper attention, then this was the occasion to
discover all the hidden details of this complex piece of work.  moore's
rendition of _klang_ (1982 piece made exclusively from the sound of
earthenware casseroles, by jonty harrison, another englishman) met my
expectations & filled me with great delight; but then, _klang_ is
electroacoustic art at its finest which can be appreciated even on imac
speakers.  & then, after a relatively tame interpretation of _study in
ink_, adrian moore presented 2 new pieces, _ethereality_ &
_superstrings_, which were my favorite of the night.  large works
derived from old-school ambient, but also from techno (there were short
bombastic bits reminescent of early aphex twin), yet molded into a
relatively classic framework.  in many a sense, moore was attempting a
bridge between two schools, & we could say he definitely had a case in
point with his music.

now that i'm going to the wednesday show featuring gilles gobeil, some
people on this list (who know who they are) may question my repeated use
of the word "performance" when "all that's happening is someone pushing
a button".  well, truth be told, gilles gobeil _embodies_
electroacoustic performance.  granted, his compositions have qualities
on their own & rival with the best; but his use of the loudspeakers as
musical instruments is unparallelled, & here, in ex-centris' fellini
room (used mostly for films; & indeed attending those shows was in many
ways just like watching a short movie festival) & its 32 loudspeakers
(in front, behind, on each side, & on the roof), you could imagine
yourself in the playground of one particularly talented sound artist.

his carte blanche set served an excellent introduction: he mixed classic
works (smalley's _pentes_ (1974), stockhausen's _gesang der jünglinge_
(1956, featuring plenty of tape hiss!)) with recent strains of
post-concrète improv (wolfgang mitterer, martin tétreault/rené lussier).

once again, the solo set was the killer.  sounds swooshed about from
speaker to speaker in a totally involving way.  at some point (closed
eyes helping) you might feel like there's a subway running over you & be
able to pinpoint precisely the direction it's going.  gobeil's trademark
cracking sounds (no pops & crackles here, we're talking complete
rupture) were abundant, as expected, punctuating each movement into a
scorched transition.  here, the "cinema for the ear" metaphor is at its
most most accurate; it's as if gobeil weren't composing songs but
writing scripts.  phasing out is not an option here; but your attention
is well earned.

the next day, however, saw a completely different paradigm at play. 
beatriz ferreyra was completely unknown to me, though i should say her
performance has been something of a revelation.  if the key adjective
for gobeil was "cinematic" then for ferreyra it's "subdued".  she has a
quiet (though certainly not "lowercase") approach to performing, & of
the three nights i've seen, this is the only one where both shows were
equally good.  the pieces she chose for her program were somewhat all
linked together by some secret thread; you could imagine a single
composer with formidable imagination would be behind all of them, but
this isn't the case.  so perfect was the flow, in fact, that i'd be hard
pressed to pinpoint favorites, although ferreyra's own work was
certainly a precious discovery: abstract & mysterious, yet never too
schematic or linear, they were inexplicable marvels of sound, which work
by no rules, & which by all forecasts should fail, but don't.

as for her performance proper, it was, as i said, subdued.  very little
stood in the way of a plain appreciation of the music.  certain stereo
effects here & there to please the ear, but never in excess; they were
used only to make the whole thing more interesting.  when i got out, the
feeling inhabiting me was one of wonder, i thought "what fantastic music
this was" & i still think so, although i'm still unable to explain what
made it so good; but perhaps this sort of mystery is just what art, in
its most gloriously anarchic fashion, is made of.

~ david