24.6.09

922 - Scorch Trio "Brolt !"



If Hendrix had a more extensive language, if Terje Rypdal had stuck with his freer playing on Jan Garbarek albums like Afric Pepperbird (ECM, 1970) and if Nels Cline were to possess an indescribably palpable Nordic edge, then you might have a fair approximation of the sound and approach of Raoul Bjorkenheim. But despite the dominance of the guitarist's voice in terms of motivic development, make no mistake: Scorch Trio is a democratic collective, and the contributions of Flaten and Nilssen-Love are equally definitive in sculpting the raw, assaultive and viscerally cleansing sound of Brolt.

All About Jazz

21.6.09

921 - Clusone Trio "I am an indian"


Michael Moore, alto saxophone, clarinet, bass clarinet, melodica
Ernst Reijseger, cello, voice
Han Bennink, percussion, harmonica, voice, piano, electronics

01. Wigwam
02. Angelica
03. Tlinglit
04. I'm an Indian, Too
05. The Gig
06. I'm an Indian, Too
07. Qow
08. Bella Coola
09. Celia
10. Tsimshian
11. Sonoroso
12. Mijn Geheugen Is Een Zeef
13. The Song is Ended
14. Salish

Recorded live June through September, 1993, Calgary, Vancouver, Willisau, Ulrichsberg, Bremen

920 - Sarkozy, vampire des médias

Le reportage des journalistes de "Temps Présent".

A voir sur leur site.

Reportage représentatif du contrôle, de la parano et de la main-mise.
Les images des "journalistes" dans la remorque tirée par un tracteur, en Camargue, sont représentatives de cette soumission volontaire.

919 - 2 ou 3 choses que j'avais envie de vous dire, par Yldune Levy

C’est un homme, dans un bureau, comme tant dautres hommes dans tant d'autres bureaux auxquels il ressemble sans ressembler à rien. Celui-là dispose dun pouvoir spécial, certainement dû au fait que son bureau occupe le dernier étage dune quelconque tour dun palais de justice.

La suite, c'est sur le Jura Libertaire.


918 - Quand Squarcini cause en off

"Il faut se replacer dans le contexte, a-t-il lancé. Pepy se retrouve avec 10 000 usagers bloqués gare du Nord. Des tracts commencent à circuler, mettant en cause SUD-Rail dans les sabotages. On peut comprendre qu'il soit au bord de l'évanouissement. Pepy a alors exigé du ministère de l'Intérieur qu'il sorte l'affaire".

Et MAM de s'exécuter... Aussi simple.

Les mots ont un sens.

20.6.09

917 - Evan Parker & John Wiese "C - Section"


Featuring Evan Parker on tenor & soprano saxes and John Wiese on electronics, tape and MSP. Although British saxist extraordinaire, Evan Parker, certainly needs no introduction, noise musician, John Wiese, also has an impressive resume with dozens of discs released under his own name, as well as collaborations with Merzbow, Sunn O))), KK Null, Lasse Marhaug, Pain Jerk & Wolf Eyes, a noisy bunch to say the least. Over the past few years, Evan Parker, has been working with more electronic musicians and assorted sound manipulators, so this collaboration should come as no surprise. What is surprising is how well it works to both of their advantages. It says on the CD to be played at maximum volume, so that is what I did at home. Starting with "The Jist", Evan's spiraling soprano is at the center of the storm with thick yet well-sculptured swirling layers of electronic/noise sounds. The electronic/noise sounds are rather industrial in their sonic textures, it often sounds as if the sounds are erupting with controlled violence. Another thing that this reminds me of is music concrete, popular in France in the fifties and sixties, when composers manipulated sounds by splicing tape. What I dig about this is the way Evan plays soprano, twisting and bending his notes, as well as repeating certain phrases, it works perfectly with John's equally twisted sonic landscape. "Little Black Book" is shorter and more restrained, yet just as effective with fractured sax and more spacious electronics in a rich yet subtle tapestry. On "No Shoes" it sounds like John is taking Evan's sax sounds and manipulating them further, looping certain lines in a more hypnotic way. The final piece, the oddly titled "Dog Cesarean" is the longest and most focused, evolving slowly through different sections. The music has a sort of calm center with kaleidoscopic noise swirling around the sax. Brilliant or too much, I guess that depends on your mood or stamina. — Bruce Lee Gallanter, Downtown Music Gallery

**** links removed****

916 - Diane Labrosse "Petit traité de sagesse pratique"




Cette parution de 1999 fouaille et suinte une science du montage, à travers des vocaux chuchotés ou déclamés, des trémolos de saxophone au bord de l’abime et des carambolages de samplers et d’appeaux… Voyage en forme de succession de figures de style, ce Petit traité… révise thématiquement plus de trente-cinq proverbes issus des cultures francophones, pour hurler, déstructurer à l’envi nos valeurs en déshérence! A tout seigneur, toute horreur.

Vincent Lecoeur in Octopus

Toute l’équipe du label Ambiances magnétiques se retrouve ici aux côtés de Diane Labrosse pour cet heureux détournement de proverbes.

Traité de sagesse pratique en cinq tableaux (philosophie, sagesse, sentiments, quotidien, morale) et trente-sept courtes pièces collages; Diane Labrosse détourne free jazz, chant grégorien, toccata, musique aléatoire et negro spiritual avec un humour dévastateur.

Quelques perles glanées au hasard: Deuil pour deuil, an pour an, Plus on est mou, plus on s’excuse; Une loi n’est pas Coutume; L’argent n’a pas d’honneur, etc. C’est riche, ça fourmille, c’est résolument inclassable, diablement jouissif et c’est indiscutablement l’une des plus denses productions du label québécois. À consommer sans modération aucune.

Luc Bouquet in ImproJazz #67

Canadian Diane Labrosse is a part of the musique actuelle movement. Literally it means contemporary music. Yes, that is rather broad, isn’t it? The deeper meaning that’s applied to it serves to coin a genre which encapsulates elements of jazz, avant-garde rock as well as musical improvisation. Late 60s-70s avant-rockers Henry Cow (originally, Fred Frith and Tim Hodgkinson) are looked to as originators of musique actuelle.

Labrosse is also a part of the Montréal based Ambiances Magnétiques Collective. It was an artist co-op before Joane Hétu founded the record label. That collective includes: Jean Derome, René Lussier (co-founded the collective along with Derome), André Duchesne, Robert Marcel Lepage, Danielle Palardy Roger, Joane Hétu, Martin Tétreault and Michel F Côté. The last two members were later additions, the other seven were the original 1983 members.

There’s no shortage of releases (forty), or groups for Diane, either. Most of them involve members of the AMC including Justine, an all female affair including Danielle and Joane with the addition of Marie Trudeau. Wondeur Brass, which has essentially the same line-up as Justine only without Trudeau. There’s also repeated pairings with Tétreault. Île bizarre, which sees that duo aided by Ikue Mori is highly recommended.

In English, Petit traité de sagesse pratique, translates to “a short treatise on practical wisdom”. According to AM’s press release on their website this album is “a series of miniature songs whose texts-some ironic or mocking, others of (intentionally) questionable value-are drawn from those great popular guides we call proverbs. These reflections on morality, often out-of-date, are re-examined, reworked… by Diane Labrosse”. Seeing as how the lyrics aren’t in English, my response is “if you say so”.

Petit is thirty-seven tracks barely spanning forty-nine minutes. It should go without saying that there are a hell of a lot of ideas, musically and non—, packed into such a concise time frame. There are no songs over two minutes and only two under thirty seconds. While superficially, it might not seem like such time constraints would work for avant-garde music, after all, haven’t we grown accustomed to half hour tracks from the likes of keith rowe by now? While Petit’s mere approach itself may seem experimental, each piece of music is its own concrete statement. The brevity never seems to fracture anything and while there’s a plethora of tracks that I wish were longer, the album works and without any regrets. Diane may be receiving the sole-billing for this CD, but I have to imagine that there were quite a few other people helping her out as this is full of instrumentation (drums, upright bass, saxophone, digiridoo, flute and probably more that I don’t even know the names of) as well as male vocals on a few of the songs. One of the downsides to downloading music is that there’s no liner notes from which to reference and I can’t find any credits for this album online beyond Diane’s.

Let’s get down to the musical content. Nearly every piece of music is punctuated by vocals of some manner; tribalesque bellowing (trust, me it sounds better than I worded it), chanting, reverbed shouting, talking, singing, laughing, maggie nicols-like wailing and maja ratkje-like vocal noisery (on the spot improvisational spelling by me). The music is just as diverse as the vocals. The most unexpected moment comes in at track number thirty-four, À tout seigneur, toute horreur, which is a charming piece of thrash rock that’s cut up, panned and otherwise manipulated with fantastic results. Going back to the Henry Cow influence, the shadow of that group’s unrest can certainly be felt looming over some of Petit. In a gross summation of sounds, there’s jazzier numbers, mellower and sparser ones, noisy passages, atmospheric music as well as some upbeat rockers to be found throughout the disc and it’s all expertly balanced. That balance is just as important as the music is, especially when you consider the amount of tracks versus the amount of time allotted for them. There’s no feeling of heaviness anywhere or segmentation, but there is a nice sense of flow.

For me, Petit traité de sagesse pratique is an overwhelming success. If there were to be impasses in anyone’s enjoyment of it, I’d say that they would lie with the vocals; however, the tracks that I might be tempted to call questionable are few and far between and in most of the situations the music itself really elevates, not just accentuates, the vocals anyway.

avant gardening in smooth assailing

915 - Joane Hétu / Diane Labrosse / Zeena Parkins / Danielle Palardy Roger / Tenko "La légende de la pluie"


















[...] Sept tableaux composent La légende de la pluie, un collage baroque de pièces pour synthétiseurs, harpe électrique, guitare sur table, accordéon, sax alto, percussions acoustiques et électroniques, voix. C’est une légende fantaisiste, étrange et contemporaine où se côtoient improvisation, orchestration, chaos synthétique, chants mélodieux et onomatopéiques. [...]
Label DAME

914 - Diane Labrosse / Michel Côté "Duo Déconstructiviste"






Michel F Côté, connu comme leader de Bruire, et Diane Labrosse, comme membre active du quartet féminin Justine nous présentent Duo Déconstructiviste. Construire, et déconstruire, comme un meccano dont les pièces proviennent de jeux différents… déconstruire, puis construire.
DAME (comme dans Label DAME!)

14.6.09

913 - Hilde Marie KJERSEM "A killer for that ache"

[...] But A Killer is Kjersem's show, all eleven songs written by the singer and demonstrating a wealth of ideas and breadth of scope. The title track is gorgeous, where a layered choir is all that's needed to support Kjersem's evocative vocal. [...] AAJ

Sleepyhead
Mary Full of Grace
Fantasy
Marie Antoinette
A Killer For That Ache
Midwest Country
Save Up
London Bridge
It Is Easy
Catching a Star
Working Girl


Hilde Marie Kjersem: vocals, autoharp, keys (2, 4, 8, 11)
Jørgen Munkeby: synth sax, bass clarinet, clarinet, flute, vocal, guitar (8) tenor sax (10)
Torbjørn Folke Zetterberg: bass, moog, guitars, banjo, vocals, Rhodes (3), erhu (8)
Sjur Meiljeteig: trumpet, miscellaneous brass, vocals
Peder Kjellsby: drums, percussion, sid, vocals, piano (6)
Martin Revheim: additional snare drum (4)
Mark Kramer: organ (6).

13.6.09

912 - Jean DEROME & Les Dangereux Zhoms "Navré"





Navré is quite another proposition. Jean Derome (reeds, flute & piccolo) is one of the leading figures on the Québec new music scene and his 6-piece reflects the varied interests of this scene—improv, avant-rock, free jazz, chamber composition, etc. Like L’Orkestre des pas perdus, Dangereux Zhoms have a nifty sense of humour, but deploy it in circumstances where greater freedom from composed strictures is encouraged. Any group which sports a daxophone must have a twinkle in its eye, though René Lussier’s exploits are less well known than Reichel’s. On Anchive the little beastie provides the perfect foil for Derome’s Ornettish alto. Train Pour Nuremberg cuts and thrusts between avant-rock and free jazz with shades of Henry Cow in Lussier’s guitar and Derome’s bassoon-like baritone exchanges. The themes (all by Derome) are suitably transparent and flexible enough to allow the improv to take hold and spread in many directions at once; Casse-Cou rations its effervescent tune to sudden outbursts, imaginatively spaced against the lugubrious colours of the improv. Group cohesion is outstanding making light work of complex eclecticism (akin to Curlew here); the other members are Pierre Cartier, Guillaume Dostaler, Pierre Tanguay and Torn Walsh The more I hear it, the more I love it.

in Rubberneck #23 (RU), 1 janvier 1996

All the works on Navré, the second record from this Montréal sextet, were composed by saxophonist Derome during tours with a variety of groups. The influence of the road might show in his predilection for extended structures in which long, slow passages are interrupted by sudden bursts, like the bebop-ish head of Navré or the staccato drumming of "Toronto. " Or maybe that’s the influence of John Lurie. Like the Lounge Lizards, Derome and his crew are skillful handlers of both atmospherics and dynamics, grounding moody, meandering lead lines in steady, rocking rhythms. They use rough textures—groaning "daxophone" on Anchive, the choked guitar comping on Train pour Nuremberg, the trombone’s growl on Navré—as counterpoints to eloquent melodic elements like the bright flute run on Casse-cou and the rollicking, R&B-flavored baritone sax of Train pour Nuremberg. Guitarist René Lussier, in particular, seems almost more inventive in the background than in the fore. Only Lindau seems derivative, edging towards lite jazz. It’s hard to tell on Navré what’s composition and what’s improvisation. Finer group playing is hard to come by.

par David Krasnow in Option #73 (ÉU), 1 mars 1997

«Les Dangereux Zhoms, c’est le mélange explosif de six personnalités musicales très contrastées, six couleurs qui se complètent d’une manière résolument vivante et vivifiante. Si j’avais moi-même la précision de Lussier, l’intensité de Cartier, la vitalité de Tanguay, la concentration de Dostaler et l’astuce de Walsh, je n’aurais pas eu le besoin de créer ce groupe. Chaque interprète prend une part active dans la composition en modifiant à tout moment le phrasé, les dynamiques, la forme, le choix de l’improvisation. Chaque pièce devient un jeu, qui comme une partie d’échecs, obéit à des règles bien précises tout en se renouvelant constamment. Mon travail de compositeur et de chef d’orchestre est de créer «un terrain d’entente» propice à l’avènement d’une chose très rare et très belle: la musique. Avis aux intéressés, le groupe est en fleur!» — Jean Derome

10.6.09

911 - Sidsel Endresen / Christian Wallumrod / Helge Sten "Merriwinkle live at Punkt Festival, Kristiansand, Norway, 25-06-2005"

910 - HADOPI, dans l'cul ! (oups, dérapage un peu radical !)

Le Conseil constitutionnel a retiré tout pouvoir de sanction à la Haute autorité pour la protection des œuvres et élevé l'accès à Internet au rang de droit fondamental. [...]

Dans son avis, l'un des plus sévères de ces dernières années selon les juristes, le Conseil, saisi par les députés socialistes le 19 mai dernier, explique qu'il a censuré partiellement les articles 5 et 11 de la loi, qui instituaient concrètement la commission de protection des droits, celle qui devait envoyer les mails d'avertissement aux internautes et imposer les coupures d'accès, le coeur de la «riposte graduée» instaurée par le texte. [...]

Ceci est un article du ... Figaro. Étonnant, non ?

909 - Nils Petter Molvaer "Khmer - The Remixes"


HH

907 - Un moment d'érudition... sur le K !

La lettre K a en français un statut particulier. C’est une lettre étrangère, forcément étrangère. Ce qui peut s’avérer un inconvénient dans la vie quotidienne – sauf si le K est placé au milieu de votre nom de famille, donnée qui vous prédestine à devenir président de la République (bien que ce patronyme signifie « bouseux » en magyar). [...]

Sophie Képès.

906 - Nils Petter Molvaer "Ligotage"


905 - Voleurs de foule - D. Robert / B. Delbecq / C. Hartlap

6.6.09

903 - JUSTINE "Suite"





Un peu en marge par rapport à la notoriété internationale (bien gagnée, pour sûr!) des confrères René Lussier, Jean Derome et André Duchesne, les jolies filles qui partagent le nom de Justine -Diane Labrosse, Joane Hétu, Marie Trudeau et Danielle Palardy Roger- se posent en porte-drapeau et en porte-parole de la musique nouvelle québécoise. Elles sont, pour tout ce qui concerne la musique, très politisées et travaillent très dur depuis quinze ans, que ce soit en solo ou en collectif, pour obtenir l’autogestion totale de leur musique. Justine organise des festivals, des concerts et des représentations ouvertes à la «contamination» multimédia, et s’occupe du label «Ambiances magnétiques, devenu désormais DAME.
Luc Bouquet in ImproJazz (France), 1 avril 1996