TOP PROGRAMMERS: TOP 3 ALBUMS 2023 – Louis Dufort, Akousma

PAN M 360 asked its partners to provide a list of the top 3 albums of 2023. Several artistic directors graciously agreed!

Artistic director of the Akousma festival, Louis Dufort is a Montreal composer. His productions are numerous and multi-faceted: fixed media, mixed music with live processing, videomusic and installation. He has been commissioned by various musical ensembles and organizations: ACREQ, SMCQ, Réseaux, Chants libres, Codes d’Accès, ECM, Quasar Saxophone Quartet, Quatuor Bozzini, The Users, Musée Pointe-à-Callière, ZKM (Germany), SIXTRUM and CBC / Radio-Canada. He has been a regular contributor to COMPAGNIE MARIE CHOUINARD since 1996. Louis Dufort holds a doctorate in electroacoustic composition from the Université de Montréal, and teaches composition at the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal. He has been artistic director of AKOUSMA since 2010.

KMRU / Dissolution Grip / OFNOT (ambient / drone/ experimental)

“Cyclic and polyrhythmic stratifications, combined with microtonal layers that are sometimes fluid, sometimes tense, evoke a place, an inhabited moment, an energy, life. The electronic instrumentation is sublime, transparent, giving way to a beautiful musical sensitivity.”

Natasha Barrett / Reconfiguring the Landscape / Persistence of Sound (Soundscape / Acousmatic)

“A highly refined combination of two composable spaces, namely that of a sound imprint (Keynote, R.M. Shafer) and its musical reflection. These sound imprints come from Venice, Graz and Oslo (the city and the port); sounds of everyday life are subtly musicalized, reconfiguring real temporalities and spaces into poeticized sound frescoes.”

Gonima / Escapism / Satellite Era (IDM / hyperglitch / algorithmic)

“Generative microtemporal rhythmic games are applied to melancholic spectral layers, inscribing themselves in a dialogical relationship between figure and background. The agogic of the writing is dynamic, precise and crystalline, supported by a sensitive and technically impeccable sound realization.”