Electroacoustic / Electronic / expérimental / contemporain

Akousma | Hamelin, Présences imaginées, Uppender

by Laurent Bellemare

Science-fiction twilight, biomechanical arthropods, urban landscape, horror film, canine memories, naturalistic fascination… all these associations were likely to be made during the closing night of Akousma, Friday evening at Usine C.

The common thread running through Friday evening’s program seemed to be a compositional approach borrowing heavily from music to image… cinema for the ear, as composer and teacher Michel Tétreault would say.

What we gain in immersion, however, we lose in the sense of musical development. In a world beset by screens, this is surely not surprising. Unless it’s us, the audience, who are now incapable of dissociating our listening from these images…

Whatever the case, every year Akousma succeeds in offering a fine sample of the state of the art in digital music. Even if electroacoustic music still belongs to the academic world, today it is a source of increasingly diverse aesthetics, and all the better for it. Here, then, is Akousma’s final right, the last of the 6 blocks on the program.

Julien Racine

Hamelin

Julien Racine built his Hamelin piece with dense yet harmonic textures. The most striking element of the piece was the sonorities that hinted at technological malfunctions. In particular, many of the voices were filtered, granulated or pitch-shifted, sounding as if they had come straight out of an old communication device trying to listen to a lost transmission.

After this highly successful section, the piece evolved into something more dissonant. First, a texture of steadily rising pitches seemed to spin over our heads. Then, this tableau took on nightmarish twists and turns, echoing distant cries, laughter and complaints. With no program notes, it wasn’t easy to sort out this chain of events. Especially when it came to the barking heard around three-quarters of the way through the piece!

Olivier Alary

Présences imaginées

Olivier Alary’s Présences imaginées also gave us the impression of a nightmarish sound design. Voices and screams could be heard in the thickness of the sound mass. But in addition to these recognizable elements, there was a striking abstraction throughout most of the piece. One texture metamorphosed into another, and we moved easily from extreme density to sparse granules.

It’s only at the end that birdsong suddenly transforms this abstruse scene into a much more mundane affair. That and the sounds of waves buried beneath the texture in the opening minutes. The immersion was again very successful, but the compositional coherence was a little less so, in my opinion.

Felisha Ledesma

Uppender

After a quickly solved technical problem, American-Swedish Felisha Ledesma broadcast her piece ‘Uppender’, a very ambient track, much more hushed than the others. The equalization work made the sound layers soft and warm, traits amplified by the abundant use of reverb. The work also gradually became more harmonic, accentuating its bewitching aspect.

Although there were a few moments when muffled jerky sounds interrupted, the piece almost always retained its lightness, as if everything were weightless. Here too, the formal development was disappointing, something that a small peak of intensity towards the end failed to rescue.

Photo Credit: Caroline Campeau

Latest 360 Content

Festival de Lanaudière | Franco Fagioli and the voice of bel canto

Festival de Lanaudière | Franco Fagioli and the voice of bel canto

Nuits d’Afrique | Manamba Kanté, An Undeniable Diva

Nuits d’Afrique | Manamba Kanté, An Undeniable Diva

Nuits d’Afrique | El Gato Negro, A Feline Like No Other

Nuits d’Afrique | El Gato Negro, A Feline Like No Other

Nights of Africa 2025 | A gnawa fusion reactor named Saïd Mesnaoui

Nights of Africa 2025 | A gnawa fusion reactor named Saïd Mesnaoui

Nuits d’Afrique 2025 | Sousou and Maher Cissoko: benevolence and complicity

Nuits d’Afrique 2025 | Sousou and Maher Cissoko: benevolence and complicity

Nuits d’Afrique | Las Karamba And Their Militant Salsa

Nuits d’Afrique | Las Karamba And Their Militant Salsa

Festival de Lanaudière | A Successful Choral Evening for Akamus

Festival de Lanaudière | A Successful Choral Evening for Akamus

Festival d’art vocal de Montréal | Training the Next Generation of Lyric Artists, From Voice to Stage Direction

Festival d’art vocal de Montréal | Training the Next Generation of Lyric Artists, From Voice to Stage Direction

Nuits d’Afrique | Tyrane Mondeny: The Rising Star Has Reached Her Destination

Nuits d’Afrique | Tyrane Mondeny: The Rising Star Has Reached Her Destination

Nuits d’Afrique | El Gato Negro, The Sound of Subtropical Pop

Nuits d’Afrique | El Gato Negro, The Sound of Subtropical Pop

Nuits d’Afrique | Glowzi, in Soundsystem Mode

Nuits d’Afrique | Glowzi, in Soundsystem Mode

Nuits d’Afrique | Mateus Vidal & Axé Experience, “Uma Festa” in The Rain

Nuits d’Afrique | Mateus Vidal & Axé Experience, “Uma Festa” in The Rain

Naomi – A Dark Corner to Dance In

Naomi – A Dark Corner to Dance In

Nuits d’Afrique | Les mamans du Congo x Rrobin: A Successful Bet!

Nuits d’Afrique | Les mamans du Congo x Rrobin: A Successful Bet!

Nuits d’Afrique | Baz Konpa Honors konpa

Nuits d’Afrique | Baz Konpa Honors konpa

Nuits d’Afrique: Bab L’ Bluz Summons The Desert

Nuits d’Afrique: Bab L’ Bluz Summons The Desert

Nuits d’Afrique 2025 | Saïd Mesnaoui: Gnawa Fusion at the Heart of a Radiant Artist

Nuits d’Afrique 2025 | Saïd Mesnaoui: Gnawa Fusion at the Heart of a Radiant Artist

Festival de Lanaudière | Paulus & Elias: Mendelssohn’s oratorios presented by Akamus

Festival de Lanaudière | Paulus & Elias: Mendelssohn’s oratorios presented by Akamus

Nuits d’Afrique 2025 | Sousou and Maher Cissoko: love, through the kora and by the kora

Nuits d’Afrique 2025 | Sousou and Maher Cissoko: love, through the kora and by the kora

Festival Nuits d’Afrique 2025 | Sahad: The star of Dakar Shines on Balattou

Festival Nuits d’Afrique 2025 | Sahad: The star of Dakar Shines on Balattou

Nuits d’Afrique | Femi Kuti & The Positive Force Live!

Nuits d’Afrique | Femi Kuti & The Positive Force Live!

Nuits d’Afrique | Les mamans du Congo x Rrobin

Nuits d’Afrique | Les mamans du Congo x Rrobin

Nuits d’Afrique | Manamba Kanté and Soul Bang’s, Guinea’s “Beyoncé and Jay-Z

Nuits d’Afrique | Manamba Kanté and Soul Bang’s, Guinea’s “Beyoncé and Jay-Z

Karma Glider – From the Haze of a Revved Up Youth

Karma Glider – From the Haze of a Revved Up Youth

Subscribe to our newsletter