Centre PHI / Habitat sonore | A Totally Sublime Afternoon with Moe Clark and Pursuit Grooves

by Léa Dieghi

An all-encompassing bath of sound. A wave of sound that caresses our minds: immersed in the sound habitat, one of Montreal’s only spatialized listening rooms, at the Centre PHI.

It was a sunny Thursday afternoon, between my morning and late afternoon classes, in the middle of the week. Like everyone else, it’s the frenzy of everyday life: school, work, meetings, subway. The usual movements are at the heart of the city’s hustle and bustle. We rarely think about the hustle and bustle of the city, with all our senses constantly in focus. Then, one day, we make the choice: unconsciously or consciously. We stop. And today, this interruption of the mundane took place at the Centre PHI.

There, I discovered one of their new interactive experiences: Habitat Sonore.
In this intimate listening room, where our bodies rest on ball cushions in near-darkness, we are projected into a new universe. Everyday life is transmuted into a reality composed entirely of music. No telephone, no conversation, no lights, no movement, no outside distractions whatsoever.

All that remained were the musical compositions and the few colored, subdued glimmers of neon. It was the first time I’d experienced being immersed in such a listening room. With this “orchestra” of 16 loudspeakers scattered around the room, the music seemed to come from nowhere. And from everywhere at once. It was a little inside me, and a little outside me, too. A true mastery of sound spatialization.

Of course, this active listening offered by the Centre PHI would not have been possible without the work of various artists, who for several months had the opportunity to rework some of their musical productions. Totally sublime, Moe Clarke and Pursuit Grooves were also able to master spatialized music production, creating their own auditory decors.

After a few minutes’ wait, with only three people around me (a rather intimate setting), program 2 kicks off. Totalement Sublime, with songs from the Albédo album, opens the dance. The performance is surely the longest of the three, and the most progressive. It gets off to a gentle start, with sparse synthesizer sounds and little analog glitches. I recognize their “760KM” music, but it stretches out much longer than I remember.

This is a light-hearted opening that anchors us in our cushions, yet it is soon shattered by the brittle sound of guitar strings. The composition follows a linear, if sometimes chaotic, trajectory, with the various noises and notes moving back and forth across the room.

If Totalement Sublime offered us a glitchy journey into sonic matter, Moe Clark, for her part, takes us into the depths of the Canadian mountains and aboriginal myths. Between her use of soundscapes (trees in the wind, the current of a river, leaves and branches crackling under the weight of an animal’s footsteps…), and her “spoken words” – her poetry – we take flight to the rhythm of the beating of a hummingbird’s wings, water drums, horn and gourd rattles and throat singing. Her voice, which sings in creative form, is piercing in piyêsiwak ahkohtowin, and Montreal suddenly seems far away.
The program closes with a final composition by Ontario-based artist-producer Pursuit Grooves. She offers us an experimental composition, somewhere between downtempo and abstract, to bring us down gently from this hour-long sonic journey.

INFOS and TICKETS

Contemporary / Minimalist

Steve Reich’s quartets at Bourgie Hall : a perfectly oiled minimalist mechanism

by Frédéric Cardin

On Tuesday 1 April, for the first time in Montreal, all three of Steve Reich’s string quartets were performed in a single concert. When I say string quartets, I really mean string quartets AND tape, because they all use the latter. Played in inverse chronological order by the Mivos Quartet, the three works are emblematic of the sonic universe of the American, a pioneer of minimalism and, for many artists of subsequent generations, the grandfather of techno music and the sampling technique.

READ THE INTERVIEW WITH THE VIOLIST OF THE MIVOS QUARTET ABOUT STEVE REICH’S QUARTETS

Indeed, two of the three quartets use sound sampling (concrete sounds, snatches of voice, etc.) in a rhythmic and melodic perspective. The use of concrete sounds in music does not date back to Reich (Schaeffer, Henry and Stockhausen were there before him), but his instinctive and rhythmically catchy way of distributing them has inspired a creative movement of which hip hop is the latest genre to take up, often unknowingly, certain imperatives.

The most recent, WTC 9/11, uses sounds taken from the tragedy of 11 September 2001 in New York, while the first, “Different Trains” (which remains the best of all), draws a parallel between the trains travelling between New York and Los Angeles (which Reich often used at one time), and those that transported Jews to extermination camps during the Second World War (Reich is Jewish, and the allegory came forcefully to mind). In between, the Triple Quartet requires a tape on which two other quartets each play a score while the live ensemble performs its own on stage.

The Mivos Quartet has recorded these same three quartets for Deutsche Grammophon (they also played all the tracks of the two recorded quartets used inTriple Quartet). Its musicians are therefore well versed in the demands of this music. Nevertheless, performing this music on stage is extremely demanding. You have to concentrate at all times to react precisely to what is happening in the soundtrack and with your colleagues, and you have to keep track of all the repetitive patterns of the score, regularly punctuated by small changes that are as subtle as they are fundamental to the dynamic energy of the music. As they say, it’s easy to get lost in all that.

Hats off to the four excellent musicians of the New York-based ensemble (on their first visit here!) Olivia de Prato and Adam Woodward on violins, Victor Lowrie Tafoya on viola and Nathan Watts on cello. Their reading was breathtaking in its precision and coordination.

It’s almost an annual gathering of great names in minimalism that the Bourgie Hall programme offers us (in recent years we’ve had Glass and Missy Mazzoli), and we welcome it with enthusiasm. We hope it will continue and, why not, that there will be even more.

Baroque / classique / période romantique / post-romantique

Jaeden Izik-Dzurco, Beyond Impeccable

by Alain Brunet

Every year, if not every semester of this era, we enjoy an emerging supravirtuoso, and we have to admit that the best on Earth are more numerous, that the nec plus ultra is more considerable than ever. A few weeks ago, for example, a Montreal teenager electrified the small Salle Claude-Léveillée, as Sophia Shuya Liu’s hallucinatory abilities were revealed to her precocious public, including international agents who had heard about her exceptional technique and playing.

On Sunday afternoon, Pro Musica brought us Jaeden Izik-Dzurko, a young man with a string of major awards, including the Leeds, Maria Canals and Montreal International Music Competitions (MIMC), who verges on perfection.

We got the full measure of this prodigious 26-year-old Canadian musician, based in Germany.

As for JS Bach, Izik-Dzurko’s performance of the Partita no.4 in D major BWV 828 is simply ideal. Izik-Dzurko’s respect for the score is impeccable, with no unnecessary affectation or exaggeration. Exemplary precision and clarity, period. Here, the performer is concerned to respect the composer’s exact intentions, without becoming technically austere or clinically obsessive – which is often the case with excellent… technicians. This fine line between virtuosity and musicality will be honored from the first to the last bar of this excellent concert.

From JSB, we move on to Rachmaninov’s Preludes op.23, imagined by the virtuoso pianist and composer at the turn of the 20th century (1901-1903), of which no. 5 in G minor has gone down in history. Again, the performer is dazzling in his refinement, tone and accuracy. The virtuosity stakes are exceptional here, and any concert pianist must master this repertoire, whereas Izik-Dzurko manages to transcend it without going overboard.

After the interval, Scriabin’s Fantaisie in B minor, also composed at the dawn of the previous century (1900), also generates this impression of perfection, of absolute understanding of the score and a rendering that is both sober and deeply musical, even in its most entangled moments.

For a musician who claims to be less naturally inclined to master Chopin, whose Sonata no.3 in B minor Op.58 he played, one can’t help noticing irritations, tensions and other excesses of zeal, even during the most vertiginous phase from the sonata to its conclusion. Here again, it’s pure music-loving bliss.

At the age of 26, Izik-Dzurco has reached this level of mastery and has a long road ahead of him. Of course, life should provide him with the rough edges to further refine his artistic personality and make him even more relevant. What’s more, more touching.

art numérique / Experimental / Contemporary / immersion

Sight + Sound | Fili Gibbons

by Loic Minty

Friday night at Eastern Bloc was an evening of joyful, playful practices that invoke the child and the emotions of the heart. From the heart came voices, powerful and defiant in their poise, that spoke and sang of stories. Stories about passion, about the clouds and the coming rain. Practical myths for a pleasurable life, extending far beyond the stage. How can we carry them there?

Fili Gibbons accompanied by their fairies dissolved all boundaries between public and performer. The sounds blanketed a stream of casually recorded discussions between the artists and held a space for introspective thinking. Occasionally, this space would open up and invite the audience to share their own thoughts. « What is happiness to you ? »

Between themselves the artists smiled and laughed as they arranged an eclectic post-digital garden of love. At moments, Fili’s voice seemed a conduct of light that opened a portal to ancient folk traditions. A kind of symphonie of spring, the melodies played on themes that could have been heard in a Ryuichi Sakamoto score and their cello held a similar mystical depth to Arthur Russel’s as it weaved itself into an electronic ambiance.

While the visuals held a line of continuity in their colorful and glitchy textures, the performance segmented itself into a series of short poems and scenes. Friendship, love, passion, work, fatigue. Each theme held itself in an intimacy that made the subjects honest and approachable, nothing was left out or hidden from the audience. From the last time I saw Fili at PHI Centre, their sound practice has evolved towards further use of sampling and looping still with the same calm and sensitive style. Definitely an artist to look out for and I am excited to know what they do next.

Overall I was very impressed by the care that Sight+Sound put into curating a showcase around, well, care. Underlying elements of astral connection and myths of love tied together the pieces from Fili Gibbons to Deep Gazing.

This last performance had the crowd smiling all the way through as the over-exaggerated characters gazed longingly at each other in the eyes. The Sisters of the Celestial Order held the crowd in their spell as they read through their book on a new practice called « deep gazing ». Quite literally like listening to mystics, they slowly and carefully explained the shape of clouds in humorous and poetic fashion.

Their philosophy slowly seeped into our imaginations as we left and looked at the sky « Skry! ». Sight and Sound is a reminder of the importance of art in our lives, it is what leaves you full and accomplished at the end of the day.

MORE INFOS ABOUT SIGHT + SOUND

art numérique / Electronic / expérimental / contemporain / immersif

Sight + Sound | A Rain Ritual in Anticipation

by Félicité Couëlle-Brunet

The concept of teru teru bōzu, small handmade dolls hung from windows to ward off rain in Japan, carries a rich symbolism oscillating between care, hope and control. Teru Teru, a world premiere at the Sight + Sound 2025 Festival presented at Eastern Bloc, seizes on this tradition to offer a choreographic and sonic exploration of the management of care in a world of perpetual uncertainty. Hanako Hoshimi-Caines and Hanako Brierley draw on these symbols to create a performance where intimacy meets ritual, where the past dialogues with the imaginary.

From the very first moments, the stage is inhabited by an ambience that is both gentle and spectral. The scenic device, where two giant-sized teru teru bōzu dolls are placed on the floor in the middle of the room, composes an evocative visual landscape. This set, oscillating between childlike playfulness and a certain ghostly presence, becomes the stage for a captivating sensory exploration. Yet beneath this apparent gentleness lurks a latent tension: the act of hanging a teru teru bōzu is a hopeful prayer, but also a tacit promise of punishment. If the doll fails to make the sun appear, it is condemned to be decapitated.

A vocal interplay between gentleness and tension

Brierley’s sound work accentuates this tension. Through subtle use of vocal looping, she deconstructs the traditional nursery rhyme teru teru bōzu, repeated and superimposed to reveal unsuspected nuances. This sound loop, in which the voice becomes a hypnotic instrument, instills a playful lightness while hovering a diffuse menace. At first childlike and reassuring, this sound treatment gradually transforms into an abstract, almost mechanical litany, devoid of affect.

The vocal dialogue between Hoshimi-Caines and Brierley is part of an organic dynamic in which the voices cross, intertwine and respond to each other. At times, their voices merge into a gentle harmony, evoking an incantatory chant where care takes on a collective dimension. But this gentleness is often interrupted by abrupt silences or vocal shifts that create spaces of tension. Far from being mere pauses, these interruptions become breaths of uncertainty.

Silence as a space of rupture

It is above all in these silences that the performance finds its depth. When the voices fade away, an empty space opens up, inviting us to listen more attentively to the body and the environment. These silences, far from being absences, become moments of suspension where the spectator is confronted with the expectation, vulnerability and risk of failure inherent in ritual. This dialogue between fullness and emptiness gives a particular resonance to the choreographic gestures, where each suspension seems to amplify the fragility of the movements.

A ritual devoid of emotion, a source of tension

Teru Teru explores the tension inherent in ritual, where the repetition of gestures and sounds does not freeze the performance in a rigid mechanic, but infuses it with an organic vitality. The simplicity of the ritual – hanging up a doll in the hope of warding off the rain – is gradually emptied of its affect to become an automatism, a repetition in which emotion fades away to make way for a muted tension. Far from soothing, this emotional stripping makes the dramatic charge more intense, confronting the viewer with the uncertainty of hope hanging by a thread.

With Teru Teru, Hoshimi-Caines and Brierley offer a work of rare delicacy, in which care becomes a living ritual, oscillating between hope, control and abandonment. In this infinite dance of repetition, silence and renewal, the management of care is transformed into a space of expectation, where the tension born of the absence of overt emotion becomes the real driving force behind the performance.

INFOS SIGHT & SOUND

Baroque / Classical / Classical Singing / Opera

Opera McGill | Imeneo or the art of “less is more

by Alexis Desrosiers-Michaud

On Friday evening, Opera McGill gave the first in its series of performances of Georg Friedrich Handel’s Imeneo, at the Paradox Theatre, a former church on Monk Street, transformed into a performance hall, all in a cabaret format, where guests are invited to enjoy a drink during the performance.

Of the five main singers, it’s tenor Patricia Yates in the title role who stands out. Both in the stage interpretation of her character, a little over-proud, and in the amplitude of her voice, she provides a presence that transcends the framework of Paradox, and would work just as well in a more conventional opera house. In the role of Trinto, her opponent, countertenor Reed Demangone, isn’t lacking in stature either, but for opposite reasons. More restrained and shy, Demangone shows agility and delicacy in his arias, as well as in his performance of the man who will have his bride stolen from him.

On the ladies’ side, Elizabeth Fast is a show-stopper as Clomiri in the first half of the opera, trying to seduce Imeneo, who has saved her from a pirate attack, in the company of Rosmene. The latter, played by Patricia Wrigglesworth, grows in stature in the second half, becoming more and more assertive, giving her credibility in her choice of husband at the very end. In the end, Fast and Wrigglesworth deliver equal performances, each knowing when and how to get the better of her rival.

Apart from the Roman-style costumes, there’s nothing in the presentation to give us a clear idea of the era or setting in which the action is taking place. In this respect, Patrick Hansen’s simple, effective staging holds up well. The set consists of just four vertical strips descending from the ceiling and a gigantic rock that looks like a popcorn kernel, suspended in the middle. A rock that only seems to serve to redirect the lighting and obstruct the surtitles, necessary given that the opera is sung in Italian.

Also, since he doesn’t have to, there are no set or costume changes. As a result, Hansen eliminates the risk of the listener wondering “where are we now?” or “who’s who now?” and can concentrate on the action. In short, this staging is so effective that you don’t immediately realize how simple it is, without being boring either. If you try to do too much, you sometimes miss the point… but this is not the case here, and it’s very well done.

As is customary in student productions, each character has a double; the “B” cast will be singing as soloists tomorrow, and the “A” will be back on Sunday. Except that in this production, the notion of the double is finely and judiciously exploited. All ten artists are part of the three concerts, but those “on leave” perform as chorus members, albeit in their character costumes. The climax of this play on doubles comes at the end of the first act, when the doubles occult their namesakes, like emotions tearing at the soul, plunging the auditorium into a macabre red.

Photo: Stephanie Sedlbauer

Electro-Pop / hyperpop

The girls slay Turbo Haus

by Stephan Boissonneault

Ah, Montreal springs. One minute, it’s warm, and everything is melting from winter, and you almost get sidelined by a legion of bicycles on the main road. The next, we get a squall–a violent storm that brings wet snow and the all-too-familiar dampness. Fortunately, it quickly heats up within Turbo Haus on Saturday night during electro-pop live shows featuring FIAMMA, Storylike, Franki, and Hot House–ladies on stage slaying in every sense of the word.

FIAMMA I Amir Bakarov

FIAMMA from Ottawa and Montreal starts the show with her dreamy bedroom pop, clearly an artist still finding her groove, featuring backing tracks that get a bit heavy and industrial with the production but, at times, fall off into obscurity. She can definitely sing, as found in the track “wish you were here,” but should choose to punctuate those euphoric poppy moments live with some vocal backing tracks or something with more flourish to stand out.

The next artist, Storylike, opts for an electro set but with moments of grungey shoegaze pop. Her voice is mesmerizing at times, and later in her set, she hits some fuzzed-out chords on the guitar. For the most part, the set is enjoyable, as Storylike chooses to start with the dancy vibe and end with the sombre grunge guitar vibe. It’s an interesting choice ’cause you can tell people came here to dance the snow away.

Storylike I Amir Bakarov

Franki is happy to oblige. She takes the stage, now backed up by Vanessa Barron (aka DJ Wiltbarn) and bassist Julia Mela (of Gondola), for the live show–which we saw the debut of a Taverne Tour. I’m glad this lineup has been glued together. Even though Franki can command a stage alone, her band adds so much more to the hyperpop dance party. We get little moments of DJ live mixes, backing vocals and triangle dings from Barron. Mela holds down the groove with a few irresistible bass lines, and Franki dances around the stage singing songs from her All the Things I Try to Say EP. We also hear a new song she calls “Drugsmusic,” with some nostalgic ’90s-era British electro invasion beats and vocals. Franki delivers it all, as always.

Franki I Amir Bakarov

To end the night is Hot House, a duo that comes out blazing, self-glamourizing and chanting that “all the boys and girls want to party in the hot hot house.” The backing tracks from Taylor Fergusson feel euro-electro sleaze, heavy on the bass as Kk, a blondeshell who wears leather booty shorts, sings about sex, money, power and weirdly enough, Jesus. Halfway through the set, Hot House is joined by some backup dancers Angel Buell and Spencer Dorsey, who brings some synchronized dances to the chaos. They grind and twist on the floro with Kk and the big moment is during the track “I’m Expensive,” as they lift Kk into the air and spin her around Midsommar style. A few beers in, the vibes are flowing as Hot House ends the night on a sweaty note.

Hot House I Amir Bakarov

Alternative / Post-Punk / Shoegaze

Shunk brings down the hammer

by Stephan Boissonneault

Playing a show mid-week can be challenging due to a bunch of mitigating factors, yet the air inside of the La Sotterenea basement was absolutely buzzing last Wednesday for the Shunk album launch. This was, of course, for Shunk’s wonderfully whacky debut release, Shunkland – which we wrote about HERE. Spirits were high, high-lighted by a pile of empty beer cans before the clubified opening act, Born at Midnite (commonly referred to now as BAM).

Born at Midnite (BAM) I Stephan Boissonneault

This Arbutus label two-piece (made up of vocalist/sampler Amery Sandford and guitarist/vocalist David Carriere) is somewhat of an unsung hero in the Montreal electro community, sharing about a million streams but only playing a handful of shows since their debut in 2020. If you listen to BAM’s recordings, you immediately feel the professional touch of the mix, and this luckily isn’t lost during the live show—the vocals are pushed back when they have to be, the pounding bass is thick when it needs to be, the lead guitar lines cut through. It’s a hazy kind of musical mix that makes you feel like you’re in a club, but not the kind where you get abosultely throttled. It was a fun and lighthearted show and perfectly set the energy for Shunk.

Shunk takes the stage and immediately jumps into Shunkland‘s dreamy, soon-to-be nightmare opener, “Sated.” We get a full stereo mix live as guitarist Peter Baylis rocks two amps, one for the high and one for the low ends. The bass guitar and reverb guitar arpeggio bleed into the room, and singer Gabrielle Domingue sings with an operatic, Hounds of Love falsetto vibe. Shunk is all about putting you into a weird and whimsical trance and then bringing down the hammer. And it’s not just with heavy distortion like so many other bands. You’ll have high energy moments where the instrumentation is completely clean yet, staccato and delayed. It’s a very 80s post-punk vibe but also quite dancy. I mean, the song “Clouds” feels like sweaty and vibrant prom dance circa 1983.

Some of these songs are absolutely hilarious in their subject matter; we got one about goblins, cute little tennis outfits, a devilish, sultry snake, and a “Rat King” named Stew, who becomes a one-of-us entity that has Domingue growling, “Give us your money / give us your infant child!!!” One crowd member gladly screamed, “Take it, please!” Not sure she meant the money or infant child…

There’s a certain kind of coolness factor with local bands. Some choose to act aloof, clad in dark colours, and unacknowledging, and some really peacock it up for their shows. Shunk is a mix of the two. You have the unassuming slacker vibe of guitarist Peter Baylis (dressed in an orange button-up shirt with frazzled curly hair) and drummer Adrian Vaktor (sporting an Alexisonfire tee). Then there’s bass player (although she screams each lyric without a mic) Julia Hill, who is dressed in grunge-90s chic with a checked skirt and big O belt, and lead vocalist Gabrielle Domingue who is decked out in a full pin-stripe suit, with a single button, revealing a bit of skin and what looks to be a chainlink leather top.

Of course, Domingue’s suit jacket comes off during the carnal-charged “Snake, – about someone consuming you, bones and all. It’s impossible to look away from the spectacle as Domingue, wearing only the top (which turns out to be a leather bra with chains), dives into the crowd and screams in a frenzy, pushing the crowd into a mosh. It’s this same kind of hardcore energy that reminds me of her defunct band Visibly Choked (RIP). During “Snake”‘s outro, Hill stands on the edge of the stage, screaming each lyric, and behind her, Baylis and Vaktor are head-banging in reverie. You can easily tell that Shunk is a band that has each member thoroughly enjoying what they are doing.

For the encore, we get one new song from Shunk that has Hill bowing her bass for some drone and, based on sound alone, could have easily been on Shunkland. But for now, we’ll let them cook up another batch of songs.

expérimental / contemporain / Musique de création

Semaine du Neuf | Loving and Cosmic Conclusion

by Alain Brunet

La Semaine du Neuf, presented for the third in a row year by Groupe Le Vivier, came to a close on Sunday at the Music Media Room (MMR) of McGill University’s Schulich School of Music. On the program: propulsion towards love and the cosmos!

An opera for one voice, nothing else. An opera soliloquizing, sung, said, whispered, growled, whispered, shouted and more. Love unbridled, tender, protective, lost, found, passionate, mature, stable, serene, you name it. A hundred languages. Melodic, diatonic, chromatic, atonal, noisy and textural discourses. The main themes of Ana Sokolović’s work are introduced by movements symbolically embodied by doves singing declarations of love expressed in 100 languages, except for the theme of loss.

In short, all the angles, all the facets, all the states of love are reviewed here by the composer and performed before an audience by mezzo-soprano Kristin Hoff. The latter has been working on the work for a dozen years, and needless to say, she has mastered its most minute details, communicating the experience with consummate skill.

An authentic performance, a physical feat lasting 40 minutes! The demands of the work are high for this performer alone with herself, who must also exude a theatricality of love while meeting the work’s technical challenges.

The second part of the program was from New York: Star Maker Fragments, composed in 2021. American Taylor Brook composes for instrumental and/or electronic music, as well as for robotics, generative music, video, theater and dance. A devotee of the microtonal approach, he strives to integrate all the sound tools and practices representative of our times.

New York-based ensemble TAK has been working with Taylor Brook since the early days of his career, at the turn of the last decade. The work Star Maker Fragments, which closed La Semaine du Neuf, is based on the novel Star Maker by British writer Olaf Stapledon, now considered a classic of science fiction. The novel’s narrator is “transported” out of his body and finds himself exploring interstellar space. His mind merges with those of beings from other worlds, traveling across galaxies. In this way, a collective mind is formed, and eventually meets the Star Maker, a supreme being who created the universe. The narrator realizes that his universe is just one of many, that it is not the greatest of all, and that every universe is a work of art.

As such, this work attempts to embody suspension in infinite space. The instrumental parts (flute, bass clarinet, violin, percussion) remain relatively simple, fluid and continuous, with no high demands on articulation. Soprano Charlotte Mundy provides the vocals and narration, and we’re in space for an hour of microvariations and complementary electroacoustic effects produced by the composer and triggered by percussionist Ellery Trafford. Understandably, the individual real-time interventions are perhaps less important than their interstellar alloy. Hovering, cosmic, definitely in the air (and space) of time. This concludes the 3rd Semaine du Neuf.

Publicité panam

Chamber Pop / Contemporary

Semaine du Neuf | A lot of chamber groove from collectif9 and Architek Percussions

by Frédéric Cardin

Five contemporary works, as many composers. The common thread? In addition to the words woven by author Kaie Kellough – groove. Indeed, this element so rarely associated with creative music was the central element of the evening of March 15 at the Espace Orange du Wilder in Montreal’s Quartier des Spectacles. As part of the Semaine du Neuf organized by Le Vivier, a show entitled Quelque part, mon jardin / My Backyard, Somewhere was presented, bringing together the creative universes of two of the most original and dynamic ensembles on the Montreal/Canadian scene: collectif9 and its nine strings, and Architek Percussions and its four genial tappers and pickers… To find out much more about the origins of this concept, read the interview conducted by colleague Alain Brunet HERE.

Gracieuseté Semaine du Neuf – Le Vivier crédit photo : Philippe latour par Frederic Cardin

The interpretative strategy adopted by the artists is quite original: the five works are cut into various parts, and then mixed together to form a continuous framework lasting around an hour and fifteen minutes. A bit like taking five models of Lego blocks and reassembling them into a single new, entirely coherent construction.

The evening’s sonic thread was criss-crossed by contrasts between the glitch/syncopated aesthetics of Nicole Lizée, post-minimalist/dissonant of Luna Pearl Woolf, chamber pop of Eliot Britton, almost muzak of Brett Higgins and neo-impressionist/rock of Derek Charke. Kellough’s lyrics sometimes chanted or declaimed by the artist himself, have a spoken word style and are very urban, sometimes pre-recorded and altered, marking the blow and offering a very street colour to the whole concert.

Quelque part, mon jardin / My Backyard, Somewhere is a contemporary proposition whose topicality is rooted in the blurring it creates between the scholarly contemporary creation and multi-trend pop worlds. Above all, it is an attempt to include the swaying pulse of Black music rather than the metronomically regulated pulse of Minimalism, another stylistic school based on rhythmic affirmation. You may have to pass for lovers of harmonic modernity, or especially the avant-garde, as this is almost totally consonant territory.

The end result is resolutely contemporary, yet very accessible, even for an audience unfamiliar with creative music. Perhaps even a little too “polished” for some, if a few of the comments I’ve heard are anything to go by?

Be that as it may, and as far as I’m concerned, Quelque part, mon jardin / My Backyard, Somewhere is one of the very good projects by collectif9 and Architek.

Luna Pearl Woolf: But I Digress… (2018) – 19 min

Bret Higgins: among, within, beneath, atop (2018) – 8 min

Derek Charke: the world is itself a cargo carried (2018) – 15 min

Eliot Britton: Backyard Blocks (2018) – 17 min

Nicole Lizée: Folk Noir/Canadiana (2018) – 14 min

Contemporary

Semaine du Neuf | Quatuor Bozzini: Outpourings of friendship in a dreamlike sonic calm

by Alexandre Villemaire

To celebrate its silver anniversary, the Quatuor Bozzini joined forces with three exceptional composers: Martin Arnold, Linda Catlin Smith and Michael Oesterle. The program emphasized the friendship and close ties that have united the quartet’s musicians with these avant-garde composers for 25 years. On a musical level, this friendship translated into ethereal sonorities in works with an essentially gentle, calm aesthetic.

The first work presented was Martin Arnold’s 3-Way Cotillon, in its Montreal premiere. For the occasion, the members of Quatuor Bozzini (Isabelle Bozzini, cello; Stéphanie Bozzini, viola; Alissa Cheung, violin and Clemens Merkel, violin) were joined by violist Elisa Trudel and cellist Audréanne Filion, in a sextet formation. The harmonic environment is essentially diatonic. Among the many influences that characterize Arnold’s language, it was the use of folk-inspired material and the inspiration of early music that stood out for us. The musical inflections of the cotillion, a popular dance in 18th-century Europe and America, bear in some respects the sonic stamp of an Aaron Copland. The piece evolves with sporadic interventions of string lines, which are played dispersedly by the instrumentalists. There is a general evolution in the texture and timbre of the piece, starting from the treble and moving quietly into the lower strings throughout. As the work progresses, the jumbled, spaced-out material contracts over time, eventually coming together to create a coherent, interrelated whole.

Linda Catlin Smith’s Reverie, composed expressly for the occasion, echoed this same spirit of plenitude, but with a more stable melodic construction defined by thematic sections clear to our ears. We begin with long bow strokes exposing pure notes, while the sounds melt into each other timbrally. Midway through, a harmonic carpet supports dissonant melodic passages played above it, in an expressive, ominous half-tone character. Further on, in a tonal calm with a melancholy atmosphere, a recurring modal theme is expressed and repeated several times, creating a feeling of weightlessness and temporal elasticity. We fully understand the artistic choice to follow these two works, given their difference from the last piece of the concert and their strong aesthetic similarity. But, at a certain point in the sound treatment, one had the impression of hearing a kind of continuation of Martin Arnold’s piece in Linda Catlin Smith’s, despite a very different musical treatment and narrative language.

Keeping the listener’s senses alert is a challenge, and can be a double-edged sword in such an arrangement. The final work of the evening was Michael Oesterle’s String Quartet No. 4, and was, in terms of texture, the most varied. It thus balanced the dreamlike character of the works in the first half. After an introduction worthy of a 19th-century musical line, the central parts of the work explore different instrumental timbres, with extended playing techniques to create bursting sonorities, from string rubs to high notes. For example, in Oesterle’s quartet, the interaction between violinists Clemens Merkel and Alissa Cheung’s swift motives, over which energetic pizzicato interventions were brushed, or the thematic superimposition that initiates the work’s conclusion, which reintroduces the opening theme.

The highly focused acoustics of the MMR at McGill University meant that the sound didn’t travel far, but remained anchored. For the repertoire played, this hall was ideal, as it gave us a detailed appreciation of the interpretation of each of the instrumentalists, whose act of supporting these pieces with these long-developing musical lines demands sonic constancy and mastery of sound, as well as sensitive and precise listening to the various changes in dynamics. An attentiveness that echoes the friendly ties that bind the musicians together.

Contemporary

Semaine du Neuf | A Symphony and a World Premiere for Tim Brady

by Vitta Morales

The Chapelle Theatre hosted Tim Brady, his guitars, and his pedals on March 15th as part of the Semaine du Neuf festival. A last-minute change to the program would mean Brady would play the entirety of his forty-five or so minute piece, Symphony in 18 Parts , as well as the premiere of For Electric Guitar.

It should be said, for starters, that The Chapelle was a great choice of venue for this repertoire. The black box-style venue helped focus the audience’s attention squarely on Brady’s tools (his pedals, amps, and guitars) and soundscapes. Against a black background, little could distract a listener; this, coupled with good lighting, meant the vibes were set very appropriately for Brady’s electric inventions.

Concerning Brady’s Symphony in 18 Parts, I happened to have it more or less fresh in my ears as I consulted it a lot in preparation for the concert and the interviews we conducted in the lead up. As such, I think I could tell which movements were more rehearsed than others. Occasionally, when a passage of fast notes came up, the execution would come out slightly less clean than that of the recording. This was more discernible in the moments where distortion and overdrive were absent. I, of course, don’t really blame Brady who wasn’t originally planning to play the whole thing. At other points he performed aptly and impressively pulled off tricky sweep picking passages and hammer-on flurries; (especially in For Electric Guitar).

All told, an enjoyable afternoon of shredding, ethereal soundscapes, and shimmery tapping. In addition, it was noteworthy that Brady had a good sense of humour, a relaxed demeanour, and took the time to explain the sounds he was making before letting his Godin guitars do the talking. Clearly the mark of a composer and performer who has been doing this for decades.

photo : Paola Benzi