Erick D’Orion has been pursuing an avant-garde/experimental musical career for about thirty years. His universe is that of noise music, sound sculpture, avant-rock, and the ecumenical intersection of these trends and more. In 2025, the Montrealer participated in a creation residency at the Centre d’expérimentation musicale (CEM) located in Saguenay (Chicoutimi borough). Outside of Montreal, the CEM is perhaps the most important venue for avant-garde music in Quebec.
D’Orion was able to benefit from the participation of musicians from the region, whether they are still based there or not. My ghosts refer to the echoes and more or less conscious influences that inhabit us. This is the case for musicians who are constantly inhabited by learnings, stylistic influences, etc.
D’Orion has therefore constructed a journey of three compositions in which the usual tropes of his music intertwine viscerally, but also the personal characteristics of the musicians with him. These “spectres” appear here and there in the music, from Nicolas Gobeil’s variegated trumpet to Michel Potiron’s sparkling guitar.
While Spectres is a long but exciting discussion between various visions of avant-garde music, harnessing avant-rock, noise drone, and cinematic ambiance, Ectoplasme offers an intense Tarantino-esque ride set to a surf/metal pulse, topped with a trumpet inspired by Dick Dale (Misirlou). A condensed burst of energy, about ten minutes long, that is truly exciting.
The last track is titled Traces and surprises right from the start with a groove pulse that suggests something vaguely commercial. But do not worry. The changes in colours, styles (or ‘’traces’’) follow one another and destroy this first impression, although the final result of this composition of about 17 minutes is remarkably accessible, for those who are willing to be carried away by the intuitive flood that results from it.
A passage of lyrical Prog rock, which could have been written for Harmonium (Quebec’s most eminent Prog band), is followed by a heavily supported rock attack, on which the lyrical trumpet drapes like an additional angelic soul. A kind of ambient drone, strangely melodic and filled with synthetic undulations, then brings a striking but beneficially complementary contrast, before the last two minutes launch into a wild refrain made up of synth ostinatos reminiscent of Super Mario, bouncy and repetitive guitar, occasional dialectical trumpet, and insistent percussion.
Mes fantômes (my ghosts) is an avant-rock/contemporary/musique actuelle album for all those who think they don’t like it.
The album launch will take place tonight, October 1st, at La Chapelle Scènes contemporaines on the occasion of the Quebec Musiques Parallèles festival.
Stéphane Beaulieu electric bass
Marie-Pierre Brasset synthesisers Moog Grandmother & Moog Matriarch
Émile Boucher Cloutier percussion
Réal Gagnon drums
Nicolas Gobeil trumpet
Michel Potiron electric guitar
Érick d’Orion direction, composition, and electronics
