Labels // No Type

19 May 2006
By Ios Smolders in Earlabs (Netherlands), May 19, 2006

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“What defines the No Type label? I really don’t know. Improvisational noise, rhythmical technoid, drones, punkish, (classically structured) electronic music, jazz, phonography; it’s all there.”

This is one of the early netlabels, starting in 1998, and one that still exists because it has a steady drive. It’s therefore only natural that it should be one of the first of series of feature articles on netlabels. I had an e-mail chat with Aimé Dontigny, the current director at No Type.

I have monitored the releases of No Type right from the beginning. When I first started thinking about a goal for my own internet activities (I had been a webmaster for a corporate for a couple of years) the obvious thing was to do something with music. Somehow I ran into No Type.com and was immediately captured by the cool metropolitan feel of the site. What was most interesting, apart from the look and feel and the slight of hand texts combined with professional design was that you could actually download music from the site. And not just a few short samples but complete ‘albums’. That was something that I wanted as well. I contacted webhost David Turgeon who generously allowed me to upload files on the server that he was using as well. We have not been in touch for quite a few years, but I initiated new contact because of this article.

David Turgeon is described as follows on No Type (it’s quite inaptly called a biography): “Obfuscationist composer, strategist of sonic vagueness, and sometimes even performer (Camp, Ensemble Camp, Asyncdrone, Period Three, L’Île de béton…), David Turgeon, founder of the No Type label, is also known as a graphic designer, DJ (as part of the 10,000 Teenage Girl Posse) inventor of arcane programming languages and the author of a graphic novel, La muse récursive, to be published in 2006.” That really doesn’t tell very much about his activities. For one, I know that he also works for the renowned Canadian label empreintes DIGITALes.

What defines the No Type label? I really don’t know. Improvisational noise, rhythmical technoid, drones, punkish, (classically structured) electronic music, jazz, phonography; it’s all there. What combines it, is probably the edginess. It’s never easy, there is always excitement. Every release is something special. Where other labels sort of extrude a continuous stream of ambient techno dub produced with the same software again and again (Ableton Live… again…) 99% of the No Type releases hold a surprise. And if there is no music available that meets the standards, then there will be no release. Simple as that. Aimé Dontigny, current director: “The common denominator is: off the mark. We support: artists who are not at ease within their genres; musics that will never find a public with the exception of the adventurous and/or the snotty; ideas that are so revolutionary they must be encrypted in light-hearted idm or lo-fi folk; free improv that believes in freedom, not in idiom; noise that encompass the inaudible, the dramatic, the refined, the subtle; etc. etc. etc. And we also strongly support Beauty, Craftsmanship, Dedication, and Audacity.”

The No Type label started producing hardcopy releases as well, in 2002. To me, that was a very strange decision. Actually a jump back in time. But fortunately the online releases kept coming, as well. Dontigny explains: “We started releasing physical releases in order to better help our artists. Most of the time, mp3 albums don’t get you invited to festivals, don’t get you royalties, don’t get you print reviews, don’t get you a another record.”

I have seen the explosion of David’s energy wander off in 2004 and 2005. What about the future? Now that Aimé is director, what are his plans?

“First, restart a steady flow of mp3 releases, We’ll still see new names and some of our regular artists, but I will also try to give musicians from diverse experimental scenes outside of No Type an opportunity to release more personnal or perplexing works. So expect some surprises in the near future.”

“Also, we’ll re-focus our physical production. CD releases will be rarer, more unique, project-specific adventures (For exemple, like our 2003 Montréal Free 4-CD boxset of Montréal-based acoustic improv).”

“We’ll also be gradually leaving the CD format behind; expect some DVD-ROMs, multichannel DVD-Audio’s, and others. We will move beyond the ‘one medium collection’ and, in the short-term, even the mp3 releases will no longer be distinct from the other formats on our website. Of course, we’ll still release CDs when deamed appropriate by the artist and us, but, for the last 4 years, I think we lost too much energy in the ‘all-CD’ mentality.”

“Many artists have left No Type over the years (some temporarily, some others for good), and it’s a normal thing. Because we often support artists at the start of their careers, some have stopped making music after a while, and others have moved on to more successful careers on other labels.”

No doubt No Type will find new gems!

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1 June 2005
By Tobias C van Veen in e|i magazine #4 (USA), June 1, 2005

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“Nothing can be farther from the canon of academic experimentation than No Type’s unique, often grassroots and utterly leftfield roster.”

[…] Nothing can be farther from the canon of academic experimentation than No Type’s unique, often grassroots and utterly leftfield roster. While the label is well known for its online releases (including brilliant early work by Tomas Jirku), a slew of output as the label went to CD circa 2002 established its tenacity in the field of improvisation and composition. The admixture is found in Max Haiven and Jon Vaughn’s Front (2003), which is one of few forays in non-academic music to establish parameters of interpretation for the listener. This eruptive, somewhat spontaneous, rough, at times chaotic, other times meditabve disc is a disjointed narrative of the history of electronie music; or, the history of electronic music from the front of its cabal - its avant-garde. In live performance at Rien à voir in Montréal in 2003, Vaughn rolled down the stairs in a blanket and flashlight, then fied up an antique turntable with rope after playing slo-motion air guitar; meanwhile, Haiven scribbled on a script before the two did mixer-battle with noise and collage cut-ups, ending with an embarrassingly bad songwriter duet. It was, at once, both incredibly naïve and yet absolutely self-reflexively so. […]

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1 March 2004
By Laurent Catala in Octopus #27 (France), March 1, 2004

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L’année passée aura révélé le label montréalais No Type parmi les plus prometteurs des aiguilleurs post-électroniques actuels. Constitué à l’origine en tant que collectif artistique basé à Québec, No Type profite de l’apparition d’un nouveau support, le MP3, pour développer dès 1998 une structure de création musicale et de diffusion sur le web, véritable havre de liberté artistique pour des musiciens, essentiellement nord-américains, œuvrant aux marges des musiques concrète et bruitiste modernes. De liberté économique également puisqu’un accés gratuit au téléchargement de dizaines de productions est offert aux internautes. Rapidement, No Type développe en parallèle un label pour offrir un support CD/vinyl plus classique à des artistes confirmés ou en devenir, pour s’ouvrir également à des horizons musicaux plus variés. En 2003, on retrouve la tendance bruitiste de No Type sur des projets comme le Liberum Arbitrium de morceaux_de_machines ou Télépathie, la collaboration live de Diane Labrosse et d’Aimé Dontigny, des projets plus expérimentaux, allant des quêtes ambient crues de Tomas Jirku (Bleak, un projet datant de 1999) aux compositions tourbillonnantes de Max Haiven et Jon Vaughn ou aux paysages électroniques frénétiques des Italiens de Metaxu (dont Maurizio Martusciello). Loin de se confiner dans une image de marque, No Type sait s’ouvrir à des rythmes plus lascifs, du hip-hop downtempo de Headphone Science aux jeux d’échantillonnages groovy de Books On Tape, sans oublier la séance d’electronica old school d’Œuf Korreckt ou le funk minimal de Claudia Bonarelli. Des disques toujours aventureux que vient couronner le superbe All Your Dreams Are Meaningless de Coin Gutter. Porteur d’une musique concrète tortueuse mais raffinée, Coin Gutter construit d’étranges ellipses musicales, contours résonnants de drones obsédantes, de voix sensuelles et de matières brutes, voire parfois brutales et stridentes. Le tout fonctionne comme un étrange cinétisme hybride, capable de capter dans les mouvements mécaniques et fonctionnels de ses rouages des bribes de nature humaine, fragilisées et décalées comme les nappes étirées de chants et de piano jalonnant le titre Lullaby. De quoi très logiquement donner envie de se plonger dans le reste du catalogue du label.

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8 January 2004
By BR in Vital #406 (Netherlands), January 8, 2004

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“a very successful album by Metaxu, released by one of the most interesting and forward-thinking labels today, also one of my favourite labels in 2003 year, No Type.”

You probably know about Metaxu if you know about Z_E_L_L_E, because Maurizio Martusciello is a part of both of them: with Nicola Catalano they’re Z_E_L_L_E and with Filippo Paolini - Metaxu. Maurizio Martusciello is well known composer on the international electroacoustic scene. Filippo Paolini is also interested in electroacoustic music and improvisations… Rumors of War is their second album. I haven’t heard the previous one, but it’s quite amazing what they’ve done on this new album. The music is calm and peaceful, without any disturbing or too harsh moments (it’s also not an improvisation), but it’s still clearly and fully present. There’s an electronic and an acoustic side of the music, presented through the use of samplers, turntables, tapes and cds. The sound is placed in a wide atmospheric context, but there are certain moments when some concrete clicky sounds or some parts of the whole musical soundscape are pointed out on the surface. There’s another context on this album: the war. All track-titles are a name of a place and a certain date when some war culminated, like: 06091945 Hiroshima, 11092001 New York, 25031999 Belgrade… It should be mentioned though that the music it’s not suffocated by this context, the music can freely breathe. This is a very successful album by Metaxu, released by one of the most interesting and forward-thinking labels today, also one of my favourite labels in 2003 year, No Type.

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6 September 2003
By David Cantin in Le Devoir (Québec), September 6, 2003

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“… on prône chez No Type une liberté artistique foisonnante.”

Depuis deux ans, l’étiquette montréalaise No Type (affiliée au site Internet www.notype.com) affiche une croissance rapide et judicieuse. Avant la fin 2003, on parle déjà d’atteindre la quinzième parution dans le créneau assez vaste des musiques électroniques. Après un passage remarqué au festival Mutek au printemps, la nouvelle saison s’annonce d’ailleurs plus prometteuse que jamais. Cette semaine, l’album Bleak 1999 du Canadien Tomas Jirku arrive chez les disquaires au même moment que l’electronica délinquante et peu orthodoxe de Books on Tape.

Depuis les débuts du site, en 1998, on prône chez No Type une liberté artistique foisonnante. Toutefois, selon David Turgeon, le fondateur du label, il s’agit de bâtir un catalogue qui s’appuie sur une cohérence nécessaire. «On constate que deux lignes directrices s’imposent au fil des sorties. Il existe une certaine dualité entre les recherches assez expérimentales de Coin Gutter, par exemple, et une électronique IDM plus accessible comme celle de Headphone Science. On souhaite que ces choix se précisent encore davantage avec le temps.» Il faut peut-être savoir que No Type a aussi beaucoup contribué à l’éclosion d’artistes fort importants tels Tomas Jirku ou encore l’énigmatique Claudia Bonarelli. D’ailleurs, le click-house de Jirku est d’abord apparu sur le site de cette communauté musicale avant d’atterrir chez Alien8 (Substractif), Intr_version, Force Inc ou Onitor.

Comme l’indique son titre, Bleak 1999 date de 1999, alors que Jirku pratiquait un minimalisme sombre et mélodique. Proche de son travail sous le nom de The Viceroy, cet album déstabilise grâce à des atmosphères aussi étranges qu’irréelles.

«On a affaire à une réalisation plus crue et directe, commente Turgeon, sans détours ou traitements inutiles, qui surprend par sa vélocité singulière. À mon avis, cet album-concept a très bien vieilli même s’il se détache du travail actuel de Tomas [l’excellent Plusism avec sa comparse Robin Judge]. Même s’il a la chance de sortir des CD sur des étiquettes aussi prestigieuses que Force Inc. en Allemagne, Tomas est toujours resté en contact étroit avec No Type. On demeure donc très heureux de pouvoir enfin lancer Bleak 1999.» Après sa prestation, la semaine dernière à Montréal, avec The Unireverse et DJ Tobias, Jirku, désormais installé à Vancouver, entreprend une tournée de deux mois qui le mènera en Europe et au Japon.

Parallèlement à cette sortie, No Type récidive avec le deuxième album de l’Américain Todd Drootin (mieux connu sous le pseudonyme Books on Tape). Membre du duo noise morceaux_de_machines, Érick d’Orion parle de Sings the Blues comme d’un ensemble de pièces qui pourrait surprendre les gens qui ne s’intéressent pas habituellement à l’électronique. «Todd fait partie de cette mouvance d’artistes électroniques qui proviennent du rock indépendant. C’est frais et intense. Il s’amuse à mêler les rythmes d’une manière très inattendue. Il remercie d’ailleurs sur son album des artistes aussi différents que Sonic Youth, Timbaland, Sun Ra et Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry.» Le disque sortira même aux États-Unis chez Greyday, puis il sera possible de voir Books on Tape en spectacle au début novembre à Montréal avec la formation électro-punk française Métal Urbain.

Dans les projets à venir pour No Type, David Turgeon mentionne des nouveautés à venir de la part du duo inclassable Front, des Italiens de Metaxu, des très bruyants morceaux_de_machines et du glitch abstrait de 833-345, de même que son propre projet sous le nom de Camp. Pour en connaître davantage sur ce label imprévisible, on recommande de visiter le site www.notype.com, où différents albums sont disponibles en ligne.

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23 August 2003
By David Cantin in Le Devoir (Québec), August 23, 2003

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“… on ne peut tout simplement pas passer à côté du Bleak 1999 de Tomas Jirku…”

De l’électronique au rock expérimental, un portrait des sorties importantes et attendues

Encore cet automne, les musiques émergentes retiennent l’attention. La scène indépendante québécoise se démarque et revendique plus que jamais sa différence face à l’industrie dominante. À quoi peut-on s’attendre au cours des prochains mois? Quels seront les artistes ainsi que les albums à surveiller? De l’électronique au rock expérimental, on dresse un portrait des sorties importantes et attendues.

Chez No Type, on ne peut tout simplement pas passer à côté du Bleak 1999 de Tomas Jirku dans le genre IDM sombre et minimal. On a aussi hâte d’entendre l’électronique délinquante de Books on Tape, de même que les recherches plus pointues du duo Front (Jon Vaughn et Max Haiven).

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1 August 2003
By Schepper in Grooves #11 (USA), August 1, 2003

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“Electroacoustic sets were offered by the nuanced Coin Gutter and sampling artist Diane Labrosse and Aimé Dontigny, whose collaboration resulted in a tactile, improvisatory dialogue.”

As in previous years, the range of artists and genres represented at MUTEK 2003 was considerable. With over 70 artists from around the world appearing, one had the opportunity to see ‘marquee’ acts like Pole, Coil, and Richie Hawtin, as well as uncompromising artists like Pita, Kevin Drumm, and T. Raumschmiere. Unlike past MUTEKs, DJ sets were almost entirely absent at this year’s festival (although, for the record, past DJ sets had often been used to bridge the gaps between non-DJ performances). And, in comparison to last year’s ambitious potpourri of concerts, panel discussions, films, and design displays, the 2003 incarnation limited itself to concerts and panel discussions, with seven of the latter. In short, this year felt like a satisfying consolidation of past festivals’ strengths instead of grandiose risk-taking.

There were label showcases by Mego, No Type, and Minus/Plus 8, and sets of dubby microhouse from EGG (Julien Roy and Guillaume Coutu-Dumont), smooth minimal techhouse from Robin Judge and Jeff Milligan (aka Algorithm and Revolver label head), hard-hitting minimal techno by Ototo (Dimitri and Filip), Jeremy Caulfield, and Matthew Dear (aka False), the latter’s music evoking classic Chain Reaction stylings in its treble and bass detailing. Drone and ambient musics were presented, the most notable instance being the appearance by Thomas Köner and Asmus Tietchens (performing as Kontakt Der Jünglinge) who sculpted a slowly unfurling glacial soundscape. Other artists in this genre included Gary Joynes (aka Clinker), who built a singular drone-like piece of slowly metamorphosing waves, and [sic] (Jen Morris), who created ghostly dronescapes against a diptych backdrop of enigmatic photographs. Electroacoustic sets were offered by the nuanced Coin Gutter (Graeme Scott and Michael Hendrix) and sampling artist Diane Labrosse and Aimé Dontigny, whose collaboration resulted in a tactile, improvisatory dialogue. Set Fire to Flames’ member Christof Migone generated a 45-minute stream of body-generated scraping and whirring sounds accompanied by a video triptych that showed a gaping mouth at left, what appeared in the middle to be a tomato encased within a block of ice lodged within a salivating mouth, and, at right, the nighttime silhouette of a cityscape and bridge. There were infectious jazz-inflected funkhouse from Cobblestone Jazz and celebratory Latin techhouse by Mambotur. Chicago-based Telefon Tel Aviv (Joshua Eustis and Charles Cooper) presented a heavy microdub funk of chiming synths and massive bass drum and snare patterns. But, overall, the most memorable performances were turned in by veterans like Pole, Coil, Richie Hawtin, Monolake, and Señor Coconut.

In a Saturday afternoon performance that paid tribute to turntable pioneer Raymond Gervais, four turntable titans — Philip Jeck, Marina Rosenfeld, Martin Tétreault, and Martin Ng — provided an hypnotic set that included extended group collaboration as well as individual spotlights. Ostensibly, the proceedings were directed by Tétreault but his was certainly a benign dictatorship; if anything, the pieces often evolved with the others responding to Jeck’s looping grounds. They began by constructing a beautifully measured collage of scraping and scratching sounds amidst ghostly strains of melody. Immediately following this auspicious beginning, they created an equally effective second piece of whistling tones and bell-like percussion effects. While the concert predominantly featured the four playing together, there were brief duos, trios, and solos. Naturally, as is to be expected in an improvisatory setting, some tentative moments emerged when it seemed as if each of the four was waiting for someone to take the lead, but these registered as not unwelcome moments of brief stillness. Each took solo turns: Jeck, using two turntables, one for 12 inch lps and the other for 45s, drowned the sitar from Stoked in showers of surface noise; Rosenfeld’s solo offered a turntable adagio of sorts filled with treble glissandoes, looped crackling patterns, and phantom melodies; Tétreault’s initial musical quotation was gradually buried under huge slabs of static and hiss, his turn ending with furious scratching and a physical attack on his lps; finally, Ng’s solo impressed less as an exercise in musicality and more as one of physical athleticism. To close, the four collaborated upon a carefully sculpted elegiac piece. In sum, this session was engrossing and nuanced—a demonstration of sensitive listening and collaboration by its participants.

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8 July 2003
By Walt Miller in Splendid E-Zine (USA), July 8, 2003

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“… the No Type roster is the equivalent of titanium: strong and uncompromising.”

No Type is a Canadian label with a name that serves as its mantra. With a roster that ranges from improvisational jazz to noise to austere techno, their signings are not based on a particular sound or genre; the requisite seems to be quality, and it’s an A&R policy I sometimes wish all labels would follow, as financially suicidal as that may be. But No Type doesn’t worry about money, apparently. Formed in 1998, they’ve been giving away their music in strictly MP3 form for the last five years. Only recently have they decided to put their music out in the more traditional forms (CD, vinyl), which they do through a joint venture with www.electrocd.com.

If no one gets paid, how does No Type attract such great artists? Any one of the eleven on this label sampler could — and sometimes does — have a deal on a less obscure label. The choppy hip hop of Headphone Science bridges Autechre and Prefuse 73, a brilliant mash of melodic IDM effusion and urban milieu that would be at home on Chocolate Industries. Both Balai Mécanique and PO, two artists featured in the recent and heralded Montréal Freebox set, turn in chunks of free jazz rhapsody that Thirsty Ear would be advised to get their hands on. Claudia Bonarelli and Tomas Jirku, who have had releases on Mille Plateaux and Force Inc., respectively, are masters of minimal laptop techno, individually infusing gentle glitch into absorbing four-on-the-floor chillout. Vancouver’s Coin Gutter lays down five minutes of ambient penetration on Timewise, its otherworldly isolationism taking sharp swings at the aorta with dark droning turns and eerie female spoken word. And then there is A_dontigny & Diane Labrosse, a collaboration of two sound-sculpture heavyweights. Their track, t.s.f., lifted from their recent one-off Télépathie, is an amorphous treat of liquid sound and musique concrète, with each artist playing off of the other in expert, real time manipulation. And so on.

Judging from the music featured here, the No Type roster is the equivalent of titanium: strong and uncompromising. I’d venture to guess that just about any No Type would be worth your while, but it’s a little too early to etch that in stone. In the meantime, I think I’ll put a little trust in the keen senses of these Canadians and see where it takes me. Feel free to follow.

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1 June 2003
By Tobias C van Veen in Dusted Magazine (USA), June 1, 2003

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“No Type presented a label showcase that enraptured the crowd, sucking them into a vortex of noise and improv electronic performances.”

[…] Speaking of the No Type-ers… After what has been some public critique of Mutek, even on this list, No Type presented a label showcase at the Studio yesterday that enraptured the crowd, sucking them into a vortex of noise and improv electronic performances. […] No Type held attention despite the soundsystem’s relatively quiet range, with Samiland travelling a wealth of minimalist and dub territories, from sparse and deep broken beats to ambience, leading into the madness that was to follow: two sets of collaborative & improvised performances featuring A_Dontigny, first with the precise workings of veteran improvisational artist Diane Labrosse — on what appeared to be a theraemin device, at times; this performance was intricate, yet harsh in its metallic clamouring of sound-events. Then came morceaux_de_machines who, after an enthusiastic shout-out from Aimé, did not disappoint with his collaboration: vitriolic improvised noise from strange devices, high-pitched and jagged waves, from this real beast of a man, getting down and into it — morceaux grabbed the crowd and spun them round degree by degree. To end was Vancouver’s Coin Gutter, the enigmatic duo of Graeme and Emma carving out one of their more delicate and restrained sets, and, although improvised, moving through a taste of their sound, from experimental electroacoustic to noise, field recordings, media samples, and dark soundscapes. […]

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24 May 2003
By Jeremy Keens in Ampersand Etcetera #2003_f (Australia), May 24, 2003

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“This is a daring product for No Type to come out with…”

For once I have split the label reviews — there are two other No Types in here — because of the variety. Recap the story — web label (with host of wonderful free music) mentioned often times in &etc went ’real’ last year in conjunction with DIFFUSION i MéDIA (purveyors of the empreintes DIGITALes electroacoustic label, also seen across the issues, most recently the last). The first batch of releases were reviewed here (2002_3, 7 and 8), and now we see the next fruits.

The first release (number 1&2) was the double compilation ’Freest of Radicals’ that introduced us to some of the people featured on the ’web — but with new tracks. In an even more extensive production, here we are presented with four studio albums from improv groups representative of the new sound of Montréal, particularly centring on the Casa del Popolo, featuring a slightly overlapping membership. So into it.

First, this is improvised free jazz — furious, complex, intricate, dense and frenzied. To buy it you would have to be interested in the music — 220 minutes is not for the faint hearted. I find that I listen to it somewhat like the music — in bursts. And in the right mood — my first encounter with Po was fairly negative as I was a bit tense — not relaxing music. And finally it is also hard to describe — so these reviews will be more overviews rather than the usual detailed description. I will also work through in a non-sequential order on the basis of accessibility (to me).

The Trio is Chris Burns, Nicolas Caloia and John Heward on guitar, bass and drums, and that more traditional lineup delivers the most accessible album. While the instruments are all given fairly equal value in the mix, the guitar predominates, probably because you can do more with it in sonic terms — even more as we’ll see on the other albums. The first six tracks, titled ’Presence #X’ are relatively short, between 3 to 8 minutes, shift through relaxed twangy guitar and a solo in #1, through the faster #2 with some sliding-ping guitar, to the bass driven #3 in which the instruments gradually coalesce but remain tentative. Strange creaks twangs and scratches on #4 develops a western guitar and buzzy bass, while #5 opens with a melodic guitar/bass set, becoming scratchy and edgy before a short drum solo that presages a more extended solo in #6 with light bass and guitar behind out of which some bendy guitar builds. The final track is a more extended 20 minutes and sees the group work through moods which have been presented individually in the shorter pieces, building from a very soft scrape through some buzzing to a drum pushed noise guitar solo, dropping to a brief drum solo joined by restrained guitar and bass, then almost silence before another gradual development to a shimmeringly percussive climax then fading. The instrumentation is well balanced and the approach never gets too harsh on this disk which makes it the easiest listening — though none are easy.

Next to Belan Mecanique, the superest-group here — six members on sax, trombone, bass, keyboards, guitar and drums. This was my second choice — I initially had favourite, but this set is too diverse for favourites — because while the size of the group tends for a full explosive sound, the diversity of instrumentation provides a broad sound palette which offers the most variation. The group offer a mixture of three short pieces — basically 1 or 2 minute full on aural explosions, and four much longer pieces which allow them to explore their dynamic. The tracks tend to be precipitous rolling sound works where each member is driving away, separately but somehow providing some cohesion, easing back at times. The ear either picks out particular instruments or the engineers place people at different places in the mix at different times. ’Gypt Gore use the idea of action painting in one of their titles, but it works for this too. ’Les elephants n’oublient jamais’ for instance turns through fast honking sax with drums and sliding trombone added, keyboards whizz almost sci fi. A quieter period before the drifting vortex gets bigger and bigger, easing to allow the piano to be heard, then the trombone moves forward, gtr sax and xylophone into a restrained minimal section, piano sax and rim drums swinging in to a soft end. There is a mysterious mood throughout ’Rouages’ that builds to a choppy quacking centre before drifting back to a lighter touch via some descending guitar and trombone laughter. Some more ambient periods (in relative terms) through ’Brule-pourpoint’ emphasise the range that the group can work in while the final ’Racines’ has some nice sax swing and even beer house piano. While there is more democracy in this group, the wind instruments probably are more distinct in the wall of sound with the guitar playing a more supportive role. The keyboards — which include some electronica — provide interesting shading while the rhythm section keeps things moving. The dynamism seen here, and the variations, make this disk very re-approachable.

’Gypt Gore is primarily Philemon (sax) and Sam Shalabi (guitar) who were also in Balai. They carry the energy from that group, but the music is constrained by the instrumentation. The music is exciting — they are like a perpetual motion machine as the sax blows wildly and the guitar picks and plays short fast and furious. Luckily there are periods where the playing is slower or more restrained — the slow and sensuous opening to ’Flakes’ for example or ’Narcoma action painting’ which has the speed but seems somehow more relaxed. On a couple of tracks Thierry Amar (bass on Balai) joins and the playing becomes more relaxed: in ’Corridors tresses’ it adds a depth and the solos are gentler and then ’Blue soon’ has a slow bass entry and the sax and guitar are gentler and there is a sensuous sax solo — perhaps having the rhythm instrument gave the group a more grounded approach. An additional guitar (Andrew Dickson) appears on two tracks and again there seems more restraint on ’Flakes’ and there are drones and some nice duets in ’Navigation pacifique’. The full intensity and focus of this album are what make it less easily absorbed, but it is absorbing and dramatic.

Po present seven ’Provocative Operations’ that combine drums, two guitars (including prepared) and double bass in what was for me the most difficult album. It may be that the instruments have been most removed from their ’natural’ sounds here making it more demanding or the more oblique attacks. It opens with brief warming up before a bubbling machine of sound — scrapey guitar mumbles as the music drives on, and there appears to be some bowing as the music get quieter. In the second part scratching and squeaks with a slow percussion, sounds like violin and piano, building puttery, then ringing prepared guitar, strong bass stepping, a sort of static momentum of sound; lots of short notes with a Chinese feel; growls purrs and plitterplatter to a big climax. The third part has squeaks and growls (of wind?) that dialogue with twangy guitar into a dense web of notes (that sounds like some multitracking but the suggestion is these recordings mirror the live experience). An uncertain rhythm builds through the fourth, the maelstrom of sound including some sitar-guitar, and a rolling drum keeps a couple of guitars in chop. With the fifth piece Po show they can create atmospheric filmic moods, subtle with a Theremin or bowed-saw sound from the guitar. In six things hot up again, the band futzing along as a melodic guitar plays, then paralleled by a fast guitar in a duel/t, softening and rebuilding before some motor-bowed guitar. Finally another more contemplative piece, tinkling, strumming, a hollow percussion (prepared guitar), building a little but held back. This album takes the sounds further and generally brings the listener along with them, if the ears are open and clear.

This is a daring product for No Type to come out with — people who know the Montréal scene will be drawn to it, but in the wider world there may be more uncertainty. While I wouldn’t recommend this to everyone (in fact I wouldn’t for most things I review — we all have such different tastes and preferences) I would suggest that people who are interested in improvised music, tending to the jazz end, seriously consider it whether as an introduction to the form or an addition to their collection. I enjoyed these disks more than I thought I would — improv is an area I am developing my listening skills in. The variety between and within the performances means that there is much that will interest most people, and it offers a great opportunity (at a good price) to listen to some mainly intense music (though there is some light and shade which allow you to recover) which may stretch your expectations, and should definitely excite you.

(I don’t generally do this, but I looked on site and this set costs $40 (can) and had a 10% discount when I was there. As a single album costs $25 (can), this is great value.)

blogue@press-580 press@580
24 May 2003
By Jeremy Keens in Ampersand Etcetera #2003_f (Australia), May 24, 2003

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“The whole coheres and the parts are impressive.”

A Canadian duo, this is their first label release and contains two demos — the single long track and a second series of short pieces. The packaging (obliquely) and title appear, from their ’manifesto’, to relate to architectural and social dreams for a better world which always fail. ’I am fatigued by dreams of a better world. They are so many, they no longer inspire’. I read that before listening to the music, and was worried by the sense of ennui — and wondered how the sounds would reflect this.

Indulge me while I look at the second half first. There are seven tracks in about 30 minutes, and while they track across three years, they are almost an addendum to the opening track. ’Lullaby’ starts with slow backwards voice and tones and then swaps to a piano, almost straight, and soprano (singing a probably well known aria) that is very subtly and skilfully looped. Big crunchy tones, industrially ambient, with a voice entering later, ending woobly in ’Terminal’ before the brief ’No5’ where more big noises segue into tonal pulses. Something of a trend is emerging with ’Solitaire’ when pulsing industrial ambient with hypno-tape is overtaken by a building buzz, then a tapping over that before the voice loops at the end. The oldest piece on the disk is perhaps the most immediately striking (and makes it onto the sampler). A haunting ambience of scrapes tocs and washes is joined by a disturbed voice saying variants of "he’s gone". Small breath cuts create percussive effects, then we move to ticking scrapes and heavy thudder as a different voice talks about "she’s crying". ’Tlia3ml’ travels from a high scraping buzz that drops under soft tones but returns refreshed with some percussive, then another short compilation of rumbles choppedsamples ping and other noises rapidly alternating in ’Scission’. The final track is ’Southern yukon/northern bc (and perhaps parts of alaska)’ a slowly burning combination of soft buzz, crackles and binaural ticks that gains little tonalities, puttering, a deep dronal tone, cycling wash, pinging scratches, pulsing and clicks building to a very active state at 10 minutes, some voice, a brief dip and then a full noise assault for a minute which suddenly ends. Snap.

These tracks demonstrate a fair bit about Coin Gutter — they construct and assemble their pieces, more akin to the electroacoustic style; in that construction they shift the sound of a track quite a distance across its length; they are not averse to either noise or mellifluousness; their sound palette is broad and they focus on the details. As an album in its own right, this collection would not be uninteresting, but the wow-factor on the album comes during the 36 minutes of ’Lift with the knees’.

The first time I played/scanned this album, just to get an idea of it, the track turned me off, and it was only when I went into full listening did I get into it. The opening few minutes is a noise assault as a high buzz becomes white noises which has things in it but is quite in-there. It slips to one channel and gradually fades to a crackle, after which the piece moves into its more enfolding phase. It is a sequences of musical constructions that slide effortless into each other as an interlocking suite. Composed of all manner of sounds — tones, crackles, drips, phone tones, beats, piano, little noises, blurts and more it is varied and yet consistent. Echoes and shimmers, loops and gradual modulations, changes of pace and mood create a series of musical images, pictures at an exhibition that we are walking through, the aura of one touching onto the next and affecting our view as we bring it into focus. Some are small pictures while others are larger or more intricate. It would be difficult to try and describe each, some reflect the activity in the shorter pieces, though there is less voice in there. The whole coheres and the parts are impressive.

Either half of this release would be worth hearing and having, together they make a great impression. But definitely one where you need to listen to more than the opening 30 seconds.

The disk is part of an ’abstract’ (less dependent on beat?) series — Magali Babin was the first and another is slated for later in the year.

I was lucky enough to get a promo-sampler, and the material on that from the forthcoming albums suggests the next lot (Books On Tape and Bonarelli with 10" vinyl and a Headphone Science album) derive from the third arm (aside from improv) of intelligent and exciting ’techno’.

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18 May 2003
By Paul Bijlsma in Phosphor (Germany), May 18, 2003

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No Type was founded in 1998 to become a microcosm of artistic freedom for a rich diversity of musicians. Their sampler is proof of the development that took place since then. Headphone Science is the first to be featured on this sampler. This California based project by Dustin Craig offers a combination of catchy electronics and hip-hop vocals. The song is no less than 10 minutes long. Much shorter is the next contribution by Balai Mécanique. A sort of free-jazz noise track, which ends where PO starts. Again free improvisation with an experimental touch is the main ingredient. Books on Tape is next. The music by this formation, who already released a 10” entitled Hey typical!, is based upon rock, but with enough external influences, like a groovy drumbox rhythm, to keep the concept fresh. Coin Gutter, another artist that already released some material on No Type (All your dreams are meaningless), offers one of the highlights here. The excellent combination of a strange female vocal sample (saying “he’s gone”), dark, robust, ominous electronics and the ticking of an alarm clock will give the listener a positive unpleasant feeling. Claudia Bonarelli, known from the album Everything happens only a certain number of times (Mitek) offered another excellent contribution. Dense mechanical hypnotic rhythms, slightly reminding of Porter Ricks and GAS, have been put in an intelligent setting. Watch out for the upcoming 10” May ’68! Also dark is A_dontigny and Diane Labrosse’s contribution, in which a pounding beat and a rich variation of noises have been combined. Tomas Jirku, who will release the album Bleak 1999 in August, has been featured here with a minimal funky relaxed techno track. Magali Babin offers a beautiful dark organic track with sounds of scraping metal and a rhythm reminding of a train. If her album Chemin de fer is just like this, the CD might become immense popular in the industrial scene. Unfortunately Oeuf Korreckt does a little less, with synthetic synth tunes and a cheap rhythm. And morceaux_de_machines ends this compilation with a stressful noise piece. This No Type sampler provides the listener a good glimpse of the musical diversity this label has to offer.

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1 August 2002
in Voiceworks (Australia), August 1, 2002

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“There is an excitement in the sheer variety presented but further in the skill of execution…”

Canadian mp-based experimental imprint No Type release their first 2CD set and it’s truly an invigorating thing to behold. 36 tracks are crammed into the lush cardboard package each pushing the boundaries of their chosen form in clever and inventive ways. The dominating forces are those of noise and experimental electronica but pretty beats and even guitars are not ignored. There is an excitement in the sheer variety presented but further in the skill of execution - kalx’s Couf being a brilliant case in point. As tempting as it is to dismiss this challenging music as ‘not for everybody’ well why the hell not?

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15 July 2002
By Jean-François Perreault in Convergence #2:7 (Québec), July 15, 2002

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Après quatre ans d’expérimentation sur le Web, No Type, une étiquette de musique électlonique avant-gardiste qui se spécialise dans les MP3, sort de l’ombre. Porté à boût de bras par le jeune David Turgeon, le projet notype.com rassemble une communauté d’artistes hors normes et prolifiques qui viennent de publier leurs premiers disques compacts. C’est du solide.

Il y a quatre ans, bien avant que le tsunami des MP3 ne déferle sur le continent, David Turgeon, de Québec, faisait déjà partie de ceux qui croyaient en ce format, si bien qu’il fonde sur le Web notype.com, une étiquette virtuelle de disques 100% virtuels… De Montréal, où il vit maintenant, David Turgeon heberge les œuvres de 70 projets et artistes différents. Ceux-ci exposent leurs «albums», des pages Web artistiques qui étalent des sélections de chansons et de pièces, classées selon toutes sortes de concepts, allant de la propagande anti-McDonald aux essais graphiques, simples et complexes. Tout ça, sous format MP3 et téléchargeable gratuitement. «J’aime que nos univers se recoupent, dans ce côté minimaliste, un peu naïf.»

Quand vient le temps d’expliquer notype.com, David Turgeon parle d’un «repaire de magiciens du son réputés trop louches pour l’industrie du disque. No Type a contribué à lancer des musiciens tels que Tomas Jirku, Books On Tape, Dick Richards, Claudia Bonarelli et Headphone Science», dit-il. «Le site est une collectivité orsanisée, un espace où les artistes peuvent partager leurs créstions», poursuit David Turgeon. Grâce à la collaboration de DIFFUSION i MéDIA, pilier important de la communauté électroacoustique et expérimentale du Québec, le label No Type se lance dans l’impression de «vrais» disques en faisant son entrée dans le catalogue de DIFFUSION i MéDIA, qui produit également les disques de l’étiquette empreintes DIGITALes. Tout comme la plupart des disques produits et imprimés par cette dernière, les disques de No Type ont aussi droit au traitement «i MéDIA», qui se distingue avec ses pochettes artisanales, un peu fragiles, mais ingénieuses.

Contrairement à la plupart des artistes qui côtoient DIFFUSION i MéDIA, No Type, en disque comme en MP3, n’explore pas l’électroacoustique, mais plutôt l’électronique expérimentale, le «glitch», le «noise» et toutes autres expériences de laboratoire tripatives qui plaisent aux oreilles de David Turgeon. De Magali Babin (Chemin de fer) à Oeuf Korreckt (Podweek), en passant par le projet morceaux_de_machines (liberum arbitrium) et une compilation d’artistes internationaux et québécois (The Freest of Radicals), le jeune directeur artistique a jugé bon d’enregistrer ceux qu’il préfère: «c’est difficile de définir mes critères, je penche pour ceux qui démontrent un certain sérieux dans leur démarche et qui s’impliquent beaucoup», raconte-t-il. En fait, s’il est soucieux d’une chose, c’est de ne respecter aucune règle de genre, en évitant autant que possible de sombrer dans le nombrilisme.

La tribu de No Type est composée de musiciens de Montréal, Québec, Vancouver, Baltimore, Brooklyn, Los Angeles, San Francisco et Saskatoon! Comme pour n’importe quelle étiquette qui se respecte, David Turgeon se permet de faire une sélection des gens qu’il veut voir évoluer dans sa communauté, en leur donnant les «clés» du site. Le site est gratuit et ne rapporte pas d’argent aux artistes qui y participent. David Turgeon n’ouvre tout de même pas les vannes à n’importe qui.

David Turgeon ne s’assoit pas sur ses lauriers, depuis la publication de ses quatre premiers CD. Il planifie déjà le lancement de trois disques vinyles de 12 pouces, destinés aux DJs intéressés à faire tourner la musique des artistes Books On Tape, Headphone Science et Claudia Bonarelli dans leurs «sets», d’ici la fin de l’été. Un autre disque compact est également prévu pour le groupe de Baltimore, themoonstealingproject, en novembre. On a déjà hâte d’entendre la suite!

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1 June 2002
By Phillip Sherburne in The Wire #221 (UK), June 1, 2002

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“True to No Type’s range, there are plenty of sounds to captivate and confound…”

No Type, David Turgeon’s Montréal-based Net-only label with 67 ‘releases’ posted in the past four years, hits aluminium with The Freest of Radicals (IMNT 0201/02). True to No Type’s range, there are plenty of sounds to captivate and confound spread across the two platters, cleverly titled “bait disc” and “switch disc”. “Bait” presents the groovier stuff: distressed techno (Eucci’s Baribizon & Tape), Viratone Ballad’s drum & baste, and developmentally challenged hip-hop of Tomas Jirku’s I Think I’m In Love. There’s also beatless sound and noise, like Magali Babin’s Petit jardin, or 833-45’s blistering Spook, a prickly analogue critter in the vein of Pan Sonic. Napalm Jazz’s De la viande bio sticks to a relatively conventional IDM template - to exquisite effect. “Switch” offers a more understated approach, via drones, simmering whines and Ambient rumble from artists like Oeuf Korrekt, Diablamatomica, Chris Degiere and Alphacat. The common wisdom about the internet being the music industry’s great promotional device is overturned here: as a primer for notype.com, it’s a handy guide for navigating the label’s roster. Happy mousing.

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1 June 2002
By Ingvar Loco Nordin in Sonoloco Record Reviews (Sweden), June 1, 2002

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“The concept is wonderful, the result shining…”

Well, well, well… This is a grand start of something… the something being the commercial CD releases on the No Type label, formerly a strictly on-line, downloadable venture. The grand opening with a packed and crammed double CD compilation of serious sound hang-ups is interesting enough, featuring a good scope of “free radicals”…

The basis for this joyous event might be found in the introductory text that No Type offers the hungry reviewers: The Freest of Radicals, through its varied and challenging musical landscape, shatters the hidden face of the recording industry, which too often ignores unconventional artistic developments and hinders so called ‘difficult’ music.” Indeed the free-flowing under-current of the present has to find its river channel, and the force is so immense just below the surface of contemporeana that it always does, and in this case the river channel is the label No Type and its benevolent benefactor Jean-François Denis, who already set the ultimate lofty standard of electroacoustic creativity and diffusion through the legendary label empreintes DIGITALes and the distributor DIFFUSION i MéDIA.

I’ll give a few impressions of some of the many entries provided. They’re picked out randomly, and not pertaining to any artistic or other preferences, which means that those not mentioned may be as relevant and urgently in need of ears as the ones actually touched upon.

Le chien borgne is a pseudonym for Guillaume Théroux-Rancourt, who originates in Québec City. His piece, mysteriously titled rho < 1 (rho a > rho), has been honored as an opener of the whole set. He is said to work with analog ambient loops, and there is nothing here that contradicts that. A deep, repetitious - calm! - rumble shakes your loudspeakers, sort of in a breathing manner, on top of which more lightly pitched layers are applied as with a stroke of a sable’s hair brush, all in all transposing the here and now into a dreamy, soaring, thoughtful state of arms stretched out in a hovering gesture towards an elusive horizon. I like this a lot; it has a peculiar magic to it - and I like to float in this liquid atmosphere a long time.

James Schidlowsky’s Radio Collision sweeps in helicopterish and duck-worthy, dominating the scenery completely, having you flung yourself in the mountain-birch bushes, torn madly by the magnum-force winds from the hovering machine, spinning slowly around, keeping any intent secret, and all you can do is wait… The massive layer - or rather wall - of gray sound is compiled of many timbres, some in the sub-spaces, some on high, and eerie fragments of torn messages might be sensed inside this wild but harnessed energy. Dense!

Tomas Jirku’s I Think I’m In Love addresses totally different aspects of the audios, one might say. This is a funkster prankster hopscotch rendition of rhythm and glassy timbral percussion; very beautiful, and somehow… alien; alien like little spheres of undetermined properties bopping and popping in thin-shrilled erotic dances across yellow plains of distant worlds in forlorn galaxies beyond our present scientific perception. Jirku’s hectic, yet precise, humdrum plum-picking audio has a shine to it that pleases! It is for long, hypnotic stays, though, and this short sample just gives you an idea of the trances you might encounter on prolonged visits in these worlds.

Cal Crawford doesn’t waste any time surprising the listener with what at first appears to be static and interference; something is wrong with your equipment… but as it keeps up you realize that this is it; Crawford’s artistic idea! Of course this isn’t new. It has been done numerous times since the late 1940s, in various fashions, but since the preceding works on this CD have been - one way or another - modal, this sharp, diamond-like, pointillist approach cuts it’s way through your listening like a surgeon’s scalpel, and it hurts nicely! His piece is called An Objection That is Immaterial After the Fact. It’s like dashing through the celestial night at warp speed, encountering scattered star matter across the void, or like managing a subterranean water tank perforated by neutrino; in any case, it’s fast, sparse, sharp, scattered - and perhaps not so healthy… Towards the latter part of the piece things dense up, as a rippling prayer bead of free flowing thoughts and impressions rush on down, with a murmuring backdrop of serious gestures. Even later on events get loud, like a closely miked forest fire caught at the precise location of a fiery tree stump furnace… Very ingenious electroacoustics!

Julie Rousse lends her electroacoustic voice to the little ones hiding in the semi-conductors and the closed circuits, where they huddle up around their innermost thoughts and dreams, little Terry Rileys of streaming electron organs dappling with the clouds of 1950’s Dylan Thomases on the horizons of electric wiring in Rousse’s piece Une à six idées improvisées. So short is Julie Rousse’s bell-tingling elves-gleaning that I instantly long for more… So many secrets of the little ones of electricity in this piece; a work worthy of the secretive Hattifatteners of the Moomin Valley!

Magali Babin has recently issued her solo debut on No Type, and this bit - Petit jardin - can be found on that CD as well. It’s French, detailed, microscopic, tingling, trickling and seeping… as little elves and fairies hover in the shadows over at the garden pond - and it makes me recall some worlds by Finnish guru electroacoustician Kaija Saariaho. There is a fair amount of deep wood enchantment in Finnish culture, you bet, and this property shines and shivers inside Petit jardin. Masterly, how Babin builds this dense atmosphere with sparse means in but a few minutes!

Claudia Bonarelli lives in Sweden, but her name is Italian. They Use Us Back is a strangely recognizable artifact, i.e., it seems to be… There are a number of musical clichés in here, used on the razor’s edge between the morbid and the pretentious, but it’s done with a swagger and a jerkily moving hip across the silver screen. You get a beat, you get two… and some sarcastically (?) applied modal strokes of the hand and taps of the fingertips. It’s so soft it could well be used for toothpaste commercials…

Jon Vaughn’s Bouncing Ball (1 of 2) + Gravel Road is a frantic experience to which I’ve taken a definite liking. I’ll put it on a loud repeat while fixing coffee! It has beat and insanity and beautifully scraping, vibrating sounds on top of a dump truck of humor, which is exactly what creativity needs to be bearable… Keep on keeping on, Mr. Vaughn, we’re sitting tight over in Swedenland at Sonoloco, keeping you on loud repeats! This music twists and turns to get out of that straitjacket of existence, crawling along under barbed wire on muddy elbows, heading for a smashing oblivion! Wow!

I’ll halt here, even though I haven’t even gotten around to the second CD yet, but I’m sure these samples will serve the purpose of conveying my deep and sincere lust for this music, as well as my admiration at all this ingenuity and sonic liveliness! The concept is wonderful, the result shining, and we’ll just have to keep the good spirits up so that these kinds of ventures can bloom and flower up ahead!

blogue@press-505_1 press@505_1
1 June 2002
By François Couture in All-Music Guide (USA), June 1, 2002

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“The weirdest tracks often end up to be the best and discoveries await by the dozen.”

After three years of internet-only activity as a mp3 label, the Montréal-based No Type decided to take the plunge into the physical world of CD edition. Released in April 2002, The Freest of Radicals launched the catalog. This 2-CD compilation album offers quite a few mouthfuls: 36 tracks from 34 artists, for a total of 155 minutes - too much for most listeners to absorb in one session. Most of these artists are known only to the people that frequented the label’s website, but fame has nothing to do with quality and the label proves it once again. From sound art and experimental electronica up to IDM, minimal techno, techno-lounge and more melodic material, the album takes us on quite a wild ride (including an unexpected stop into post-rock with Kanovanik). Highlights are just too numerous to mention, especially since every listener will have his or her favorites. Let’s just drop a few names: Tomas Jirku, Magali Babin, Ja_dijiste, Books on Tape, Infoslut, and so many others. The quality of the selections compensate for the somewhat dizzying scope of styles covered. The weirdest tracks often end up to be the best and discoveries await by the dozen. The fact that No Type adopted the highly original package design of the electroacoustic label empreintes DIGITALes is icing on the cake. Its pretentious title notwithstanding, The Freest of Radicals offers a panoramic view of things to come in electronica.

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20 May 2002
By Mark Teppo in Earpollution (USA), May 20, 2002

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“… a two-CD set that encapsulates where No Type has been. Or… what sort of boundaries they don’t bother keeping to.”

It begins with a distant rumbling, like an earthmover firing up its large engines on the other side of the hill, the ground shaking slightly as the pistons start to move. This is Le Chien Borgne’s offering to the first No Type CD. Titled rho < 1 (rho a > rho), it drifts and rumbles, squeaks and threatens to have some rhythm, but never really becomes anything other than an environment. Welcome to the inscrutable sound of No Type.

Founded in October of 1998, No Type was a child of the Internet - its product only available as downloadable MP3 files - and it trafficked in the digital. Over the next half-decade, No Type created a venue for aspiring digital artists to link their sounds and music with an eager digitally-aware audience. They did glitch; they did click ’n cut; they did microwave; they did electroacoustic; they did minimal techno; they did experiments with radio transmissions bounced off satellites; they found more life in the little “1” and “0” than anyone thought there could be. And to celebrate: they’ve gone physical.

Teaming up with DIFFUSION i MéDIA, No Type is now releasing CDs - honest to goodness put it in your car stereo and think your car is about to fall about from the sounds that are coming out of your speakers kind of real discs. They’re starting you off with a two-CD set that encapsulates where No Type has been. Or, more appropriately, what sort of boundaries they don’t bother keeping to.

The Freest of Radicals offers 36 tracks across the two discs and has a little something for everyone. It starts with the beatless atmosphere of Le Chien Borgne, wanders into a chamber where Tomas Jirku demonstrates his minimal techno rhythms for you. Speech.fake explores the realm of micro-tonal glitch with their clinically titled An Objection That is Immaterial After the Fact. Julie Rousse offers a very 4’33" sort of vision with her Une à six idées improvisées. Viratone Ballad breaks in on Eucci with their track , ouet3c-warm, making me think for a minute and 48 seconds that something in either my spleen or my speakers has ruptured. Napalm Jazz and Backstreet Noise deliver two tracks that perfectly fit their names. Oeuf Korreckt finds a way to generate a near pop song from a piece of outdated machinery, further demonstrating that sound and music can be found anywhere. Dick Richards does Berlin style minimal dub though he thoroughly coats his tweaks and notes with yet another layer of water dub before stuttering everything back at you. Chris Degiere demonstrates how random and chaotic generative systems have more appeal than anything found on a recent Autechre album. Speaking of IDM, Headphone Science’s Without Paper Basics is as good as anything off Warp or Rephlex in the last year. Alphacat offers Waveporn which is a soundtrack to a six minute film of modest neu-electro machine dance porn.

It’s adventurous and experimental, and if you have the least curiosity as to what is being done in the realm of digital music, you should snap up this collection. Some of it makes me move, some of it make me flinch, some of it I can’t really hear over the sound of my computer or the traffic on the road outside, some of it makes me wonder if my stereo is about to explode and some of it makes me wonder what color the inside of a melody would have, but all of it makes me wonder how and why music can be heard. And, I think, that is all David Turgeon intended when he founded No Type back in 1998: to challenge our understanding of what is music and what is sound. He and the artists represented by The Freest of Radicals are not working to make pop songs, they are endeavoring to make you stop and consider what you hear.

And, for the love of static in your speakers, get yourself to their website. There are only 155 minutes of sound on these two discs. Hundreds more minutes await you at notype.com.

blogue@press-502_1 press@502_1
17 May 2002
By Tobias C van Veen in Capital Magazine (Canada), May 17, 2002

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“No Type is dedicated to the odd, the obtuse, and the wicked in the genres of microsound, noise, IDM… leaving the listener strangely comfortable in a sea of sound…”

One of the oldest MP3 labels on the Net takes a jump into CD production this month with the release of four new albums, including this double-CD compilation of No Type artists. David Turgeon’s No Type has remained an outsider label, showcasing in-between experimental styles bordering electronic music, noise, minimalism, and musique concrète. At its best, it is challenging, evocative, and stimulating; at is worst — which is rare — it is noisy and too easily pigeon-holed as noise or hardcore. However, this compilation, if a pigeon, ate its own shadow, leaving no hole for it to climb through.

Such a diverse amount of styles are represented — from Tomas Jirku’s subtle minimal groove I Think I’m In Love to the bass-tone work of Le Chien Borgne and the tonal-cuts of Julie Rousse’s Une à six idées improvisées — that I can only summarise them briefly in parantheses and short comments here. As a purchase — for don’t we all want practical reviews now? — the double-pack is well worth the effort, for its vast depth is breathtaking in its collection of artists and styles whose talents are undeniable. There are few compilations out there that touch upon so many issues in contemporary, we could say non-academic, experimental music. Like BiP-HoP, No Type is dedicated to the odd, the obtuse, and the wicked in the genres of microsound, noise, IDM — it’s really a milieu of all these catchwords, leaving the listener strangely comfortable in a sea of sound despite that fact the she is lost beyond compare, a veritable Alice in the hands of someone who has lost all language, all speech to tell musical directions: above all, Alice is in the land of No Type…

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10 May 2002
By Stefan Koopmanschap in Electronic Music World (Netherlands), May 10, 2002

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“… this compilation is something you must get if you like ambient, IDM, experimental rhythms or anything in between!”

I have bought and gotten quite a few ambient/idm compilations lately. And of all these compilations, amongst which was the excellent ambient.02@hyperreal, I must say that this disc, The Freest of Radicals, stands out a lot. First of all, for its wonderful packaging (folded thick paper holding the cd’s within folded, thick paper sleeve within yet another think paper sleeve; only the inner paper is not printed, but the rest contains beautiful artwork). And second, because of it’s awesome journey into that which is, as I like to think, the “real” ambient alongside a few well-done rhythmic tracks.

Now No Type has been a well-known netlabel for it’s MP3 releases (they’re nearing the 70th release now!) and now that they ventured into the world of real cd releases there is no turning back. This compilation, consisting of 36 tracks spread out over two cd’s, is very varied in bringing lots of different stuff together on one compilation. It also holds a certain consistency in feeling, and in quality.

I must say I honestly don’t really know what my own definition of “true” ambient is, but this compilation comes close. It can be very varying though, because when you listen to, for instance, Tomas Jirku and his I Think I’m In Love, you will hear a bit housey beats. It is presented in such a way that it isn’t really house though. And to be honest, this is one of my favorite tracks on the first disc.

It is followed by very minimal glitch-crackle-pop-high-frequency experimental music that reminds of, for instance, dead+hurt.

Other highlights of this disc of the compilation include the glitchy and slightly noisey sounds of Eucci, the minimal rhythms of Claudia Bonarelli, the microsounddesign-ish sounds that accompany the minimal rhythms of Jon Vaughn and the do make say think-ish guitar use of Kanovanik.

The second disc (aka switch disc) starts out way more rhythmic. Well, that is after the Soundtest by Kalx. Oeuf Korreckt and Sluts on Tape both bring rhythmic tracks, and in such a way that it is quite accessible, followed by the sometimes rhythmic but very weird and experimental Knife Takes Blood by Octopus Inc. Alphacat goes way out into the more house/rave type music, yet in a very special way. My personal favorite of the whole compilation though is track by Books on Tape, called Baile Del Muerte. This track is simply amazing. Weird, yet accessible. fast, yet laidback. Very good. Other highlights for this disc are the weird glitchness of Dick Richards, the lushness of Headphone Science, the droning tension of themoonstealingproject and the harsh rhythmic microsounds of n.kra.

All in all, this compilation is something you must get if you like ambient, idm, experimental rhythms or anything in between!

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25 April 2002
By Étienne Côté-Paluck in Voir (Québec), April 25, 2002

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“Des pièces créées sans facilité qui tentent de pousser les limites de la musique.”

Après quatre ans de production en MP3, l’étiquette de disques québécoise No Type (http://www.notype.com/) fait son entrée dans le format plus traditionnel du disque compact. Sa première carte de visite, The Freest of Radicals, laisse donc entendre sur deux disques la panoplie d’artistes électroniques expérimentaux du label. Cet éclectisme ne possède aucune ligne directrice et reflète ainsi parfaitement l’esprit de No Type, qui tente d’exploiter le côté démocratique du Web. Les pièces répétitives d’inspiration techno (Tomas Jirku) ou plus proches de la musique concrète (morceaux_de_machines) amènent plus souvent qu’autrement l’utilisation de la plus rationnelle des machines (l’ordinateur) vers la sensibilité du chaos. Des pièces créées sans facilité qui tentent de pousser les limites de la musique.

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19 April 2002
By Chris Twomey in Tandem News (Canada), April 19, 2002

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From the strange new plugged-in world where musicians don’t have to pay their dues in the club scene or deal with deceptive business types comes the debut CD compilation by the Canadian on-line “label” No Type. Since 1998 No Type has offered free MP3 downloads of work by new producers of electronic, post-rock and experimental sounds. Currently hosting 60 plus on-line “albums” and “EPs” with more scheduled to be posted, No Type is now venturing into the perilous world of distribution and the physical commerce of music products with this survey of 40 of their artists and a companion release by Montréal sound artist Magali Babin (who improvises with metallic objects on Chemin de fer, recorded by Radio-Canada). Rising stars amongst the No Type alumni are Torontonians Tomas Jirku and Dick Richards, who have had their minimal techno tracks signed to significant European labels, and here are among the more accessible contributors to this generous collection containing many difficult listening moments. Also among the artists featured are several from Montréal’s happening improvising and electronic scenes, and small label owners from the States including Books On Tape aka Todd Drootin, who makes production music for MTV spots.

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1 April 2002
By Rob Geary in Grooves (USA), April 1, 2002

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“With the incredible variety here, The Freest of Radicals accurately captures the joyous anarchy of the No Type label.”

Thirty-five tracks over two discs, housed in some oddly complex packaging: online label No Type has finally come ’round to the CD format, and it’s a doozy. The Freest of Radicals spans a dizzying scope of music, and the CDs are not organized by any principle, instead coming off like an artist album made by 30 or so parties. While a lot of these tracks are noisy and abrasive, that’s not to say there aren’t funkier moments here, like Oeuf Korrect’s Hooked on Phone Ethics. There are also some tracks of stunning beauty, such as the smartly arranged pairing of Diablatomica’s warmly ambient Hallways and Doors and Kalx’s Couf, two tracks written a year apart that sound like remixes separated at birth. With the incredible variety here, The Freest of Radicals accurately captures the joyous anarchy of the No Type label.

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1 April 2002
By AD in Record Camp (USA), April 1, 2002

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“You’re not looking at a label that has a quota to fill or a manifesto which each artist most follow, the name No Type itself seems to be the manifesto and instruction booklet.”

The people at No Type are more than just The Freest of Radicals, they’re extremists as well. Their latest 36 song double cd compilation defies classification. Each time you think you’ve got them nailed they throw you a curve.

The tracks range from transparent micro-sound to V/vm style sonic molestation to toe-tapping minimal house to quirky video-game-tronica and straight ahead IDM. You never know what to expect as each shift can be extremely different or extremely similar. While there are differences from track to track there are also differences between the two CD’s which at first prompt you to re-examine the first one you listened to to see if there was an apparent sequence you missed but there isn’t one. There is an obvious intent in this bumpy ride which really makes it engaging. You’re not looking at a label that has a quota to fill or a manifesto which each artist most follow, the name No Type itself seems to be the manifesto and instruction booklet. Originally and concurrently an MP3 label, No Type provides an outlet for exploration, sometimes the tracks sound like quick sketches and other times they sound carefully orchestrated but always liberal and full of spirit for exploration and invention. The common thread that runs through all tracks is in the rawness of the sounds and the DIY bedroom producer ethic that comes across in the “piss off if you don’t like it” appraoch to structure. No Type definitely gets props for going off and loving it.

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1 April 2002
By Say Vegin in Freestyle Grooves (Netherlands), April 1, 2002

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“Anyone with an open-minded view on music will definitely discover something they like on this compilation…”

No Type is a so called “online label,” they mainly focus on releasing music through their website in the form of free downloadable mp3 files. They help unknown artists to achieve some exposure among adventurous listeners across the globe. By avoiding manufacturing and distribution costs, which make up a substantial part of the total cost of CD’s and Vinyl, a lot of productions that would otherwise never be released get a chance without jeopoardizing the label to go bankrupt. This is particularly positive for music that’s too difficult or too strange to be played on radio or isn’t available at record stores.

After almost 4 years, No Type decided the time was right to finally put out some of their tracks in a tangible form. The outcome called The Freest of Radicals, is a double CD that offers a showcase of what they have achieved up till now, featuring 35 tracks and just as many artists. As the name No Type implies, the genre is of no importance, but I would say they are aiming at the broad spectrum of experimental electronic music.

All tracks reside in their own musical universe, exploring the boundaries and possibilities of it. This leads to odd improvisations, toying around with the weirdest sounds and an extensive variety of abstract compositions. Sometimes it’s spacey drones, acoustic post-rock or dubby microgrooves. Sometimes it’s organic ambient, full of clicks ’n cuts or aesthetic electronica. Sometimes it’s harsh and irritating noises with heavy beats, building up layers of distortion.

But above all, it’s a nice collection of unusual music of all sorts and forms, going from lovely tracks to almost unlistenable experiments. Anyone with an open-minded view on music will definitely discover something they like on this compilation.

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1 April 2002
By Gary Flanagan in Nightwaves #11 (Canada), April 1, 2002

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“… some of the most daring drones and audio atmospheres that you are likely to hear.”

Here we have a collection of experimental tunes from a variety of underground artists. Very suggestive and very minimal “art for the ear.” It is a two disc set of some of the most daring drones and audio atmospheres that you are likely to hear. Some of the “songs” go nowhere, but I think that may be in keeping with this “anti music” ethic. The track by Tomas Jirku almost borders on dance, but not quite. Meanwhile the track by Speech.Fake is much of nothing. There is a quirky track by Camp that utilizes fruityloops. Spook by 833-45 is a neatly dark track, and I liked the tracks by Oeuf Korreckt and Books on Tape. Waveporn by Alphacat is also pretty cool. Disc two of this set is more pedestrian, digestible and dancey than disc one.

Overall this is a weird and highly intellectual project (judging by the liner notes) and it is definitely not for everyone. Ultimately, the electronic overtones rule over the acoustic. This is daydream music for the day after a rave.

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19 March 2002
By Richard di Santo in Incursion Music Review (Canada), March 19, 2002

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“… a quick thumbnail guide to discovering some new and adventurous music.”

Perhaps it was inevitable that David Turgeon’s mp3 label No Type would make the transition to releasing CDs. After more than 3 years of mp3 publishing (the site was launched late 1998), they present their first compilation 2CD set. The Freest of Radicals presents 36 tracks featuring just as many artists. It features contributions by Le Chien Borgne, themoonstealingproject, Napalm Jazz, V.V., Sluts On Tape, Kalx, n.kra and a host of others, all of whom have been participants on No Type’s online programme at some point or another. With so many contributions, I couldn’t possibly do justice to each one, and the styles certainly vary. From the microsound of Tomas Jirku and Claudia Bonarelli to the abstract digital sculpting of speech.fake, or the post rock sensibilities of Kanovanik and Idmonster, the hyperbeats of Books On Tape, the chaotic distortions of martindx, the IDM-inspired rhythms of Headphone Science… there’s certainly no end to the breadth of styles contained in this release. The challenging and more abstract moments are matched by tracks with more prominent and sometimes even conventional rhythms, beats and even a few melodies thrown if for good measure. Surely, there’s a lot to digest here, almost too much for one release. Almost. Taken as a whole, the compilation sits a little heavily and uneasily with me; with so much to take in, and being thrown in so many different stylistic directions, it lacks some of the focus I would have liked to have seen in such a lengthy compilation. And yet I also have to admit that a number of strong contributions seems to make up for it. Perhaps The Freest of Radicals is better regarded as a “who’s who” of new, not-so-new and/or emerging talents from the No Type roster; a quick thumbnail guide to discovering some new and adventurous music.

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28 February 2002
By Jeremy Keens in Ampersand Etcetera #2002_3 (Australia), February 28, 2002

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“… No Type should need no introduction - it is (to my mind) the best web music label…”

DIFFUSION i MéDIA, the Canadian electroacoustic hub (there are a few reviews lurking in back issues around here), had an earlier intersection with a different cultural axis with the final Asphodel sombient set A Storm of Drones which included a disk of empreintes DIGITALes excerpts. Now they have entered into an agreement with No Type to release disks - this compilation begins an arrangement that will see CDs and 12" singles from No Type. And No Type should need no introduction - it is (to my mind) the best web music label and a credit to the vision of David Turgeon. He has released, on a regular basis, MP3 singles (which are really multitrack eps and minialbums, 65+ to date, following earlier excursions into longer albums) that offer an eclectic range of surprising and satisfying musics. The diversity is astonishing from glitch through ambient into beaty techno and various other forms of techno - you may not like it all, but it is a wonderful musical resource and education. And I am expecting the same from this 36 track double album (which when I read that it was coming guessed it would be a ‘best of’ [not in itself a bad thing], but it is all new). The structure of the set reflects the two broad contexts of No Type: of the two disks, Bait contains the glitchy ambient, while Switch has more rhythmic melodic techno. But neither exclusively. Now, a 36 track compilation is a terror to review - too much to try and describe each track, and unfair to pick favourites, I’ll go for the impressionistic response as we move through them.

Running through Bait: droning fuzzy electro with deep slow, moody; more droning, faster and active, building, buzzy, deep noises, talking; light bubbly driving electro, good mood change; minimal tones, crackles that build and fade, sudden eruptions; complex but musical collage - layering crackling with chimes, clockwork sounds, metal tones build, fade; minimal modulated loop - old synth?, jumpy echoed; music trying to get through a crackling bed, very separated cacklefuts swaps with big tones; spacious collage of chimes (some looped to make a rhythm), thumb piano, gong, clattering metal (Harpo Marx!) and scooped pebbles, opens the cd out again; tones and unstable drum machines, builds, a break of crackles and peeps, returns; loungey pulses of electricity rhythms with faint keyboard wisps, gentle; electroacoustic machines click buzz dits, bursty; demented jazz, live drums whistles and swirls, jumpy; a slow trip through blips, scratches and thuds; building slow ambient pulsing like a breathing beast, simple piano later; noisy crackling, harsh, balanced by a smooth beat; the numbers recordings trying to emerge (eventually succeeding) from under static and through a groovy, edged techno; off-key guitar with drums, slow and surprising, piano and strings; guitar processed and looped a la Zammuto; chattering noises alternate with massed whooshes with inner subtleties.

Now into Switch disc (or is it the other way around?): rising tones weave into madness providing a disorienting opening; complex groovy techno; shifting between slow sampley, computer game rhythms, slow rolling tones - nice variation; electroacoustic playing with kitchen and other loops; processed voices, moving between lighter and darker moods, varies a lot; looped dirty D’n’B, horns later; rhythm and movement through crackles distortion noise, hidden voices; another electroacoustic playful piece - walking, accordion, pulses, bells, piano; nice breezy rapid clicks twops perky melody; choppy D’n’B; segues into clicky surface with lovely stuff going on behind; into smooth loungey, slow scrapey squiggles; mysterious and complex forward and backward tones, crackles, grows; rapid clicky cd jumps, slow piano over; tonal and complex rhythms combined; dirty noises and driving techno; edgy crackling with a distant melody to take us out.

A well constructed and nicely balanced set - there are many ‘names’ from the No Type roster, but also other voices adding breadth and interest for those familiar with the label. Generosity in positions means most tracks are short - few get beyond 6 minutes - but with enough time to display their sounds. Generous for the buyer too, as it is single-CD priced: go out and buy it.

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14 February 2002
By Nicolas Houle in Voir (Québec), February 14, 2002

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The Freest of Radicals témoigne bien de la qualité et de l’inventivité des artistes de No Type.”

Actif depuis trois ans dans le milieu de la musique électronique expérimentale, le label virtuel No Type a publié plus de 70 albums en format MP3. Pour sa quatrième année d’existence, l’étiquette se lance dans les parutions CD avec The Freest of Radicals, une compilation double comptant près de 40 titres. Du noise au jazz, de l’ambient à la house, l’album offre une série d’univers musicaux singuliers, peuplés de boucles analogiques et de programmations atypiques parfois exigeantes, mais toujours dignes d’intérêt. Véritable historique sonore de l’étiquette, The Freest of Radicals témoigne bien de la qualité et de l’inventivité des artistes de No Type, qu’ils soient québécois (Magali Babin, Napalm Jazz) ou étrangers (Tomas Jirku, Chris Degiere).

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15 December 2001
By Simon-Pierre Beaudet in Voce del Popolo #01:02 (Québec), December 15, 2001

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“Nous sommes sur No Type parce que nous croyons à la liberté de créer.”

Loisirs cacophoniques. Sons apaisants pour bébés mutants. Musique de chambre à gravité zéro. Le non-sens comme divertissement domestique. L’inertie comme motif compositionnel. Électro-sculptures stoïques. Le genre de dub contre lequel vos parents vous ont prévenus.

Voilà les noms de quelques fichiers que vous pouvez télécharger sur No Type, un site web qui publie gratuitement de la musique électronique. Mais qui sont-ils? Et que veulent-ils nous dire?

Si on tente de concevoir ce qu’est actuellement la musique en format MP3, on songe immédiatement à Napster et ses suivants, à MP3.com, à ces artistes qui offrent «généreusement» - presque avec défi - des pièces à télécharger avec l’espoir, bien sûr, que le brave consommateur courra chez son disquaire se procurer le dernier opus. Pourtant, on est encore loin de l’utopie d’une musique enfin libérée des contingences de l’industrie, que tout le monde annonce sans qu’on puisse voir là un mouvement de masse. Ils sont peu à avoir entrevu dans les technologies modernes la possibilité de publier à peu de frais, et sans intermédiaires, leurs créations. Ils sont encore moins nombreux à l’avoir fait. No Type est de ceux-là.

Basé à Montréal, le site publie essentiellement de la musique électronique et contemporaine depuis trois ans, ce qui en fait certainement un des pionniers dans le domaine. Sporadiquement, de nouveaux projets et de nouveaux artistes sont présentés, et quelques-uns font même des incursions dans ce monde abusivement appelé «réel» en publiant des disques (consultez la section «no shop» du site) ou en se commettant en spectacle. À l’excellence de la musique répond l’excellence de la conception graphique, laquelle est vraiment exceptionnelle. Le tout en fait un espace vraiment unique sur le web.

No Type fait la part belle aux artistes québécois. Mentionnons David Turgeon (Camp), Philémon Girouard et Alex Warren (Potlatch W), Aimé Dontigny et Érick d’Orion (morceaux_de_machines, Napalm Jazz), Frédérick Blouin (Oeuf Korrect, Surfing Secrets), James Schidlowsky & Magali Babin. À cela ajoutons des gens venus d’autres horizons, ayant signé précédemment sur d’autres étiquettes, comme Le chien borgne (Guillaume Théroux-Rancourt, de l’étiquette de Québec Alterflow), Sam Shalabi (Alien8) et Martin Tétreault (Ambiances Magnétiques). Et bien sûr des Américaines (Alphacat, Lyric Morgan O’Connor), et plus récemment une Suédoise (Claudia Bonarelli) et un Espagnol (Kanito).

Nous avons eu en entrevue (électronique, il va sans dire) David Turgeon, musicien, fondateur, graphiste et directeur spirituel de No Type, ainsi qu’Aimé Dontigny, également musicien, directeur de la série «Sine Fiction», projet musical en cours sur No Type.

Simon-Pierre Beaudet: Quand a commencé No Type, et pourquoi?

David Turgeon: La version officielle - DONC LA SEULE VRAIE!!! - est que No Type est apparu sur Internet en octobre 1998. Nous étions pauvres, jeunes et idéalistes, alors nous avons décidé de publier notre musique sur le web en MP3 plutôt que de perdre de l’argent à produire des disques, en se disant que ça pourrait payer plus tard. Aujourd’hui, nous sommes toujours aussi pauvres, moins jeunes et peut-être encore plus radicaux dans notre approche. Tous les autres fournisseurs de MP3 cherchent à faire de l’argent, alors que nous n’avons plus cette illusion. Le MP3, tout comme le OGG, un format alternatif en code ouvert, est un format jetable et temporaire, comme la radio. Par contre, les retombées indirectes existent: crédibilité accrue, même des contrats de disques dans certains cas (Tomas Jirku, Dick Richards).

Aimé Dontigny: Les bénéfices pour les musiciens sont même énormes: outre la liberté de créer, il y a la chance d’enfin rejoindre un public attentif et de partager avec d’autres artistes ayant des visées communes. Il y a beaucoup d’échanges dans No Type; remix, collaborations, spectacles, contacts, etc. Nous ne sommes pas limités par notre groupe. Il ne tient qu’à nous, aussi, de faire fructifier No Type (par exemple, plusieurs américains organisent des shows sous la bannière No Type; les artistes de No Type peuvent aussi accepter de nouveaux musiciens eux-mêmes). La formule permet également d’atteindre un certain degré d’achèvement pour les projets. Les albums sur No Type sont de vrais albums mais sans la contrainte physique de la production: ils sont toutefois publics! Pour des subventions, des séminaires ou des festivals, c’est très important de pouvoir démontrer une pré-existence. Très peu sont ouverts aux musiciens «vierges» (non-reconnus par leurs pairs, pour utiliser la langue subventionnaire). No Type offre et donne cette reconnaissance.

Simon-Pierre Beaudet: Combien d’artistes se trouvent sur No Type, et combien de projets avez-vous publiés?

David Turgeon: Nous représentons plus d’une quarantaine d’artistes, parfois sous des noms divers, et avons publié plus de soixante-dix albums, dont la grande majorité sont toujours disponibles, certains ayant été effacés pour diverses raisons. C’est en fait assez peu, compte tenu de la liberté de moyens dont nous disposons. Contrairement à d’autres sites, nous choisissons les artistes avec lesquels nous travaillons, ce qui assure une certaine qualité dans les œuvres et l’interprétation, mais limite en même temps la quantité de matériel que nous pouvons publier.

Simon-Pierre Beaudet: Votre approche radicale semble vous exclure de certains réseaux. Pouvez expliquer votre refus de collaborer avec ceux-ci?

Aimé Dontigny: Il faut d’abord mentionner qu’il s’agit d’un vrai label, pas d’un fourre-tout du genre MP3.com. David est le directeur artistique et le catalogue représente une certaine vision des nouvelles musiques électroniques. De plus, il s’agit d’une utilisation non-commerciale du web. Ce n’est pas un start-up. Ça ne recueille pas d’informations sur les visiteurs. Il n’y a pas de pubs. Et ce n’est pas temporairement ainsi pour attirer d’éventuels investisseurs qui vont changer la donne après. C’est tout.

David Turgeon: Et, de fait, la réalité est que personne ne veut collaborer avec nous, parce que nous n’offrons aucun revenu et aucune publicité. Par exemple, un site au nom de «epitonic» m’a contacté il y a un an; ils espéraient faire une sorte de collaboration. Je leur ai expliqué que nous étions des mélomanes aguerris, plus intéressés à travailler sur notre musique qu’à faire un succès sur la scène des «point-com», mais qu’il serait quand même intéressant de développer un partenariat, et ils ne m’ont jamais rappelé. Depuis, ils servent de point de promotion pour diverses étiquettes indépendantes. Ils seront probablement rachetés d’ici quelques mois, si ce n’est déjà fait. Même chose quand le président de MP3.com m’a appelé, lors de l’ouverture du site. Sous le couvert d’une interview, il voulait surtout savoir si nous pensions tout transférer notre musique sur son site plutôt que de la publier nous-mêmes (ce qui est bien sûr suicidaire). Évidemment, il n’a jamais parlé de nous, et puis maintenant il change les couches de Jean-Marie Messier. Je pourrais aussi parler de la fois où l’ADISQ m’a invité à être panéliste lors de la rencontre annuelle de l’industrie, mais bon, tu vois où je veux en venir.

Aimé Dontigny: L’industrie est tellement stratifiée (les musiciens veulent plaire aux producteurs, qui veulent plaire aux radios, qui veulent plaire aux publicitaires, qui paient les radios, qui donnent de l’argent aux organismes de gestion de droits d’auteurs, qui paient les musiciens qui veulent d’autres chèques, alors tentent de plaire aux producteurs, etc.) qu’il n’y a aucune alternative pour les musiques différentes. No Type est une alternative ANARCHISTE. Nous sommes un groupe LIBRE: aucun contrat, aucun frais, aucune promotion. Nous sommes sur No Type parce que nous croyons à la liberté de créer. Notre musique est gratuite, disponible en tout temps et sans aucun compromis artistique.

Simon-Pierre Beaudet: Quelles conceptions avez-vous de la musique électronique, et comment vous situez-vous par rapport à l’héritage musical du XXe siècle?

David Turgeon: Nous sommes une créature du présent. Si on parle de musique, les courants que nous choisissons sont très contemporains: musique électronique à saveur «techno», recherche sonore post-moderne, etc. Évidemment, on peut faire des liens. Entre autres avec John Cage qui croyait que tous les sons pouvaient être de la musique. Bien sûr, il ne faut pas prendre ceci au pied de la lettre; nous y répondons en offrant de la musique que les éditeurs de disques refusent. Cela amène nécessairement une dimension politique, mais nous contribuons aussi à la diversité musicale.

Il y a plusieurs écoles de pensée en musique électronique. L’une d’elles est la position «classique», qui trouve un écho dans la musique électroacoustique contemporaine. Historiquement, la musique électroacoustique est une sorte de réconciliation entre les possibilités sonores de la musique électronique pré-1970 (Stockhausen, par exemple, mais aussi Kraftwerk) et les nouvelles formes de composition apportées par la musique concrète de Pierre Schaeffer et consorts en 1950. Plus récemment, il y a l’école «techno» (au sens large), qui se réclame davantage de l’héritage de Kraftwerk, et qui fut modelée en grande partie par la technique: le «beatbox», par exemple, a influencé le rythme régulier et la répétition. Aussi, il s’agit souvent d’une musique qui se veut «utilitaire» au sens où la musique sert à faire danser les gens (elle a une «utilité»).

De ces deux écoles de pensée ont surgi divers courants qu’on pourrait appeler hybrides. C’est surtout là que nous nous situons, bien que ces micro-écoles hybrides ne s’entendent pas nécessairement entre elles. Nous essayons de concilier ces positions qui n’ont, à mon avis, aucune raison d’être contradictoires. Il existe par exemple beaucoup de musiques électroniques d’inspiration «techno» qui expérimentent avec le son et la structure; ceci a donné le IDM (Autechre, Aphex Twin). D’autre part, il y a des courants d’origine plus académique, de la musique dite «de recherche», qui s’inspire de courants plus populaires et utilitaires; ce qui donne le «microsound» (Pita, Kim Cascone). Nous puisons notre musique un peu partout; alors ce foisonnement d’idées et de mélanges nous est bénéfique.

Aimé Dontigny: Toutes les facettes de la musique nouvelle - ou actuelle, terme que j’aime bien car il regroupe l’innovation de l’instrumental à l’électronique - sont représentées et il faut vraiment préciser que toutes ces musiques sont atypiques. Même dans les genres en vigueur dans l’électronique populaire, les artistes de No Type profitent de la liberté complète pour s’affranchir de ces étiquettes. On y trouve peut-être du techno, mais jamais le techno qu’on entend dans les raves (transe, goa, etc.) Il y a peut-être de l’électroacoustique plus formelle, mais jamais de l’académisme réducteur.

David Turgeon: Étrangement, malgré le fait que nous soyons constamment «mis à part» dans l’univers de la musique contemporaine «populaire» - plus spécifiquement la musique électronique -, les électroacousticiens ont été les premiers à nous reconnaître comme des pairs. C’est bien sûr ironique puisque notre musique n’entre que très rarement dans le créneau électroacoustique classique. Pour les autres, il semble que nous soyons trop éclectiques, pas assez centrés sur un genre en particulier, donc peut-être trop difficiles à comprendre. Mais à quoi s’attendre d’autre d’un site qui s’appelle «no type»?

Site internet: www.notype.com

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8 December 2001
By David Cantin in Le Devoir (Québec), December 8, 2001

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“No Type s’associe à l’étiquette de musique électroacoustique empreintes DIGITALes afin de mieux diffuser le travail “de nouveaux créateurs ignorés des circuits habituels”.”

Quatre ans après son éclosion, voilà que le site montréalais de mp3 No Type s’associe à l’étiquette de musique électroacoustique empreintes DIGITALes afin de mieux diffuser le travail «de nouveaux créateurs ignorés des circuits habituels».

Toujours en marge de l’industrie, la première réalisation est une double compilation qui regroupe 35 œuvres originales par autant d’artistes de No Type. De plus, du 13 au 15 décembre, c’est ce premier site de mp3 gratuit au Canada qui prendra également en charge le volet post rien (ainsi nommé parce qu’il succède [aux événements de la série de concerts électroacoustiques] Rien à voir (10)) à la Casa del Popolo. À Québec, le jeudi 13 décembre, la soirée Machines: abstractions sonores électroniques s’installera pour une incursion initiale dans le studio d’essai de Méduse, en collaboration avec Avatar et Alterflow.

Pour Érick d’Orion, membre des formations de Québec morceaux_de_machines et Napalm Jazz, The Freest of Radicals est en quelque sorte un best-of des 70 albums pour la plupart encore disponibles gratuitement sur No Type. En tout, on compte pas moins d’une quarantaine d’artistes provenant du Québec, du Canada, des États-Unis, de l’Espagne, de la Suède et de l’Angleterre. «Au début, David Turgeon, le fondateur de No Type, souhaitait rendre accessible au plus grand nombre une musique dite trop bizarre, trop bruyante ou encore pas assez vendable. Trois règles deviennent alors essentielles: la liberté créatrice, le musicien demeure en contrôle de tout et il n’y a pas d’argent qui entre, juste de l’argent qui sort.» Jusqu’en janvier 1999, les premiers à se joindre au collectif seront surtout des gens de Québec, puis la rumeur commencera à courir un peu partout. Désormais chez Alien8, le Torontois de réputation internationale Tomas Jirku s’est d’abord fait connaître grâce à No Type.

Une occasion rare

En ce qui concerne d’Orion, toujours à Québec, ses projets se rapprochent davantage de l’esprit du free-jazz, mais en utilisant les machines plutôt que les instruments traditionnels. Une facette parmi tant d’autres sur ce label. Il parle plus précisément de «free-bruit» dans le cas de Napalm Jazz alors que morceaux_de_machines expérimente plutôt du côté de la «noise-pop». «On ne cherche à effrayer personne puisqu’il existe un véritable public pour ce genre d’approche radicale. Il faut aussi savoir que seulement 30% de la production de No Type touche essentiellement à la «noise». La compilation double a l’avantage de présenter aussi les autres volets d’une musique dite de recherche.» Bien qu’Érick d’Orion se soit produit à maintes reprises à Montréal, il veut désormais installer un créneau pour ces diverses tendances de la musique électronique dans la Vieille Capitale. Après la soirée du 13 décembre au studio d’essai de Méduse, il prévoit une suite à cet événement lors du prochain Mois Multi. Le musicien insiste par contre sur quelques détails: «Il ne faut pas que les spectateurs s’attendent à entendre de la techno comme dans les raves ou un académisme purement réducteur. Cela n’a rien à voir avec ce que No Type préconise comme idée des musiques différentes. On veut proposer une véritable alternative.»

Lors de ce spectacle-lancement, des noms comme Monobor Télécom, de la France, Arborisation Terminale, du collectif Alterflow, E3F1, de Montréal, et morceaux_de_machines se produiront sur scène. Une occasion, plutôt rare à Québec, de s’initier à ces nouvelles musiques électroniques. À suivre dans un futur rapproché.

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No Type
Québec

Founded by David Turgeon in October 1998, No Type is an international collective of young electronic artists. Available free of charge, our online albums offer a wide variety of genres, methods, and strategies guaranteed to quench the most voracious thirst for innovation.