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Radio // Délires de plaisirs
Délires de plaisirs
Entropic Twilights: Twilight’s Nomadic Desire (1999-2000), 22m02s [excerpt]
Track 1 from Délires de plaisirs
CD: empreintes DIGITALes (2005) IMED 0577
  • piste@imed_0577-1
    • 1
      Entropic Twilights (1997-2002, 03-04), 49m02s
      • Twilight’s Nomadic Desire (1999-2000)
      • Twilight’s Sleep (1999-2000)
      • Twilight’s Ritual Incantations (1998-99)
      • Commission: ACREQ, NAISA, Réseaux des arts médiatiques, with support from the CCA
      • Premiere: April 29, 2005, Borderline Festival, Palladium (Malmö, Sweden)

      To Mare

      Entropic Twilights is inspired by the concept of twilight, a time between states. I use it as a metaphor for our own time, situated between millennia. The constantly changing density, tempos and moods of the first part, Twilight’s Nomadic Desire, suggest a state of impatience or anticipation. Twilight’s Sleep, a medical term used to describe the morphine-induced semi-consciousness experienced by birthing mothers, evokes a slow and dreamlike state of transformation. Opening on a metric modulation to a fast tempo, the final section, Twilight’s Ritual Incantations, surges forward towards the new. The closing ritard brings the piece back to a calm, reflective state.

      Although there was great anxiety about the passing of the millennnium, I chose to compose a work which is joyful and optimistic. It is a response the the philosophical perception that the postmodern world is drained of substance, meaning, value and difference. Resembling a state of entropy, everything is flatttened in the postmodern world. (Imagine the typical music listener’s library: a shelf loaded with CDs spanning centuries of music history.) This is the basis for Entropic Twilights: engaging popular and formal writing techniques in an entropic manner — as equal resources.

      Entropic Twilights jumbles together commonplace musical sounds (recorded individually in my studio) such as distorted guitars; drum kits; multiple choirs of voices; large orchestras of brass, wind, reed and string instruments; percussion instruments from around the world; Gamelan orchestra instruments; as well as tams, saucepans, cooking pots, metal poles, metal plates, and wheel rims. for this piece I make them sing in sweet, sometimes ironic tonal melodies, dissonant textures, jazz grooves, hard-driving rock beats, world rhythms and complex polyrhyms. Combined through excessive multi-tracking, these materials implode from within and take on new identities beyond their worn out historical meanings.

       

      Entropic Twilights was composed in 1997-98 and produced in the composer’s studio in 1998-99 (Twilight’s Ritual Incantations) and 1999-2000 (Twilight’s Nomadic Desire; Twilight’s Sleep); the work was revised and remixed, and remastered in the composer’s studio in Montréal in 2003-04. Twilight’s Nomadic Desire — in two sections: 12:16 and 9:46 — was commissioned by ACREQ with support from the Canada Council for the Arts and premiered on September 15, 2000 at Usine C in Montréal. Twilight’s Sleep — 8:11 — was commissioned by New Adventures in Sound Art (NAISA) with support from the Canada Council for the Arts and premiered on September 2, 2001 during the Sound Travels Festival of Sound Art in Toronto. Twilight’s Ritual Incantations — 18:50 — was commissioned by Réseaux des arts médiatiques with support from the Canada Council for the Arts and premiered on February 19, 1999 during the Rien à voir (5) concert series presented by Réseaux at La Chapelle in Montréal. The production of this work received support from the Canada Council for the Arts in 1999-2000 (including the Victor Martyn Lynch-Staunton Award) and from the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec (CALQ) in 2001-02. Entropic Twilights, in its 2004 final version, was premiered on April 29, 2005 during the Borderline Festival in Malmö (Sweden), where the composer was one of the invited international guest artists.

      piste@imed_0577-1.1 oeuvre@14044 ISRC CAD500518840
      • 1
        Entropic Twilights: Twilight’s Nomadic Desire [1/2] (excerpt) (1999-2000), 12m16s
        • Premiere: September 15, 2000, Usine C (Montréal, Québec)
        piste@imed_0577-1.1.1 oeuvre@14045
      • 2
        Entropic Twilights: Twilight’s Nomadic Desire [2/2] (excerpt) (1999-2000), 9m46s
        • Premiere: September 15, 2000, Usine C (Montréal, Québec)
        piste@imed_0577-1.1.2 oeuvre@14045 ISRC CAD500518850
      • 3
        Entropic Twilights: Twilight’s Sleep (1999-2000), 8m11s
        • Premiere: September 2, 2001, Sound Travels Festival of Sound Art, Gibraltar Point Centre for the Arts (Toronto, Ontario, Canada)
        piste@imed_0577-1.1.3 oeuvre@14047 ISRC CAD500518860
      • 4
        Entropic Twilights: Twilight’s Ritual Incantations (1998-99), 18m50s
        • Commission: Réseaux des arts médiatiques
        • Premiere: February 19, 1999, Rien à voir (5) — Réseaux, La Chapelle (Montréal, Québec)

        [English translation not available]

        Twilight’s Ritual Incantations est un des mouvements d’une œuvre plus imposante Entropic Twilight. Celle-ci est inspiré par le concept du crépuscule, un temps suspendu entre deux états. Je l’utilise comme une métaphore de notre temps, à cheval entre deux millénaires. Dans l’œuvre globale, Twilight’s Ritual Incantations suit un mouvement lent. Par conséquent, celle-ci commence lentement et se transforme en un mouvement rapide. Ce mouvement avec son déferlement implacable devient une sorte de rituel incantatoire.

        Entropic Twilight représente un virage par rapport à mon travail précédent sur bande dans la mesure où l’emphase porte plutôt sur la mélodie que sur les paramètres d’harmonie et de texture. L’œuvre est construite à partir de quatre mélodies diatoniques qui sont constamment transformées et réagencées.

        Twilight’s Ritual Incantations est une commande de Réseaux avec l’aide du Conseil des arts du Canada.

         

        piste@imed_0577-1.1.4 oeuvre@14048 ISRC CAD500518870
    • 5
      flute, and tape
      • Commission: Nancy Ruffer, with support from the CCA
      • Premiere: March 23, 1996, Nancy Ruffer • Conway Hall (London, England, UK)

      The work is based on fairy simple melodic and harmonic ideas. The interest for me in this type of work is to use the recording studio to create a series of distinct sound worlds, or orchestrations, based on these melodic and harmonic ideas. The tape becomes the catalyst for creating the changes in mood and tone. The live soloist repeatedly states the melodic ideas in a simple to very virtuosic manner.

       

      The Gravity of Silence. Resonance #5 was realized in 1995 at the composer’s studio and premiered by Nancy Ruffer on March 23, 1996 at Conway Hall in London (UK). The work was commissioned by flutist Nancy Ruffer with the support of the Canada Council for the Arts. The current version was performed by Chenoa Anderson at the composer’s studio in Vancouver in 1999 and was later mixed and mastered in the composer’s studio in Montréal in 2003-04.

      piste@imed_0577-1.5 oeuvre@14049 ISRC CAD500518880
    • 6
      four violins, two violas, two cellos, two double basses, and tape
      • Commission: SMCQ, with support from the CCA
      • Premiere: June 8, 1995, Ensemble de la SMCQÉlectronie — SMCQ, Salle Pierre-Mercure — Centre Pierre-Péladeau (Montréal, Québec)

      “When the amp’s cranked up, the perception of the material by the senses is certain and positive only insofar as the materials remain completely raunchy and powerful and do not develop centrifugul forces. Like combining chemicals which are pretty volatile on their own, when you put them together you can tear muscles and be explosive. This residual gesturality is a street level kind of a thing; it does not stifle the small amount of what is retained, but it is amalgamated with our favourite band of all time. And this does not express desperation or impotence; on the contrary, it is another step in furthering the goal of putting more dirt under the fingernails of the collective unconscious of Canada — a reality immediately attained after the overthow of of all senses. Playing loud and fast is supposed to be unfashionable, but meat and potatoes still tast good and the ground beneath our feet is a matter not so much of landscape as of offering the possibility of travel.” — Andrew Czink, Paul Dolden, 1995

       

      The Heart Tears itself Apart with the Power of its own Muscle. Resonance #3 was realized in the composer’s studio in 1995 and premiered during the concert “Électronie” by the Ensemble de la SMCQ — conducted by Walter Boudreau — on June 8, 1995 at Salle Pierre-Mercure in Montréal. The work was commissioned by SMCQ with support form the Canada Council for the Arts. The work was extremely revised in 1997 and this new version was premiered on October 5, 1997 by the Esprit Orchestra — conducted by Alex Pauk — in Toronto. The current version was performed by Paul Dolden (all string instruments) in 2002 and was mixed and mastered in the composer’s studio in Montréal in 2003-04.

      piste@imed_0577-1.6 oeuvre@14050 ISRC CAD500518890

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