Alchemy, the disc
by Mario Rodrigue |imed_9415-0001|
There seems to be a line, a buffer zone which separates what is from what
might be. A floating frontier where the concrete stands in counterpoint to
the imaginary, the existing to the as-yet-to-become, the realized to the
potential, in short, the past to the future. This line is the present. Always
moving yet stationary, the elusive moment of our fluid desires, the present
forges the future and crystallizes our passions.
Between the experienced and the unaccomplished lies a path of perpetual
conquest: that of the past in relation to ever-changing aspirations. And so
the present is infused with intent, direction and expectations in regard to
the unknown. This is the stance that I adopt during my composition. The
beginning of a work proffers the end, traversing an impulse and keeping its
thematic continuity.
Of the five pieces on this disc, three (Tilt, Qu’est-ce
concert? and Fiano porte) were
composed in the studios of the Faculty of Music of the Université de
Montréal, using standard analog sampling: recording on tape and varying the
speed of playback. In this manner I could construct chords of bells, human
voices, springs, accordions, marbles rolling on various surfaces, and of
other sound objects. An analog system of active filtering permitted me to
develop these sonorities, adding many colors, many forms to my palette of
sounds, and assuring a coherent temporal progression.
To produce this disc, I copied the original tapes of these three pieces on
a multitrack digital audio tape recorder, and sampled the sound sources as
well as other sounds to enhance certain parts of the pieces and thusly create
new, definitive versions. The production of this disc provided me with the
opportunity to rework these pieces: I heightened them—without deforming
them—strengthening the themes and solidifying the basis throughout,
[thereby accentuating several movements].
Mario Rodrigue,
Montréal [i-94]
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