Claude Schryer: Autour: liner notes

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Autour
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Searching for the Sharawadji Effect…

by Claude Schryer |imed_9736-0001|

In the early 1990’s, Canadian environmentalist David Suzuki warned that the next ten years were “our last chance to change…”

The questions of the survival, of our responsibility for, and interpretation of our environment have haunted me for the last few years and have incited me to compose pieces where both the subject and material are the acoustic environment.

I consider myself a child of the acoustic ecology ideology developed by R Murray Schafer and the World Soundscape Project, including the notion that artists can help design a more imaginative and balanced soundscape.

The evocative nature of recorded soundscapes fascinate me environmentally, musically and spiritually. My artistic practice involves a process of listening, analyzing, transforming and then orchestrating recorded soundscapes into electroacoustic portraits, in search of, among other things, the "Sharawadji Effect."

Sharawadji, according to the À l’écoute de l’environnement, répertoire des effets sonores (Listening to the Environment, a Dictionary of Sound Effects) by Jean-François Augoyard and Henry Torgue, is "an aesthetic effect which characterises the sensation of plenitude sometimes created by the contemplation of a complex soundscape whose beauty is unexplainable.

The effect comes about as a surprise and will carry you elsewhere, beyond strict representation - out of context. In this brutal confusion, the senses get lost. A beautiful Sharawadji plays with the rules of composition, manipulates them and awakens a feeling of pleasure through perceptual confusion.

Whether in a dreamlike or anxious state, we are sometimes completely deaf to the environment. However, while on a walk or on a journey, our spirit can combine availability, attention, perspicacity and therefore become receptive to new things, including sonic fantasy."

I wish to thank all of my friends and colleagues who have helped bring this disc to life, and in particular: Claude Langlois, Francis Dhomont, Hélène Prévost, Hildegard Westerkamp, Jean-François Denis, Jean-Paul Bataille, Jeannine and Maurice Schryer, Kamthye Chow, Kathy Kennedy, Laurie Radford, Luc Beauchemin, Mario Gauthier, Ned Bouhalassa, R Murray Schafer, Robert Normandeau, and Sabrina Mathews.

Claude Schryer, Montréal [xi-97]


Autour, the disc

by Claude Schryer |imed_9736-0002|

Autour (Around) brings together four pieces which form a cycle of compositions focusing on environmental awareness and the musicality of the North American acoustic environment. Symbolically, they represent the four cardinal points of North America. The order of their presentation on this disc follows the Native North American Wheel of Life (East, South, West, North).

East: Musique de l’Odyssée sonore, music for film composed in collaboration with sound designer Claude Langlois, is a sonic journey into the heart of the history, character and mystique of Québec City.

South: El medio ambiente acústico de México, a radiophonic work, is a meditative collection of sound photographs from the enchanting and often contradictory soundscapes of Mexico.

West: Vancouver Soundscape Revisited, an acousmatic work, is an impressionistic portrait of past, present and future Vancouver.

North: Autour d’une Musique portuaire, an environmental/instrumental work composed with radio producer Hélène Prévost, combines a live concert recording of boat horns and bells with a trio of improvising studio musicians, in Montréal.

Claude Schryer [xi-97]

Claude Schryer: Autour: liner notes

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Prices are in Canadian dollars — 1.00 CA$ ~ 0.98 US$ ~ 0.62 € ~ 0.49 £ ~ 1.01 AU$ ~ 104.74 ¥ — and include handling, shipping and applicable taxes.


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