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Radio // Tangram
Tangram
Bédé: Le monde de l’enfance, 1m10s [excerpt]
Track 1 from Tangram
CD: empreintes DIGITALes (1999) IMED 9920
  • Why Tangram?

    Why Tangram? Why this title? I shall let the author explain. I myself find nothing angular — nothing even remotely geometrical — in this eponymous piece which relies not on the combination of forms, or of figures (everyone knows the Chinese puzzle), but rather on fusion, on a quasi-mystic surcharge of materialism: rich rugged sonorities like a switch of horse hair; from this the sound is curried so that we might delight in its lustrous sheen, immersing us in its panic plenitude (dionysian, first and foremost), its mysterious bubblings and brewings…

    (The incredibly dense material, at times ripped by the roar of a train on the track, by trumpeting or spurts, white rocketing noises: this dynamic is essential, these ‘true stories’ are necessary to pierce these hypnoses of matter, at times magnified, abstract because of their very concreteness.)

    Another principle which structures, coalesces the work: an assuring mechanical roundness encircles this (metaphysical) disorder, like a non-stop antidote, counteracting the natural entropy with a repetitious serenity (which takes on a particular flavor in Normandeau’s work): the elemental is revised, tamed by the rumble of the clockwork of the loops and by studio manipulations. So well that this music of Elements (frog croaks, night birds, a storm) is at the same time the music of rotating machines and of motors; the sounds of nature, rolled into a ball, are squeezed together with industrial force: the two poetics are mixed, indissoluble, in the dances.

    Each in their own way, the other pieces on the disc reflect this personal manner, (and in the variations appears the pertinence of the generic title Tangram): In Tropes the art of transition-escape is polished to perfection — we are cramped, crushed under the strata, the excrescence — when just the moment before we found ourselves in a limpidity so complete (as to recall Mozart…). Bédé, more astringent (despite several vertiginous distortions of convex mirrors — calling to mind Alice…) ushers in Éclats de voix, the most elaborate piece, the most nimble, the richest because, despite the prevalence of fusion, it unites the two principles — (specious plasticity — thousands of pieces ground and glued), it is interrupted by a fantastic machinery, the widest variety in its semantics, and the rare rough spots — so charming — living, vocal bones of childhood…

    Jean-Christophe Thomas, Paris (France) [ii-94]

  • Tangram, the disc

    Taken from the title of one of the works appearing on the disc, Tangram represents the almost infinite permutations which lie hidden in elements as sparse and simple as the voice of a child, the sound of a passing train, or a few notes of classical music. Though highly contrasted, the pieces presented on this disc exhibit several common denominators.

    Firstly, they all utilize, without exception, sampled acoustic sounds; these were recorded for the most part using a portable DAT recorder.

    Secondly, the entire cycle was conceived for multitrack presentation. The methods devised in the studio permit the playback of each track (recorded on 16-track, 1/2 inch, Dolby S) on a separate loudspeaker, without having to retouch the levels or the equalizations. Mixing, therefore, is accomplished acoustically and not electronically. The spatialization of the sounds in an integral part of the composition, and thusly the performance space serves to delineate the sonorous parameters as well as the height, the length, and the intensity.

    Thirdly, as an extension to the second point, to capture this added dimension of space evoked by a multitrack playback. Jean-François Denis and I had the idea to simulate a concert setting in the recording studio, and the final stereophonic version of each piece (but Spleen, composed afterwards) was produced at The Banff Centre for the Arts (engineers: Antonio Oliart and Stephanie Rogers ; assistant: Jennifer Lewis ) using multiple loudspeakers.

    Last but not least, the works represent the quintessence of my work during 1990-93, and exemplify the perspective which I’d embraced during that period: cinema for the ear. Basically, this consists of seeking inspiration outside of the musical context, specially in the work of cinema. Themes are inspired directly from the titles; once elaborated, they then underlie the work, becoming axes around which the composition takes shape. They serve as landmarks for the listener exploring these unheard-of spaces.

    Robert Normandeau, Montréal [iv-94]

Some Recommended Items

  • Éclats de voix: Prix Ars Electronica 1993 — Mention

Reissue of IMED 9419/20.

  • UCC 771028992027
  • Canada Council of the Arts