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Label Feature

par Ios Smolders in Earlabs (Pays-Bas), 19 mai 2006 |6160|

«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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Territorial Imperatives: Canada’s boldest and brightest labels…

par Tobias C van Veen in e|i magazine #4 (ÉU), 1 juin 2005 |969|

«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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No Type

par Laurent Catala in Octopus #27 (France), 1 mars 2004 |687_2|

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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Review

par B R in Vital #406 (Pays-Bas), 8 janvier 2004 |677_7|

«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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La communauté No Type

par David Cantin in Le Devoir (Québec), 6 septembre 2003 |634_5|

«… 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 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 Dorion 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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Musiques émergentes - Non conforme et fier de l’être

par David Cantin in Le Devoir (Québec), 23 août 2003 |624|

«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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Mutek 2003 review

par Schepper in Grooves #11 (ÉU), 1 août 2003 |614_1|

«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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Review

par Walt Miller in Splendid E-Zine (ÉU), 8 juillet 2003 |605|

«… 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 Free box 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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Navigating Noise & Nausea

par Tobias van Veen in Dusted Magazine (ÉU), 1 juin 2003 |582|

«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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Review

par Jeremy Keens in Ampersand Etcetera #2003_f (Australie), 24 mai 2003 |580|

«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.)


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Review

par Jeremy Keens in Ampersand Etcetera #2003_f (Australie), 24 mai 2003 |578|

«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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Review

par Paul Bijlsma in Phosphor (Allemagne), 18 mai 2003 |573|

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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Review

in Voiceworks (Australie), 1 août 2002 |519|

«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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Rencontre du troisième type

par Jean-François Perreault in Convergence #2:7 (Québec), 15 juillet 2002 |512_2|

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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Compiler

par Philip Sherburne in The Wire #221 (RU), 1 juin 2002 |516_4|

«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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Review

par Ingvar Loco Nordin in Sonoloco Record Reviews (Suède), 1 juin 2002 |505_1|

«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 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!


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Review

par François Couture in All-Music Guide (ÉU), 1 juin 2002 |505|

«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