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Home / Listen / Musicworks magazine recordings / Musicworks 121 CD
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issue # 121
1Le fruit du hasard Composed by Jean Derome. Performed by Ensemble SuperMusique: Michel F Côté (drums), Guido Del Fabbro (violin), Jean Derome (objects), Émilie Girard-Charest (cello), Joane Hétu (saxophone, voice, and objects), Danielle Palardy Roger (percussion), Vergil Sharkya' (synthesizer), Alexandre St-Onge (electric bass), and Martin Tétreault (turntables). Le fruit du hasard is a game piece that was commissioned by Productions SuperMusiques with the support of the Canada Council for the Arts. It was premiered by Ensemble SuperMusique on September 27, 2012, at the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal as part of a concert entitled Bruit Court-circuit. Prior to playing the piece, each player must throw two dice and three coins in order to discover his or her playing instructions. This operation defines the character, moment, and duration of each of the player’s interventions. This process makes each version of Le fruit du hasard unique and unpredictable. This version is the first take of three versions, recorded October 4–5, 2012, by Robert Langlois at Studio 270 in Montreal. I edited this rough mix version. The second take from the same session was released on the Ensemble SuperMusique album Bruit Court-circuit (Ambiances Magnétiques, AM211, 2012) —Jean Derome © Jean Derome 10:05
2Ba Ban Variations Composed by Lan Tung. Performed by Proliferasian—Lan Tung (erhu), JP Carter (trumpet and electronics), Kevin Romain (drums), and Russell Sholberg on bass)—and Little Giant Chinese Chamber Orchestra (conductor Chih-Sheng Chen). Inspired by Ba Ban (“eight phrases”), the root of hundreds of pieces in traditional Chinese repertoire, this original work written for improvising musicians explores the contrasts between tonalities and genres. It embodies the paradox of many opposite characters: chromatic and pentatonic passages, composed and improvised materials, contemporary and traditional forms, with sudden shifts between surreal or mysterious quality and an exciting fast 3+2+3 rhythmic cycle. —Lan Tung Recorded May 12, 2014, in the Performance Centre of the Roundhouse Community Arts and Recreation Centre in Vancouver; the same players performed the piece in concert in the same venue on May 10, 2014, as part of the Sound of Dragon Music Festival. © Lan Tung 7:36
3Dancing Moon Audio available on CD only. Composed by Lan Tung. Performed by Orchid Ensemble: Lan Tung (erhu and vocal), Haiqiong Deng (zheng), and Jonathan Bernard (percussion). The fast 5/4 melody is inspired by a folk song from Southwest China. To contrast with its constant motion, a number of gestures for improvisation are inserted, taking inspiration from a Chinese classical poem praising the moon hanging high over the mountains. The piece ends in a fast nine-beat cycle and a series of modulations, inspired by Balkan music. —Lan Tung “Dancing Moon” was originally released on Orchid Ensemble’s 2012 CD Life Death Tears Dream, and won best Eclectic Song at the twelfth annual International Independent Music Awards. © Lan Tung 3:55
4Bodies-Soundings Composed by James O’Callaghan. Bodies-Soundings investigates two instruments—an acoustic guitar and a toy piano—as sounding bodies, whose resonant chambers do not sound, but only resound. The instruments are used as loudspeakers, amplifying sounds both sourced from the instruments, and external sounds that expand and contradict the instruments’ identities. Without performers, they are simultaneously “disembodied” and reimagined as physical bodies of their own, animated by living sounds, anthropomorphized while also having their physical construction emphasized. — James O’Callaghan Recorded at The Banff Centre in Banff , the Digital Composition Studios and the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Music Media and Technology at McGill University, and the composer’s home studio in Montreal (2013–14). © James O’Callaghan 10:23
5Eider Ducks Audio available on CD only. Composed and performed by Cris Derksen (Music Box, cello, BOSS ME -70, BOSS RC-20XL). This piece was created for a documentary called People of a Feather. The film is about Inuit People in Hudson’s Bay, and their lives in relation to eider ducks, which are traditional food and clothing for these folks. The film explores what happens when Canada puts warm, fresh water into the Arctic’s current water system, and how that not only effects the ducks and the Inuit People, but also this place we all call home, Earth. <http://www.peopleofafeather.com> —Cris Derksen Recorded by John Raham in Afterlife Studio in Vancouver, B.C. (2013). From the album The Collapse (independently released, 2013). © Cris Derksen 4:23
6Deer Park United Audio available on CD only. Composed and performed by Myk Freedman (acoustic guitar). Deer Park United is a tune from the first Saint Dirt Elementary School songbook, which was released in 2005. The piece was inspired by Alex Lukashevsky, leader of the Toronto ensemble Deep Dark United. It is rumoured that late one night, as he was walking the streets of Toronto, Alex came upon Deer Park United Church, yet somehow misread the name as Deep Dark United. He was so moved by what he perceived that he fell uncontrollably to his knees. —Myk Freedman Recorded and engineered by Don Godwin at Phantom Center, Brooklyn, N.Y., November 2014. © Myk Freedman 4:20
7Excerpt from Gardens of Death Audio available on CD only. Composed by Lawrence Abu Hamdan (audio composition on cassette player, loudspeakers with lighting feature; the full piece is twenty-nine minutes) Dozens of open-topped party boats line both sides of the Nile, decked out with powerful loudspeaker systems that immerse the passengers on their own sonic island while producing a cacophony that resonates across the river. The recording for this composition was made by steering a small motorboat along these floating loudspeaker jurisdictions with a microphone, mapping the acoustic bleed between them. The Xenon-branded loudspeakers in this installation represent the typical kind of speakers that are roaring on the boats and throughout the streets of Cairo; they almost seem to be singularly employed to power the sounds of the city. —Lawrence Abu Hamdan © Lawrence Abu Hamdan 16:42
