GISÈLE RICARD
Électroacoustique (1980-1987)

www.tnzr.org/tnzr053

A1 Je vous aime
A2 Immersion
B1 Une autre création du monde

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Born into a musical family, Gisèle Ricard found herself drawn to the piano at an early age. In the mid-1960s, she undertook studies in performance and music education at Laval University’s School of Music in Quebec City. It is there that she was first introduced to electroacoustic composition. Created in 1969 by Nil Parent, the university’s electronic music studio (SMEUL) offered Quebec’s francophone experimentalists a stimulating environment in which to create. In 1974, Ricard cofounded the Groupe d’interprétation de musique électroacoustique (GIMEL) with Parent, Marcelle Deschênes and Jean Piché. The group performed in Quebec and Ontario before traveling to Europe where it gave a series of concerts and workshops. GIMEL disbanded officially in 1977. The following year, Ricard participated in the creation of the Association de musique actuelle de Québec (AMAQ). She then partnered with Bernard Bonnier and founded Studio Amaryllis. In 2002, she became the general director and artistic director of the avant-garde group Erreur de type 27.

Tenzier’s fourth release features three unreleased compositions recorded by Ricard between 1980 and 1987. One of the pieces – « Une autre création du monde » – was created in collaboration with Bernard Bonnier. 

Chroniques (Reviews)

"Side A tracks "Je vous aime" and "Immersion" consist of ethereal experiments in the art of plundering the subtleties and limits of language and musicality, making for a destabilizing experience, droning away from rigid genres [...]. Side B's only track, "Une autre création du monde," created with electroacoustic composer Bernard Bonnier (Pierre Henry's assistant between 1972 and 1976), stands out as the 22-minute-long pièce de résistance. Wisely chosen as the culminating point of this recording, this composition is enough to make the album worth its salt on its own."
- Ralph Elawani (Exclaim)

"The latest from Tenzier is an LP by Gisèle Ricard, of whom I’d never heard. But this is rather the point, so don’t let the lack of familiarity put you off. Featuring three pieces realized between 1980 and 1987, each piece lives and breathes, making fascinating use of the stereo-field to create an organic sense of space and movement. Unlike Tenzier’s earlier foray documenting electronic music, which drew on the activites of McGill University’s formidable music technology program, Ricard was based at Laval University’s School of Music in Quebec City. So if there is a Montreal sound, this isn’t it. ... The second side features just one long composition realized in 1982 with Bernard Bonnier, a piece of music theatre for electronic instruments, two comedians and a visual designer.  (Most unusual instrumental list of the year?)  It is from this visual performance that the album artwork draws, and is a clear highpoint of the album for me.  The utilization of electro-acoustic instrumentation grants the piece ... flexibility and life ..., a sense of openness that augments the electronic timbres."
- Joseph Sannicandro (A Closer Listen)

"The latest missive from the Tenzier camp is an exploration of the music of Giselè Ricard, one of the founders of the Association de Musique Actuelle de Québec. Ricard began her musical education in Quebec City, where she first became enamored with electroacoustic composition, working in the university’s electronic music studio and eventually forming the Groupe D’interprétation de Musique Électroacoustique with Nil Parent, Marcelle Deschênes and Jean Piché. This LP features three of Ricard’s compositions that were realized in the 1980s.  “Je Vous Aime” explores the intersection of music and voice, its highly textured fragments of vocalizing and music coming across like an alien cabaret dissolving into itself. Created for performance using an AKS synthesizer, “Immersion” drowns waves of static in an analog bubble bath. The epic “Un Autre Création du Monde” is a collaboration with Bernard Bonnier (try to find his long out of print and insanely bonkers Casse-tête LP) and takes its time to evolve into an almost funky beat-scape that today’s art-damaged weirdos wish they could have created.  Snap up your copy of this amazing vinyl masterpiece."
- Bryon Hayes (Decoder)

"True to its aim of chronicling the Quebec avant-garde, Tenzier has unearthed another important document for its fourth release ... . The A-side includes two Ricard compositions. "Je vous aime" was originally presented to friends as one of the weirdest wedding gift ever, a variety of sampled clips of the title reverberating around a carnival of crowded scenes. "Immersion" storms in with white-noise waves, progressing to a barrage of popping squeaks. The B-side's "Une autre création du monde" has discreet timbres of increasing density building to a frenzied finale. This collaboration with Bernard Bonnier, a 1970s assistant of pioneer Pierre Henry, further connects the LP to musique concrète history.
- Lawrence Joseph (MusicWorks)

"Les trois pièces électroacoustiques que Tenzier rassemble ici sont l’œuvre de Gisèle Ricard (en collaboration avec Bernard Bonnier, pour l’une d’entre elles). Deux noms encore à apprendre pour des sons assez différents puisque Ricard emprunte, pour composer, des couplets à des chansons françaises qui parlent d’amour (Je t’aime) ou fabrique un petit univers en Immersion ou encore une balancelle sonore qui rappelle Ursula Bogner – à moins que Jan Jelinek ne soit aussi derrière Gisèle Ricard ..?"
- Pierre Cécile (Le Son du grisli)

Une autre création du monde (Gisèle Ricard : Électroacoustique, 1980-1987)

YVES BOULIANE
Champ (10 opérations)

www.tnzr.org/tnzr054

A1 Champ (10 opérations)
B1 Champ (10 opérations)

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Yves Bouliane studied double bass with Roland Desjardins at the Montreal Conservatory in the early 1970s. Not yet twenty, he had been improvising with Robert M. Lepage since 1969. Together, they formed the Trio Expansible, a group that evolved continuously in the early part of the decade (Roger Boudreau, Vincent Dionne and other improvisers succeeded one another during the few years that the project lasted). In 1973, the two musicians met Raymond Gervais and Michel Di Torre with whom they founded Montreal’s Experimental Music Workshop (L’Atelier de musique expérimentale). These initiatives paralleled those of the Jazz libre du Québec – a free jazz ensemble, which Bouliane joined for a short period of time in 1972-73. He then continued experimenting with sound through performances at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and Véhicule Art, one of Canada’s first artist-run galleries. In 1977, Bouliane composed “Champ (10 interventions)” and “Champ (10 opérations).” Ensemble SuperMusique will soon be releasing their interpretation of the first of these two experimental works. The latter is a work for cello solo. Performed and recorded by Bouliane in 1977, “Champ (10 opération)” was released at the time on a 10 copies limited edition cassette tape. From double bass to cello, Bouliane then turned to painting. He completed a Masters’ degree in Visual Arts in the 1980s, but he did so without abandoning music. With John Heward, he released Masse au 1/3 contrôle in 1985 – a double bass and drums duo, which Gervais describes as “ephemeral yet eternal music.”

This new Tenzier release revisits Bouliane’s late 1970s solo explorations. “Champ (10 opérations)” is available here for the first time on a limited edition 180 gr. vinyl record. Both the music and the artwork are by Bouliane.

Chroniques (Reviews)

“[Champ (10 Opérations)] is a mesmerizing exercise in hyper-kinetic, extended technique. It’s a whirlwind of a piece that finds Bouliane wrenching an extreme palette of sounds from his manhandled instrument. For over thirty minutes, the artist plucks, bows, scrapes, palms and hammers the cello in an unrelenting torrent of sound that is at once intriguing and jarring.”
– Bryon Hayes (Decoder)

"Montreal’s Tenzier is one of the most laser focused archival labels in Canada with a dedication to the under-documented Quebec avant-garde. Its latest missive is a solo cello recording from Yves Bouliane, a heavily active free-improv musician of the early 1970s. Throughout a relentless 30 minutes, Bouliane bows, plucks, and hammers his stringed instrument into a springboard for all manner of mind-scrambling sounds. The initial run of the LP include a bonus cassette with tributes to Bouliane from modern-day Montreal free-improv heads Jean-Sébastien Truchy and Alexandre St-Onge."
- Jesse Locke (Aux.TV)

A1 (Yves Bouliane, Champ: 10 opérations)

CHAM-PANG
Tant pis 81-82

www.tnzr.org/tnzr055

A1. Bella V
A2. Oriental intrigue
A3. Ziggurat
A4. It may be acid rain, my love
B1. Tant pis pour les heures de sommeil
B2. Presqu'heureuse
B3. Come se dice

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Best known as an electronic duo, Cham-pang became a fixture of the Montreal new wave scene in 1981 with the release of a two-song EP on YUL Records (“Tantum Ergo” b/w “Ne mourrez pas”). The session featured Men without Hats’ Allan McCarthy on electronics and Yvel Champagne on vocals, although the group also depended on contributions from Mario Spezza of Rational Youth and Pyer Desrochers. A multidisciplinary artist with a singular voice and an arresting presence, Champagne then joined force with experimentalist Bernard Gagnon whose works at the time ranged from free improvisation to electroacoustic music. He recruited former bandmate Angel Calvo, of new wave outfits Vex and Rational Youth, as well as Robert M. Lepage, whom he knew from his early years with the Experimental Music Workshop. Long-time Cham-pang collaborator Pierre-Laurier Lamarche and Daniel Lajoie completed the group, helping give it a new direction both sonically and performance-wise.

This LP contains material composed ahead of a defining concert at the Cégep du Vieux-Montréal’s Tritorium in April of 1982.

Chroniques (Reviews)

** Sortie officielle (official release date) 25-10-17 **

"Bella V" (Cham-pang : Tant Pis 81-82)

ÉTIENNE O'LEARY 
Musiques de films, 1966-1968

 www.tnzr.org/tnzr050

A1 Le voyageur diurne
A2 Homeo
B1 Chromo sud

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Montreal born Étienne O’Leary’s filmography consists of three experimental films completed in Paris between 1966 and 1968. Day Tripper, Homeo (aka Homeo: Minor Death: Coming Back from Going Home) and Chromo Sud constitute a cinema of resistance. These brutally personal and subversive films form a body of work with few precedents.

However, O’Leary’s contribution to underground cinema is not limited to the introduction of a new cinematographic language. The potency of his oeuvre resides in three unsettlingly evocative soundtracks that he composed himself. This music is now available on vinyl for the very first time.

Chroniques (Reviews)

“O’Leary was a Canadian phonic plunderer some years before John Oswald raised the practice to a fine art. On DAY TRIPPER, sounds of a piano interior are intercut with a collage of time-locked samples from records of Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, Dionne Warwick, The Who and Nancy Sinatra. Harmonium looms large on the other two tracks, reedily droning and fluttering away, outside of any recognizable musical genre. It follows O’Leary’s impulse, embellished sporadically with quivering electronics, percussive ringing, distorted and slowed down speech.The resulting music is unique and precarious. This is the etch sound of a particular historical moment, when received expectations and constraints were dissolving – a time of new and unpredictable singularities.”
- Julian Cowley (The Wire)

“Eye-opening issue of film-maker Étienne O’Leary’s raw, cut-up, often plunderphonic tape-music scores to his seminal 60’s experimental shorts … if you dug the Arthur Lipsett “soundtracks” lp, Raymond Dijkstra’s barrel-organ wheeze or Badouin Oosterlynck’s prepared piano & slown-down sound-poetry … or even if you’re just a regular ‘ol fan of raw, arbitrary tape-collage music, this is pretty much the bee’s knees ; highly recommended !!!”
- Keith Fullerton Whitman (Mimaroglu Music)

“Stunning archival presentation of collected soundtrack work from experimental film-maker Etienne O’Leary. Profoundly alien, absolutely singular, an amazing out of nowhere historical find and easily one of the reissues of the year. Can’t get enough of this one – highly recommended!”
- David Keenan (Volcanic Tongue)

“L’histoire qui nous est racontée est cryptée, fantômatique. La musique (très) expérimentale d’Etienne O’Leary donne vie à un théâtre sonore énigmatique. On cherche les clés dans notre mémoire subjective : Nico s’accompagnant à l’harmonium sur l’album The End, les vrilles électroacoustiques de Bernard Parmegiani, la fiction radiophonique La Guerre des Mondes réalisée par Orson Welles en 1938… Ces clés ouvrent bien des portes, peut-être entre-t-on alors dans un autre état de conscience.”
- Eric Deshayes (Néosphères)

“The story behind this jewel is worth the price of audio admission alone. Étienne O’Leary is a Québécois experimental filmmaker and musician whose flame fired up in the late ’60s when he produced a trio of shorts while living in Paris. On top of handling all aspects celluloid, he laid down the very weird beats that acted as the movies’ soundtracks, a maddening and truly eerie array of found sounds, cuts and starts, pastiches, instrumental passages and popular song snippets (Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, Nancy Sinatra, The Who, Dionne Warwick). Must be heard to be believed. File under electro-acoustics on acid.”
- Steve Guimond (The Hour)



Chromo sud (Étienne O'Leary : Musiques de films, 1966-1968)

QUATUOR DE JAZZ LIBRE DU QUÉBEC
1973

www.tnzr.org/tnzr051

A1 Sans titre
A2 Une minute de silence
B1 Studio 13, le 13 mai 1973
B2 Les retrouvailles

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Formed in 1967, the Quatuor de jazz libre du Québec (QJLQ) was a force to be reckoned with in post-Quiet Revolution Quebec. Between 1967 and 1970, the QJLQ shared the stage with artists such as Louise Forestier, Robert Charlebois and l’Infonie. It promoted improvised music as a means of bringing about real social and cultural changes in Quebec. In 1970, the QJLQ established a colonie artistique in Val-David. It also acquired land – the Petit Québec Libre – in an effort to offer artists and political activists a communal place to exchange ideas. From 1970 onward, Quebec’s first free jazz ensemble turned to contemporary avant-garde music for further inspiration. As the decade unfolded, the QJLQ became more radical both musically and politically. Tenzier’s new release constitutes a rare opportunity to hear the quartet at its most potent.

Chroniques (Reviews)

“Historically potent unearthing of this amazing underground free jazz ensemble. The music is simply phenomenal, played with the kind of otherworldly energy of the original Albert Ayler Trio, with the brass scraping the goddamn ceiling while bass and drums hook up with alla the ferocity of Han Bennink and Maarten Altena on Marion Brown’s wild Porto Novo side. Very highly recommended!”
- David Keenan (Volcanic Tongue)

“You can hear an angry militancy here, in the tenor sax and pocket trumpet’s full-bore post-Ayler squeals, the violent rips of the double bass and the machine-gun tattoos of the snare drum. The music is raged and impatient, storming the barricades with a utopian enthusiasm that recalls The People Band, London’s equivalent counter-cultural collective (…). Le Quatuor’s separatist political goals remain unfulfilled, but the music — which took the basic vocabulary of free jazz and twisted it into new non-idiomatic dialects — still feels relevant today.”
- Daniel Spicer (The Wire)

“The second archival project from Eric Fillion’s Tenzier (responsible for that fantastic Étienne O’Leary LP a year or so back) : Le quatuor de jazz libre du Québec, captured in 1973 in the Radio Canada studios & sounding like a mix of Peter Brotzmann’s Machine Gun band mixed with the raw, lurching freedom of countrymen Nihilist Spasm Band …”
- Keith Fullerton Whitman (Mimaroglu Music)

“Tenzier is dedicated to preserving Quebec’s counter-culture music of the 60s and 70s. The label’s second LP (following the trippy collage soundtrack music of Étienne O’Leary) is a nationalistic Holy Grail — four previously unreleased tracks from le Quatuor de Jazz Libre, recorded at Radio-Canada in 1973. “Sans Titre” bursts out like Brötzmann’s Machine Gun, Jean Préfontaine’s sax intertwining lines with Yves Charbonneau’s pocket trumpet. Elsewhere, Yves Bouliane’s systolic bass underpins freer sound explorations, and overall, musical quality matches historical importance.”
- Lawrence Joseph (Montreal Mirror)

“Je ne suis pas le seul grincheux nostalgique enivré par l’esprit du « bon vieux temps » et ce petit voyage en 1973, gracieuseté de l’étiquette Tenzier d’Eric Fillion, est un bon moyen d’entretenir cette petite lueur d’espoir nécessaire à la survie de l’homme en nous rappelant qu’il fut un temps, pas si lointain que ça, où les organismes culturels en charge de la propagation de l’art faisaient leur job comme du monde.”
- AFR (Douze pouces dans le jazz, CISM)

“L’entrée est tonitruante, imposante même (Sans Titre), et sa suite semble se souvenir d’écoutes répétées du Machine Gun de Peter Brötzmann : à coup de mitraillettes, on rejoue la Guerre de Sept Ans, mais l’armistice ne tarde pas. L’archet de Bouliane embrasse en effet de sa profondeur toutes les revendications et exclamations possibles, tandis que des morceaux d’Internationale contraignent les virulences amélodiques. En conséquence, le Quatuor n’adapte pas le free jazz de son voisin du Sud, puisqu’il est en avance d’un siècle.”
- Guillaume Belhommme (Le son du grisli)

“For those who lived through these heady times, it dusts off distant memories thinly veiled under a veneer of nostalgia; for others, however, the music reveals an essential quality, namely, a sense of urgency all too rarely heard in today’s music, jazz and beyond. If physics tells us ‘nothing gained, nothing lost,’ art tells us that all is to be gained when nothing is lost.”
- Marc Chénard (La Scena Musicale)

“After releasing an LP on the infamous CBC Transcription service, Le Quatuor De Jazz Libre Du Quebéc began a welcomed transfiguration into a revolutionary ensemble championing the art of experimentation and revolt. This reissue, lovingly packaged by Quebec’s finest avant imprint (Tenzier), captures an unreleased session at the zenith of their creative expression (1973). Droves of intense skronk and burning percussion lace the energetic action with unfettered fire. A paragon within Quebec’s outstanding free scene.”
- Aaron Levin (Weird Canada)

“Le langage a beau être un peu abstrait il s’apprécie avec les sens sans que ceux-ci soient agressés. Quoique, évidemment, ceux qui ne sont pas “habitués” auront quelques frissons dans le dos (ce qui en soi est un très bon signe pour commencer : le corps réagit et change d’état). Il ne reste plus qu’à se plonger dans l’époque pour se rendre compte à quel point le QJLQ fait preuve de sang froid. On apprend en effet, par la courte présentation transmise, que le QJLQ avait établi en 1970 une colonie artistique à Val-David (au nord-ouest de Montréal) et avait acquis une ferme – le Petit Québec libre – « dans le but d’offrir aux artistes et aux activistes qu’il côtoie un lieu communal pour échanger et discuter » et, en faisant une rapide recherche sur le Net, qu’il fut visé à deux reprises par des incendies déclenchés par des barbouzes de la GRC (Gendarmerie Royal du Canada). On entre dans une ambiance de polar, sauf que c’était réel.”
- Eric Deshayes (Néosphères)

“The sound is singular, inspired. Swirling saxophone and trumpet lines engage in an all out battle on the opener “Sans Titre”. Their playing is charismatic and colorful while Bouliane is mesmerizing in his support of a single note staccato. Actually, the playing of Yves Bouliane is deep and impressive and it stands out throughout the record, especially on some rich bowed sections. If the intensity on the opening of side A, is characterized by the trumpet and saxophone coming together as instruments of destruction, the flip side is a more relax affair, led by Préfontaine on flute. “Studio 13, 13 mai 1973”, is more poised and gentle until Bouliane kicks in on bass, again stealing the show while Poirier on drums is busy layering the canvas with his brushes. “Les Retrouvailles”, showcases more of Poirier’s talent on percussive aspect of his drum kit, dialoguing with Bouliane in a clever way, reaching new heights when Préfontaine’s sax enters with a sustained blow. Rich, colorful and intense free jazz sitting perfectly between the East Coast school of Fire Music and the intellectual improv sessions of Western Europe. Exactly how you could define Quebec’s own mentality.”
- Frédérick Galbrun (Foxy Digitalis)

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Sans titre (Quatuor de jazz libre du Québec : 1973)

BERNARD GAGNON
Musique électronique (1975-1983)

www.tnzr.org/tnzr052

A1 Gwendoline descendue!
A2 Sea lunch
A3 Totem ben
A4 Improvisation
B1 Dictée
B2 Nous sommes tous des Cré Basile
B3 Gololo-mashta

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Born in 1953, Bernard Gagnon is a product of Quebec’s late 1960s underground music scene. In 1973, the Montreal-based musician turned to music theory, studied with Iannis Xenakis and met John Cage. That year, his band Mergélèpe-Guorismogue joined Montreal’s Atelier de musique expérimentale (AME), an organization created by Raymond Gervais, Michel Di Torre, Yves Bouliane and Robert M. Lepage to promote improvised music. Two years later, Gagnon began experimenting with electronic sounds as a member of Kevin Austin’s MetaMusic. At the turn of the decade, he studied under alcides lanza, Mariano Etkin and Paul Pedersen. It is then that he composed and recorded his first electroacoustic pieces using the electronic music studio at Mcgill University. In 1981, he was awarded both the CAPAC Hugh Le Caine Award and Radio-Canada’s Prix national de composition électro-acoustique. Gagnon then joined Cham Pang, a multimedia electro collective, and reconnected with Lepage with whom he recorded and performed. The 1980s saw Gagnon turn to musique actuelle explorations which culminated with groups such as Stylo (with Lepage and Jean Derome) and La Flore Laurentienne (Lepage, Derome and Guillaume Dostaler among others).

Chroniques (Reviews)

“This lovingly produced and gorgeously packaged LP contains seven previously unreleased electronic pieces that Gagnon realized at McGill University’s Electronic Music Studio. Leading off the proceedings is “Gwendoline Descendue!,” an electronics/tape piece crafted from snippets of Moog modular tones and a variety of instruments created by Hugh Le Caine. It’s a dramatic sample of sci-fi movie elements and jarring bursts of sound that heighten the tension. “Sea Lunch” was created with the not-quite-modular Arp 2600 analog synthesizer, while Gagnon utilized the Synclavier II to realize “Totem Ben,” “Improvisation,” and “Nous Sommes Tous des Cré Basile.” This instrument was one of the earliest modes of digital synthesis/sampling, and Gagon does his best to wrangle some diverse and downright weird tones from the beast. “Dictée” is probably the most abstract piece featured – the phrase “le boa mange Léo” is manipulated and modified into non-existence, disappearing into the sound of a pencil scraping on a desk before reappearing in the midst of a synthesizer war. The final piece presented is “Gololo-Mashta,” in which Gagnon presents the sound of a four-piece rock band being treated to the effects of a Moog modular synth. This song veers close to experimental post-punk with its exhilarating rhythmic intensity. Such near-cacophony is the perfect way to close out an epic LP of way-out sound!”
- Bryon Hayes (Foxy Digitalis)

"The multi-part Moog suite “Gwendoline Descendue!” leads things off with a series of brain-tickling passages self-dubbed “musical giallo”, but to these ears sounding closer to a Gristleized El Topo. “Dictée” warps a harried vocal phrase and scribbling pencil into mutant concrete, while closer “Gololo-Mashta” refigures rock group samples into rhythmic shards presaging the sound of Zs. Best of all is “Totem Ben”, an aqueous outernational head-nodder created on Synclavier II that bangs like proto-Hobo Cubes. Stylish b&w cover art from the hyper-talented Felix Morel makes this a must-grip." 
- Jesse Locke (Weird Canada) 

“Gorgeous set of 70’s & 80’s archival electronic music from quebecois composer Bernard Gagnon, assembled on magnetic tape utilizing an array of the era’s more salacious gadgetry (moog modular & “vocodeur”, several of Hugh Le Caine’s designs, arp 2600, synclavier ii, etc.) … skirting between “classic” whiz-bang synthesizer filigree, deep musique concrète ruminations, quite noisy stuck-ring-modular klang-blatt, and some rather nice linear rhythmic work (yes, i’m sure you’re all dying to ignore those first few concepts & head right for the “usable” tack ; so there you have it via the sound-sample) things never stay the same for too long … it’s interesting to hear Gagnon’s work evolve through this particular era, as the rapid shifts in technology (straight analogue through purely digital constructions in only a few short years) contribute heavily to the complexity & elegance of his work … gorgeous recordin both sound & vision, coated in vintage typography & some rather apropos collages (from the hands of “Félix ”) ; highly recommended !!!”
- Keith Fullerton Whitman (Mimaroglu Music)

“Between 1975 and 1983, Gagnon spliced together a series of compositions in the McGill electronic music studio. This was the pre-Schulich Hall days, when the studio was located on the fifth floor of the Strathcona Building, the nightly bat sightings perhaps influencing the music’s ominous nocturnal feel. The LP provides not only a period survey of analogue and early digital synthesis hardware, but seven varied and creative tracks (…). Gagnon’s overall aesthetic remains similar across technologies, a dark pulse and continuously shifting textures pervading all pieces. Vinyl fetishists will appreciate the 180-gram pressing and cover art dominated by a duo of dizzying collages by Félix Morel, whose themes oddly match the content of the disc.”
– Lawrence Joseph (Cult Montreal)

“Bernard Gagnon démarre ses cultures de plantes électroniques en 1975. Entre concordances et similarités on pourra le rapprocher d’un autre Bernard, Parmegiani de son nom. Il faut cependant déployer la liste de l’attirail utilisée pour en circonscrire la mixité : arp 2600, bandes magnétiques, basse, batterie, clarinette, guitare, synclavier II, synthétiseur modulaire moog, vocodeur et divers instruments conçus par Hugh Le Caine. La musique électroacoustique dans ses coutures connues est présente, quoique plus libertaire. «Gwendoline Descendue!» fait ainsi voyager le spectrogramme du côté des spirales, du granuleux et des sons étirés. Est aussi présente la déconstruction du langage apte à la disjonction des synapses (Léo mange le Boa, le boa mange Léo). La rétrospective se termine par un démentiel «Gololo-Mashta» qui révèle un précurseur oublié d’Autechre.”
- Eric Deshayes (Neospheres)

"Mais ce que Tenzier nous offre sur ce trente-trois, c’est un florilège de compositions qui vont de 1975 à 1983 et des bandes magnétiques aux rewinds invraisemblables à des collages électroacoustiques qui chassent en territoires Schaeffer, Parmegiani ou Genesis P-Orridge, à quoi on ajoutera encore une free noise quand il rejoint un groupe constitué de Michel-Paul Aussant, Jean Bourque, Jean-Pierre Gratton et Michel Courcy. Ce qui fait pas mal de noms à apprendre, je vous l'accorde... L’autre face, c’est encore autre chose… Gagnon prend une phrase d'une dictée de son souvenir (« Le boa mange Léo ») et joue avec elle, la retourne dans tous les sens, la chante, la plonge en rythmique prépostindus et la noie pour couronner le tout (son œuvre, ce disque) dans un bruyant mélange krautelectro. Qu’importe si cette plage sonore est en fait plusieurs pièces mises bout à bout (je ne cherche pas à savoir) : son effet est immédiat ; d’ailleurs, à en reparler, voilà que j’y retourne."
– Pierre Cécile (Le Son du grisli)

Gwendoline descendue! (Bernard Gagnon : Musique électronique, 1975-1983)

Tenzier est un organisme sans but lucratif dont le mandat est de préserver, de mettre en valeur et de diffuser des archives sonores issues des avant-gardes québécoises.

Tenzier is a non-profit organization whose mandate is to preserve, celebrate and disseminate archival recordings by Quebec avant-garde artists.

Tenzier / TNZR

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