Lauzier / Martel

Sainct Laurens

Label: &Records Country: Canada

"Silence.
Sparse, soft feedback,
Undulating rhythms, rippling.
Continuous sounds, trusting one another
Into complex textures, developing slowly, minimally,
Precisely."-Dame

"[...] Philippe Lauzier on saxophones, bass clarinet, tubes and melodica together with Pierre-Yves Martel on prepared viola da gamba, two inch speakers, radios and contact mics. I assume, seeing this was recorded over a two day period, that this is a studio recording, which was later mixed by the two musicians, along with Dave Bignell. Improvised music of course, but quite an odd one. The nine pieces are relatively short and in a strange sort of way quite noisy. Strange because the bigger part the music is acoustically made, but with that bit of amplification that makes all the scraping sounds wandering off every now and then in the realms of feedback like sustained sounds, this is certainly not an easy work to access. Its however one, I think, that is quite beautiful. The sustaining sounds produced by what seem to be the main instruments (saxophone and viola) are already quite nasty, but in addition to whatever they are doing, this is a great work, totally demanding full concentration of the listener, but also totally rewarding. Excellent discs, both of them."-Frans de Waard in Vital