★&records
S’enfouir
2012 release ** An excellent CD, I thought, full of sparkling pieces, strange moves and with an exciting brief character per track. Certainly moving around various musical circles. It's the 20th publication - out of 24, one for each hour of a day - produced by &records (Michel F. Côté & Fabrizio Gilardino).
Ailleurs
2012 release ** The achievement of Ailleurs is that by mutating its intonation and freeing the bass from its limitations as a purely rhythmic instrument a new interface appears. The reverberating result is of an expansive formula that evocatively builds on expected bull fiddle timbres the way a realistic photograph could be the basis for a surrealistic art. It's the 19th publication - out of 24, one for each hour of a day - produced by &records (Michel F. Côté & Fabrizio Gilardino).
Ctenophora
2011 release ** This release occupies a very rarefied and odd aesthetic, evocatively pitting flurries of remote-sounding electronics against thin sinews of violin. The disc oscillates between a type of ironed-out fiddle music (all ornamentation and melodic contours pressed neatly into fibrous drones) and crackling electrostatic emissions, synthetic hacks and bleats ― a renovated version of sounds from the bygone era of analog abstraction and punch-card operated computing. Said oscillation happen…
Jane And The Magic Bananas
2012 release ** It seems to me they are using the ’no wave/no new york’ format of a slightly more pop-like character, sans any vocals of course. Nervous hectic playing on all three instruments, but occasionally leaping into a bit of a rock mode, all in a very free reign of play. Jazzy also times, but not as much as one could all too easily think. Quite a vibrant and energetic release. Exactly the right Ultra spirit, but then from Montréal. It's the 18th publication - out of 24, one for each hour…
La Formule Xyz
2011 release ** No concessions made by the three brooding magicians here to variations in tempo, register, or pitch, and XYZ soon succeeds in wearing down your resistance. Succumb freely to these splendid close-knit wafers of electro-acoustic intensity. It's the 15th publication - out of 24, one for each hour of a day - produced by &records (Michel F. Côté & Fabrizio Gilardino).
Palétuvier (Rouge)
2010 release ** Musically, the trio succeed in conveying a true “Heart Of Darkness” soundscape with their playing, painting a dark green hell where we can feel the moss and fungus dripping down our backs, and Werner Herzog is never more than five feet away in his questing canoe. The music also suggests the grandeur, the solitary and unknowable nature of these grand old men of the forest who probably keep the secrets of the ancients locked up in their thick bark. Truly atmospheric! It's the 14th …
Ellipsis
2010 release ** Ellipsis is a gorgeously and skillfully rendered set of pieces that calls for listening to over and over again. It's the 13th publication - out of 24, one for each hour of a day - produced by &records (Michel F. Côté & Fabrizio Gilardino).
Pink Saliva
2010 release ** Montréal-based trio Pink Saliva produce music that’s at once intensely deep and readily accessible. Accessible because drummer Michel F Côté lays down earthy rhythmic patterns that sound beamed to the planet through a reverb-y, distant mix. Intensely deep because trumpeter Elwood Epps (aka Gordon Allen) puts so much passion and focus into each and every sound, from kissing lip smacks to achingly beautiful single notes, suspended over the insistent thrumming of Alexandre St-Onge o…
Ave <W>
2010 release ** Taking the form of a sumptuous and exquisite musical nightmare, Ave <w> is Tiari Kese’s first album. Recorded and produced by Michel F Côté, these enigmatic electronic compositions feature as well an array of conventional instruments such as piano, organ, strings, percussion, trumpet and vocals. A sonic treat for insomniacs, Ave <w> can also be experienced along with illicit substances or divine drinks, or both. It's the 10th publication - out of 24, one for each hour of a day - …
À L'inattendu Les Dieux Livrent Passage
2010 release ** Nine pieces of some great orchestral music. Moving slowly, like gentle minimal music, which slowly, over the course of these pieces built up. It combines improvisation (although sparsely here), with minimal glissandi and small melodies, which rise up from those gentle waves of heavily and heavenly layered small orchestral sounds. Think Olivia Block, but perhaps with a bit more improvisation in some parts. Great chamber music, relaxed atmosphere, jolly fine music. It's the 9th pub…
Fammi
2010 release ** A long-standing member of Montréal’s extremely fertile experimental music scene, Jean René has lent his skills to many of his contemporaries. (...) Fammi comes across as a daring, idiosyncratic album. It's the 8th publication - out of 24, one for each hour of a day - produced by &records (Michel F. Côté & Fabrizio Gilardino).
Our Balls Are Like Dead Suns
2010 release ** Despite the name suggesting some literary influence, the music of La Part Maudite, when listened to, hits you right in the gut. Likely inspired by an essay by Georges Bataille, who wrote under the influence of Friedrich Nietzsche and the Marquis de Sade, the music is direct, unsettling the senses like the soundtrack of an upcoming film, foreshadowing its scenes of debauchery as well as its moments of false respite, in some nocturnal alleyway where danger oozes. As in most of Bata…
Sainct Laurens
2009 release ** 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 …
La Notte Fa
2008 release ** Drums & laptop. Then add a third ingredient to the first two: multiple samples. In La notte fa, Côté and A_dontigny have laid down sculptural music on a groove. Contribution by Bernard Falaise, Alexander MacSween, Jean René and Alexandre St-Onge. It's the 6th publication - out of 24, one for each hour of a day - produced by &records (Michel f Côté & Fabrizio Gilardino).
63 Apparitions
2004 release ** Everything sounds remarkably organic, blending the electronic and the acoustic into a fluid whole. As I walked around Yonkers, NY's Untermyer Park today, a space I've known intimately for the past fifteen years, I listened to the snatches of melody 63 Apparitions offered up through my headphones. Untermyer is filled with ruined and decaying buildings, overgrown vegetation and crumbling faux-Roman architecture. I couldn't help but thinking that Côté's music provided my stroll with…
Des Gestes Défaits
2004 release ** Circular remixing, deconstructed concerts. Here, Bernard Falaise is the recomposer, abandoning his guitar in the service of Martin Tétreault's material. Eleven pieces of three minutes each make up this body of music, reconstituted from a raw, dense, purely analogue sonic universe, that of MT. BF undid in order to redo. Result: an audacious remix, clear, precise and digital. It's the 2nd publication - out of 24, one for each hour of a day - produced by &records (Michel f Côté & Fa…
Unstable friends
2003 release ** Lunatic songs, taxidermal music. A universe of pop, at once hard, alien and poetic, unstable friends was built on the successive contributions of each member of the trio. An exquisite corpse in the open air, the music of bob is built from digital songs reconciled, like so many laboratory monsters. Dark beasts that Mary Shelley would not have despised. Contribution by Jean Derome, Bernard Falaise, Normand Guilbeault and Alexandre St-Onge.