François Houle
Au Coeur du Litige
 
 
 
 

François Houle, clarinets, voice, piano (prepared piano), flutes, electronics, tape realizations
Dylan van der Schyff, percussion, electronics
Chris Tarry, electric bass, voice, electronics
Ron Samworth, electric guitar, electronics
with guests
Tony Wilson, electric guitar
Dan Gagnon, turntable sampling
John Korsrud, trumpet
Catriona Strang, Nancy Shaw, readers
 

Au Coeur du Litige is a radiophonic work consisting at its core of a series of solo clarinet improvisations.  Subsequently stripped of their innocence and simplicity through digital manipulations these solos become a dense web within which there is a multiplicity of threads to explore.  The project, inspired by the ice storm that  ravaged large parts of Quebec and Ontario, makes use of an innovative live interactive electroacoustic set-up inspired by current works in the field of audio research.  Technically speaking, the work aims to free the instrumentalist from the electroacoustic domain's usual constraints, and to generate a sound world more akin to improvisation-based environment, in which the performer plays a decision making role.

What the critics are saying;

Au coeur du litige is a masterpiece, a bomb and a revelation.  ... With this work, Houle delivers one of his most important and meaningful accomplishments. There is no doubt in my mind that this album will be one of the most significant ones in 2000. This is worth my strongest recommendation.

There are few works as ambitious in recent Canadian music as this two hour, 2 CD set.  Spool is calling it "Sound Art," though that only hints at it. ... The cumulative work is one of daunting scale, one that shifts meanings with each rehearing because the listener's ear is inevitably caught by a different stream of detail.

My opinion is that no matter how you listen to it or analyze it, Au Coeur du Litige is a sensory experience confirming Houle as a composer and instrumentalist setting the highest of standards for the international contemporary creative musical scene.

True, it is a document of our time, but it definitely points to the future.  This is a most welcome recording by one of Canada's leading new music personalities.

Houle and his troupe of improvisors traverse a number of sonic terrains, some forbidding and icy, others warm and inviting.  The quartet with Samworth, Tarry, and van der Schyff is splendid, alternately whipping up new storms of sound or creating quiet repose.  And throughout, Houle's warm and woody tone blends in well with the electronics, creating soundscapes of great detail.  The solo improvisations that occupy the heart of disc one (many of which comprise the bulk of the Ice Storm recreation) are stunning. ...This is yet another strong entry in Houle's important oeuvre.

Houle's multisectional composition is neither program music or documentary; it is more of a collage of environmental tapes, texts (news reports, interviews, and poetry), carefully designed and improvised sounds, and electronically manipulated material -- an intentional confusion of voices (human and musical, recognizable and unaccountable,) somewhat akin to a Cagean "opera" -- which evokes a sense of the elemental and often incomprehensible workings of Nature along with the multiplicity of effects (physical and psychological) an event like this has on individuals and a community.
... This is an impressive achievement, risky and rewarding from a musical and extramusical perspective, displaying considerable musicianship and imagination.  Highly recommended.

Houle is a master musician who boasts a prodigious technique and a wide vision.  While this is a more esoteric project than others on which he usually participates, it is stimulating fare that encompasses commodious swatches of color, with electronics, percussion, electric guitar, and clarinets hurled into the brew.  ... Even divorced from the storm's theme, this imaginary soundtrack stands on its own, with fascinating textures and a splendid show of clarinet finesse.

At its heart, though, Au Coeur works best as an enormously affecting reprise of a time that, for many not directly involved in the emrgency, sparked conflicting emotions of horror and voyeuristic curiousity, empathy and incomprehension.  You will feel all those things listening to this CD -- and yes, if you are of an analytical bent, you'll know that you are being made to feel those things, through Houle's masterful manipulation of his medium.  But it won't matter.  You'll be too intrigued by his methodology, too seduced by his sound, and too swept up in the work's abstract yet compelling narrative  drive to care.

Produced by François Houle.
Recorded and Mixed by Shawn Pierce for Maximum Music Ltd. at Blue Wave Studios Vancouver, BC, February 10-11, 2000.