Tim Olive: magnetic pickups
Martin Tétreault: turntables, electronics
Recorded at L’Espace Inquiet, Montreal, July 2013
Catalog Number: 845-11
Format: Glass-mastered CD, hand-stamped recycled chipboard cover
Limited Edition of 100
Mixed by Martin Tétreault
Mastered by Alan Jones (Laminal Audio)
Tétreault and Olive have played together sporadically across three decades. This is their first release, recorded on a lovely afternoon in Montreal, minimally edited.
credits
released May 8, 2019
Stuart Broomer, Musicworks
Faune, with Martin Tétreault on turntables and electronics, was recorded in Montreal in 2013. Separated into four segments, it begins with crackling sounds and a ratcheting undercurrent, the crackling soon giving way to the shifting pitch of oscillators; the second segment concentrates on what sounds like a human voice, though it eludes absolute identification, creating a kind of eerie aria. Some sounds establish a kind of continuous state, often a gritty drone, which gradually mutate into or are simply displaced by other sounds, while brief episodes of static and skittering bits of sonic grit establish a foreground and a keen sense of spatial structure.
Frans de Waard, Vital Weekly:
In 2013, Olive did a recording with the well-known turntablist Martin Tétreault. Again we find Olive on the magnetic pickups. Although they have worked together before, "across three decades", this is their first release together. Music made with the use of turntables is somehow always inclined to have some rhythmic cadences to it and this is no different. The rotating surfaces, which may not necessarily be pieces of vinyl, of course, are scanned by needles and perhaps other amplified objects, to which Olive adds his own blends of electric sounds, currents being pick up from the various apparatus in use and as such, I can imagine Tétreault has something to choose from. The music ranges from 'considerably quiet' to 'pleasantly present' or even 'nice noise' and in each of the four pieces, they seem to be moving along those lines, with fine, intelligent conversation. A fine meeting this is of improvised music, electro-acoustic and musique concrete and at thirty-six minutes it seems the right length; not too much, just enough to get it right.
Mark Wharton, Idwal Fisher:
These two releases on Tim Olive’s 845 Audio label are recent and still available via Bandcamp and hopefully in hard copy. I urge you to investigate but only if you have the time and patience. Yes, yes, yes, I know, shut up with the patience thing. We know we’re not here for a beery sing-a-long. This time around Olive collaborates with Martin Tétreault and Doreen Girard, or vice-versa if you prefer. Tétreault working with turntables and electronics and Girard on prepared tsymbaly, that's a dulcimer in case you were wondering [I was].
On Boro’s single 26-minute track this results in a wash of scraping, droning, twanging, frotting, tink and howl as Girard tugs, shoves and maybe for all I know breathes across her strings creating a crumbling world of zings and crashes. Faune [recorded in 2013] is full of skree, tiny machine sounds, throbbing drone. Loops from Tétreault’s turntables speed up and slow down, gentle knocks and rumbles and through all this Olive works his magnetic pickups, strings are pulled through guitar strings, tiny wire brushes are deployed, coils, violin bows, tuning forks maybe circuit boards from dusty PC towers were crushed between weighted palms? All marvellous.
St Celfer returns with tracks culled from a series of live shows, each one a showcase for his inventive experimentalism. Bandcamp New & Notable Jun 26, 2023
