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Review – The Illusion of Infinitesimal – (Baskaru) 2014 – Rifraf

The Illusion of Infinitesimal on Baksaru 027 – 2014

Troisième,  ‘The Illusion Of Infinitesimal’ de FRANCE JOBIN, ex-claviériste de blues (si,
si) dans les années 80. Avant de profiter pleinement de l’expérience, n’oubliez pas de
tourner le volume à fond les ballons, tant les sons de la productrice montréalaise invitent
à un abandon de soi total. A mille lieues des fureurs technologiques ultra-bruitistes d’un
Yasunao Tone, l’artiste canadienne exporte l’immense variété de ses trois compositions
dans un spectre où l’ambition d’un Taylor Deupree tient lieu de resserrement idéologique.
On ne se réveillera pas le matin en sa compagnie, c’est pour mieux nous la réserver avant la nuit.

 

Fabrice Vanoverberg:

Rifraf

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Review – The Illusion of Infinitesimal – (Baskaru) 2014 – VITAL WEEKLY

The Illusion of Infinitesimal on Baksaru 027 – 2014

French label Baskaru releases in trios, which is good, I think. You are more likely to get all three if you are already considering buying two. Hard to decide where to start, but I went for France Jobin, whom I know as a very nice person and whose music I haven’t heard in some time. She is from Montreal and worked as a blues keyboardist in the 1980s, and then did nothing for a decade (well, raising her sons, if that is nothing) and then returned to create very silent electronic music. First as I8U but then, later on, under her own name. As said, her music is very silent and that might be because she wants our full concentration. Or, perhaps in a Lopez way, she wants us to have more space in controlling her music. Because it’s very soft, you can decide to turn up the volume and fiddle about with the EQs, adding more high, mid or low frequencies if you please. That’s not what I (like to) do. I play it as is, but even I turned up the volume a bit on this one. You have to, I guess, as some great music unfolds then. France Jobin probably does what loads of people do: process field recordings with computer means and create organic, sustaining fields of sound, with shimmering melodic content, such as in ‘Zero’. Or with even more minimalism in ‘+1’, adding more silence and singled out sharp tones, ending the CD on a loud phrase, the most explosive loudness this CD has. A wake-up call perhaps. If music on labels such as Line is up your alley, or you can’t get enough of all the silent music Lopez brought us in the past, then this should be up your alley also. Very microsound I’d say if anyone were still using this musical phrase.

Frans de Waard

VITAL WEEKLY

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Review – The Illusion of Infinitesimal – (Baskaru) 2014 – SWQW

The Illusion of Infinitesimal on Baksaru 027 – 2014

« Le génie est l’aptitude de voir les choses invisibles, de remuer les choses intangibles, de peindre les choses qui n’ont pas de traits. » (Joseph Joubert, Pensées)

Immersound. Ce concept de concert initié par France Jobin repose sur un espace d’écoute spécifique, où le confort physique de l’audience est optimisé, afin d’explorer de nouvelles sensations lors de l’écoute et d’étendre au possible les frontières de l’immersion. Avec The Illusion of Infinitesimal, l’artiste montréalaise nous invite dans une dimension tout autre, moins palpable, dont notre esprit peine à saisir les contours. Il fait suite au grand Valence, premier album pour lequel elle délaissa son projet i8u — à la discographie conséquente — pour publier sous son nom, album alors sorti en 2012 sur le très exigeant label Line de Richard Chartier. Son nouvel opus a vu le jour il y a un mois sur l’excellent label français Baskaru et poursuit ses travaux vers l’infiniment petit.

The Illusion of Infinitesimal nous plonge dans un voyage au cœur du son, une immersion aussi riche que trompeuse. En l’abordant au seuil de notre perception auditive — seuil auquel il a été masterisé — ou à extrêmement fort volume, l’expérience est sensiblement différente. Les motifs, en apparence simple, gagnent alors en complexité, et de nouvelles forces apparaissent, tapies dans ces interstices sonores.

Alors que Valence proposait un parallèle entre la probabilité qu’une composition éveille en nous des émotions et les probabilités issues des théories quantiques des couches de valence, The Illusion of Infinitesimal s’inspire de l’ambivalence des particules atomiques. Ces points infinitésimaux dont on connaît néanmoins avec précision certaines propriétés (leur moment angulaire — ou spin —, par exemple, qui ne peuvent prendre que certaines valeurs). Des grains de taille nulle qui, si l’on y regarde de plus près, auraient un mouvement de rotation mesurable. Ainsi, en inspectant à plus haut volume les compositions de France Jobin, on en découvre les méandres. Ce que l’on croyait percevoir à faible volume n’était que la partie émergée du microcosme sonore fourmillant qui se cachait dans l’infime.

Le lac de réverbération impassible qui s’offre à nous sur -1/2 est en réalité l’hôte d’un ballet de fréquences. Ultrasons et aigües éclosent délicatement à sa surface avant de se diluer dans cet écho imperturbable. Des lignes de médium se joignent ensuite à la composition, troublant l’espace d’un courant plus grave, avant que de dernières fréquences limpides viennent ricocher sur cette étendue d’eau assombrie, pour s’y dissoudre dans un dernier tournoiement. Morceau central du triptyque de l’album, 0 oscille, lui, dans un va-et-vient de sonorités que l’on croirait acoustiques. Un mouvement de pendule qui baignerait dans des nappes presque imperceptibles, mais qui prennent progressivement de l’ampleur, libérant des ultrasons dans leur envol incandescent. Plus imprévisible dans son déroulement, +1 s’ouvre sur une effervescence sonore de hautes fréquences. Quelques textures apparaissent de nouveau, discrètes, rampantes, et dont le niveau de détail relève de l’orfèvrerie, alors que l’on s’enfonce lentement vers la quintessence du son. Un aller simple qui envahit graduellement l’espace, pour en occuper chaque pli et nous submerger sous une vague émotionnelle.

En s’immisçant au sein de la matière du son, France Jobin nous en dévoile son essence. Elle nous présente un tableau sonore à deux niveaux d’écoute dont certaines couleurs nous échappent, une œuvre qu’elle esquisse dans le visible et l’imperceptible pour mieux traduire cette illusion de l’infiniment petit. Un grand disque qui révèlera toute sa complexité sur une installation adéquate, où l’on se plaira à tenter l’expérience au seuil de notre perception, avant de monter sensiblement le volume pour laisser alors éclore tout le talent de cette artiste.

Johann Tournebize

SWQW

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Quark – How Does The Invisible Sound

QUARK HOW DOES THE INVISIBLE SOUND?

Format: Digital (MP3, FLAC, ALAC)
Edition: Unlimited
Catalogue: Q01
Release Date: February 27, 2014
Duration: 24:29—

Tracklist

01 Ennio Mazzon – Sadbury’s Helicity
02 France Jobin – Baryons
03 Robert Crouch – Folk Songs
04 Franz Rosati – Symmetry Breaking

Farmacia901 is pleased to announce the launch of Quark: How Does The Invisible Sound? project and so thrilled to start this path through sound particles with wonderful sound artists such as Ennio Mazzon (who created the Cconfin software), France Jobin, Robert Crouch and Franz Rosati. We also would like to thanks our media partners Flussi Festival, Nephogram Editions, Dragon’s Eye Recordings, Ripples Recordings, A Closer Listen, Crónica, Hawái.

“Art does not reproduce what is visible, it makes things visible” Paul Klee

Quark: How Does The Invisible Sound? is a media project born with the specific intent of exploring the possible inter-relationship between sound and the invisible, strictly related to science and physics. It relies on monthly digital releases and a MaxMSP custom software called Cconfin, inspired by elementary particles interactions and a physical phenomenon known as Colour Confinement. The software allows the artists and musicians involved to seek and discover their own vision of the invisible through sound by treating and processing audio files via custom algorithms. Presented as a collection of digital graphic cards and heterogeneous sound art pieces, the research aims to find a deep connection as close as possible to the boundary of knowledge.à

An attempt at quantum sound in a not-visible yet perceptible world.

Q01 ]BUY + LISTEN • READ MORE

Digital download is available at F901 shop in MP3, ALAC and FLAC formats. Buy, share, enjoy.

 

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Review – The Illusion of Infinitesimal – (Baskaru) 2014 – Nowamuzyka

The Illusion of Infinitesimal on Baksaru 027 – 2014

Po dwóch latach przerwy z nowym albumem powróciła kanadyjska artystka France Jobin. Przygodę z muzyką rozpoczęła w latach 80. od grania na klawiszach w bluesowym zespole. Następnie pojawiła się spora przerwa w jej karierze, która trwała dziesięć lat. Jobin dopiero w 1999 roku zaczęła ponownie nagrywać muzykę eksperymentalną, ale pod nowym pseudonimem i8u. Jej prace można określić jako „dźwiękowe rzeźby”, które artystka formuje za pomocą minimalizmu. W swojej twórczości bardzo lubi łączyć brzmienia analogowe z cyfrowymi. W 2012 roku wydała swój pierwszy album pod własnym nazwiskiem, a był to krążek „Valence” (LINE).

Z kolei tegoroczna płyta „The Illusion of Infinitesimal” została podzielona na trzy długie kompozycje. Dwa pierwsze nagrania („-1/2” i „0”) to minimalistyczny ambient w najczystszej postaci, przygotowany z mikroskopijną dokładnością. Zamykający utwór „+1” ociera o bardzo spokojne struktury dźwiękowe balansujące na granicy ciszy i delikatnych trzasków, przechodzących w organiczny ambient podbity dronem. Album „The Illusion of Infinitesimal” jest jednym z najciekawszych wydawnictw z ostatnich miesięcy.

Lukasz Komla

Nowamuzyka

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Review – The Illusion of Infinitesimal – (Baskaru) 2014 – ATTN:Magazine

The Illusion of Infinitesimal on Baksaru 027 – 2014

My first listen to The Illusion Of Infinitesimal happened without my knowing. I was playing an entirely different record for the umpteenth time – Barren Harvest’s Subtle Cruelties, as it happens – when I began to notice elements of the landscape that didn’t exist before; gigantic agitations of low frequency that felt like yawning canyons either side of the central melody (which, given the Subtle Cruelties’ ties to death and fragility, actual fit quite effortlessly). In fact, France Jobin’s music had started playing in a separate audio player, quiet and light enough to slip within the other record – like a mist dispersing among a forest – until louder gestures jolted my consciousness to its happening. In some ways it was a wonderful introduction. The Illusion Of Infinitesimal exists regardless of my ability to hear it, and with so much of the sound occurring on the absolute horizon of my perception, as mere glints of sunlight brushing a faraway object, I am spellbound by the possibility that much of the record exists beyond my radius of perception.

And in fact, many of these sounds seem fragile enough to fracture under the mere act of listening – electronic tones whirr like glass blown into thin, straight tubes, while other melodies curl faintly in the air as gas, cycling through patterns instigated by gravity and the wind, threatening to fade from thin translucency into absolute invisibility. Some of those high beeps sound like ultra-fine syringes slipping painlessly into my head, while flickers of real world places and objects appear as the album’s percussive flaps grant it fleeting, brittle shape: a soft rustle midway through “0” reminds me of brushing a woollen jumper against a duvet during a mid-afternoon nap, while flutters of tiny snipping noises cause me to question whether ants may be cutting my hair as I sleep.

I can never be quiet enough. I shuffle momentarily in my seat and Jobin’s world is shaken, once pristine and now not. The sound is so precise that I wonder if, as a human being, I am too clumsy to understand; even as I transfix on an acoustic guitar loop that captures the sound of sweat and fingerprint scuffing the strings, its repetition renders it a gesture of deliberation and the immaculate, tugging it away from its momentary associations with failure and mistake. Similarly, the drone carrying the record to its conclusion is still too pure and beautiful for organic instigation in spite of its thickness and audibility, humming like an accordion that can never be entirely compressed. My world is too loud, and I can either pursue a helpless search to find a spotless, silent space in which each particle of The Illusion Of Infinitesimal can be impeccably rendered, or I can accept that the record will tilt between another dimension and this one, fading into a silence that an earthly organism will never know.

Jack Chutter
ATTN:Magazine 

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The illusion of infinitesimal on Baskaru

France Jobin
The Illusion of Infinitesimal
KARU:27
CD (digipak)
Edition of 500
February 11th 2014

Perfection and Uncertainty

The thing about France Jobin’s music that never fails to impress is that it works on so many levels. Listen to it at the threshold of perception (the way it is mastered) or at very high volume, on headphones or through loudspeakers, and you will hear new sonic relationships, new structures, a new logic every time. Things simultaneously are and aren’t as they seem; sounds you hear are and aren’t really there.

Montréal sound/installation artist France Jobin has come a long way since her days as a blues keyboardist in the 1980s. In 1999, after a hiatus that lasted a decade, during which she raised two sons, she turned to experimental electronic music of the very quiet, rumbling, abstracted kind, and started performing and releasing music under the moniker i8u. Slowly but with great assurance, she built a much-lauded career and kept on refining her art, ever digging deeper into the core of sound. When the revered LINE label offered her an album (Valence) in 2012, she abandoned her alias and started using her own name.

In her own words:

«The Illusion of Infinitesimal represents another chance to refine the unique essence of each sound and composition, in an effort to better communicate intent without influencing its unfolding, a delicate balance between perfection and detachment.

A parallel could be drawn from particles of matter, which, “as far as we know, are infinitesimal points of zero size, yet they have measurable amounts of angular momentum. Does the concept of rotation even make sense for a featureless speck? Angular momentum seems to be a more foundational concept than rotation itself. The angular momentum, or spin, of a single particle is restricted in strange ways. It can have only certain values, and not all values are allowed for all particles.” (1)

Perfection and uncertainty.»

(1) Collage of quotes from Jim Pivarski, “Spin”, Symmetry Magazine, March 2013.

Tracklisting

1   -1/2
2    0
3   +1

Baskaru 

Listen

Reviews

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Livingvoid compilation

livingvoid – A compilation of self-portraits in audio and image designed for shuffle playing is now available to pre-order!

Jack Chutter of ATTN magazine  UK put together a special USB memory stick pack, including:

1 x engraved wooden USB memory stick
1 x small painting by Jack, created while listening to livingvoid. Each will be unique.
1 x livingvoid A4 flyer, featuring a list of all contributors.

Orders will be sent out on 30/01/2014. Order here:

http://livingvoidcompilation.bandcamp.com/

Artists included are :

Adam McFillin / Alex Rumboldt / Alfie Cooke / Anatole / Andersen Viana / Anla Courtis / Anthony Galante / benjaminwillems / Brayden Bagnall / Budhaditya Chattopadhyay / Cauterised / Cindy Wegner /cjmann / Colin Taibi / conversationswithrocks / Craig Johnson / Cretin Dilettante / Daniel Barbiero / Dante Palmieri / David Fenech / david ian griess / Derek Piotr / Emile Milgrim / France Jobin / Gregg Davies / Ion Plasma Incineration / Jack Chuter / James Chuter / Jay Howard / Jean Drop / Jeremiah Cymerman / Jeremy S. Adams / Jim Barker / Joel Pearson / Josh Ronsen / Joshua Hummel / L’eclipse Nue / Laurie Tompkins / Leslie Deere / Liberez / Lisa Hogan / Luke Lund / Mark Chickenfish / Matt Warren Matthew Cheshire / Matthew Lee Knowles / MEANHAWK / Michael Roth / micromelancolie / Mike Cooper / Mike Perdue / modus op / morteza shirkoohi / Mountains On Fire / My Cat Is An Alien / neeeeeill / Norman / One Qwarter Horse / Pete Simonelli / Phil Taylor / Philippe Petit / protofuse / RADIO HUMMINGBIRD / raxil4 / Robomatix Rebirth / Ryan Muar / scutopus / Sebastian Engelhardt /Seth Guy / Shaun Duke / SOLARCIRCLES / Steve Sachse / Stu Von Geel / Stuart Craig / swefn / The Dan Haynes Experience / Thomas Evans / Thomas Rex Beverly / Vagabond Dog x Geoff Smokes / Vincent Euliano

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Richard-Garet-Dermis-project-sur-webSYNradio-9-23-jan-2014

Listen to France Jobin’s “un petit rien” on playlist one

Le projet Dermis met l’accent sur des pratiques d’atelier et des travaux sonores en cours ;  encore invisibles, inaudibles, et inconnus du grand public . L’intention de Richard Garet pour ce projet a consisté à s’éloigner des conventions en invitant des artistes confirmés à  présenter un travail inachevé ou un fragment destiné à la réalisation de nouveaux travaux , et tout ce qui normalement ne serait pas autorisé à voir le jour.  Entre l’exploration, l’enregistrement, la production ou la simple écoute, les processus et les pratiques d’atelier sont très riches. Souvent, et comme par défaut, les fichiers audio s’accumulent dans les dossiers informatiques, pour aboutir à de longues heures de matériel et éventuellement à la création de bibliothèques de sons.

Pour mieux rendre compte de cette réalité, Richard Garet a contacté ses collègues et amis artistes avec un appel à contribution rédigé comme suit :  » Envoyer une piste audio inédite avec des sons ou des débris issus de votre pratique d’atelier ( à interpréter comme vous le souhaitez) , un résidu audio, pas de field recording reconnaissable, pas de vague sinusoïdale constante , aucun drone constant, texte et approche théorique bienvenus , pas besoin de fondu en entrée ou en sortie, le son peut être d’un bloc, assurez-vous juste qu’il ne sature pas les haut-parleurs , il peut être brut ou composé , et plus d’un fichier audio peut être proposé.  »
Toutes les pièces soumises ont été acceptées et inclues dans le projet, sans réserve ni aucun travail de post production.

Le derme est un tissu de type conjonctif formant la peau avec l’épiderme et l’hypoderme. Son épaisseur est variable selon les régions corporelles mais elle peut atteindre un millimètre. On distingue usuellement le derme papillaire jouxté à la jonction dermo-épidermique, le derme réticulaire et le derme profond.
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derme

« DERMIS project » focuses on sonic studio practice from artists making work that is currently in process; subsequently yet unseen, unheard, and unknown to the public. Richard Garet’s intention for this project consisted of stepping away from the obvious and instead focusing on inviting artists that could present work that was unfinished or a segment of something that could be intended for making new work, or anything that normally would not be allowed to see the day of light as is. In the studio practice of any artist working with sound there is so much that happens and that consists of exploring, recording, producing and just listening. Often and by default in this practice audio files accumulate in computer folders, eventually creating libraries of sounds and extensive hours of listening material.

 

With that in mind Garet contacted his peers and these were the guidelines that he passed along for this project. « Submit an unreleased audio track, noise or debris from a sound artist studio practice (interpret this as you wish), audio residue, no recognizable field recordings, no constant sine waves, no constant drones, text and speech welcomed, no need for fade in or out, it can be just a block of sound, just make sure that it does not override the speakers, it can be raw or composed, and more than one audio-file can be submitted. »
These submissions were not reduced in any manner and everything that was submitted by each artist was included.

 

Dermis: The dermis is a layer of skin between the epidermis (with which it makes up the cutis) and subcutaneous tissues, that consists of connective tissue and cushions the body from stress and strain. It is divided into two layers, the superficial area adjacent to the epidermis called the papillary region and a deep thicker area known as the reticular dermis.[1] The dermis is tightly connected to the epidermis through a basement membrane. Structural components of the dermis arecollagen, elastic fibers, and extrafibrillar matrix.[2] It also contains Mechanoreceptors that provide the sense of touch and heat, hair follicles, sweat glands,sebaceous glands, apocrine glands, lymphatic vessels and blood vessels. Those blood vessels provide nourishment and waste removal for both dermal andepidermal cells.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dermis

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Live improv set on Symbiose CIBL

Photography © Christopher Steven Wormald

France was invited to perform a live set during Symbiose,
a radio program dedicated to experimental and avant-garde music.

Hosted by Eric Boivin and Albérick who like to share their  latest musical “coup de coeur” as well as discuss the Montreal music scene.

France performed a new short piece entitled “dégel”. A podcast of the show is available here.