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LOUNGE

DHC/ART presents LOUNGE,
an event presented in the context of the exhibition Ryoji Ikeda

LOUNGE:
Synesthésie Sonore/
Sonic Synesthesia

Laura Cetilia
Seth Horvitz

Saturday, November 10 at 9 p.m
Doors open at 8:30 p.m. — PHI centre,  407 Saint-Pierre Street, Montreal

Free admission with pass, available at DHC/ART
and the PHI Centre as of November 1st.

Guest curator: France Jobin
Associate Curator: Cheryl Sim

LOUNGE is an audio project developed in a minimalist aesthetic,
the result of a long process of reflection on ways of listening
in the context of the public presentation of audio art.

LOUNGE proposes an environment inspired by the architecture
of the presentation space, an environment entirely dedicated
to listening. The presentation takes its inspiration from the
Montreal piano bars of the 1950s and explores new ways
of perceiving and experiencing the listening process, all the while
questioning the relationship between performer and performance,
intimacy and immensity, self and solitude, and between human
and machine. This exploratory environment serves as backdrop
for Seth Horvitz’s “Eight Studies for Automatic Piano” and
Laura Cetilia’s captivating approach to the cello, one that
combines virtuosity with inventiveness.

In this context of performed sound art, the contrast between
acoustic instruments used in very different ways is brought
to the fore; one using computer-based composition, and the
other using an approach to playing where traditional methods
are subverted. These approaches are complemented by
a very positive sort of synesthesia created by the presence
of the sound in the architectural space. It is in this spirit
of synesthesia that LOUNGE forms part of the development
of France Jobin’s curatorial practice, highlighting her
deep belief that the public’s experience of sound art must
happen immersively.

The work of Seth Joshua Horvitz (b. 1973, Los Angeles) crosses many
disciplines, among them electronic and experimental music, music for film
and dance, sound design, visual design, video, and installation art. His recent projects are primarily concerned with the web of relationships between nature, machines, and human perception. Under his own name and various pseudonyms, he has published music on dozens of record labels including LINE (USA), Mille Plateaux (Germany), and Leaf (UK). As a performer, he has appeared at venues across the Americas, Europe, Australia, and Japan. He holds a BA in Cognitive Science from the University of California at Berkeley (1995) and an MFA in Electronic Music and Recording Media from Mills College (2010).
Seth Horvitz

Laura Cetilia is a cellist currently based in Providence RI.  She is comfortable with both acoustic and electronic performance and improvisation, developing extended techniques and technologies that best convey her artistic intentions. Her work manifests itself in many forms. Apart from her solo projects, she is half of the electroacoustic group Mem1, member of the avant garde viola/cello duo Suna No Onna, and collaborator with a number of video artists, including Naho Taruishi, with whom she creates site-specific audiovisual installations.
Laura Cetilia

France Jobin is a sound/installation artist and curator residing in Montreal.
She has created solo recordings for ROOM40 (AUS), nvo (AT), ATAK (JP),
murmur records (JP) and LINE (USA). Her sound installation Entre-Deux,
was met with critical acclaim in Washington DC during the DATA/FIELDS
new media exhibit curated by Richard Chartier and including Ryoji Ikeda
and Mark Fell among others. As curator, she has presented several events
and her latest endeavour is immersound, a concert event/philosophy, which she initiated, and curates.

DHC/ART Fondation for Contemporary Art
451 & 465 Saint-Jean (corner Notre-Dame, in Old Montreal)
Montreal, Quebec H2Y 2R5 Canada

Gallery Hours
Wednesday to Friday from 12 p.m. to 7 p.m.
Saturday and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Information
(514) 849-3742   |   info@dhc-art.org
www.dhc-art.org   |    facebook | @dhcart    |    dhcart.tumblr.com

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immerson 3

© F. Jobin, 2012

chesterfield (Angélica Castelló/Burkhard Stangl) ,  Chantale Laplante, Steve Bates

Thursday June 7th and friday June 8th 2012 6 pm, limited seating!

Tickets on sale at OBORO for $10 (cash only),
from Tuesday to Saturday, noon to 5 pm.
You can also dial 514 844-3250 to make a reservation with credit card.

The artists

Steve Bates is an artist and musician, raised in Winnipeg and now living in Montréal. Coming from a back ground in the noisier side of music, radio art eventually lead to installation projects, both gallery and publicly sited. The sonic is always the starting point for his projects which are then manifested as evocations of communication networks and systems, or expressions of spatial and temporal experience.

Bates frequently uses sound material that is site-specific in an attempt to uncover place and how the sonic effects our experience of site. Time is measured, stretched, pulled at, ignored, and extended. Bates holds an MFA from Concordia University where he was awarded the inaugural Claudine and Stephen Bronfman Fellowship in Contemporary Art. Current projects include ongoing collaborations with Douglas Moffat as Field Sound, including Okta, a multi-channel, permanent, outdoor sound installation commissioned by the City of Toronto, Lanterner, a music duo with Marc-Alexandre
Reinhardt, and solo exhibitions.

Bates continues to release music, both solo and collaboratively. His
work has been exhibited in Canada, the United States and Europe.

Chesterfield (Angélica Castelló/Burkhard Stangl)

Chesterfield was founded by Angélica Castelló und Burkhard Stangl in 2007. The Duo is active in field of composition (f.i. Tapes & Dreams with a commissioned video by Billy Roisz – premiered at Radar-Festival 2010 México D.F.), live-music to silent movies, improvisation, curating and cooking for nice people. Concerts in Europe and México. CD-release: wireless headphone concert live-recording, Olliwood Records 025, 2012, Vienna (limited edition).

Angélica Castelló (chesterfield)

Recorder player + electronic devices, distortions, cheap toys, feedbacks, voices) performer, curator, composer, teacher.

*1972 México City
She studied Music in her native town (Conservatorio Nacional de México), in Montreal (Université de Montréal), Amsterdam (Conservatorium van Amsterdam) and Vienna (Konservatorium der Stadt Wien, Institut für Elektroakustische und Computer Musik). Since 1999 she lives in Vienna where she teaches, She founded the concert series “Neue Musik in St Ruprecht” which she currently runs and where regularly musicians from Austria and abroad perform.She works interdivisionaly with Dancers, Writers, Musicians, Video Artists, Performers, Theater etc.

Even if she stayed faithful to the ancient music (Ensemble fiori musicali), the center and heart of her work is electroacustic and New Music: Co-creation of the Ensembles low frequency orchestra, los autodisparadores (with Thomas Grill and Katharina Klement), frufru (with Maja Osojnik), cilantro (with Billy Roisz), subshrubs (with Katharina Klement, Billy Roisz und Maja Osojnik) and Chesterfield (with Burkhard Stangl). With this ensembles and other musicians such as Olga Neuwirth, Wolfgang Mitterer, Urkuma, Martin Siewert, Eva Reiter, Manrico Montero, Mario de Vega, Barbara Romen, Gunter Schneider, Juan Jose Rivas, Marina Rosenfeld, John Butcher, Okkyung Lee,  dieb13, Matija Schellander, Kazu Uchihashi a.o. she performed across America and Europe

As a composer she wrote for her own instruments (mainly Paetzold recorders with or without electronics), for ensembles (a.o. Danubia Saxophon Quartett, subshrubs, Bella Discordia) as well as for theatre and dance; she composed several electroacustic pieces. Her music has being recorded at labels like mosz, Ein_klang Records, Mandorla, Mikroton Records and chmafu nocords and has being presented in several radio programs.

Castelló has work with composers like Mario Lavista, Hilda Paredes, Katharina Klement, Daniel de la Cuesta, Robert Kellner, Jorge Sanchez-Chiong, Phil Niblock, Johannes Kretz, Burkhard Stangl etc. on their works, some of which have been dedicate to her.

She has performed at important festivals such as: Salzburger Festspiele, Ulrichsberger Kaleidophon, Donau Festival, Radar, Taktlos, Interpenetration, Osterfestival, Musica Genera, lmc festival, Musikprotokoll, Numusik, Music Unlimited, Wien Modern, Cha’ak’ab Paaxil, Klangspuren, Kontraste, a.o. And worked as an artist in residence in Schrattenberg (AUT) and in Topolo (I).

Prices and Grants:

1997            Conseil des Arts et Lettres du Quebec (Canada) Grant for abroad studies
1999            FONCA (Fondo Nacional para la Cultura y la Artes, México) Grant for abroad    studies
2007            Publicity-Preis from the SKE-austro mechana in Austria (for the Ensemble Low Frequency Orchestra)
2011            State Grant for Composition from the Federal Ministry of Education, Arts and Culture in Austria (bm:ukk)

http://castello.klingt.org/
http://castellonews.blogspot.com/
www.facebook.com/AngelicaCastelloGarnett
www.neue-musik.at

Burkhard Stangl (chesterfield)

composer/performer, guitar, electronic devices, author

*1960, Eggenburg near Vienna.
He works in the field of non-idiomatic improvisation, electronica and contemporary classical; more than 70 CD-releases and three books; inter alia: Récital (guit-solo, 1996), Polwechsel (1998, 1999, 2001, 2002), Moon of Venus (opera without location, together with the poet Oswald Egger, 2 CDs, 2000/2004), ereb afrik (composition for piano, 2004) and Duos with Angélica Castelló, Taku Unami, Taku Sugimoto, Christof Kurzmann, Kai Fagaschinski and dieb13. At last: Hommage à moi, box with 3 CDS, Book (496p., german only), DVD, edition echoraum/loewenhertz, Vienna 2011. Since 2004 he teaches at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna Improvisation and New Streams in Music.

http://stangl.klingt.org

Chantale Laplante Biography (French)

Chantale Laplante, compositeure, improvisateure et artiste sonore, vit et travaille à Montréal. Pianiste de formation, classique et jazz, elle a fait des études de composition à  l’Université de Montréal puis s’est perfectionnée auprès de Francis Dhomont et Jonathan Harvey, dans le cadre de cours privés. Son travail repose sur la sensation et le champ  phénoménal du lieu, et se caractérise par une approche au temps non pulsé, imprégnant
l’œuvre d’une impression à la fois de flottement et de tension. Sa pratique est multiple, allant de la composition instrumentale, mixte et électronique, à l’improvisation et, plus récemment, à l’œuvre in situ.

Depuis 2009, elle est chercheure associée au Matralab de l’Université Concordia et, à compter de l’automne 2011, elle est inscrite au Doctorat en études et pratiques des arts de l’Université du Québec à Montréal, avec le soutien d’une bourse du Fonds québécois de recherche sur la société et la culture.

About immerson:

immerson is a concert event and philosophy initiated by France Jobin that proposes creating an environment dedicated to an enhanced listening experience through the physical comfort of the audience by means of a specifically designed space.

Jobin initiated immerson in February 2011, in partnership with OBORO and in close collaboration with Stéphane Claude.

France Jobin is an audio / installation artist, composer and curator. Her audio art, qualified as “sound sculpture”, distinguishes itself in a minimalist approach of complex sound environments at the intersection of analog and digital. She participates in festivals, as well as presents installations and events internationally. Jobin has produced numerous solo albums with renowned labels such as ROOM40 (AU), LINE (US), popmuzik records and ATAK (JP).  France Jobin was a Sonic Arts Awards 2014 finalist in the category Sonic Research.

francejobin.com

In collaboration with Oboro and in partnership with  Festival Suoni Per Il Popolo
Immerson would like to thank the Austrian embassy in Ottawa for their support

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Review – Surface Tension (murmur records) -2011-komakino zine

 

i8u is France Jobin, from Montreal, Canada.
Her discography is pretty impressive (cfr Discogs), and this 3 sound-suites release on Murmur records drives the listener straight into the vibrating suspension of senses, now all fused as one unique.
Roger beeps (loads of), imperceptible glitch, subtle grey shades of drone music, all differently seraphic. Instrumental, more like an aural trip, than a mere hypnosis state. Subliminal and tense. Luminance microsounds which embrace your neck and infiltrate you into the hypothalamus. You should play this on your stereo, and play it at loudest volume possible: the whole room would start vibrating, you’re going experience a one hour preview of after-life, but your dog would eventually die of acute deafness and the neighborhood would stop talking to you.

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Live performance by András Blazsek and France Jobin at LACE

This event is set in the context of Steve Roden’s : Shells, Bells, Steps and Silences.
more info below

Variance

instinct, perception, intimacy and proximity are key elements
to my performance at LACE in the context of Steve Roden’s installation.

not experiencing the installation first hand yet, having access to its  sounds files,
a very intimate connection to the work whilesimultaneously, being removed from it.

an allocentric approach to composition,
a delicate balance between presence and absence of knowledge.

Thanks to LACE, Robert Crouch and Steve Roden.

LACE (Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions)
6522 Hollywood Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90028

ABOUT THE ARTISTS
András Blazsek is a Hungarian-Slovak media artist, working mainly in the field of sound and installation art. He earned his master’s degree at the Hungarian University of Fine Arts in 2009 and will start his postgraduate studies at the Academy Of Media Arts Cologne this year. Blazsek is a member of the artist group Besorolás Alatt (Unrated). He curated the +3dB contemporary Sound Art Festival in Budapest in 2009 and 2010. He lives and works in Budapest Hungary and Slovakia.  More at amigzaj.blogspot.com.

France Jobin (b. 1958) is a sound / installation / artist, composer and curator residing in Montreal, Canada. Her audio art can be qualified as “sound-sculpture”. It reveals complex sound environments where analog and digital meet. Her installations can be said to follow a parallel path, incorporating both musical and visual inspired by architectural elements.

Jobin has created solo recordings for bake/staalplaat (Netherlands), ROOM40 (Australia), nvo (Austria), DER (USA), ATAK (JP), murmur records (JP) and  on the prestigious label LINE (USA). Her work appears on countless compilations. Recently, her sound installation Entre-Deux presented within the new media installation exhibit DATA/FIELDS, was met with critical acclaim in Washington DC. DATA/FIELDS is curated by Richard Chartier and includes Ryoji Ikeda, Mark Fell among others.

Her latest endeavor, immersound, is a concert event/philosophy which she initiated and is curating. She produced the first immersound in Feb 2011 at the Gallery Oboro in Montreal and continues to produce and curate the event with Oboro.

Steve Roden : Shells, Bells, Steps and Silences.

LACE is proud to present Shells, Bells, Steps And Silences, a new video installation and film survey by Los Angeles artist Steve Roden, curated by LACE Associate Director/Curator Robert Crouch. While Roden has been making films for over 20 years, this is the first body of work he has made with video exclusively, although the visual language and the approach to performance is certainly an extension of his 2011 film, Striations. Shells, Bells, Steps And Silences incorporates 3 research projects conducted by the artist over the past year: a collection of sea shells acquired by Roden from the estate of modern dancer Martha Graham, notes from a recent residency at the Walter Benjamin archive in Berlin, and John Cage’s seminal 4’33”, a work that Roden performed daily over the course of an entire year.

ABOUT LACE

MISSION

LACE both champions and challenges the art of our time by fostering artists who innovate, explore, and risk.  We move within and beyond our four walls to provide opportunities for diverse publics to engage deeply with contemporary art.  In doing so, we further dialogue and participation between and among artists and those audiences.

HISTORY

Founded in 1978 by a small group of artists, LACE (Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions) has become an internationally recognized pioneer among art institutions. Uniquely positioned among commercial galleries and major art establishments, our nonprofit organization provides a local venue that advocates and exhibits innovations in art-making.  By encouraging experimentation, LACE has nurtured not only several generations of young artists, but also newly emerging art forms such as performance art, video art, digital art, and installation-based work. LACE has presented the work of over 5,000 artists in over 3,000 programs and events, which have provided the impetus for dialogue about contemporary arts and culture for over 30 years.

Many of the artists that LACE has supported over the years, being once unknown, have gone on to become influential and admired individuals in their field, including Laurie Anderson, John Baldessari, Chris Burden, Karen Finley, Dan Graham, Gronk, Ishmael Houston-Jones, Mike Kelley, Martin Kersels, Barbara Kruger, Linda Nishio, Tony Oursler, Jorge Pardo, Rudy Perez, Paper Tiger TV, Adrian Piper, Nancy Rubins, Ed Ruscha, Jim Shaw, Diana Thater, Bill Viola, Johanna Went, and Bruce and Normon Yonemoto.

Since moving to Hollywood Boulevard in the mid-1990s, LACE has become a key intermediary between the local community and the contemporary art world. Our prominent spot on the Hollywood Walk of Fame allows for a broad and diverse audience.  Since contemporary artists’ interests have moved beyond the gallery itself and into public arenas, LACE’s programs encourage the public to encounter art in their daily existence so that they are engaged by it and also participate in it.  LACE has been deeply involved in the creative vibrancy of the Hollywood community and looks forward to expanding its reach through programming efforts.

LACE’s programming is either free or low-cost, making it accessible to all audiences.  Just in 2008, LACE produced an exciting range of creative and educational activities, including 11 exhibitions, more than 40 public programs, and a mobile public art project. These presentations served nearly 16,000 audience members, and showcased the work of 195 artists and 18 curators. LACE has more than doubled its education and outreach offerings since 2005 and plans to continue this expansion.

LACE has developed ongoing education and outreach programs in order to build audiences and provoke discussions of exhibitions.  These programs include the Salon Series, which are experiential events for adults; ArtWorks, providing hands-on art making workshops for at-risk youth; and the Gallery Guides Program, which provides gallery visitors with a point of entry for the artwork and its concepts.

At a time when public funding for arts education has diminished, and access to the arts becomes more rare for all populations, LACE strives to increase meaningful dialogue between our institution and our diverse community. LACE fosters artistic collaboration and provides Los Angeles audiences with access to stimulating ideas and artworks. These original guiding principles remain at the very heart of the organization today. While the contemporary art community in Los Angeles has grown and expanded over the years, the need for a venue like LACE—free from commercial constraint and unbound by the restrictions imposed by larger institutions—is more essential to the vitality and diversity of that community than ever before.

Recently celebrating its 30th anniversary, LACE has become a part of LA’s history and continues to innovate into the city’s future.

Variance is supported in part by the Conseil des Arts et des Lettres Québec
and the Canada Council for the Arts.

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framework on resonance.fm – 07.29.2012

This sunday on Framework  resonance.fm : “these are few of my favorite things”  by  France Jobin

/*framework*/ – phonography / field recording;
contextual and decontextualized sound activity
presented by patrick mcginley.

framework broadcasts:
– sunday, 11pm, london, uk on resonance 104.4fm
– tuesday, 12:30pm, south devon, uk on soundartradio 102.5fm
– wednesday, 3am, lisbon, pt on radio zero
– thursday, 7pm, lisbon, pt on radio zero
- thursday, 11pm, maribor, si on radio marš 95.9fm
– friday, 1am, brussels, be on radio campus 92.1fm
– saturday, 11am, new york state, us on wgxc 90.7fm

~ time zone converter:  http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter.html ~

This week is the last regular edition before the usual summer break of framework:afield,
as well as my last segment of “these are a few of my favorite things”.

This edition of “my favorite things”, is devoted to a particular live event that happened in Montreal in May 2011, and i was lucky enough to attend.

The artists featured are Herman Kolgen, Olivier & Urban9 and Orla Wren.
tune in and enjoy!

Welcome to  “these are a few of my favorite things”, the last segment of 2012.

As mentioned in earlier installments, my interpretation of field recording based works, is very broad however, the thread I like to follow is to find  artists who have mastered  their unique identity through the music of sound.

Musique d’impression

Three composers, here and abroad, two live performances and a presentation of audio book.
The young and dynamic organization of electroacoustic music Ekumen Montreal, is investing again, in an intimate and unusual presentation, this time,  music, printing and its surroundings.

The event invaded , the  book binding studio of  Cecile Cote, a small universe of stories printed, ready to be told,  to take life and mix with the presence and the imagination of each .

Ekumen offered a unique opportunity for Montrealers to visit or revisit Geographic Words, the sound performance of the internationally acclaimed multidisciplinary artist Herman Kolgen, to get carried away by the merger Sieste05 haunting book, created by the composer Olivier Girouard and graphics by Urban9 or discover through “The underneath of things”, the world premiere of the universe purring and delicate sound of British artist Orla Wren.

Travel, sound and magnetic proximity between artist, audience and venue
Inspired by the intimacy of the place and a magnetic proximity exacerbated with the public, each artist offers a work that manipulates and reinvents the laws of the size, but takes its support on a very human scale. Through a multidirectional interplay, each confronts a series of unexpected encounters solitary or in common.
The public is propelled, elastic jump, a leaping camera revealing voluptuous relative breaths , fragile voice or laughing, without reference to an environment where successive points and leaks resonate.

Three works

Geographic words, the very gripping and poetic performance offset by Herman Kolgen suddenly eradicates our dreams inside our thoughts to bring to light and melt back into the mass of sound that envelops us.

Facing the book Sieste05 Olivier Girouard & Urban9, connected by Cecile herself, our daydreams find the comfort of their intimate loneliness and gives way to a sound space that forms the imagination.

The underneath of things, the performance of Orla Wren Music is specially created for printing. The artist is inspired by the real machine tools and workshop revealing macroscopic details , often hidden around us, and its profound effect on the sensory experience of life, to listen and to hear.

Playlist + additional info below

Tracks                                    Artists & Websites

Geographic words                            Herman Kolgen  –  www.kolgen.net
sieste_05                                           Olivier & Urban9 – www.ekumen.com
The underneath of things               Orla Wren           – www.orlawren.com

Ekumen is an organisation that facilitates the gathering of artists and the exploration of sound art and electroacoustic music.

Artistic director since December 2010, Olivier Girouard is pursuing Ekumen’s mandate to offer a space for local and international creation and dissemination, as well as supporting the production of works and publications.

Ekumen stands out not only by proposing original listening situations – making music with unusual objects in atypical places, but also through a constant thirst for exchange and the integration of other art forms and techniques. Research, curiosity and the unearthing of a variety of platforms to present work to an audience: these are integral elements of Ekumen’s creativity.

Ekumen moves the soundscapes we speak of – instead of contemplating them, we travel inside.

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Review – Valence (LINE) – 2012 – igloomag

Valence on LINE  054 – 2012

Valence - France Jobin Montreal’s France Jobin francejobin.com purveys a kind of audio art in the realm of Roden rather than the Tietchens tradition; quiet sound-sculptures at the intersection of analogue and digital, of musical and visual. Valence is a kind of coming out, previous recordings bearing the i8u alias—on Room40, Non Visual Objects and Dragons Eye. The last mentioned label’s 29 Palms had showcased the artist’s subtle sleight of hand in ‘ambiguous atmospheres unfolding out of a seemingly infinitely creatively configurable trio of materials—synthetic sustain, wavering tonalities and digital crackle—that commingle with occasional emergent harmonics.’ Created entirely from transformed field recordings (of uncertain provenance), i8u familars will find Valence imbued with a similar pared back flowing minimalism, a discreet fishing in interstitial pools that’s become a trademark. As such it feels less like a change of substance than a further refined version of i8u’s delicate pointillism, though there’s seems a clearer and more present affective steer—away from doleful or dark—more glowing than glowering. It feels more integral, likely linked to Jobin’s incorporation of once lumpy lows into a more lissom high-mid spectrum. Press patter invoking Eliane Radigue and Celer is, in spirit rather than literal sound, on the mark, though the latter seems a more pertinent reference, these deep meditative slow harmonic modulations swimming in similarly solicitously designed translucence; slow-shutter sonics draw into a micro-world of heightened focus – a gentle gossamer drift, weaving a nature tone poem, albeit one studded with odd UHF flickers. Liminal is most definitely the word for the unbearable lightness of opener, “S Orbital,” while the following “P Orbital” is a little less shy and retiring, even generous in passages distinguished by microtonal minutiae, lingering long on designed apertures and occlusions, frequency isolations suspended between pin-sharp high pitches and softer focus harmonic colour forms. Valence draws inspiration from both the valence bond and molecular orbital theories, ignorance of which thankfully doesn’t pre-empt appreciation—though doubtless it would be further enhanced by consciousness of the parallels between quantum theory and compositional incertitude, between the emotional ambiguity of a work-in-process and molecular instability (reading from crib sheet). Ultimately, flipping from critic to fan, and recourse to ‘I don’t know much about Biochemistry, but I know what I like’ protestations, Valence offers plenty of an absolute musical quality here (particularly on the more fulsome final “D Orbital”) to allure the listening ear, particularly one of a dry-loving ellipsis-seeking inclination. Uncompromisingly minimal and steeped in eventlessness it may be, yet for all that, Jobin achieves a satisfying continuous dialectic—between mid-range sustain and high-end microsonic motion, a suture of binaries of replete evacuation and expansive intimacy. Buy at Line, Amazon, iTunes or Juno.

Alan Lockett

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Review – Valence (LINE) – 2012 – eyebient

Valence on LINE  054 – 2012

Last year a team of scientists from European research center CERN reported that the microscopic elementary particles, neutrinos, probably exceeded the speed of light. It would be a revolution in physics, because the speed of light – almost 300 thousand kilometers per second – is the greatest speed in the universe. According to Einstein’s theory, no one and nothing can move faster. Soon after it became clear that the research was wrong – was the result of technical defects, firstly the GPS to measure the speed of neutrinos has been set faultily. Secondly, the cable was not connected properly with a part of the system.

France Jobin describes her album ‘Valence’ as inspired by both the valence bond (VB) and molecular orbital (MO) theories. This is not a revolution in music, neither conceptual nor sound. Because the interpretation of such research projects would easily become a grotesque. However,  this album is outstanding, mainly because it is the mathematical contemplation of the music with the sounds and the expression used already by masters such as Whitman or Noto. France Jobin does not describe the laws of physics. Actually she measures (like Apichatpong Weerasethakul in his films) our patience for listening to things quite significant.

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Review – Valence (LINE) – 2012 – Spiritual Archives – FR

Valence on LINE  054 – 2012

Canadian artist, celebrated sound sculptor, works released (under the moniker “i8u”) on leading labels of the genre such as and/OAR, ATAK, Contour Editions, Dragon’s Eye Recordings, Non Visual Objects, Room40 and many others.

And as if that weren’t enough, France Jobin also excels in the audio-visual field: performances and video installations at noteworthy festivals (Mutek, Victoriaville, Send + Receive, Club Transmediale, Immersound etc.) and important art venues (Hammer Museum of Los Angeles, San Francisco Art Institute Lecture Hall, Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec etc.).

Her recent audio release, “Surface Tension” on Murmur Records, must necessarily be included among the best albums of the past year. The latest one, published first under her real name and out in February on L-ne, is titled “Valence”: sounds with references to the world of chemistry and perceptible departure from those compositional schemes that we got used to.

A gleaming gem, substance radiating sweetness and light, three long pieces that maintain an inimitable identity, purity, ravishing musicality.

Rigorous aesthetic sensibility, superb skills in sound processing, minimalist imprint as common denominator of most of her work, marked by an amazing simplicity/complexity, rich in subtle, barely audible elements: all that offers an immersive listening experience, all that makes France Jobin a unique figure in this area of exploration.

Giuseppe Angelucci

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Review – Valence (LINE) – 2012 – Dusted Magazine – USA

Valence on LINE  054 – 2012

The Montreal based sound artist and curator, France Jobin, has been releasing albums for well over a decade. Devoted explorers of the finer sides of noise will have likely come across the name i8u — Jobin’s exclusive nom-de-plume up to this point. i8u has been an effective outlet for Jobin, where she’s shown an aptitude for transforming analog and digital geekery into music with substance.

The press release for Valence — Jobin’s first work to break from the i8u guise — claims the album was created entirely from “transformed field recordings.” While neither Jobin nor the label hint at the source of these recordings, fans of i8u needn’t fear a drastic change from the spectrum-spanning minimalism that’s become her signature sound. In fact, Valence, from start to finish, feels like a further honed version of i8u’s pointillist analog-synth explorations, as opposed to a shifting of paradigms.

While it’s not a drastic change, the music feels more congealed than past efforts; the reticent mids and ear-piercing highs of i8u’s 2010 effort, 29 Palms, for example, tended to float along nicely enough in parallel, but didn’t posses the same give-and-take relationship expressed on Valence. This refined sound likely is linked to Jobin’s transformation of the more digestible low to high-mid frequencies; they flutter, cascade, and always translate a hint of effervescence in the way that heavily time-stretched field recordings do.

While ambient and drone focused music in general dictates a sort of unspoken modesty, Valence, in its scope, is not a humble record. In many ways, it’s reminiscent of a number of epic Eliane Radigue works. But this doesn’t always come easily for Jobin, as the liner notes explain her struggles in always finding the right mental and emotional state in order create her art. Considering she decided to include these thoughts here, I’d imagine Valence was of particular challenge. Perhaps then, this album does represent a sort of shift for Jobin — not overtly in terms of ideology, but in terms of an emotional weight, one that has never carried so transparently into her music.

By Adrian Dziewanski