CD – No Type

The meeting between Érick d’Orion and Martin Tétreault has given rise to a collaboration that unites two distinct but complementary approaches, developed over a long period of militancy in unconventional music scenes. d’Orion made his name in the 1990s thanks to the radio program Napalm Jazz, a point of reference for the Canadian experimental scene. He later formed a freeform band and performed live regularly, both solo and with other improvisers including Sam Shalabi, Ilpo Väisänen and Evan Parker. Tétreault, on the other hand, is an experimental turntablist active since 1988 and a key figure in the musique actuelle scene in Montreal. He has built a career marked by collaborations with prominent names such as René Lussier, Diane Labrosse, Otomo Yoshihide and Philip Jeck. Tétreault’s style on the turntables is immediately recognizable: raw and tenderly melodramatic, capable of crumbling the sound material of vinyl into a myriad of sparkling fragments, mixed with an ironic and unpredictable style. d’Orion, for his part, adopts a more telluric approach, imbued with the most extreme drifts of cosmic jazz and noise rock. He alternates bursts of raw power with more rarefied and meditative moments, naturally shifting through contrasting registers. Together, the two go beyond the sum of their parts, choosing a path that favours mutual listening and the gradual construction of soundscapes. Cisterciennes, recorded during a retreat in a former Cistercian abbey in Saint-Benoît-Labre, is clear evidence of this: a work that, while retaining the underlying improvisational energy, stands out for an unusual composure and measure. The references to the rhythm of a monastic day are reflected in the architecture of the album – from the opening track ‘Matines’, with its dull and insistent noise, to the climax of ‘L’ ascension de Labre’ and the slow evening fade of ‘Vespera’ – on a path that carefully balances dense areas and breathing spaces. The result is an album that ideally fits into the groove traced by figures such as Philip Jeck or James Leyland Kirby, closer to a meditative ambient noise than to the Dadaist or chaotic forays that often characterized the duo’s previous works. Under this controlled surface, Tétreault intertwines the crackle of vinyl and d’Orion constructs measured electronic counterpoints. Cisterciennes represents a point of arrival in their collaboration, as well as Tétreault’s farewell to the live scene, having decided to dedicate himself mainly to the visual arts and to composing for dance and theatre.

 

Érick d’Orion & Martin Tétreault – Cisterciennes