Créations et Micro-voix: Gisèle Ricard – CAPAC Musical Portrait

Today’s post is a contribution from Fred Savard, a member of the Fluorescent Friends collective and the creative mind behind Metis Yeti. The lucky bastard found a whole collection of CAPAC 7” vinyl records at a local thrift store several months ago. He kindly agreed to prepare today’s post and share some of this music with us. Thanks Fred.

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The Musical Portrait 7” series was released by the Composers, Authors and Publishers Association of Canada (CAPAC) in order to promote and showcase the growing talent of promising Canadian composers. CAPAC’s vinyl records were sent off to various radio stations, school boards, libraries and other cultural institutions as promotional items throughout the late 1970s and early 1980s. They were not meant to be sold to the general public. Needless to say, I was quite excited when I recently stumbled upon a pile of these records at a local thrift store. While some of the composers featured in the series seemed more interested in traditional forms of classical music, others were developing interests in new music composition through the use of synthetic sounds, electronic instruments, tape manipulations and vocal experimentation. Featured in the series is the work of Quebec composer Michel Gonneville who studied with Stockhausen in 1974 before becoming the director of the Société de musique contemporaine du Québec in 1978. Another noteworthy composer is Gisèle Ricard.

Born in 1944, Gisèle Ricard completed her musical studies at the Université Laval in Québec. Upon completing her degree, Ricard became an important figure in the development of the contemporary Canadian musical landscape when, in 1978, she founded the Association de musique actuelle de Québec (AMAQ). It is during that period that she started to compose more seriously and to experiment with vocal manipulations and electronic instrumentation. The three pieces she contributed to the Musical Portrait series are “Micro-voix”, “Une autre création du monde” and “Passacaille 22/11/44”. While “Micro-voix” was initially conceived as a multidisciplinary performance piece for magnetic tape, three dancers, one singer and one narrator, the short sound excerpts featured on this record remain sonically fascinating. The close to three minutes piece consists of nothing but raw sounds created with one performer’s mouth (the recorded sounds are looped, superimposed and repeated in order to create a playful, funny and rhythmic piece). It would be interesting to draw parallels between “Micro-voix” and the works of other composers working within the realm of sound poetry (such as Henri Chopin for instance).

“micro-voix”

The second track, “Une autre création du monde” was composed in 1982 in collaboration with Bernard Bonnier. This time, Ricard explored the new possibilities of electronic instrumentation though the use of tape machines, a vocoder and analog synthesizers. The six-minute piece starts off with a slow, simple and engaging sample-based pounding beat that still sounds very modern to this day. The piece then slowly evolves toward a more complex structure while maintaining its drive and rhythm. It is possible to perceive this piece as a precursor of the sample-based electronic pop music that is part of today’s contemporary musical landscape. It should also be noted that this composition was to be performed only once – on Thursday November 1982 at McGill University in Montreal.

“une autre création du monde”