The above Electronic Music by Canadian Composers compilation was released in 1975 on the small-independently-run Melbourne record label. Melbourne’s parent company, Rodeo Records, made its name producing and releasing albums by country and folk music artists. Rodeo established its Melbourne division in the mid-1960s but close to ten years elapsed before the label began releasing compilations dedicated to electronic music.

Volume 2 must have generated a certain amount of interest because it was reissued in 1980 as parts of the label’s New Music Series. The compilation features compositions by Michel Longtin, Peter Huse, Reinhard Berg and Don Druick. The latter’s “Cellophane Wrapper” is a particularly enthralling piece of psychoactive electronic music:

“Cellophane Wrapper” was composed at the Simon Fraser University Studio. It was mastered on a four-track Ampex and involved the use of a custom white noise unit, buchla enveloper, variable speed looper, and moog bode ring modulator. The music is concerned with the exploration of nonsymetric intensity contours which peak at a point one-third the distance from the beginning. (Liner notes – Electronic Music by Canadian Composers Vol. 2)

Druick, a Montreal-born multidisciplinary artist, spent the first part of his prolific career composing and performing various types of musical works – that is before he turned to performance and visual arts as well as writing. Between 1960 and 1973, Druick completed four film scores, one of which was selected by Melbourne for inclusion on its Electronic Music by Canadian Composers compilation.

The composition featured here serves as a soundtrack to a short film by Canadian experimental filmmaker David Rimmer. Variations on a Cellophane Wrapper is one of many exemplary experimental works made in Canada since the 1960s.

“cellophane wrapper”

This National Film Board of Canada production was supposed to be a short documentary film about winter but Groulx – eager to bridge the chasm between documentary and fiction films – skillfully appropriated the project and created one of the most important feature length films ever made in Quebec. Not surprisingly, Le chat dans le sac was awarded First Prize at the 1964 Canadian Film Festival held in Montreal.

The film revolves around the doomed relationship of two people. Claude (a young French Canadian journalist) and Barbara (an Anglophone aspiring actress of Jewish origins) “vivent les derniers jours de leur intimité.” Claude is preoccupied with the socio-economic and political fate of his people. He needs to find himself before he can determine what course of action he must follow. Barbara cannot accompany him on this quest. Bill Marshall, in Quebec National Cinema, notes that the film “steers some sort of path for the (interpellated, nation-recognizing) spectator, primarily through its attempt to privilege the discourse of Claude over that of Barbara.” Indeed, Le chat dans le sac – in both form and content – contributes to discourses about Quebec identity and nation-building.

During the 1950s and 1960s, a number of Quebec artists drew (questionable) parallels between their situation and that of African Americans.

Le cri du QUÉBEC est analogue à celui de la négritude. d’où cette accointance avec le jazz. le cri que je lance en public est jazzistique dans l’intention et dans le fait. il est la transe de mon être. il comporte une décantation des rythmes folkloriques. la gigue. le rigodon. par nostalgie du future de la race. comme le jazz à l’origine. mon poème est un chant de révolte. un cri d’esclave. c’est le cri jaillissant du tréfonds de l’individu québécois aliéné (Raoul Luoar Yaugud Duguay)

In Le chat dans le sac, jazz is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities. But Coltrane’s music is also partly used as a means of validating Claude’s quest for self-affirmation.

Considering the nationalistic undertones of the film, it is interesting to note that the Coltrane quartet session took place on the day Quebecers celebrate La Fête de la Saint-Jean (Quebec’s National Holiday). Was this a mere coincidence?

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Recorded June 24, 1964 (Studio Rudy Van Gelder)

Personnel:
- John Coltrane (tenor saxophone)
- McCoy Tyner (piano)
- Jimmy Garrison (bass)
- Elvin Jones (drums)

Songs performed:
- “Naima” *
- “Village Blues” *
- “Out of This World” *

* Studio and live versions of the above compositions appear on several albums – Giant Steps (1960), Coltrane Jazz (1961), Coltrane (1962) and Live! At The Village Vanguard (1961) to name but a few.
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Only on rare occasions does a soundtrack overshadow the film for which it was composed. One obvious example is Les Stances à Sophie (Sophie’s Ways). This 1971 film by Israeli film director Moshé Mizrahi disappeared shortly after its release but it is now available again thanks to the efforts of Soul Jazz Records. Also available is the film’s staggering soundtrack which the Art Ensemble of Chicago recorded while in Paris in 1970.

Les Stances à Sophie is the story of an unlikely romance between a radical feminist and her culturally as well as morally conservative husband. The film was made in France in the aftermath of May 1968. It also features a young and dynamic Bernadette Lafont which perhaps explains why the film is occasionally (and erroneously) referred to as a French New Wave production. Les Stances à Sophie, despite its merits, owes its “long lost cult classic” status to the Art Ensemble of Chicago.

The jazz ensemble had been in France for months when Mizrahi realized that the group’s collective improvisations would be a perfect fit for his film. The Art Ensemble of Chicago arrived in Paris in May of 1969 after being solicited by the French record label BYG Actuel. Work had become difficult to find in Chicago and Europe seemed like a viable option for musicians in need of opportunities and eager to share and spread their enthusiasm for experimental jazz.

Upon arriving, the band checked into a left bank hotel but then relocated to a psychiatric hospital where it stayed for a short period of time. The ensemble ultimately found reasonable and affordable accommodations north of Paris (an old farmhouse located in Saint-Leu-la-Forêt). While in France, the Art Ensemble of Chicago participated in a number of recording sessions (including the one that became the backbone of Brigitte Fontaine’s Comme à la radio). However, most of the ensemble’s time was spent rehearsing and performing new material in or around Paris.

George Lewis, in A Power Stronger than Itself : The AACM and American Experimental Music, allocates a full chapter to discussing the Art Ensemble of Chicago’s experience in France. The following review of a performance at the Théâtre Lucernaire appears in the book:

It sounds like Xenakis …. Wait, there’s Stockhausen, with a beat to boot – here a pop progression, there we’re a bit bored – Klangfarben-melodie- etc., etc. The AACM does everything. Coming into the Lucernaire, watch out for how they’re picking your pockets; you’ll be beaten, robbed, then abused, and sent back totally naked and crying for your mother. But certainly not back home …. If you knew how to listen to the AACM of Chicago, you would become, all at once, a subversive terrorist. You’ll see how intoxicating it is to kidnap Boulez, to kill Berio, or to beat up Xenakis.

Lewis does not say very much about Les Stances à Sophie but it is easy to imagine Mizrahi being profoundly impressed by the group’s performances.

The session for Les Stances à Sophie took place on July 22, 1970. One day sufficed to record what ranks as one of the most mesmerizing jazz soundtracks ever pressed onto vinyl. This is a brilliant album.

This is the Art Ensemble of Chicago.

“thème de yoyo”

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MUSIC OF THE NFB: PART ONE

… and more on La musique de l’ONF below because this double album is a truly remarkable collection of early Canadian electronic music.
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DIMENSION SOLEILS 1970, 04 min 46 s
Film by Raymond Brousseau and music by Gilles Tremblay

Brousseau, in Dimension Soleils, bring together mathematical theories and experimental cinema as a means of exposing the poetic potential of systems and structures. The music that accompanies the film represents one of the highlights of this double album. Tremblay writes, “I opted for the simple solution of editing/mixing a selection of concrete sounds divided into two families: even tracks and unevenly oscillating groups. These two families served as my point of departure and corresponded to the dialectic of the film with, however, a wide door left open for associational ideas, graftings which could bring about that “géométrie effervescente”.

dimension soleils

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METADATA 1971, 08 min 30 s
Film by Peter Foldès and music by Alain Clavier

Metadata represents one of the earliest documented efforts to produce animation films using computer-generated images. The 1971 film pertinently features Clavier’s bastardized instrumental pop music – jazz-rock drenched in treated electroacoustic sounds.

metadata

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NEIGHBOURS / VOISINS 1952, 08 min 06 s
Film and music by Norman McLaren

“This work by McLaren illustrates a dispute between two neighbours and uses photographed sound produced by an animation method – frame by frame – employing cards each of which carries the black-and-white pattern of a particular sound pitch, and combining these to give the desired music.”

CDR reissue available through Mimaroglu Music Sales.

Music of the N.F.B. (Musiques de l’O.N.F.) pays homage to the innovative minds that made films and composed music at the National Film Board of Canada between 1952 and 1971. Released in 1977, this double album of experimental electronic music is a perfect example of the NFB’s early explorations of sound-image relationships.

As the liner notes indicate, “this album offers an unusual opportunity to discover the ‘sound dimensions’ of the National Film Board of Canada.”

10 compositions, 10 films, 6 filmmakers and 7 composers.

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RYTHMETIC 1956, 08 min 40 s
Film and music by Norman McLaren

“This rhythmic study, scratched directly on the film, is like sculpture done with a magnifying glass. The characteristics of the marks ‘carved’ by the stylus in the emulsion – breadth, shape, angle, number and spacing – control the fluctuations of light and determine rhythm and timbre.” This is music to play along to.

rhythmetic

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GIVE ME A HAND / LA COURTE ÉCHELLE 1965, 06 min 45 s
Film by Jacques Giraldeau and music by Gabriel Charpentier

The music for Give Me a Hand combines improvisational and structural approaches in ways that make the unfolding of tension inevitable. In this piece, Charpentier builds a framework within which sounds compete for dominance leaving the two protagonists of the film with the responsibility to provide some sort of resolution for this “parable in pantomime”.

la courte échelle

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CHRISTMAS CRACKER / CAPRICE DE NOËL 1963, 08 min 59 s
Film by Gerald Potterton and music by Maurice Blackburn

Only half of the music for this short film appears on Music of the NFB. The first segment consists of a rather peculiar rendition of Jingle Bells. But the rest of the soundtrack is a truly fantastic collage of library music.

CDR reissue available through Mimaroglu Music Sales.

In 1956, the NFB moved its offices to Montreal, thereby providing a safe haven for Quebec artists frustrated by the conservative and reactionary regime of the Duplessis government. The NFB served as a training school and a “point de ralliement” for Quebec filmmakers. The latter did face a number of challenges within the walls of the federal agency but there is no doubt that the NFB, in the late 1950s, provided an environment where Quebec filmmakers enjoyed relative autonomy to articulate their political views.

By the early 1960s, the NFB had established itself as a leader in the production of animation films. The creation of animation studios, where small teams were free to experiment and create directly under the camera, resulted from the NFB’s policy of encouraging innovations and spontaneity in the creative process. Many Quebec filmmakers took advantage of the federal institution’s presence in Montreal, including Pierre Hébert whose work has been recognized and celebrated both here and abroad.

At the NFB, Hébert quickly became known for his favorite animation technique which consisted of scratching images directly on film stock. But by the mid-1960s, he turned to paper cut-outs and became increasingly concerned with political issues (visit his site for more recent works).

The 1968 film Population Explosion is a product of that period. The film presents a somewhat simplistic overview of a complex problem although this is not unusual for pedagogical films produced at the NFB during the sixties. Population Explosion is not one of my favorites from Hébert but the film stands out nonetheless because of its astounding soundtrack.

On August 2, 1966, Ornette Coleman arrived at the NFB’s Studio 2 accompanied by bassist David Izenzon and drummer Charles Moffett. The trio had just recorded the landmark album At the “Golden Circle” Stockholm and were now in Montreal to record material for Hébert’s animation film. The session lasted until August 5th and featured Coleman on the violin, trumpet and alto saxophone.

The entire session is now available in a box-set dedicated to the work of Hébert. The Science of Moving Images contains Coleman’s music as well as more than 20 films by one of the pillars of the NFB.

Robert Daudelin, the former director general of La Cinémathèque Québécoise, writes, “although it can be hard listening because of all the retakes, it is still a rare opportunity to hear Ornette Coleman at work, sculpting a theme and detailing his input. The violin is very present (Death, Famine, Epidemic, Birth Control) and the almost Davis-like trumpet appears frequently (The War, Famine), but it’s the fluid alto that dominates in the dancing themes that Ornette always favoured (Birth, Children, Nurses, Foreign Aid, Technical Assistance).”

“Film music, music in film – this Ornette Coleman-Pierre Hébert collaboration is a fine example of that natural and yet so rarely successful meeting of jazz and cinema,” Daudelin concludes.

Listen to a few excerpts from the soundtrack:
ORNETTE COLEMAN AT THE NFB

…and/or enjoy another short film by Hébert featuring the music of Robert Lepage and René Lussier.

Songs and Dances of the Inanimate World: The Subway
Pierre Hébert,1985, 14 min 23 s

In this animated film without words, filmmaker Pierre Hébert and musicians Robert Lepage and René Lussier worked together, and separately, in their respective media. This cinema/music performance recreates, impressionistically, the dehumanizing environment of the urban subway. Drawings etch the outlines of people hurtling through space in underground tunnels. The soundtrack, elemental and atonal, gives compelling expression to their alienation.

Werner Herzog’s Aguirre, the Wrath of God is a troubling tale of delusion and failure. The film tells the story of Spanish conquistadors traveling down the Amazon River in search of riches and power. Klaus Kinski offers a powerful performance as he embodies – and subjects himself to – the wrath of god (his megalomanic yet pathetic character acts as the driving force of an expedition that drifts away towards self-destruction).

I am inclined to argue that the end of Aguirre stands as one of the most stunning moments in film history. Central to the final scene is the music of Popul Vuh, which also opens the film. “Aguirre I” provides an eerie soundscape dominated by choir organs and analog synth textures. It sets the tone for the film and foretells the tragic destiny that awaits the members of the expedition.

AGUIRRE – I

Although Popol Vuh’s Aguirre is considered a soundtrack album, it only came out in 1975 and contains material that was recorded after the film’s initial release. The song “Vergegenwaertigung” does not appear in the film but it certainly has its place on this album.

“Vergegenwaertigung” appears on early vinyl versions and reveals more of Florian Fricke’s early electronic explorations (nearly seventeen minutes of oscillating frequencies, distant drones and occasional sound fragments).  On this solo piece, Fricke sets in motion a slow-moving vortex that constantly threatens to pull the listener inward toward an agonizing and impending end.

Go there.

VERGEGENWAERTIGUNG

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There is a considerable amount of confusion about this album. Some clarifications are available here and below.

(…) Aguirre (1975) featured some of the music from Werner Herzog’s film of the same name. Herzog and Fricke were long term friends from Fricke’s days as a film reviewer. This was a strange release, as it compiled recent alternative studio takes with the original music for the film. The long piece “Vergegenwaertigung” was a solo Fricke electronic number, a throw-back to the first two Popol Vuh albums, probably recorded in late 1972. Also “Aguirre I” was recorded before Fricke discarded the moogs and mellotrons. This was a majestic and floating large scale track. “Morgengruss II”, “Agnus Dei” and the guitar part of “Aguirre II” were probably recorded in May 1974 at the sessions for the forthcoming album Einsjäger & Siebenjäger and were fine examples of Fichelscher’s brilliant guitar work. The album was originally only released in France and Italy. To add even more to the confusion, the German re-release on Pop-Import 1982 had three later Popol Vuh tracks (…) replacing “Vergegenwaertigung”. This is not mentioned on the cover nor the label. Either it was a mistake or an illegal replacement due to the loss of master tapes. (…) – Dag Erik Asbjornsen’s Cosmic Dreams At Play

Personnel:
Florian Fricke – piano, spinett, mellotron (or choir organ)
Daniel Fichelscher – electric guitar, acoustic guitar, drums, percussions
Djong Yun – vocals

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Cette voix parle de façon continue, mais, bien que la musique ait cessé tout à fait, on ne comprend pas encore les paroles (ou on les comprends en tout cas très mal) à cause d’une forte réverbération ou quelque effet du même genre (deux bandes sonores identiques décalées se rejoignant progressivement jusqu’à devenir une voix normale).  – Alain Robbe-Grillet dans L’année dernière à Marienbad (ciné-roman)

Last Year in Marienbad is a masterpiece born out of the inevitable encounter between French cinema and le nouveau roman. The film was released in 1961 and soon found its way into the pantheon of modern classics. Not surprisingly, much has been written about the Alain Resnais and Alain Robbe-Grillet collaboration but very little has been said concerning the soundtrack to the film.

Resnais and Robbe-Grillet were both deeply interested in music and sound-image relationships. Together, they had agreed to change the working title of the film from Last Year to Last Year in Marienbad (L’Année dernière to L’Année dernière à Marienbad). They felt that the latter had more rhythm and, therefore, greater musical qualities. But Marienbad was also the site where the two fantastic minds disagreed about music.

The process of giving cinematic form to Robbe-Grillet’s script had been a fairly smooth one and the renowned writer recognized that, in the end, the score was the only place where Resnais really departed from what was envisioned. Robbe-Grillet had hoped for a “musique concrète” approach but Resnais opted instead for an organ-based series of disquieting sonic vignettes.

Robbe-Grillet had planned a “partition sonore” based on the sounds one usually heard in ancient hotels and mansions (“les bruits qu’on entend dans les vieux hôtels démodés, comme le pas des domestiques qui sonnent dans les couloirs, les portes d’ascenseurs métalliques à coulisse accordéon à la sonorité extraordinaire, qui peut être très belle”).

“I am very much aware of the fact that the score I envisioned would have been so irritating that people would have had to leave the room,” Robbe-Grillet remarked in a series of interviews with France Culture in 2003.

And so Resnais called upon Delphine Seyrig’s brother for the soundtrack to Last Year in Marienbad. Francis Seyrig’s career as a composer seems to have been short-lived. Not much information is available concerning his musical output but he was mostly active as a soundtrack composer during the sixties. During the first half of that decade, Seyrig composed music for Last Year in Marienbad (his sister plays one of the two main protagonists), Le procès de Jeanne D’Arc (a 1962 film by Bresson), as well as Marie Soleil (a film directed by Antoine Bourseiller, who also acted in Varda’s Cleo de 5 à 7 and Resnais’ La Guerre est Finie).

I first saw Last Year in Marienbad at the Montreal Cinémathèque nearly ten years ago. I remember listening submissively to the rhythm with which the music and dialogues alternated and combined to further disorient and engage those of us sitting in front of the screen. Robbe-Grillet might have felt like Resnais was trying to please audiences, but there were still people at the turn of the millennium willing to complain about the unsettling sound of Seyrig’s “pseudo-dodécaphonique” organ sound.

The material below was released on 7” vinyl by Philips in the early 1960s. Aside from “La valse de Marienbad” which is now available on Alain Resnais: Portrait musical, the soundtrack for Last Year in Marienbad has been unavailable for more than four decades.

Enjoy.

THÉ DANSANT

PROMENADE

SOLITUDE

LA VALSE DE MARIENBAD – FINAL

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La musique de L’ANNÉE DERNIÈRE À MARIENBAD est bien entendu fonctionelle (ce qui n’exclue pas le lyrisme). Sa fonction est de renforcer le perpétuel balancement entre le réel et l’imaginaire qui caractérise cette histoire d’amour.

Cette musique veut donc se confondre au décor, retrouver l’ambiguïté des sentiments des personnages, accentuer les doutes que l’on peut éprouver sur la réalité du déroulement de l’action.

C’est pourquoi elle utilise des formes musicales tantôt archaïques tantôt contemporaines et que telle séquence qui commence dans un style finit volontairement dans un autre.  – Alain Resnais (extrait du verso de pochette de la bande originale du film)

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Interestingly, Robbe-Grillet’s books have occasionally been described as failed films or aborted cinematic efforts. Such criticisms delighted the French author and only encouraged him to pursue his interests in cinema.

Robbe-Grillet approached filmmaking in the same way he approached literature and his refusal to embrace conventional forms was most apparent in N a pris les dés (N Took the Dice), a 1971 made-for-TV film he conceptualized while working on Eden and After.

Robbe-Grillet had received a financial advance from a film distributor as well as funds from a television station interested in airing his films. Eden and After and N Took the Dice were therefore simultaneous attempts at maximizing scarce resources for the purpose of developing a cinematic vision based on experimentation and initiative.

N Took the Dice is essentially a reworking of Eden and After made possible by the roll of a dice (scenes from the 1970 film were combined with outtakes and additional footage in an aleatory way). Robbe-Grillet was always interested in music and since he perceived Eden and After to be serial in nature, it only made sense that its sister film would stand in opposition to that.

The French author was still working on L’immortelle when Last Year in Marienbad was released. He had envisioned a “musique concrète” soundtrack for Resnais’ film but the celebrated director opted instead for a less-experimental approach which left Robbe-Grillet mildly disappointed.

That experience contributed to Robbe-Grillet seeking his own path and teaming up for most of the 1960s and 1970s with composer Michel Fano, a graduate of the Conservatoire de Paris and close friend of Pierre Boulez. Fano thus became Robbe-Grillet’s “compositeur attitré.” A serialist by training, Fano embraced the possibilities presented by the French writer’s films and applied himself to further exploring the “continuum sonore.”

Fano was concerned with integrating all the possible ranges of sonic elements within the score of a film. Refusing to discriminate between musical and non-musical sounds, he did away with sound hierarchies and composed music based on fragments he would collect before, during and after shooting. While working for Robbe-Grillet, Fano usually acted as both sound engineer and composer. He was therefore able to experiment and take advantage of opportunities presented to him while preparing his “partitions musicales.”

Robbe-Grillet, however, occasionally felt like Fano went too far.

“Fano’s structures are always very subtle and not easily perceptible to the average viewer,” Robbe-Grillet remarked in an interview published in The Erotic Dream Machine. “Fano’s reels are much more impressive for viewers who are also connoisseurs.”

Incidentally, the producer for N Took the Dice did not see the need to pay Fano an additional fee to rework the score put together for Eden and After. The responsibility to rearrange the score therefore landed on the shoulders of editor and long-time Resnais collaborator Bob Wade, whom the director respected for his ability to understand how to reach the average viewer and the non-initiated.

The “partition musicale” for N Took the Dice is, therefore, an interesting hybrid born out of exchanges between Robbe-Grillet, Fano and Wade. It is not always successful but it holds a number of surprises and interesting accidents that transgress the frameworks most of us are too familiar with.

… sound excerpts below for those of you on a tight schedule – otherwise, do allocate the next 90 minutes to experiencing Robbe-Grillet’s game of dice.

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MARCHE FUNÈBRE

DERNIÈRE ÉPREUVE

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Gong’s Continental Circus is an enigmatic album – both in the way it sits in the band’s discography and through its connection to film director Jérôme Laperrousaz. The album is certainly atypical of the progressive rock sound the band is known for.   But those are not necessarily bad things.

Laperrousaz’s first cinematic encounter with progressive rock and sixties counterculture occurred at the 1969 Amougies festival in Belgium. The five-day festival saw Pink Floyd, Captain Beefheart, Archie Shepp, The Art Ensemble of Chicago, Sunny Murray, Sonny Sharrock, Soft Machine and The Pretty Things, among others, perform on the Franco-Belgian border. Laperrousaz documented the event but the film (Music Power) was banned shortly after its release due to legal complications.

Laperrousaz had begun work on another project earlier in 1969 and that is where he focused his energies after Amougies. Continental Circus revolved around a 500cc Grand Prix motorcycle race, which opposed the Australian-born independent racer Jack Findlay to world champion Giacomo Agostini. Laperrousaz’s new film was about motorcycles, not rock festivals. But this did not prevent the French director from reaching out to Daevid Allen and his bandmates. He needed them to provide a soundtrack for the confrontation between the two racing legends.

Up to that point, Gong had been associated with Franco-anarchist communes and psychedelia. But things changed with the release of Continental Circus.

“At various times in France, Gong was a revolutionary band – a flat-out anarchist, student’s revolutionary band. Then, for a while, when we did Continental Circus, we became a biker’s band, with all the bikers coming out to see us play! That was outrageous!” remarked Daevid Allen in a 2002 interview.

There are no credits on the cover but it is believed that the  soundtrack was recorded sometime between February and November 1971 with the same personnel that worked on the Camembert Electrique album.

The soundtrack contains two versions of “Blues for Findlay” (w/ lyrics and instrumental), processed sound excerpts from the film (“Continental Circus World”) and a nine-minute opus titled “What do you Want.”

The latter opens Side B and serves as the central piece of the Continental Circus soundtrack. “What do you Want” is a blues-infused prog piece trapped somewhere between motorik musik and Pink Floyd. Hints of Wyatt-era Soft Machine appear half way through the song which ends after reaching its guitar-driven climax. “What do you Want” is followed by the instrumental “Blues for Findlay.” Together, the two songs present Gong at its very best.

WHAT DO YOU WANT