John Hudak and Stephan Mathieu - Pieces Of Winter (Sirr, 2004)

1 01 (6:00)
2 Winter Garden (10:00)
3 ¶ (0:10)
4 04 (5:30)
5 05 (16:00)
6 06 (6:00)
7 ¶ (0:10)
8 08 (10:00)
9 ¶ (0:08)
10 Nuit Blanche (10:30)
11 11 (5:30)

C’est Varèse qui avait évoqué l’idée d’écouter le bruit de la neige qui tombe. Ce beau split album de John Hudak et Stephan Mathieu arrive au bon moment, comme pour asseoir la quiétude qu’impose l’hiver malgré sa rigueur. Pour ce disque, Hudak a enfoui ses micros dans la neige qui est devenue glace, puis s’est recouverte à nouveau de neige. La famille Mathieu a joué de l’orgue et de l’ocarina un soir de Noël. Stephan Mathieu a utilisé cette source et obtient au final un beau mélange de quiétude et d’apaisement, une immobilité saisissante. On ressent la même émotion qu’à l’écoute des phonographies polaires de Chris Watson, ou des murmures micro-tonals de Steve Roden. Comme assis au centre du cercle amical qui est à l’origine de ces enregistrements, on est saisi par le chaud-froid qui anime cette musique minimale. La froideur hostile de l’hiver se niche dans les scintillements, les craquements, les frottements ; la tiédeur du foyer exhale des drones de Stephan Mathieu, spécialiste du genre. On oublie qu’on est au cœur d’une musique expérimentale, tant ce paysage sonore sait se transformer en caresse ultra-légère. La technologie au service de la sensibilité.
Octopus

What's the sound of snow falling? On a nice, relatively warm autumn day like today, maybe not a question to think about. But two more zen-like characters like Stephan Mathieu and John Hudak think about such subtle things all the time, I imagine. Two source recordings were made for this release: John Hudak buried a "contact microphone buried overnight in snow that turned into ice, then he recorded snow falling on this enveloping ice". Mathieu's source is of him playing a pump organ and Eva-Lucy Mathieu playing ocarina. Not of course that one would recognize any as such, since both Hudak and Mathieu are skillfull operates of their computer. They can, if they want, transform the sound of an earthquack into say a beautiful interplay of small, microscopic and minimally changing set of sounds. On 'Pieces Of Winter' they don't do anything different: all of the generated sound is transformed into eleven of the sketch like pencil drawings of sound. Glacier like music is of course an all too easy made reference, but perhaps the only possible thing to say. It's like watching snow that is fresh, without traces of man or animal, being covered with more snow. Small holes are made in an irregular pattern. For both Hudak and Mathieu it's not something we haven't heard before, but they both maintain their very high quality. Great CD!
Vital Weekly

sold out visit Sirr

try