Sondes

Again a production of the excellent Canadian Label  Empreintes Digitales, this time with the artist of Toronto Randall Smith, specialist of movie soundtracks. Still in an electro-acoustical vein, this album innovates by the impressing quantity of the sounds he used and by the ingenuity and the resourcefulness of the compositions. Smith, after having worked therefore for the seventh art, became a reference in the small electro-acoustical world, having presented his works all over the world, and received many rewards. Indeed, this album is surprising as much that enthralling. Randall Smith detains the keys of his strange world, and delivers them to us gradually, piece after piece, note after note, to open the sound doors of a paradise of an impressing maturity and consistency. While mixing the acoustic and digital sources, the purity of the sounds wins in credibility. One recovers scattered pieces of flute, of guitar, of strings, etc... collected  in a avant-gardist sound construction. For someone who is not accustomed to these sounds, one could think it sounds like a big mess, but this is rather unfair, so much this work is strong and intense. Between  ambient calmness and industrial dreamings, accompanied by an imaginary tambourine.
 
Excellent !
 

Stéphane Fivaz
December 2000

Label : Empreintes DIGITALes (IMED 9948)

Distributors :

France : Metamkine (metamkine@compuserve.com)
Germany : Artware (Artware.prod@t-online.de)  / Liebermann (relito@t-online.de)
Spain : Arsonal (arsonal@retemail.es)
The Netherlands : Staalplaat (mailorder@staalplaat.com)
Czech Republich :  RéR CZ
Suisse : Karbon (karbon@dial.eunet.ch)
U.K. : RéR Megacorp, These Records, Touch (touch@touch.demon.co.uk)