Jalons

Francis Dhomont, Jalons (milestones)
Ambient noise-collage-art. Not quite music. The liner notes are very artsy. Over half the tracks are over 10 minutes long. Kind of natural-world-oriented; sort of pretty. For playing by themselves purposes, I’d recommend the short tracks, 4, 6, and 8. They’re the most musical-sounding (and the SHORTEST), and they all have a bit of humor to them. Of the other tracks, they’re all . . . long; good for use as soundbeds; track 1 is also pretty and the most narrative and interesting of the long sound pieces.

1. Vol d’arondes (flight of swallows)—a collage of gathering dusk. electronic soarings, Retro-video-game-style simulated birdcalls, frog cries, and night sounds. Distant music and applause, and fireworks
2. En cuerdas (in the strings)—zoomings; large, ominous creakings, feverish pluckigns—what if you were living in a universe inside an Enormous Guitar? String sounds, electronically manipulated.
3. Les moirures du temps (the shimmering ripples of time)—all manner of bells in all timbres, sparkling and creaking against a low wash of tension. Gets more so towards end.
* 4. Studio du nuit (night studio)—A SHORT track! Only 3 minutes. It’s kinda funny, it’s kinda meta—a guy in the studio putting together this track about night: backgrounds of electronic night sounds, people (the composer and others) talking about the night and composing the night (in French with some English translations)
5. Lettre de Sarajevo (letter from Sarajevo)—strident electronic buzzing and bubbling, with some metallic churchbell-like sounds; the liner notes mention “horror” and “shame”
* 6. Un autre Printemps (another “Spring”)—speaks to Vivaldi’s Printemps (spring); manipulates snippets of that against hard rain, flowing water, and other spring/animal sounds. Eeew, then bugs come! Kind of witty, kind of pretty. Also on the short side for this guy, at 6:11. It was composed for a film; it’s the most musical track.
7. Drôle d’oiseaux (funny birds)—his only purely electronic track he ever made. Buzzing primitive approximations of different kinds of birdsongs, over background. It’s from 1985, so it sounds like . . . video games from 1985.
* 8. L’électro (Electro)—funny- a melee of all kinds of voices repeating “l’electro”. Cute. And small. And short, 1:05.