a truly striking record » NICOLAS BERNIER USURE.PAYSAGE _ LP

NICOLAS BERNIER USURE.PAYSAGE _ LP/CD Hrönir 2011
« a truly striking
record »
whisperinandhollerin.com (US), August 9th, 2011
Ordinarily, I would say that an album is either ambient or it isn't. And yet that there are lengthy
passages on Nocolas Bernier's 'usure.paysage', a detailed and adventurous exploration of
musique concrete, that are without doubt the most ambient stretches of 'sound' I have ever
heard recorded.
It's entirely fitting that Bernier should describe himself – and be described by others – as a
'sound artist': he doesn't play instruments or compose musical pieces in the conventional sense:
he forges sculptures from the air – sometimes quite literally, collating and collaging found
sounds and field recordings in combination with his own electronic creations.
It's all executed with incredible sensitivity, and despite being a 'quiet' record, Bernier exploits a
remarkable dynamic range to remarkable effect. Clattering, creaking, crunching, echoing
footsteps and objects colliding forcefully break the near-silence. For example, 'Les chambres de
l'atelier' is for the most part quiet, so quiet in fact as to be barely there, leaving the listener
picking out sounds from the room or the faint mains hum. It's strangely engaging, but then
when sounds suddenly burst from nowhere, the effect is startling.
If good photography is all about contrast and depth of field rather than obeying the age-old
rules of composition, then 'usure.paysage' is the audio equivalent: it's a truly striking record, and
one that demands real focus to obtain the maximum effect.
« captivating »
François Couture, Monsieur Délire (CA), August 8th, 2011
A very fine musique concrete album that shows, once more, how important Nicolas Bernier is in
today’s electroacoustic music landscape. A loaded work, but solidly organized and captivating. A
perfectly defined compositional arc. First released on LP, now available on CD, the disc being
housed in the original LP jacket. The CD includes a bonus track: Bernier’s contribution to the
trans_canada project previously released on empreintes DIGITALes
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NICOLAS BERNIER USURE.PAYSAGE _ LP/CD Hrönir 2011
« dynamic modern
musique concrète »
Boomkat (UK), August 5th, 2011
Engrossing side of dynamic modern musique concrète by this French Canadian artist. Already
praised by The Wire as "utterly compelling", Bernier works with the splicing skill of a film editor
on 'Usure Paysage' to weave a disorienting narrative of disjointed high definition samples and
stray sonics. A diffuse rendering and microscopic attention to detail heightens the immersive,
hyperreal effect of his persistently shifting arrangements: he never settles on one sound for
long, each fragment is placed, swiped away, and juxtaposed with others with a considerate and
intriguing flow with never gets tedious or feels random. Over four pieces, ranging from 3 to 11
minutes, we're wrenched from rattling trains carriages to explosive klangs, extruded through
inimitably textured, frictional clouds of heck-knows-what to ear-craning pauses populated with
tinkling bells, via stereo-strafing cars and fluid waves of digital static. If you've been following
Giuseppe Ielasi's Senufo Editions, in particular the Oreledigneur and Raionbashi sides, or picked
up Reinhold Freidl's 'Inside Piano' LP, this will surely capture your imagination.
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NICOLAS BERNIER USURE.PAYSAGE _ LP/CD Hrönir 2011
« it’s here where he
truly excels »
Joshua Meggitt, Cyclic Defrost (AU), July 19, 2011
Widely praised as “utterly compelling musique concrete” upon its vinyl release in February,
Nicolas Bernier’s usure.paysage now sees a limited CD issue with an added track. Bernier’s
previously worked with electroacoustics in more performance-based settings but it’s here where
he truly excels. Like a film editor Bernier demonstrates particular skill at concocting narrative
from the disparate juxtaposition of sounds, but this is not his aim. Rather, sounds are forced to
collide, conform and clash with their neighbours, creating unusual blends and hybrids with
characters independent from their source. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
The four-part work begins with an immediacy to be expected: short bursts of high-volume
industrial noise, but this soon parts allowing for a richer array of sounds to be heard. Passing
cars, horns, faint Arabic chant, amorphous bass rumble, the tinkering of sharp metallic objects,
rasped wood; all carefully laid over a subdued bed of barely audible rustle and pockets of
silence. These intersections are frequently thrilling: the frenzied blips and bell tones meeting
the closing of an electric door heard midway through part 2’s ‘Les Chambres De L’atelier’; the
brief moments of looped activity riding over dub grey Tim Hecker haze; the shuffled gravel?
snow? rice? of ’10 passages’. The bonus track “k.krrkphsssPOW paysage” provides further
evidence of Bernier’s knack for abstract sound, a pointillist collage of static tics and digital fizz
proceeding along symphonic lines, more portentous but less convincing than the studied
detachment of the title work.
.3
NICOLAS BERNIER USURE.PAYSAGE _ LP/CD Hrönir 2011
« une belle
confrontation de styles
et d’époques qui place
notre canadien à la
pointe de la
modernité »
Essmaa (FR), 17 juillet 2011 Nicolas Bernier est né en 1977 à Ottawa, Canada et réside désormais à Montréal. Nicolas
Bernier n’est pas un inconnu. Nous le croisons régulièrement sur Cronica (« Strings.Lines ») en
début d’année, remixeur de Mokuhen pour Tsuku Boshi ou encore pour ce même label sur la
compilation ESSMAA (fields recording enregistrés par Aymeric de Tapol à Tunis).
Une musique gorgée de références de musique concrète, de micro sons et de brèches sonores
capturées dans les vents, d’infimes résonances qui nous viennent de la campagne ou des
déferlantes noise de la mer.
La figure de la nature, vivante et sauvage. On la retrouve dans toutes les interstices, les
fractures, les étincelles. A l’extérieur des remparts de la ville, dans la constellation du chien.
Dans une nuit tendue de nuages noir, on est aspiré dans un tourbillon sonore d’images donnant
le tournis, un méga voyage – grondements stellaires compris – qu’il vaut aborder allongé sur le
sol. La tête enfouie dans les hautes herbes.
On y entre par une salve bruitiste. Plus tard, diffusée en boucle une mer agitée. On emportera en
viatique les images d’un choeur d’église s’agrippant à la falaise avant de s’engager dans une
forêt sombre et touffue.
Au lien quelles traces humaines. Des voix furtives, un feu d’artifice, des sonorités portuaires.
Mais dans cet univers urbain, on imagine Nicolas diffusant les sonorités enregistrées durant la
nuit, dans un haut-parleur confectionné en bois. Défendant avec passion la thèse d’une
supériorité du monde qui nous entoure.
Des complaintes de mouettes et des images oscillant à la lueur d’une bougie. Sans difficulté,
nous plongeons dans cet univers méditatif où les drones et les nappes grésillantes tentent une
correspondance avec des estampes en contre-plans dessinés par des projections d’archives en
noir et blanc. Doux mélange de crépitements désordonnés et d’ondulations aquatiques, parfois
traversé de crashs numériques, ce disque est une belle confrontation de styles et d’époques qui
place notre canadien à la pointe de la modernité, qui rappelle à la fois Labradford et le duo Fripp
& Eno, ou plus récemment Christian Fennesz renouant avec le touché soyeux de Ryuichi
Sakamoto. Ce qui laisse présager de nouvelles et fructueuses compositions.
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NICOLAS BERNIER USURE.PAYSAGE _ LP/CD Hrönir 2011
« Hot shit musique
concrete found here! »
« Excellent ! »
Aquarius Records (US), March 2011
Hot shit musique concrete found here! There are so many stuffy compositions and constructions
that look back to the salad days of tape experimentation in the '50s and '60s. Works can get so
conceptual with each sound being meant to allude to some particular phrases of Beckett or
recapitulate the Merz of Schwitters that the interplay between this found sound and that
electronic blorp is totally lost amidst a dull and boring concoction that serves little more than an
execution of a grant application. This is certainly not the case for Canadian composer Nicolas
Bernier, whose dexterous yet ominous concrete album has landed in the good hands of Hronir, a
label which has a small catalogue of brutal collage artists (e.g. Sudden Infant, Raionbashi, GXJupitter Larssen) to accompany more oblique voices from the academic world. While Bernier's
work isn't nearly as toxic as those jackbooted noiseniks, his compositions are wholly
discomforting, and we mean that in the best possible light. Within the avant-garde pantheon,
Bernier's work follows that of Michel Chion and Luc Ferrari doing their finest work, through
dynamic juxtapositions blurting concrete sounds (bellowing car horns, steam engine growls,
leaden explosions, etc) against unsettled atmospheres and spackled dronings that start and
stop with a series of repeating punctuations not unlike the strategy that Nurse With Wound
mastered on Homotopy To Marie. He's aware of the cinematic urge for acousmatic works, and
pushes "Les chambres de l'atelier" towards a Lynchian noir with a soft-focus melody warbling in
the background to a series of crunched abrasions and eerie footsteps, ruptured by ghostly
noises. Excellent, through and through! Limited to 300 copies as well.
Metamkine (FR), Février 2011
Excellente plongée dans une composition de musique concrète faisant le lien entre une
esthétique des années 50 et l'étude paysagère plus actuelle. Collections de sons
environnementaux et d'autres sources acoustiques organisées et montées dans une dynamique
cinétique au service d'un kaléïdoscope sonore aux multiples facettes. Excellent !
.5
NICOLAS BERNIER USURE.PAYSAGE _ LP/CD Hrönir 2011
« dynamisch und
scharf gezeichnete »
« utterly compelling » De:Bug (DE), März 2011
Wenig Sonnenlicht fällt in die Welt, die Nicolas Bernier hier vor a uns ausbreitet: Ein riesiges
imaginäres Hafengelände, in dem annähernd vollautomatisch die letzten Reste zivilisatorischen
Handelsguts durch die Hallen spuken. Große Massen werden mit sattem Bassrumpeln in
Bewegung versetzt, Mechanik klappert, rasselt, brummt und piept, Verpackung knistert und
bröselt, verhallt in der Ferne, bis der nächste elektronische Luftzug hinter einem die Tür zufallen
lässt und man sich im nächsten kalten Maschinenraum wiederfindet, den es auszuloten gilt. Nur
selten verirren sich Schritte, Stimmen oder gar Kirchenglocken, Streicher, Gesang in die
akusmatische Landschaft, die sich mit dunkler Kraft an den Ohren festsaugt. Eine fesselnde,
dynamisch und scharf gezeichnete halbe Stunde Vinyl, mit der Hrönir sich um einen erneuten
Blick auf die elektroakustische Szene Kanadas verdient macht und in ihrer dunklen Intensität
wieder als eine Synthese vorangegangener Releases in den Katalog einfügt.
Jim Haynes, The Wire (UK), #325, March 2011
The antiquarian aesthetic of a fastidious watchmaker mingles with that of modern-day
cinematic sound designer on this utterly compelling musique concrète album. The numerous
detours, razor cuts, slamming doors, wooden squeaks and articulated arrangement of sonic
debris are on display with considerable panache, recalling concrète compositions dating back to
the late 1950s and early 60s. The toxic hiss that arises within the mechanical clatter on
“Paysages articulés No. Zéro” is particularly effective. Elsewhere, on “Les chambres de
l’atelier”, Bernier deftly moves from oblique passages of ratcheted turmoil and springloaded
jolts into pools of half-melodic tones and nightmarish foreshadowing. Here, these almost
musical passages are situated between David Lynch’s horror-laden sound design and the
Schimpfluch-Gruppe’s more sublime moments.
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NICOLAS BERNIER USURE.PAYSAGE _ LP/CD Hrönir 2011
« disturbing and
fascinating »
themilkman, themilkfactory (UK), February 3rd, 2011
[...] Bernier is sole on board for the LP-only Usure.Paysage, the most recent of the three albums, and, over
the course of four tracks, two clocking at around ten to eleven minutes, the other two much shorter, he
exposes the electro-acoustic nature of his work through a series of highly fragmented and contrasted
sound collages, built from varied field recordings. This is in many ways the most disturbing and
fascinating of the three records, its pieces building up into heavy abstract forms, cut short by far ranging
noise conflagrations or infinitely small sonic particles. Each of the four pieces is made of juxtaposed
sequences, with nothing to clearly link them together other than the simple fact that they exist in a predefined order. The impression though it that of a living scenery, subjected to random events, and reacting
or adapting to them. Bernier expertly plays with the mind here, often tricking it into a false sense of safety
and peace, only to drop a deep thunder or layer high pitched metal on metal friction or, it appears at one
point, human screams.
Although released in quick successions, these three records stem from totally different ideas, the
resulting pieces, while bearing some common elements, revealing Nicolas Bernier as a particularly
inquisitive mind and creative sound artist. 4.8/5
.7