Bleep

Five leading lights of the French improvised, electronic, electroacoustic scene combine once again electronic tape, analogue synths and a united love for strange sonorities for their debut CD release. Like its predecessor, the vinyl only release 'Floppy Nails' (MEGO 059) this is an exciting display of concrete improvisation. Taken from a live session at the Musique Action Festival, and mastered at Piethopraxis in K?ln. Given that this has sprung from the blank slate of open improvisation - resting on the dexterity, patience, and the listening ability provided by the participants sees the results as all the more inspired. Interlocking, overlapping, stretching, snapping, bending, morphing and panning, along with vast dynamics: calm and restrained through to hyperactive and fierce. Even some Foie Gras geese get a look in.

Here's a review from The Wire -

'Ernst Krenek isn't a name much dropped these days, but 30 years ago in 'Horizons Circled' he described how the electronic medium lent itself "to a kind of controlled compositional improvisation much more readily than the realm of live sound because the composer can mould the sound material while he is creating it". That's approximately the ethos of QuintetAvant, fronted by tape-spinners Lionel Marchetti and J?r?me Noetinger, with Jean Pallandre operating the third reel-to-reel, Marc Pichelin on analogue synthetizer and laurent Sassi handing the digits. Among the first sounds one hears are pigs grunting, but the porcine source is treated with feline grace, as the quintet weaves together a bewildering array of materials - laughs, intoned speeches, scratched plastic foam, dustbins, bird whistles, diodes, gates, filters - with absolute musicality. It's astonishing to think that this is a live performance. Musique concr?te has a long and honoured tradition in france, but now borders on the pass?. QuintetAvant breathe new life into familiar procedures by taking them out of the studio, removing much of the old obsession with process and delivering a live mix which is thoughtful and exhilarating. Feedback is handled with effortless ease and even at high dynamics the projected sound is detailed and crystalline, a triumph of control. 39 minutes expands almost to infinity and then condenses to a tiny tone-burst, depending on your mood and angle of entry.'