Thursday, November 21st, 2013, 19.30
Jean-François Laporte
Mantra - Electroacoustic Music
Mantra
Mantra is a single recording of 26 minutes length, [presenting] 6 huge compressors that serve
to refresh ice skating rinks.
[Jean-François Laporte]
I spent many a winters’ evening in hockey rinks across Vermont, and the only air compressors
in the joints were located inside the Zambonis. And upon first listen, anyone who’s spent
those twenty minutes in between periods watching the grand machine make its rounds would
immediately and justifiably jump to the same conclusion. [...] In writing about his recording,
Laporte states, “To be a mantra, a sound must possess certain qualities: it must have a fairly
long duration, it must be a periodical sound or repeat itself in a cyclical manner, the
progression of the sound events must take place almost imperceptibly, and finally it must
have some kind of influence on our energy.” His examples of mantras are the sounds of
refrigerator, automobiles on highways, or “the noise of the machines which are an integral
part of our daily working life.” [...] Mantra is a deeply moving piece of mechanical
mysticism, like a lawnmower on acid. While the Zamboni keeps things cold, Laporte’s sound
is quite warm, never harsh, and flows from timbre to timbre with a gentle fluidity. As the
whir morphs from a deep zum to puréed clicks, you can imagine the Zamboni circling the
rink, growing louder and clearer as it approaches, becoming sonically intense as it passes you
by, then softening on its way to the opposite blue line. Near the mantra’s conclusion, a bolt
comes loose somewhere inside the beast, causing an arrhythmic rattling, similar to
something Autechre might dream up. Knowingly or not, Laporte’s Mantra makes perfect sense
in the end. [...] Mantra is a wonderful twist of the avant-concrete medium and reveals the
beauty hiding in our wide world of din.
[Otis Hart, Dusted Reviews, USA, 2002]
Jean-François Laporte
Jean-François Laporte takes an intuitive approach to creating music, learning through
concrete experimentation with sound. By actively listening to each sound, he strives to
understand its reality and its underlying structure. His music is the result of working closely
with the raw materials of sound. These sounds come from the everyday environment or from
both traditional and invented instruments, with no form of hierarchy. Along with his activities
as a composer, Jean-François has been developing and making musical instruments that
produce unconventional sounds. The composer recently added robotic and computerized
controls to some of his invented instruments (the FlyingCan, the Tu-Yo and the Bowls), giving
them new autonomy and increasing their possibilities (the Kyokkoufu visual and sound
installation presented in 2007 at Centro Galego de Arte Contemporeania in Galica-Spain. Also
the Khôra visual and sound installation presented in September 2002 in Montréal, produced
by Fonderie Darling). In addition to works for invented instruments, since 2000, Jean-
François has composed a large number of works for conventional instruments (Saxophone
Quartet, String Trio, String Quartet, Piano, Cello, Contemporary ensemble, etc.).
http://www.jflaporte.com