Xavier Charles / Éric Normand – Avis Aux Réacteurs

1. Entrée………….Compresseur………….Combustion………….Turbine………….Réducteur………….Tuyère………….Poussée (35:12)

· Xavier Charles: clarinet
· Éric Normand: electric bass, objects

All music by Xavier Charles & Éric Normand
Recorded live at Silence Sounds, Guelph on 14/5/2016
Mixed and mastered by Xavier Charles & Éric Normand
Cover graphics courtesy of Lufthansa
Graphic design by László Szakács
Produced by László Juhász & Éric Normand

Released: December 2018 / first edition of 300 cds
Direct purchase: Bandcamp / Discogs

REVIEWS ↓

“The thirty-five-some minutes on this cd might consist of seven separate parts, according to the cover, but it plays as one radical piece of improvised music. Here we have Xavier Charles on clarinet and Éric Normand on electric bass and objects. Both of them have quite a career in improvised music and they match together very well, when it comes to a radical approach of their instruments, the unusual way of playing these instruments and making them sound like something else altogether. They scratch, bit, blow, bow and who knows whatever else their instruments and come with music that is thoughtful, loud, quiet, extreme, musical, atonal and all of that in a relatively short time span and in rapid succession. Sometimes the clarinet and bass are not to be recognized at all, and sometimes they have a very clear presence. The music is a wild ride, most of the time, with no hands on the wheel; see what happens then, seems to be their motto. With their experience in radical free music they sure know how to respond to each other, going from one place to the next; react, subtract and attract, respond, question and then do the opposite. Just because you can, seems to be their modus operandi. This is thirty-five-some minutes of sonic bliss, splintered and clustered, a force.” / Frans de Waard, Vital Weekly, 16 July 2019

“Xavier Charles and Éric Normand practice the art of the parboil, not as in cooking, but the craft of free improvisation crescendo. This single 35-minute track has in fact several boiling points. In the hands of lesser talents well, the banquet of sound might be overcooked. Charles’ clarinet has been heard solo, in duo settings with Terrie Ex and Otomo Yoshihide, in the super group Contest Of Pleasures (with Axel Dörner and John Butcher), and in the very large Ensemble X. His approach to the finicky clarinet is to surf the very edges of the instrument from the very quiet to overblown notes. By teaming up with bassist Éric Normand, Charles has invoked Sir Isaac Newton’s third law, which states for every action force there is an equal and opposite reaction force.

Normand’s main instrument is a modified bass which (it appears) he augments with objects. His sound eschews pulse for textures commonly associated with percussionists. The pair thread a continual tension between themselves. Twittered notes are countered with scrubbing clangs and Charles’ overblown clarinet finds itself accompanied by some shredded bass lines. The advance and retreat of these processes throughout act as short respites from the duos encounters. It is only when they have exhausted all avenues do they sever the sound with an abrupt stop.” / Mark Corroto, All About Jazz, 3 September 2019

“Le français Xavier Charles est un très remarquable clarinettiste chercheur qui a défini un langage et et un univers sonore personnel parmi les plus passionnants de la galaxie improvisée radicale. Il y a de nombreuses années, son talent avait percé en compagnie de John Butcher et Axel Dörner dans le superbe album Contests Of Pleasures (label Potlatch). Le voici avec un collaborateur tout à fait la hauteur qui apporte intelligemment sa contribution à l’édifice, en l’occurrence un merveilleux chantier de déconstruction, d’expérimentation réussie, de mise à jour de réalités sonores et d’articulations instrumentales sensibles qui questionnent notre mémoire, notre connaissance et notre écoute en éveil. Éric Normand joue de la basse électrique, sans doute préparée et d’objets bruissants qu’on pourrait qualifier de percussifs dans son acceptation large, soit génératrice de sons vraiment intéressants. Il devrait aussi y avoir des moteurs au ralenti (?). Le duo fonctionne bien et c’est un plaisir de découvrir leur complicité véritable. Il y a de nombreux souffleurs d’anches dans la scène improvisée et plus de saxophonistes d’envergure en général par rapport au nombre plus restreint de clarinettistes. Alors je dirais, que certains artistes de grand talent qui ont ouvert bien des horizons, il y a quelques dizaines d’années, et offrent à leurs auditeurs toujours avides (ou collectionneurs) l’évidence de leur savoir faire en jouant toujours très bien, MAIS, sans plus nous troubler ou nous fasciner autant qu’ils le firent lorsqu’ils émergèrent. Si vous avez été fascinés par les premiers albums solos d’Evan Parker, de Roscoe Mitchell, de John Butcher ou les Tenor et Graphics de Joe Mc Phee, et touchés au cœur par l’émotion de la découverte de leurs sons inouïs, il faut alors tendre l’oreille à la musique de ce duo. Xavier Charles évite, me semble-t-il de se rejouer et Éric Normand est un excellent partenaire en phase avec son co-équipier, sans quoi les trouvailles du clarinettiste créeraient moins de sens. Hautement recommandable. Ce sera donc une magnifique découverte. Avis Aux Réacteurs est publié par l’excellent label Inexhaustible Editions lequel commence à accumuler des perles de cette qualité dans son catalogue (Harald Kimmig, Phil Minton-Carl Ludwig Hübsch, Birgit Ulher…). Avec cet Avis Aux Réacteurs, il devient vraiment une étiquette de prédilection…” / Jean-Michel Van Schouwburg, Orynx-improv’andsounds, 6 September 2019

“A 2018 release from the Slovenian label Inexhaustible Editions, run by László Juhász. The label has a small but very select catalogue and has been home to some unusual instances of solo and group improvisation, reduced playing, and conceptual compositional music. Today’s record Avis Aux Réacteurs (ie-009) however is pretty much ‘pure’ free improv, provided by a couple of French geniuses whose work is not unfamiliar, Xavier Charles is the clarinet player, while Éric Normand has appeared on French-Canadian releases on the Tour De Bras label. He once again plays his bass and percussive objects set-up, and the duo create a fine mesh of scrapery and dronery. It’s one long live set, 35:14, with little ‘chapter headings’ printed on the back cover to indicate the drift of their musical discourse. Evidently, it’s something to do with machinery found in blast furnaces or similar factory sites, if I understand words like ‘compresseur’ and ‘réducteur’ correctly. Of course the ‘Réacteurs’ of the title may be referring to nuclear reactors, which indicates a slightly more life-threatening bent to the work, while the cover art is sampled from passenger airline safety diagrams. Glimpsing the oxygen mask graphic here, I had it in mind to search for some sort of metaphors for the act of breathing, which we could use to connect to the actions of Xavier Charles, but I think this is a very tenuous connection for me to be making.” / Ed Pinsent, The Sound Projector, 3 January 2020

RADIO PLAYS ↓

· No Wave at Tilos Rádió, Budapest, 23 June 2019
· DJ Grafiti at Radio Študent, Ljubljana, 8 February 2020