Automacité is firmly rooted in two sound worlds: Bouchard’s gestural language speaks of Montreal’s vital acousmatic scene, and the album’s silvery abstract dynamism recalls the later work of so-called IDM (intelligent dance music) pioneers Autechre.
Attracted to robust impacts, acute pin pricks of sound, and jittery crawls across glistening aural surfaces, Bouchard still creates the impression of a beat, even in the absence of a metric pulse. This bit of percussive punctuation serves his work well. Amidst the storm of stammering vocal reminiscences, thick serrated tones, crystalline trickles of noise, and bright pixelated beams, these temporal markers provide some welcome beacons.
The scope of the disc, though, is much wider than this dense metallic foliage. Things also slow down and thin out into sleek fluorescent ribbons and other longer, smoother shapes. While still maintaining almost unmanageably high fidelity, and perforated with little glitchy spurts, Parcelles 21 has the surface texture of an ice sculpture—cold, reflective, and transparent.
Striking‑-without compromise—a fascinating balance between traits of numerous electronic musical styles, Automacité is very rich and engrossing—albeit a somewhat brazen sonic experience.
Nick Storring is a Toronto-based composer, musician, and writer, and a contributing editor to Musicworks. His music has been presented and performed by the Esprit Orchestra, Eve Egoyan, Quatuor Bozzini, Beijing’s Musicacoustica Festival, and Vancouver New Music. An avid collaborator, Storring has composed for films by Terrance Odette, Ingrid Veninger and, in collaboration with Dafydd Hughes, for the National Film Board’s award-winning Web documentary High Rise: Universe Within (2015), directed by Katerina Cizek. He’s also scored productions by Litmus Theatre and MT Space, worked with celebrated choreographers Yvonne Ng, Marie Josée Chartier, Brandy Leary, and Deepti Gupta, and created music for “ambient gaming environment” Tentacle, which was mounted at New York’s Museum of Modern Art in 2011. Storring’s writing has appeared in Exclaim!, The Wire, and AUX.tv. He also contributed liner notes to Alga Marghen’s reissue of the ’60s band Intersystems’ entire recorded output, as well as RVNG Intl.’s box of early psych trio Syrinx’s reissues and previously unreleased material Tumblers from the Vault.