If there's one thing I've learned from doing Splendid, it's that there's an incredible amount of amazing music being made in Canada. Harangue I is the newest, and one of the best examples I've heard. It features six contemporary compositions that could loosely fit into the catchall electroacoustic genre; each piece blends some degree of classical composition (style, if not instrumentation) with the many "sonic painting" techniques afforded by modern recording technology. The disc begins with Andrew Czink's "shadeless, peopled", which captures the absolute stillness of heat haze using gated metallic noises and the lingering, subaudible hums into which they subside. Susan Frykberg's "Astonishing Sense of Being Taken Over by Something Far Greater Than Me" makes an effective contrast, pairing comparatively traditional violin work with a variety of external sounds and digitized voices to depict the birth process. In "To Lions Gate", Damian Keller uses modified and mutated ambient sound, along with some man-made sounds, to create what is essentially a sensory/emotional picture of the titular bridge's soundscape -- sometimes quiet, sometimes bustling, sometimes menacing. In "Sere," Giorgio Magnanensi manipulates various sound reproduction technologies, recombining them as a jittery, melodic new work that's simulataneously human and mechanical. Hildegard Westerkamp's "Talking Rain" uses snippets of recorded rainfall, employing them to build melodies, percussion patterns and intricate textures -- it's perhaps the most intriguing work on the disc. "Copper Flying", John Oliver's MIDI guitar/computer duet, ends the disc with a quiet but unnerving series of jangly near-melodies -- it sounds like the interactions and occasional collisions of a huge metal model of the universe. I hope my ringing endorsement is made clear when I say that I can't wait for Harangue II!
Various Artists Harangue I Earsay Productions CD
Release available from website above			Review by George Zahora

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