Browse by Artist: HOULE, FRANCOIS

Artist:	HOULE, FRANCOIS
Title:	Cryptology
Label:	BETWEEN THE LINES (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	BTL 012

"It starts like a quest. A quest for an impulse, for a guiding line which the music could follow. 'Palinodia I' a few notes, gentle and hesitant, like taking a last breath before embarking on a great creative endeavour. In this first track, which is representative of the CD Cryptology, the Canadian clarinetist Francois Houle and his four musicians do not choose the route of the traditional format of improvisation which consists of tuning in, moving ecstatically through the high-energy emphatic stage and then exhaustedly winding down. The free imagination of the performers focuses instead on the gentle lead-in to the composition. In François Houle's case, the transitions are flowing, the borders are open, form and freedom are no longer opposites or terrains which must be defended. Francois Houle's concept of chamber-format improvisation is about the desire to use improvisation as a means of giving shape not as a means of mere self-expression. This is music in permanent motion; music which is continually ready to change direction within the larger scheme. Tracks such as 'Asymptote', which tell us about an imaginary meeting in infinity, or 'Palinodia I & II' with their poetesque allusions to a free allocation of values which can be revoked at any time, give an indication of Francois Houle's principle of safeguarding the reticent emotionality of his music by underpinning it with an intellectually sound concept. Elegance, melancholy, reflection. These three attributes aptly describe the music of This extraordinary quintet. The element of compulsion which formerly characterised free music seems to have reined itself in. Francois Houle and his musicians, whose interaction is wonderfully smooth, derive their power not from emotion, but from the abstraction of emotion, which supplements the motions of thought and expands them by a further dimension. 'Cryptology' is a track which in very non-encrypted terms deals with the clarity of feeling and the joy of thinking. Francois Houle (Clarinet), Brad Turner (Trumpet), Peggy Lee (Cello), Tony Wilson (Guitar), Dylan Van Der Schiff (Drums)."

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