Devenir-ensemble is a collective of musicians from Montreal who describe themselves as “working in comprovisation around the formation of affective communities, understood as the common becoming of the multiple bodies (human or not, living or not) taken in a field of affective resonance.” Exploring, that is, the ways in which sound might influence and alter gatherings of people. The initiative of Hubert Gendron-Blais, whose other project ce qui nous traverse we covered back in in February, the project could therefore be viewed as a hybrid form of creation and research, a point at the intersection of music, politics and philosophy which looks to better understand the relationship between all three.
Résonances manifestes, the latest Devenir-ensemble release on Cuchabata Records, highlights just how evocative and ambitious this style can be. A ‘comprovised’ piece, it is based around field recordings from a variety of protests and demonstrations on the streets on Montreal across recent years, the crowd sounds followed and elevated by jazz and ambient styles. Gendron-Blais (baritone electric guitar) is joined by Andrea Prochazka Mercier (saxophone), David Dugas Dion (drums), Elyze Venne-Deshaies (clarinet), Joel Gorrie (cello), Joel E. Mason (bass guitar), Marilène Provencher-Leduc (transverse flute), Mélanie Cullin (accordion), Paul Zakarivan (electric guitar) and Philippe Blouin (electric guitar), a group varied and plastic enough to express the gamut of emotions and energies recorded on the ground.
Take the difference between the urgent opening of ‘Mouvement 2 – Effet de masse’ with the sense of latent movement captured on ‘Mouvement 4 – Imminence de l’affrontement’. Different events have different tonalities, and even within a gathering the tone changes as it swells and recedes. The disorientating chaos of ‘Mouvement 5 – Heurts’ can not last for ever, even the most fervent scenes unwinding into the sweeping quiet of ‘Mouvement 9 – Retour à la normale’. And likewise the bubbling anticipation seen on ‘Mouvement 3 – Échos des clameurs’ is inherently transient, like the strange moments at a show before the band have taken to the stage, where individual voices can still be heard above the general murmur. Before each person is subsumed into the crowd.
Artwork by Marjolaine Lord