Ned Bouhalassa

Aérosol follows Ned Bouhalassa over eight years, from Bouffée délirante, made in 1990 in the studios of Concordia University and the Université de Montréal, to Jets, completed in 1998. In his booklet essay Baruch Gottlieb reads the disc as the path of a composer trained in the acousmatic tradition of Francis Dhomont who, drawn by Nirvana, Sonic Youth and Public Enemy and by his work for film and television, moved towards a cross-genre electronic sensibility.

Jets was conceived for the automated sound projection system of San Francisco’s Sound Traffic Control, with jets of water, air and dust as models for objects that roam freely, flee like hunted animals or throw themselves against the edges of the stereo field. Constamment (autoportrait), a Réseaux commission written when he turned 35, is a self-portrait in five sections, from a childhood he does not remember to his love of techno. Attraction, dedicated to Brenda, mixes transformed acoustic recordings with analog and digital synthesis and took third prize at the Luigi Russolo competition in 1993.

Move 1, made at the Université de Montréal under Francis Dhomont and Jean Piché, sets bees, birds, skaters and skateboarders against abstract shadows, using a MIDI generator of his own that shifts the start point of a sample at each playback for granular-like textures; it was a finalist at the Noroit-Léonce Petitot prize in 1995. Bouffée délirante, his first attempt at cinema for the ear, introduced the montage and jump cuts that stayed in his writing.

Born in Le Mans in 1962, Ned Bouhalassa has been part of the Montréal music scene since 1988, dividing his time between film and television scores and electroacoustic concert works.

CD in crystal case, empreintes DIGITALes IMED 9840, 1998.