David Berezan

La Face Cachée gathers five acousmatic works by the Canadian composer David Berezan, made between 2002 and 2007 in Birmingham, Manchester, Basel, Banff, Karlsruhe and Paris. The title, “the hidden side”, names his method: he chooses sources he is personally attached to in their everyday setting, then transforms them to reveal spaces, characters and detail hidden inside. The disc is dedicated to his parents, Jennie and Victor Berezan.

Cyclo grew from his daily bicycle ride between home and the Birmingham studios, taking apart the bicycle as a sound object; some pitched material uses gamelan tuning, a nod to the cyclo rickshaws of South East Asia. It won 2nd prize at CIMESP in São Paulo in 2003. Baoding, three eight-channel miniatures that won a prize at Bourges in 2002, pairs the chimes inside Chinese Baoding balls with the sounds of Beijing and Kun opera. Styal starts from the Quarry Bank Mill south of Manchester, its iron waterwheel and drive shaft, steam pipes and power looms, and took 1st prize at CIMESP in 2005.

Hoodoos, the longest piece, was recorded along the Hoodoo Trail in Banff National Park: ice freezing, cracking and melting, water, wood, snow and the slow release from winter. It was composed for the Flux Sound Diffusion System Berezan developed for live performance of fixed-media works. Hannibal comes from a residency in Basel, where the kinetic sculptures of Jean Tinguely caught his attention; its only main source is a metal chain swaying after Hannibal II completes its cycle, processed into playful melodies, and it became the seed of his larger work Ting.

Born in Edmonton in 1967, Berezan studied in Calgary and completed a PhD at the University of Birmingham in 2003. He has directed the Electroacoustic Music Studios and MANTIS at The University of Manchester since 2003, and became professor there in 2012.

DVD-Audio in OGplus, empreintes DIGITALes IMED 0896, 2008.