Oscillations Planétaires is a single work in nine movements by the Québec sound artist Chantal Dumas, realized in her Montréal studio in 2017-18 and revised in August 2019. Commissioned by Deutschlandfunk Kultur at the initiative of Marcus Gammel, it was first broadcast on the radio programme Klangkunst on 13 July 2018 and received its concert premiere in Montréal that December. The disc was a finalist for album of the year at the Prix Opus 2019-20.

The subject is geology: from its core to its surface, the Earth is crossed by undulating motions on time scales that range from a single day to geological ages. Each movement takes one of these phenomena, and the booklet pairs it with a short scientific note. There are the 800,000 to 1,000,000 earthquakes that occur every year, the Antarctic Plate moving a few millimetres a year, subduction and the Mariana Trench, mantle convection, geysers, the building of mountains and the reversals of the magnetic field. Marée crustale draws on the discovery by the geophysicist Maya Tolstoy that tides can trigger undersea earthquakes, “as if the seabed was breathing along with the tides”, and Dorsale médio-atlantique follows the 10,000 kilometres of the ridge.

Instruments appear in some movements: Ida Toninato on baritone saxophone, Claire Marchand on flute, Daniel Áñez on piano and Christian Olsen on drum kit. The scientific advisor was Fiona Ann Darbyshire of the Earth and atmospheric sciences department at UQAM. A preliminary version of two movements was heard in Toronto in 2017 under the title Nazca Plate, Sound Essay on Geological Time.

Born in Drummondville, Québec, in 1959, Chantal Dumas studied Jaques-Dalcroze eurhythmics at Université Laval and came to sound through community radio after moving to Montréal in 1984. Field recording, the voice and cartography run through her compositions, radio art and installations, broadcast by ABC, the BBC, ORF Kunstradio and Sveriges Radio among others.

CD in OGpak, empreintes DIGITALes IMED 19163, 2019.