When I was asked to prepare a carte blanche concert as part of the 20th anniversary of the concerts, I knew that I wanted it to be unlike anything I had ever heard here when I was student and a teacher. I have selected works that reflect an independent path to making experimental electronic music, one that is traced outside of the traditional boundaries of academia. Along with pieces and excerpts from major international artists, I am very happy to present two new local works: 'Vietnam', by Montrealer Louis Dufort, and 'Blur' by yours truly. Please feel free to dance along with the music - just don't throw out your shoulder in the process...

PS: as this is an anniversary series, I was asked to contribute some anecdotes from my stay at Concordia. I was here as a student and professor for 10 years - how do I distill that into a paragraph? Here are some quick memory captures:

making a 1 or 2-minute tape loop that stretched from the first to the second year studio; having the guard walk in on me in the 2nd year studio at 6 am, and almost scaring me off the window ledge where I was placing a mic to record the early birds; discovering Portishead and other bands by reading the students' notes in the studio log sheets; the condemned door in the class suddenly shaking wildly as someone on the other side tries to use it by mistake; hearing students describe ea as, "... it sounds like the giant ball in Raiders of the Lost Ark" 18 different times; being asked the difference between an input and an output during the last class of the year; watching Jean-François Denis ride his bike to class in the middle of a snow storm on Sherbrooke St, wearing only his jean jacket and a tuque; doing a soundwalk in the back of the music building with Claude Schryer and the whole class; finding out how the piano sound board in the 1st year studio got to be so exposed (ask Kevin); live wanking of the highest order with Kevin Austin and others on Lexicon delays; choosing the old comfortable wooden chair for every class, and never, ever actually sitting down on it; editing my first digital audio piece using Sound Designer on a Mac II, and waiting 15 minutes for a 'trim' function to execute (how I hated that little hand with the tapping fingers...); Brent Holland using his own PC setup on a stroller in the hall outside the studio, because he didn't like using a Mac; hosting the Perspectives CEC Days series in the new

concert hall in 1991, feeling comfortable around the creme de la creme of the Canadian ea scene; listening to so much good music every week, in the dark...

Ned Bouhalassa
ned@nedfx.com
http://www.nedfx.com