stereo fixed medium

Integral/parent work: Bruits

Commission: IMEB

Premiere: June 1999, Synthèse 1999: Concert, Bourges (Cher, France)

“Nuit” is the second of the three movements of Bruits, a project created as a commis-sion from the Sonic Arts Network (United Kingdom), for the realization of an environmental tableau, a type of musical postcard depicting a place that is dear to me.

Stunned by the noises of the “city” and, in spite of my resistance, motivated by a desire to fulfill the commission, I found myself swept along in a much different direction from that which was expected of me. The sound samples, captured for the most part in the summer of 1997 in the streets and lanes of the city of Montreal, were exploded, and mutilated in order to render them more appropriate to my memory, to my sonic impression of this city, explored in every sense […].

“Nuit” is a long linear form, a type of adagio that reuses part of the material from the first movement, treating it in a much more formal and abstract manner. It is as though all the noises accumulated during the day continued, flattened, in the mind of the sleeper, reduced to tinnitus, which becomes confused with the sonic activity of nocturnal insects and the very real, though distant, hum of the sleeping city. “Nuit” was produced at the Charybde Studio of the Institut international de musique électroacoustique de Bourges (IMEB, France) in 1998 and premiered in June 1999 during Synthèse, the International Festival of Electronic Music and Creation (Bourges, France, 1999). “Nuit” was commissioned by IMEB.

Yves Daoust