François Houle / Benoît Delbecq

Nancali

“…brilliantly illustrates the care, craft, and attention to detail that are crucial to successfully negotiating contemporary improvised music…In essence, the musicians are simultaneously constructing a language and holding a conversation…Thoughtful, colourful, and surprising…”

— Art Lange, Fanfare

In two sessions recorded a year apart, two brilliant improvisors develop a probing and highly empathetic dialogue. Although familiar with each other’s performances and musical affinities, Vancouver-based clarinetist Houle and Paris-based pianist Delbecq had never worked on a project together before their first, impromptu recording session. To their second meeting each brought a beautiful new composition, but the basis remained intuitive and spontaneous. However this music also has great structural integrity, as the duo creates new soundfields reflecting a synthesis of somewhat unrelated musical languages. Delbecq’s prepared piano “constructions” (he draws on a wide range of natural and synthetic materials to prepare only certain keys in each piece) and his polyrhythmic textures and compositional strategies have been mainly inspired by the pianistic experiments of Ligeti and Conlon Nancarrow as well as the music of Africa — especially marimba music from Uganda and pygmy music — by way of Ornette Coleman, Steve Coleman, and gamelan. Houle has extended the clarinet’s sonic possibilities, adapting soprano saxophonist Evan Parker’s circular breathing/multiphonic approach as well as incorporating  microtones, Anthony Braxton’s array of linear sound formings, and the multi-clarinet textures of William O. Smith into a personalized vernacular. Together they have discovered a music of contrasts: density and lightness, vertiginous speed and seductive langour, intricate rhythmic displacements and melodic tenderness, explorations of chromaticism and echoes of the blues — a music of the senses and the intellect.

Art Lange writes that François Houle’s music “hovers unselfconsciously above categories and styles”. His playing reflects his ongoing interest in jazz experimentalism, contemporary classical vocabularies and extended instrumental techniques. He has worked with   Dave Douglas, Myra Melford, Mark Dresser, Wayne Horvitz, George Lewis, the NOW Orchestra, Paul Plimley, Lisle Ellis, Evan Parker, John Butcher, Georg Graewe, Joëlle Léandre, Carlos Zingaro, Paul Lovens, Guillermo Gregorio, Wolfgang Fuchs, Erhard Hirt, Günter Christmann, Vinnie Golia, William O. Smith and Phil Haynes. He is also very involved in the development of contemporary Canadian music, performing in Standing Wave and the Vancouver New Music Ensemble, and collaborating on projects with composers Paul Dolden, Sergio Barroso, and John Oliver. He has composed for the NOW Orchestra, Garbo’s Hat, the François Houle Trio, Et Cetera, and Frozen Eye Dance, and his graphic score settings of poems by Catriona Strang (published by ECW Press) have been performed internationally and broadcast on the BBC. His other recordings include the François Houle Trio (Tony Wilson/Dylan van der Schyff), and collaborations with Marilyn Crispell and Joëlle Léandre/Georg Graewe (all three on Red Toucan), Léandre/Zingaro/Lovens/Houle (Random Acoustics), and his septet Et Cetera and tribute to John Carter (both Songlines).

Benoît Delbecq is “one of the most fascinating pianists of the new generation” (Michel Contat, Télérama). Born in 1966, his musical background is in both jazz and and contemporary classical music (specializing in the performance of prepared piano — e.g. Ligeti, Cage). He co-founded the collective Kartet (CDs on ADDA and Deux Z) and formed his own quartet Paintings (Guillaume Orti/Joe Carver/Steve Argüelles; CD on Deux Z). He is a founding member of the Hask Collective, which has been instrumental since 1992 in rejuvenating the Paris new music scene (he also led the Hask Quartet’s summer 1997 tour of Canada), and of The Recyclers (with Steve Argülles and Noël Akchoté; CDs on Deux Z, Deux Z/Babel, and Rectangle), and also performs with L’Astrolab and Jacques et les veuves joyeuses. He toured central Africa as part of Serge Adam’s jazz-meets-Africa project Jazz Mic Mac (DOC, also a film), and has performed and recorded with Adam’s big band Quoi de Neuf Docteur (two CDs on DOC), in a duo with Charles Schneider (Plainisphare), Les Amants de Juliette (DOC), Pablo Nemirowky’s Tierra del Fuego Sexteto (ADDA), Nicolas Genest (Pannonica), Corin Curschellas (two CDs on MGB), and Jorrit Dijkstra (BVHaast). New projects include a quartet with Michael Moore, Jean-Jacques Avenel and Steve Argüelles, and a duo of drums/samplers/synths with Argüelles. He has also performed and/or recorded with Steve Lacy, Alan Silva, Tony Coe, Glenn Ferris, Marc Ducret, Louis Sclavis, Dominique Pifarely, Derek Bailey, Evan Parker, Beñat Achiary, and Gianni Gebbia, collaborates with poet Olivier Cadiot, and composes for dance, theatre and film.

“First-rate performance…by an under-recognized clarinetist.” — Ben Ratliff, New York Times

“One of the most fascinating pianists of the new generation.” — Michel Contat, Télérama

“Houle and Delbecq apply their awesome scholarship of 20th century classical theory and forward-thinking jazz to Nancali…Delbecq teases fascinating timbral qualities out of the keyboard, making it sound variously like a music box, a log drum, or a gamelan orchestra. Houle executes original, well-defined melodic lines with stunning clarity and rich tonal resonance. Together, the players create eloquent, thoroughly synchronized, harmonic expressions of one spirit.” — Sam Prestianni, Jazziz

**** “Nancali has its playful moments. Between them, Houle and Delbecq draw on a broad range of contemporary musical thought and practice. The result could have been utter confusion; [these] duets are in fact nicely self-contained and quite remarkable for their clarity.” — Mark Miller, The Globe and Mail (also Mark Miller’s to 10 jazz for 1997)

“Gliding with a startling atonal chill, this session displays much in the way of creative interplay and a quieter side of avant-garde jazz and chamber music.” — Andrew Bartlett, The Rocket

**** “Houle and Delbecq improvise in the modern classical vein, with a feel of exquisite distance…The music is by turns quiet and crystalline, dramatic and vigorous, suggesting alternate landscapes, from childhood dreams to unspeakable tragedies.” — Paul de Barros, Down Beat

“A beautiful piece of work. The music is sensual and delicate but not easy…With Nancali, Delbecq and Houle broach the magical and indecipherable, creating a rhythmically complex soundscape that strains the boundaries of contemporary music.” — Laurence Svirchev, 5/4 Magazine