Conform or be cast out

—Neil Peart, Subdivisions (1982)

The word would be fear. There was a definite division among the faculty about what I was doing because at the time, my thesis was a work for ensemble and turntables and it was completely unheard of. People thought this is crazy, it’s not music, whereas others thought this is the future, this is forward thinking…I’m a firm believer in following your heart…

When I see in writing, "A great female composer," like, it is 2013. If we were talking about the NFL or NASCAR, maybe, but I think there are fine examples of fabulous women in the arts for a long time now. It can be irritating — but I’m just going to do what I do and not care that I’m a female doing it. Nothing’s going to change my mind.

—Nicole Lizée; from an interview with CBC Music (2013)

White Label Experiment (2012)

For Percussion Quartet And Live Electronics

Duration: 14:00

Visual Program Notes

Instrumentation: 

• Percussion 1; Manuel Typewriter (mic’d), Portable Turntable, Glockenspiel, Hi-Hat, Sizzle Cymbal, Ride Cymbal

• Percussion 2: Glockenspiel, Hi-Hat, Sizzle Cymbal, Ride Cymbal, Snare Drum, Kick Drum, Magazine (mic’d)

• Percussion 3: Manuel Typewriter (mic’d), Toy Piano (3-octave range; mic’d), Hi-Hat, Sizzle Cymbal

• Percussion 4: Synth (pure sine tone w/ some sustain), Glockenspiel, Hi-Hat, Ride Cymbal, Kick Drum

• Electronics (1 player): Suzuki OM-36 Omnichord connected to a harmonizer, 2 turntables/1 mixer (w/ prepared records)

Records: 

• James Blake; “Half Heat Full” from The Wilhelm Scream 12” (UK), Side 2, Track 2

• Les Percussions de Strasbourg; “Shen” (by Tona Scherchen, composer) from East Meets West, Side 1 Track 1

• A-Ha; “Dream Myself Alive” from Hunting High And Low Side, 2 Track 4, 2 copies (record juggling), sample begins at start of track (synth fade in)

• Popular Science Monthly; Stereo Test Record, Sine Wave in “A” (or any record containing a pure sine wave in A)

• Kraftwerk; “The Hall of Mirrors” from Trans-Europe Express, Side 1 Track 2 (Prepared)

• Glenn Gould; Plays Beethoven Sonatas, Side 1 Track 4, Sonata #14 in c# minor, Op. 27 #2 “Moonlight” (Prepared)

• Luciano Berio; “Cinque Variazioni” from Visage, Circles, Sequenza III, 5 Variations, Side 2 Track 2

Imagine, if you will, a young girl growing up in Canada listening to crates of 1960's era Easy Listening vinyl that belonged to her parents, one of whom repaired home electronics. The girl grows up in the early days of MTV and develops an interest in visual and sound design. She's able to hear the music in film dialogue, picking up actor's beats and foley counterpoint. She watches a Big Wheel being driven around the Overlook Hotel by a young Danny Torrance and focuses on the rhythm of the plastic three-wheeler transitioning from swathes of carpet to hard flooring. At home, she watches as unreliable, first-generation home electronics glitch in and out of focus. Eventually, she attends college and discovers Ligeti, Cage, and the world of the musical avant-garde after spending her teen years emersed in new wave and heavy metal. Nicole Lizée's work encompasses all of this, splices and mixes it up, and generates a unique language of otherworldliness that, like Cage's work, hears the music present in all things.

Lizée's series of etudes based on various film directors are mixed media artworks that bring the stutter and warped nature of turntablism into the film world. There are Lynch Etudes, Kubrick Etudes, Tarantino Etudes, and Hitchcock Etudes. I was really beginning to feel the simpatico when I came across 2012: Concerto for Power Trio and Orchestra (Fantasia on Themes by Rush) and was dumbstruck. Lizée takes the 2112 Overture, Spirit of Radio, YYZ, Subdivisions, The Trees, Freewill, Tom Sawyer, and probably some other fragments that I missed, and dips them all into a warm, psychedelic bath. What emerges works. It shouldn't, but it does, because Lizée knows and loves the source material so much that she understands the true musical essence of what Lee and Lifeson wrote and can expand on it. This is not a jukebox medley of greatest hits. It's the realization of a new dimension hidden in the source material, brought to the awareness of those of us hanging out in Flatland without her vision.

2012 should be my favorite piece of Nicole Lizée's, but it's not. While the simpatico can be overwhelming, my honest reaction to all of it after a bit was a mild sense of gimmickry. The more I explored pieces that weren't drawn from musical interpretations of works I was already intimately familiar with, the more I enjoyed her language and was moved by her undeniable talents. It's when Lizée uses her vast knowledge of recorded samples and superior turntable techniques to create original works that are less directly referential that I feel like she truly shines as an artist. That's why I chose White Label Experiment as my favorite discovery. (Sorry, Dirk & Lerxst.)    

I encourage everyone to watch Lizée discuss the work by clicking on the Visual Program Notes above. Those who can read music will want to check out the score by visiting the Canadian Music Centre and searching for White Label Experiment. Lizée's latest CD release, Bookburners, contains White Label Experiment as well as the title track, a 2016 Juno Awards nominee for Classical Composition of the Year. This album has been one of my favorite discoveries so far this summer.