Victoriaville, Quebec has been synonymous with contemporary music for more than three decades. The Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville attracts many of the world’s great new music composers and performers.
It’s also home to Charles Barabé, an artist building himself a similarly impressive international reputation. His latest, De la fragilité, represents a shift from experimental electronics to contemporary classical.
It is “a new turn in my work,” says Barabé.
Made up of six movements, the album is remarkably advanced. That won’t surprise long-time followers. Barabé has an impressive catalogue.
Still, there are few artists capable of this kind of step forward. Let alone one into the demanding world of new classical music. These six compositions alternate between spacious and minimalist.
Astral Spirits founder Nate Cross shares a bit of back story in the album’s notes: “When Charles reached out to Astral about doing a release for him I was absolutely floored! As many in the tape culture world, I have a lot of Charles Barabé tapes and they are all amazing. However, I wasn’t so sure how exactly it would fit into the world of Astral Spirits.
“[J]ust put the album on and let it play … To me it stands as an extremely bold and important statement in Barabé’s discography.”
Both Cross and Barabé have good reason to be proud of this one.