Lately, it seems as if the music of Jean-Luc Guionnet is everywhere.Though he has been active for many years, there seems to be a flood ofpublished Guionnet work recently. However, unlike other equallyprolific artists, Guionnet appears to have a diverse area of musicalinterest, backed up by solid ideas. Past albums have featured largegroup improvisation (with Hub/Bub), composed tape music (on the GroundFault label), field recordings (with his trio Afflux), and metallicsound-sculpture installation ("Synapses", on Selektion). His two latestCDs, it should come as no surprise, are very different from one anotherand are both worthwhile.
Pheromone is the trio of Guionnet, here playing metal, wood, contactmicrophones and some instruments I've never heard of (chifelia anyone?)with Eric Cordier on his usual hurdy-gurdy and Pascal Battus onprepared (he says "surrounded") guitar. The music was improvised liveto cassette on one day in May of 1998, and this CD retains the limiteddynamic range and compression inherent in that medium. This is a goodthing. The tape is saturated in such a way that the individualingredients are pretty much indistinguishable, especially during thebusiest sections. I happen to enjoy the sound of overloaded tape, sothere were many breathtaking passages for me. At one point in the firsttrack, something that sounds like a grunting beast wrestled withmetallic percussion under a blanket of smudge and feedback...wonderful! As electro-acoustic improv albums go, this one has grit anda fierceness that one does not encounter very often. My only complaintis that 'Disparture' might actually be too much of a good thing; at 72minutes long, I don't believe that the material has been sculpted intoan album. Perhaps a good way to listen to this would be intwenty-minute chunks, because I found myself craving some shape andclosure after about 40 minutes. 
Another animal entirely is "Metro Pre Saint Gervais", recorded andperformed in the Paris train station of the same name. Englishviolinist Warburton (also a writer for the Wire and Signal to Noise)and the omnipresent Guionnet (here on alto sax) wandered around thetrain station with their instruments for an evening while Eric La Casaactively recorded the interactions between the duo and the station. Intruth, the subway station itself makes this a quartet, since itspeculiar gestures determine the nature of the sounds generated within.On this album, it can be heard interjecting bits of people'sconversation, as well as its own strange acoustics, implacable bellsand clangs, incidental noises and (of course) the occasional train insuch a way that it is playing exactly as much as the "players" are. Onetone seems to reoccur, echoing through the space as a sort of chorus tounite the piece's several sections. This odd tone is subtely quoted inWarburton and Guionnet's playing, which La Casa uses to underlineserendipitous moments (like when an escalator drone matches thesaxophone's pitch, or footsteps suggest a subtle rhythm, etc) intotense and concise compositions. La Casa is very concsious of the stereofield, as demonstrated in his pitting of violin against saxophone inopposing speakers, gradually pulled into the center just as a trainarrives to obliterate the moment. Both instumentalists play into theirenvironment, blending with and accentuating aspects of the foundacoustic space, rather than simply overlaying improv onto environmentalnoises, which would have been obvious and boring. There is a danger inthis kind of sound work that the subject matter might be so opaque thatit overshadows the music, but this trio seems to be aware of that. Theyhave created a pure listening experience, in which the elements add upto a complete and thoughtful whole.
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