December 5, 8:00 pm (pre-concert interview at 7:30)
Olivier Alary is a Montreal-based musician, composer and conductor of noise. “My first musical expression was feedback,” he says. Born and raised in Toulouse, France, he spent his teens making punk music, shouting over detuned guitars. But his musical landscape was overturned with his discovery of the pioneering Groupe de recherches musicales (GRM) and their mid-century electronica: noisy, visceral, composed.
Alary’s first official release was a 2000 collection of experimental pop, recorded under the name Ensemble, issued by Aphex Twin’s Rephlex label. He also began a partnership with Björk, producing several remixes and contributing a song to her 2004 album Medulla.
More recently, Alary has become a sought-after film composer. His soundtracks include Jo pour Jonathan (2010) and Félix & Meira (2014), each of which was put forward as Canada’s official Academy Award submission, and China Heavyweight, one of several projects with director Yung Chang, which was awarded a 2012 Golden Horse in Taïwan. A selection of Alary’s film music, Fiction/Non-Fiction, was released by 130701 in 2017.
PROGRAM: The artist will revisit his “Pieces for Sine Wave Oscillators” album (LINE, 2017).
You will find a complete bio at akousma.ca/en
