Charlotte Hug & Chantale Laplante - Brilliant Days
(For4Ears)
A trans-Atlantic collaboration between the French-Canadian Laplante and Hug, of Zurich, Brilliant Days takes yet another stab at the results of the interplay between acoustic and electro-acoustic sounds. The duo mine territory that's far from untouched, but their improvisatory duets on laptop and viola are not without their own worth. Both women have a foot in both worlds; Laplante is a fairly recent laptop performer whose history lies mainly in acoustic composition, and Hug often manipulates her viola's output with electronic effects. Brilliant Days finds the two in surprisingly murky locales for much of its duration, due mostly to the slow, passing masses of sound created by Laplante's laptop.
Charlotte Hug's hands-on technique wrangles some interesting sounds from her viola. The electronic effects with which it's manipulated aren't very intrusive, but it's not uncommon to hear strains of brass and wind instruments, as well as traditionally non-musical artifacts, in her playing. The moments in which her viola becomes a more anonymous sound source are some of Hug's best, as it contributes more fully to Brilliant Days' otherworldly feel. This feeling is mainly supplied by the atmospherics of Laplante's laptop utilizations, which drift in the background like massive whales or ominous clouds. There's little that Laplante does, though, that sounds very novel, as the bulk of her palate of sounds seems to be well within her instrument's idiom.
Brilliant Days is never quite as brilliant as one might hope. Fleeting moments of musical magic pass in abundance, but the disc lacks a more cohesive and interesting backbone, as the improvisations seem to drift by without a strong sense of character or focus. Laplante and Hug seem to have a chemistry, but it may not have yet found its most fruitful consistency.
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