Top guns
Mike Chamberlain
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Rodeoscopique: A splendid cast of colours
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Antoine Berthiaume assembles crack shots for "postmodern western" project Rodeoscopique
Antoine Berthiaume has a problem: The musicians in his "postmodern western" project, Rodeoscopique, are too good. The problem? They're all too busy most of the time, so they rarely have the opportunity to do live performances. So Berthiaume is excited by the fact that he's managed to get all of his musicians together for a rare live performance at Sala Rossa this Friday evening.Berthiaume - who plays guitar, banjo and dobro - is the leader, but he is quick to point out that the rest of the band (bassist Pierre-Yves Martel, violinist Guido del Fabro, cellist Mélanie Auclair, clarinettist/saxophonist Philippe Lauzier, drummer Stef Schneider and pedal steel player Rick Hayworth) play a large part in the creative process.
"They're my compositions," says Berthiaume, who has a master's in composition from Mills College, where he studied with Fred Frith, "but we all work together on arrangements." He is pleased that, for an instrumental ensemble, the group had a relatively large amount of time in the studio to record and mix Rodeoscopique's terrific, just-released debut album (Rodeoscopique, on Audiogram).
The music is derived from folk and free improv, with a clear influence of Ennio Morricone. According to Berthiaume, the first idea behind Rodeoscopique was to play improvised music yet sound "tuneful." The result sounds something like songs written by Bill Frisell and
Anton Webern inspired by a drive across the desert."Everyone has the idea that this is all composed music, but some pieces are totally improvised," Berthiaume points out.
"It's a really open band," he says. "They're amazing musicians. They all have very specific colours that are reflected in the CD. They way the pieces develop wouldn't happen with anyone else."
Rodeoscopique
At Sala Rossa (4848 St-Laurent), April 3, 9 p.m.
