On Making Records

Engagement & Confrontation (2006)

This post is the first in a series exploring the 30 albums I have made so far. One post will appear each month. My first record, Engagement & Confrontation, was released on Ambiances Magnétiques in 2006, 20 years ago.

In 2001, my mother gave me a copy of Michael Formanek’s solo double bass CD Am I Bothering You? for Christmas. She didn’t know Formanek, nor Screwgun Records, the label on which the album appeared. Little did she know that this record would be a real mind-opener for me. At the time, I was playing jazz and studying classical double bass at the University of Ottawa. I was collecting ECM records and had started getting into the Downtown New York scene, but I had never heard of Michael Formanek either.

First, I was intrigued by the title. The brown cardboard packaging and striking artwork by Warren Linn really appealed to me. Inside, it mentioned that tracks 2–4 were played on a Lowinsky bass (a Lowinsky bass?), tuned in fifths. That alone told me that Formanek was someone who did things differently.

At first listen, I was struck by the sound. He was playing open strings col legno (with something other than a bow?)—but there were bells and metal rattling—and at the same time he was playing a melody by striking closed strings with his left hand. It sounded so unusual, unlike anything I had heard. That track violently blew my mind.

What followed were tracks 2–4 on the Lowinsky bass, which sounded huge, and the rest of the album in regular fourths tuning. I loved the record, but that first track really stood apart, and I remember wishing the whole album had continued in that direction.

Four years later, I left university without graduating and moved to Montreal. I went there for the music scene, but since I didn’t know anyone, I spent a lot of time alone in my apartment. There happened to be a hardware store on the corner, and I started spending time there looking for things I could put on my bass. I accumulated boxes full of chains, screws, nails, and random metal, plastic, and wooden objects whose original purpose eluded me. Back in my apartment, I experimented endlessly with preparations.

I knew about John Cage’s prepared piano, but couldn’t find anyone who had done this on bass. Every discovery felt like a revelation. I soon made several demo recordings, which I used to apply for my first Canada Council for the Arts grant.

A few months later, I was at my friend Ross Murray’s studio in Chelsea, Quebec, where I spent three days recording what would become my first solo release on Ambiances Magnétiques, Engagement & Confrontation. Each track focused on a different technique or preparation, each one setting a frame that I then explored. The resulting album consisted of 18 improvised miniatures, brought to life through Ross’s elaborate 10-microphone setup. There were no overdubs, no EQ, no editing—but we did use the different microphones to gradually or radically shift colour and perspective as the pieces unfolded.

Around that time, I had the opportunity to study with double bassist Mark Dresser at the Banff Centre for the Arts. I sent him a copy of the album, and I still remember his response. He described it as a “highly personal, innovative, rich, and diverse work of art.” These words have stayed with me ever since.

—Pierre-Yves Martel, January 2026

For D/C (track 6, Engagement & Confrontation). Complete album available on Bandcamp with a 20% discount code (20years20), valid until January 31.

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What follows are the original liner notes for Engagement & Confrontation, written by Marc Chénard at the time of the album’s release.

“I can’t understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I’m frightened of the old ones.” —John Cage

When asked once why he played the guitar in such an unorthodox way, the now late Derek Bailey simply proclaimed that he wanted to find out what the instrument could do. Over the four decades he devoted himself to the cause of non idiomatic improvised music, this unique artist never backed down from his uncompromising vision of pushing the boundaries of music-making beyond the tried an true. Not unlike John Cage for that matter, Bailey was just as much a philosopher-king, in his case of free improvisation rather than composition. Even if both men approached music from entirely different directions, each one was as averse to old ideas as they were welcoming of new ones, however far-fetched they appeared to be.

To do that requires a singular sense of determination (or “engagement” as one would say in French), but also a willingness to challenge or to confront, be it oneself, fellow musicians, even listeners. And therein lies the meaning of the title of this debut recording of Canadian double bassist Pierre-Yves Martel.

Nowadays, solo recordings are by no means exceptional, even for the contrabass. But what makes this side stand out from the rest is his concept of “preparing” the instrument in numerous ways, and to find out what it can do in such “altered” states. Beyond the bow and fingers, there are assorted paper-clips, rings, sticks, some directly put on the strings, others on the bridge. But what counts here is not so much the hardware, but the results, and these are no less than fascinating.

But the sounds reproduced here, with no overdubs, by the way, were captured via a multiple-miking system (ten in total), designed in conjunction with the session’s soundman Ross Murray. With various mixes and pannings of signals, the listener is afforded a kind of auditory “trompe l’œil” (or “oreille”, in this case), providing a variety of aural perspectives.

Inasmuch as its portent is conceptual, its intent is totally improvised. Indeed, the musician wanted to surprise himself during the recording, and let chance occurrences happen, something he refers to as “happy accidents.”

Like any recording of improvised music, this one stems from a process (which evolved over a year and a half of experimentation), but one should not view it as an outcome, even less a final product. Quite to the contrary, this is but a first step for a musician of distinction as a player, accompanist and composer, and whose musical range extends from classical, to jazz and improv, and even to baroque and ancient music through his practice of the viola da gamba. And with his musical pedigree, who could doubt his commitment to music (i.e. the aforementioned “engagement”), and his readyness to confront all kinds of musical situations. But beyond all words, it is the music that best speaks for itself. Don’t head off the confrontation, folks: this is one thoroughly engaging side of music. —Marc Chénard, January 2006