Alison Cameron


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Canadian composer Allison Cameron (1963) specializes in chamber music, some of which was collected on Raw Sangudo (XI, 1995).

There is something threatening, sinister and macabre about Cameron's compositions for unusual ensembles. The feeling in The Chamber of Statues (1987) is almost gothic: sparse piano notes, a haunting clarinet theme, random percussion beats. Raw Sangudo (1986), with its melodic fragments that buzz like insects (sax, trombone and tuba), highlights the intrinsic frenzy and manic tension of her compositional style. Runa (1990)'s spacey anguish (bassoon, sax, violin, piano and percussions), that transfers the long languid droning of the Part/Ligeti school to a slightly dissonant and very sleepy context, and the distorted beauty of Gibbous Moon (1991)'s baroque counterpoint (flute, violin, viola, harpsichord) are virtual primers in the art of emphasizing the colors while maintaining a delicate balance of tones and rhythms.
The high point is A Blank Sheet Of Metal (1987), 26 minutes of claustrophobic kammerspiel haunted by the ghosts of Edgar Varese and Pierre Boulez. Notes appear and disappear without coalescing into melodies. There are irregular pauses between sounds. All instruments are used as percussion. The two guitars create a discontinuous framework that yields a sense of alienation. The percussions toy with the flow of time. Piano, organ, synthesizer, tuba and bass roam the soundscape in an inscrutable manner, while adding a dramatic quality to the proceedings. These are characters reciting/conversing on a stage. The music almost dissolves completely, the guitars strumming every so many seconds of complete silence. After several minutes, the guitars intone a hard-rock riff and the piece almost turns into rock'n'roll.
Each new listening brings forth new elements of relish from this music of infinite possibilities and interpretations.

A Gossamer Bit (2015) compiles chamber pieces. Friends (2015) contains improvised music by a trio named c_RL.

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