Synopsis
Là où s’est arrêté le feu is a minimalist musical and sound poetry project spanning from 2015 to 2019. Sounds were recorded during immersions on the Côte-Nord and in Abitibi : at l’ïle aux Perroquets, Anticosti Island, Natashquan, Sept-Îles and La Motte. Each of these pieces tells a moment, a state of mind, an encounter, a memory which, with the music and the natural sounds, reveal a beauty, a melancholy.
A word from Tënk
From his experiences in the depths of the Côte-Nord, Anticosti Island and Abitibi, Tom Demers brings us an intimate, sensitive and mesmerizing approach to the landscapes and energy of these distant lands that appear so mysterious when seen from the city.
Waves crash on the shore, voices are heard from afar, a dog runs frenetically in the surf, a gull caws. The waves change, now soft and welcoming. Lastly: the eddies of the wind.
The sound recordings, made with a marked delicacy, paint us a portrait of the area, just as the meticulously framed photographs Demers also creates. Yet the minimalist and bewitching musical tracks meld with them perfectly, adding an emotional dimension to the background.
The music and field recordings come together with an ease that, like an impressionist landscape from Edward Hopper or Marc-Aurèle Fortin, fills us with a moment of peace and imagination, ripe with a calm sense of melancholy.
The enigmatic title of this work (translated roughly as "Where the Fire Stops") calls to mind the terrifying forest fires of 2013 that just missed the small village of Baie-Johan-Beetz in Minganie, in the Côte-Nord region.
Daniel Capeille
Sound recordist, sound designer and sound editor
