Found Surround Sounds

Imagine an abstract painter working long hours to refine the tensions and balances of colour and composition of a work only to then have the gallery exhibit it behind a pane of tinted glass. A similar technological restriction for artists in the realm of electro-acoustic music has been lifted by Quebec’s Empreintes Digitales label. Since 2005, select releases have been mastered to DVD-A, including recent works by Darren Copeland, Marcelle Deschênes and Pierre Alexandre Tremblay. The DVD-A discs offer stereo or Surround 5.1 mixes in 96 khz/24 bit sound for dedicated players, higher quality stereo mixes for regular DVD players, and even high-end MP3 mixes for your walkabout electro-acoustic needs. For an art form whose main ethos is the meticulous treatment of sound, this increased transparency of delivery removes the tinted glass between artist and listener.