Pierre Ouellet & Jim MacDonald
At an early age, my father Henri Ouellet, impressed upon me the existence of the invisible presence of things in the world and their potential, not to say inevitable, effect on human existence. It was in his vast erudite library that I first gleaned a world beyond, and developed the innate curiosity for the unexplained and the unknowable. It was my father’s willingness to follow the chimera of human intuition regarding the arcane mysteries of spiritual and mental life over time and across intellectual boundaries and disciplines that helped sustain my lifelong sense of awe and humility about the sensate world inscribed at the limits of all epistemology to clearly render the world human.
This music is dedicated to his memory and to the lifelong quest for unknowable knowledge that his life represented to me and many others. I also share this music with them.
Elemental Spirits
The themes of this album represent the universal and timeless forces that shape our very existence, those Elemental Spirits that guide us through our lives. Each musical piece represents an aspect of the unknowable world(s) which, I believe, exists just beyond our senses and appear, at times, as message or admonition, sign or dream intended to illuminate the path ahead and instruct our being in the Spirit of Being. As such, they come to represent archetypes of existence in musical form, perceptions, intuitions, memories and apprehensions expressed as compositions inscribed in the patterns, rhythms and harmonies of life itself.
These pieces were written for a small chamber orchestra, and were performed on computer using sampling technologies and libraries. The actual performances were all played by Pierre Ouellet or Jim MacDonald and every stage of their execution was carefully overseen to maximize both expression and sonic clarity.
The Artists
Over the past 30 years, Pierre Ouellet has written the music for numerous award winning television programs and series. As well, he has arranged and produced experimental, avant-garde, dance music and a large number of children’s albums. Lifeworld Sound presents, for the first time in finished form, several of the musical pathways pursued by Pierre Ouellet over this career. As such, Elemental Spirits speaks to the composer’s love of 20thcentury music articulated to his fascination with electronic and computer music. As an early adopter of the computer as a music-making device, Pierre Ouellet has experienced the evolution of the genre from its birth as simple 8 bit oscillator programs to the current multi-sampled, multi-timbral digital environments whose sonic expressive potential mirrors and even surpasses the most sophisticated visual animation.
Jim MacDonald is a musical child prodigy who gained success as a keyboard player in the 70s with Juno nominated band Rational Youth. Over the years, he has composed the music for many television programs with Pierre Ouellet and they have been musical writing partners for 25 years and counting.
SONGS
1 • Streams of Life (4:31) 2 • Down to Earth (2:48) 3 • Invisible Waves (1:43)
4 • Memories of Things Past (1:34) 5 • Mirrors of Fate 6 • Sky and Clouds (3:08)
7 • First Love (6:42 ) 8 • What Dreams are Made Of (3:37) 9 • Wind Spirits’ Dream (3:21)
10 • PSI Connections (3:52) 11 • Here and There (3:20)
Production Credits
Music composed and performed by Pierre Ouellet with additional parts by Jim MacDonald – Arranged by Pierre Ouellet & Jim MacDonald – Mixdown engineer Jim MacDonald – Published by Venture Publishing (2014) – Recorded, mixed and mastered at Venture Studio Toronto (2019) – Album Art and Design by Catherine Piro – Produced by Pierre Ouellet for Venture Music and Lifeworld Sound – 2019
About the cover art • The symbolic representations on the cover art were inspired by ancient Tarot cards and they tell, in symbol and image, many of the significant life experiences of the composer and of the people in his life. It was meticulously drawn by K. Piro at the direction of P. Ouellet.
