Jean-François Laporte

Mantra

Mantra is a single recording of 26 minutes length, [presenting] 6 huge compressors that serve to refresh ice skating rinks.

[Jean-François Laporte]

I spent many a winters’ evening in hockey rinks across Vermont, and the only air compressors in the joints were located inside the Zambonis. And upon first listen, anyone who’s spent those twenty minutes in between periods watching the grand machine make its rounds would immediately and justifiably jump to the same conclusion. […] In writing about his recording, Laporte states, “To be a mantra, a sound must possess certain qualities: it must have a fairly long duration, it must be a periodical sound or repeat itself in a cyclical manner, the progression of the sound events must take place almost imperceptibly, and finally it must have some kind of influence on our energy.” His examples of mantras are the sounds of refrigerator, automobiles on highways, or “the noise of the machines which are an integral part of our daily working life.” […] Mantra is a deeply moving piece of mechanical mysticism, like a lawnmower on acid. While the Zamboni keeps things cold, Laporte’s sound is quite warm, never harsh, and flows from timbre to timbre with a gentle fluidity. As the whir morphs from a deep zum to puréed clicks, you can imagine the Zamboni circling the rink, growing louder and clearer as it approaches, becoming sonically intense as it passes you by, then softening on its way to the opposite blue line. Near the mantra’s conclusion, a bolt comes loose somewhere inside the beast, causing an arrhythmic rattling, similar to something Autechre might dream up. Knowingly or not, Laporte’s Mantra makes perfect sense in the end. […] Mantra is a wonderful twist of the avant-concrete medium and reveals the beauty hiding in our wide world of din.

[Otis Hart, Dusted Reviews, USA, 2002]