Martin Tétreault

In the period spanning the late 1980s and early 1990s, Martin Tétreault served as the most reserved participant within Ambiances Magnétiques, the prominent Montreal new music collective. He contributed unusual turntable-based collages to his associates' endeavors and issued a pair of bewildering solo recordings. Around the millennium's arrival, coinciding with minimal techno's and experimental electronica's entry into museum spaces, he emerged as the label's foremost international figure through numerous partnerships involving Otomo Yoshihide, Kevin Drumm, Xavier Charles, and Janek Schaefer. This surge in his career coincided with a move away from vinyl-based sampling toward treating the turntable as a "pure" sonic device. Consequently, the humor diminished while the raw intensity increased.

His training lies in the visual arts. Similar to Milan Knizak, the innovative Czech creator, he turned to vinyl manipulation after encountering limitations with paper. During 1984, he initially sliced an LP into two sections, inverted one portion, rejoined them with adhesive, and auditioned the outcome via turntable playback. Tétreault persisted in home-based explorations, refining methods of incision and interruption while amassing numerous inexpensive discs sourced from flea markets. Several years thereafter, his adjacent resident detected these activities. This individual was André Duchesne, the Ambiances Magnétiques guitarist, who promptly connected Tétreault with his circle of fellow musicians. Michel F. Côté incorporated him into the ensemble Bruire. The turntablist's debut recorded appearance occurs on the 1989 release Le Barman a Tort de Sourire. He continued involvement with the ensemble through the 1990s and afterward. Additionally, he performed alongside René Lussier, Jean Derome, and Diane Labrosse.

The initial expansive recording, Des Pas et des Mois, appeared in 1990. Thereafter, apart from sporadic Bruire projects, Tétreault maintained a relatively subdued presence. Alterations occurred during 1997-1998 as he abandoned quotation and editing techniques in favor of a textural method that led him to discard the disc and manipulate the turntable directly, such as inserting the tone-arm into the motor or positioning the needle straight onto the platter. These innovations formed the core of his partnership with René Lussier, debuted via the extremely abstract and abrasive Dur Noyau Dur in 1998. Involvement in the Japanese endeavor Four Focuses provided opportunities, as did a later collaborative session with Yoshihide titled 21 Situations from 1999, along with a solo album on the Belgian imprint Audiophile named La Nuit Où J'Ai Dit Non in 1998. At that juncture, the turntable had gained popularity as an avant-garde tool, prompting Tétreault to pursue an active itinerary of performances and recordings. During 2002, he organized the "Turntable Hell" tour across England under the sponsorship of the Contemporary Music Network.