(The Other Side of Time) Time runs, screams, panics, turns in upon itself and collapses into the abyss it has dug. And so we find ourselves on the other side of Time, where there are other ways to look, listen and exist. Time’s linearity has broken up under the impact: It floats, and so do we, contemplating the cities and their unending bustle as if from above.

Time ceases to be the implacable tyrant who ruled our existences. It advances, then retreats; it starts and stops; sometimes it simply dies. With the encumbrance of Time cast off, our beating hearts hang suspended in a dimensionless space, marking the rhythm of the other side of Time.

As it happens, the guitar part in this piece was created by working backwards through time, since it was the last section of the tape that gave me the key, the ideas and the sonic materials to compose the headlong rush before the impact.

— Catherine Ego, Arturo Parra [English translation: Peter Feldstein]

The electroacoustic part of L’envers du temps comes from the acousmatic work Ellipse (1997-99) by Robert Normandeau.

Premiere

• May 15, 1998, Arturo Parra, guitar • FIMAV 1998: Parr(A)cousmatique, Cégep de Victoriaville, Victoriaville (Québec)