Quartetski. Quartetski Does Bartók: Béla Bartók / Mikrokosmos. Quartetski has devoted itself to transforming well-known classical pieces through radical shifts in instrumentation, improvisation, and recomposition. The Montreal quintet has recorded works by Stravinsky, Prokofiev, and Mussorgsky, and here they take on Béla Bartók’s[...] Read more

Recordings Stuart Broomer Issue 125

Tristan Perich. Parallels; Telescope; Active Field; Dual Synthesis. Across his body of work, composer and conceptualist Tristan Perich varies from electronoise and glitched-out video to sound installations and drawing machines. But what he is no doubt most known for is a singularly focused and wonderfully varied approach to composition. His “one-bit[...] Read more

Recordings Kurt Gottschalk Issue 125

Sarah Hennies. Gather & Release. The phenomenological aspect of sound has long been the foremost concern of percussionist and composer Sarah Hennies’ work. While her music often exploits the way we hear, it never comes off as some mere exercise.   Gather & Release bends her fascination with the[...] Read more

Recordings Nick Storring Issue 125

Tim Brady. Instruments of Happiness; Of Sound, Mind and Body. Concert #3 Le Gesù. For over two decades Tim Brady has been creating orchestral works written specifically for ensembles of electric guitars. He is also a master guitarist, occasionally spotted running his fingers over a fretboard in less formal settings. His latest studio CD of notated material collects three[...] Read more

Recordings Lawrence Joseph Issue 125

Bill Dietz. 8 Tutorial Diversions, 2009-2014. Edition Solitude publishes the work of resident artists at Akademie Schloss Solitude, an artist fellowship and residency program in Germany. One of its recent monographs is 8 Tutorial Diversions, 2009-2014 by American-born, Berlin-based artist and composer Bill Dietz. Consisting of eight[...] Read more

Books Christopher Willes Issue 125

Open Waters Festival. Since 1990 the Upstream Music Association has been a crucial part of Halifax’s vibrant music community—both as presenter and as ensemble. For nineteen years, veteran improviser Paul Cram, a longtime Upstream affiliate, was artistic director. Lukas Pearse, an industrious and[...] Read more

Concerts and Events Nick Storring Issue 125

Festival International Musique Actuelle Victoriaville, 32nd Edition. The Festival International Musique Actuelle Victoriaville (FIMAV) arrives with the late,  brief spring of Quebec’s central region, an energizing jolt between winter and summer that sees the flowering of older vines and new life bursting through the earth. This year’s[...] Read more

Concerts and Events Stuart Broomer Issue 125

Intersystems. Intersystems. Released in late 2015 by the Italian label Alga Marghen in both CD and LP formats, the richly documented Intersystems boxes set the bar high for reissuing and critically examining the legacy of one vigorous—however obscured by the ensuing almost half century—branch of[...] Read more

Recordings Andrew Timar Issue 125

Jean-François Blouin. Lieues de résonances. Montreal-based composer Jean-François Blouin delivers fifty-five minutes of rich sound mass at the crossroads of instrumental and musique concrète. In Lieues de résonances, his 2016 release, we are immersed in a bass heavy assemblage of stringed instruments, stereo[...] Read more

Recordings Pierre-Luc Senécal

Ana Sokolovic and Ensemble Transmission. Folklore Imaginaire. This Canadian Music Centre release in Naxos’ Canadian Classics series offers sixty minutes of Ana Sokolovic’s ever-fascinating chamber music. Ensemble Transmission is heard in a variety of configurations, including solo works, and the startling rendition of Vez for solo cello,[...] Read more

Recordings Cecilia Livingston

Quatuor Bozzini. Aldo Clementi: Momento. The press release for Quatuor Bozzini’s new Aldo Clementi portrait disc alludes, in the form of a quote from the composer, to a peculiar sort of metamusical morbidity that was allegedly integral to his thinking. While his eldritch outlook is documented elsewhere as well, what is[...] Read more

Recordings Nick Storring