Reviews
The Oakland Elementary School Arkestra. The Saga of Padani. In the 1990s, a progressive California music teacher named Randy Porter instituted a program with his grades 4, 5, and 6 students that was centred on combining improvisational and composed music. The results would have been interesting on their own, but with the participation of notable[...] Read more
The Necks. Body. Whether intentionally or coincidentally, both the band name The Necks and the album title Body refer to parts of a guitar, an instrument that is prominently featured on the trio’s twentieth release. The fifty-six-minute, four-movement piece starts in familiar territory, with a[...] Read more
Jessica Moss. Entanglement. It is entirely possible to lose yourself, along with your stress and your awareness of time and place, as you sink into the depths of this Entanglement. The second solo album by Montreal-based violinist Jessica Moss, best known for her long association with Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial[...] Read more
Hübsch, Martel, Zoubek. Otherwise; Cyril Bondi / Pierre-Yves Martel / Christoph Schiller. tse. Pierre-Yves Martel is a musician and sound artist of the greatest subtlety, which is evident in his choice of a principal instrument, the viola da gamba, a Renaissance–baroque instrument roughly equivalent to a cello, but one that has six strings and frets—guitar-like features[...] Read more
Christopher Fox. Topophony. Ilan Volkov is responsible for some remarkable mergers of composed and improvised music, having conducted some of Roscoe Mitchell’s first Conversations with the Icelandic Symphony Orchestra in 2016, combining transcribed improvisations with live ones. In the previous year, Volkov[...] Read more
Clarence Barlow. Musica Algorithmica. For a significant number of listeners, the idea of music being driven by an algorithm or other such organizational scheme can be a source of trepidation. And perhaps that’s justified. When the rigour of the formal features feels stronger than the material itself, the deficiencies of[...] Read more
28th Winnipeg New Music Festival. The twenty-eighth edition of the Winnipeg New Music Festival (WNMF) opened by continuing a tradition of bringing listeners out to unusual, wonderful venues, but this year broadened its scope asking both performers and audience to one evening risk the potential extremes outside in[...] Read more
Overleaf. Overleaf. The recently formed Overleaf assembles three of Toronto’s most distinct yet unsung voices in a compelling and elusive amalgam. Synthesist (and occasional bamboo flutist) Heidi Chan (aka Bachelard), saxophonist Kayla Milmine, and Mira Martin-Gray, who has an uncharacteristically[...] Read more
2019 Push International Performing Arts Festival. “Art should be understood, and enjoyed, as a world that hasn’t been infected by commercialism. And within that, it should serve as a reminder that we are creatures who have the ability to access our souls.” [...] Read more
Samuel Andreyev. Music with no Edges. The six works on Toronto-born, Strasbourg-based composer Samuel Andreyev’s brilliant new disc were conceived separately over the span of a decade. Yet the album’s gripping first two minutes serve as a perfect introduction to his world. Vérifications[...] Read more
Kyle Gann. Hyperchromatica. Kyle Gann’s eccentric and extravagant double-disc set Hyperchromatica is easily one of the year’s most fascinating releases. So don’t let him convince you otherwise: his tacky titles for the work’s movements (“Spacecat” and “Galactic Jamboree,[...] Read more
Kukuruz Quartet. Julius Eastman—Piano Interpretations One outcome of the streaming era—not a necessary one, but a likely one—is the devaluation of liner notes. It’s not that they don’t exist; for example, George Lewis’s excellent notes to this collection of Julius Eastman piano works by the Kukuruz Quartet appear[...] Read more
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