Peggy Lee. Echo Painting. Composer and cellist Peggy Lee has made major contributions to Vancouver music. She’s active in free-improvisation and chamber-music settings and much between and beyond; however, her identity grows much more distinct in her roles as bandleader and composer. She regularly leads octets[...] Read more

Recordings Stuart Broomer

Listening To Art, Seeing Music. Listening To Art, Seeing Music, described in the media materials as a “multi-sensory journey of discovery,” and launched in early 2018 at Toronto’s Aga Khan Museum, encompasses about a dozen installations dotted around the museum within its permanent collection, in its[...] Read more

Concerts and Events Daniel Glassman Issue 130

Julius Eastman: That Which Is Fundamental. At the end of February, publisher G. Schirmer, Inc. announced that it had acquired the catalogue of Julius Eastman and would be restoring, publishing, and promoting his works, putting the composer among the ranks of Tan Dun, Terry Riley, Kaaija Saariaho, Anna Thorvaldsdottir, and Tom Waits.[...] Read more

Concerts and Events Kurt Gottschalk Issue 130

Melody McKiver. Reckoning Melody McKiver is an Anishinaabe musician, dancer, and intermedia artist with a background in classical music, whose broad and adventurous palette also includes jazz, blues, hip-hop, and contemporary classical music, performed primarily on solo viola and laptop. The music on Reckoning was[...] Read more

Recordings Mary Dickie Issue 130

Jean Derome. Résistances. While his previous conceptual works, like Canot Camping, conjured paddling through streams, Jean Derome considers waves and currents of a different kind on Résistances—a paean to the hum, crackle, and fizz of electricity. After receiving its premiere at the 2015 Festival[...] Read more

Recordings Lawrence Joseph Issue 130

Eric Chenaux. Slowly Paradise. Slowly Paradise is a particularly apt name for Eric Chenaux’s latest album. Listening to its gently swaying rhythms and mellow, watery tones feels like watching a creaky musical barge float slowly down a southern river, or a folk trio kept to a barely languid pace by the weight of the[...] Read more

Recordings Mary Dickie Issue 130

Togetherness! Togetherness! The Montreal-based band Togetherness! injects a shot of jubilant foot-patting rhythm into free-form improvisation. The band splashes a couple of trumpeter Ellwood Epps’ high-spirited compositions into the swirling pool of free-jazz, high-life, second-line, and brass-band creations that[...] Read more

Recordings Ken Waxman Issue 130

Éliane Radigue. Occam Ocean 1 The French composer Éliane Radigue has moved through various stages in her career. After working as an assistant to electronic-music pioneer Pierre Henry, she started using controlled feedback to create pieces. She worked with synthesizers for a considerable time, then decided to have[...] Read more

Recordings René van Peer Issue 130

Keiji Haino and John Butcher. Light Never Bright Enough. It’s not unusual in improvised music to find unlikely partnerships onstage. English saxophonist John Butcher and Japanese singer-guitarist-percussionist Keiji Haino might seem like such a pair. Much of Butcher’s work is refined exploration of the saxophone’s sonic[...] Read more

Recordings Stuart Broomer Issue 130

Matthew Bailey's Camargo (self-released) On two recent albums, Toronto multi-instrumentalist Matthew Bailey taps into the imaginations of digital-age dreamers. Camargo, a solo release, and Vol. 1, a release by ES + MB, Bailey’s improv duo with Edwin Sheard, differ aesthetically. The former is filled with angular electronic[...] Read more

Recordings Laura Stanley

Sam Shalabi’s Land of Kush. Sand Enigma. Sam Shalabi’s musical worlds are a collision of the Montreal Mile End art–noise–rock–improv scene and the bona fide craziness of Cairo—a city where societal and political instability weaves a shifting sand of death and beauty. It’s easy to see how the[...] Read more

Concerts and Events Nilan Perera