Digital Primitives. Lipsomuch & Soul Searchin’… This two-disc release features a trio of free-jazz stalwarts who do not engage in your standard squawk session. Instead, they slice ninety-four minutes into nineteen funky cuts, as much influenced by country blues, rock, and various world musics as by modern strains of jazz.[...] Read more

Recordings Lawrence Joseph Issue 119

Hecker. Articulação. Much of Florian Hecker’s downright preposterous music could easily be regarded as the absurdist vanishing point of technological vanguardism in computer music. Both boisterously noisy and eerily austere, with its hyperactive bursts of sound, his music often feels as though it’s[...] Read more

Recordings Nick Storring Issue 119

Jean Derome, Malcolm Goldstein, Rainer Weins. 6 improvisations. Saxophonist Jean Derome, violinist Malcolm Goldstein, and guitarist Rainer Wiens are pillars of Montreal’s improvised music community who retain their sense of whimsy and their willingness to test the limits. Frequent associates in varied contexts, they meet for the first time as a[...] Read more

Recordings Stuart Broomer Issue 119

David Grubbs. Records Ruin the Landscape: John Cage, the Sixties and Sound Recording. An endless stream of recordings flows through the Internet. Listeners rejoice in having easy access to over a century of music, their mood dampened only in contemplation of the terabytes of sound they will never find time to hear. Few, however, have stopped to study how this increased[...] Read more

Books Lawrence Joseph Issue 119

On Listening. Edited by Angus Carlyle and Cathy Lane. On Listening provides a broad cross-disciplinary map of the sound world, through forty short essays, each a brief introduction to an aspect of listening. The essay on underwater sound introduces the field of marine bioacoustics and describes elements of physics that determine the conduct of[...] Read more

Books Gayle Young Issue 119

Whitney Biennial 2014 It would have been easy to walk into the Whitney Museum, head for the ticket counter and on to the elevators, while entirely missing the first of the pieces by more than one hundred artists in the 2014 Biennial. The sounds drifting down from the ceiling in the American composer-and-[...] Read more

Concerts and Events Kurt Gottschalk Issue 119

Ryan Driver Quintet Plays The Stephen Parkinson Songbook. Since 1999, the Ryan Driver Quintet (as well as his Sextet and Quartet) has been serving up a unique, cooked take on jazz balladry—especially at its monthly residency at Toronto’s Tranzac venue. Ryan Driver Quintet Plays the Stephen Parkinson Songbook, its first studio recording[...] Read more

Review Spotlight Nick Storring

Susanna Hood, Scott Thomson. The Muted Note: Songs Based on Poems by P. K. Page. The songs on The Muted Note are an outgrowth of work made by trombonist Scott Thomson and singer-dancer Susanna Hood as part of The Rent, a Toronto quintet that was initially dedicated to performing the music of the late saxophonist and composer Steve Lacy—including his extensive[...] Read more

Review Spotlight Stuart Broomer Issue 118

Rob Power. Touch. Percussionist Rob Power, based in St. John’s, Newfoundland, is a musical jack of all trades, although contrary to the conclusion of the popular saying, he is seemingly a master of all of them. In addition to teaching at the percussion faculty at Memorial University, he performs with[...] Read more

Recordings Jamie Drake Issue 118

Marc Sabat and Lorenzo Pompa, Wave Piano Scenery Player; Chiyoko Szlavnics, Gradients of Detail. Maria De Alvear is a consistently intriguing composer whose World Edition label also releases recordings of music by unique composers of concert music—most recently, Berlin-based Canadians Marc Sabat and Chiyoko Szlavnics.    While Sabat is perhaps best[...] Read more

Review Spotlight Nick Storring

Harry Partch’s Delusion of the Fury. A resonant boom rippling through your body—that is the impact of the Marimba Eroica, arguably the lowest-pitched percussion instrument in existence. Four thick slabs of wood up to eight feet long—each placed over a sizable resonator—make you feel rather than hear its[...] Read more

Concerts and Events René van Peer Issue 118