Rouge Ciel. Bryologie. Bryologie, named intriguingly for the study of mosses, is the third CD by the Montreal quartet Rouge Ciel, founded in 2001. When the group began recording, some of the members were around twenty years of age, and the band maintains that same personnel, with Guido Del Fabbro on violins, banjo,[...] Read more

Recordings Stuart Broomer Issue 110

Alvin Lucier. Almost New York. Although Alvin Lucier is known primarily for his work with waveforms and spatial acoustics, Almost New York features compositions written for conventional musical instruments. In these pieces, he adapts some of his explorations in reverberation, providing a different way of approaching his[...] Read more

Recordings Chris Kennedy Issue 110

Rachel Kiyo Iwaasa. Cosmophony. The word cosmophony  is an amalgam of Greek roots that translate literally as “sound of the universe.” It’s also the rubric under which the outrageously talented Vancouver pianist Rachel Kiyo Iwaasa has united her favourite composers for this adventurous debut album[...] Read more

Recordings Jason van Eyk Issue 110

Joane Hétu. Récits de neige. This is the third and final CD in Hétu’s series of compositions about snow performed by her Ensemble Supermusique. It’s divided into four multi-part segments—La Neige, Jamais froid, Rafales, and Paysages—but there are overarching patterns here, a profound[...] Read more

Recordings Stuart Broomer Issue 110

Dafeldecker / Kurzmann / Tilbury / Wishart. Violet 2009. This is the third in a long-standing series of collaborations initiated by Austrian musicians Werner Dafeldecker (electronics and bass) and Christof Kurzmann (electronics and clarinet), which see them teaming up with a small group of other improvisers. This time, the two musicians perform a[...] Read more

Recordings Chris Kennedy Issue 110

Martin Arnold. Tam Lin. Slow but dense, with ripe, colourful gestures and murky tonality, the title composition of Martin Arnold’s Tam Lin inspires a sense of bated-breath wonder, yet utter confusion. But what other results could one achieve by setting the improvisatory and vocal quirks of the Draperies[...] Read more

Recordings Nick Storring Issue 110

Martin Arnold. Aberrare. While definitely more transparent and smoother around the edges than this composer’s other recent recording, Tam Lin , this reading by Quatuor Bozzini of Martin Arnold’s work is equally brilliant, articulating his amblingly weightless melodies with clean precision. The sober[...] Read more

Recordings Nick Storring Issue 110

John Luther Adams. Four Thousand Holes. If minimalist music is like lying back in the grass, waiting and noticing as the stars appear one by one, then the titular piece of John Adam’s latest CD, Four Thousand Holes, could be said to keep rolling back that moment to the appearance of the first star, repeating richly the[...] Read more

Recordings Andrew Hamlin Issue 110

Jason Kahn / Asher. Planes, and Jason Kahn / Günter Müller / Christian Wolfarth. Limmat. These two recordings provide a chance to hear Swiss-based improviser Jason Kahn in two sets of collaborations, both of which feature him improvising on analogue synthesizer with his fellow musicians.   Planes finds Kahn in Boston in live performance with the Massachusetts-[...] Read more

Recordings Chris Kennedy Issue 110

Tara Rodgers, Editor. Pink Noises: Women On Electronic Music And Sound. Tara Rodgers, a.k.a. Analog Tara, remarks in her introduction to Pink Noises, that the world finds it all too possible to assemble “a historical narrative of electronic music” along “patrilineal” lines, where the best that a female working in the field could expect[...] Read more

Books Andrew Hamlin Issue 109

Kyle Gann. No Such Thing As Silence: John Cage’s 4'33". Cage never used absolute silence. In the beginning (his beginning, at least), such matters did not concern him—and concern with the earlier, less-notorious John Cage forms just one part of Kyle Gann’s fascinating study of Cage’s best-known composition.  [...] Read more

Books Andrew Hamlin Issue 109