Featured Articles
The Swedish Sound-Art Scene Nadine Byrne Monochrome images of two young women—evidently sisters—stare out impassively from oval apertures that resemble Victorian cameo brooches. A gauzy ectoplasmic fabric oozes from their mouths while, in an aperture between them, their faces merge in a dreamlike blur[...] Read more
Fuhong Shi Closes the Distance If Canada has any meaning to most Chinese, it is likely through a widely read essay written by the late Chairman Mao in praise of Dr. Norman Bethune, the Montreal doctor who ministered to Mao’s suffering soldiers during the Long March of the late 1930s. Musically,[...] Read more
C. Diab’s Cascadian Guitar Music Vancouver-based bowed guitarist Caton Diab (who composes as C. Diab) makes sonorous music that you feel deeply. Primarily crafted on an acoustic guitar with a pickup, effects pedals, a loop station, and bow, Diab’s textured and mournful tones rattle your bones and settle into your heart,[...] Read more
Louis Andriessen brings the noise Louis Andriessen arrived on the international scene with a bang. In 1976 he unleashed De Staat (The Republic) on unsuspecting audiences. The political charge of the composition came from texts of Plato sung by four soprano voices hovering like ethereal apparitions over pounding, iron-fisted[...] Read more
Sarah Neufeld: Solo Violin, Guerrilla-Style “I COULDN'T EVEN PLAY A NOTE. If you even breathe, your breath becomes this crazy, feathery freight train of echo.” Sarah Neufeld recalls her first visit to Devil’s Mountain with a mixture of fear and delight. The site of an abandoned array of[...] Read more
Curtis Running Rabbit-Lefthand Ignites the Rhythm of the People Blackfoot Confederacy member Curtis Running Rabbit-Lefthand is the founder and executive artistic director of Indigenous Resilience in Music (IRIM), a collective that supports Indigenous musicians and youth in their learning, performing, recording, and collaborating. The group’s[...] Read more
Scenocosme's Kymapetra FULL-TEXT AVAILABLE IN PRINT EDITION ONLY The title Kymapetra is a combination of two ancient Greek words, kyma meaning a wave or vibration, and petra, which means stone. Every stone is forged by time—broken, polished, composite, or fossilized—and each has a[...] Read more
Shifting the Narrative The time for postponing discussions of environmental issues is over. This is the main thrust of two music-and-sound-powered documentary projects, both of which aim to encourage honest conversations about climate change and to explore the many ways our lives intertwine with—and impact[...] Read more
Craig Aalders’ el8dEra 3m Ice cracking and melting; a forest by the coast; a dream; breath lingering in the cold air—these are some of the images that come to mind when listening to Vancouver composer Craig Aalders’ el8dEra 3m, the first-prize-winning composition in Musicworks’ 2016 annual[...] Read more
Rocío Cano Valiño’s Intortus The title of Intortus, a recent electronic composition by Rocío Cano Valiño, is a word used for a kind of cirrus cloud with twisted, seemingly entangled filaments. Even casual cloudwatchers know that these painterly wisps are shapeshifting storytellers; they may start out[...] Read more
What's Inside Musicworks 139? ON THE COVER: Evensong (2018) by Lou Sheppard, who recently made the 2021 long list for the prestigious Sobey Art Award. Congratulations Lou! This issue contains a special 30-page section that explores climate emergency through the stories of nine sound and music[...] Read more
What's Inside Musicworks 153? ON THE COVER QUINTON BARNES Compulsively creative, fiercely political, and boldly queer, Montreal emcee and electronic producer Quinton Barnes is making music that meets the moment. Following the release of several self-produced solo albums—including Code Noir, which made[...] Read more
