Braids, Grimes, and Doldrums In 1981 in a small town called Dunedin in New Zealand, a trio of young musicians called The Clean, recorded a handful of fuzzy, sloppy pop songs on a four-track Portastudio. For connoisseurs of what is now known as indie-pop, their infectious energy and heartfelt yearning[...] Read more

Featured Article Jonathan Bunce Issue 110

Senyawa plays the music of the universe On a chilly, rainy Thursday May night, a crowd of sixty or so people, spread unevenly around the pews of Halifax’s Fort Massey United Church, is waiting. OBEY Convention creative director Andrew Patterson has just introduced Indonesian “doom folk” duo Senyawa, but after the[...] Read more

Sound Bite Daniel Glassman Issue 128

Ashley Au Is Stretching Out Most music fans in Winnipeg have seen plenty of Ashley Au playing bass in recent years in a wide range of idioms—Americana, hip-hop, jazz, and sludge metal. Pausing to tally current projects, Au counts in blinks before saying, “I’m in an open relationship with maybe seven[...] Read more

Profile Daniel Emberg Issue 139

Susan Alcorn’s Vibrant Deviations Susan Alcorn moves through life in methodical motion, a few beats slower than the usual rapid flow. At the 2020 edition of Toronto’s Women From Space festival, held in mid March, the pedal steel guitarist’s entrancing performance made the Burdock Tavern feel as if clocks had frozen[...] Read more

Featured Article Jesse Locke Issue 137

Rebecca Bruton Lets The World In Rebecca Bruton describes her work as an “understated, Surrealist folk music”—music that’s experimental but also simple, with a sensuousness and a weirdness to it. “Music that makes sense,” she says, “but you’re not sure why.”[...] Read more

In the Works Sara Constant Issue 129

Urbanvessel and Juliet Palmer Suit-tail-clad Juliet Palmer sits at the top of a stepladder in the middle of the diamond-shaped ring. Tonight, she’s not wearing her Canadian composer hat. Tonight, she’s a sports announcer.   “Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, welcome to Voice-Box![...] Read more

Featured Article Jonathan Bunce Issue 108

Wadada Leo Smith and the Possibilities of Dreaming Think of this as a sketch. We’re not going to get into a complete report on the doings of Wadada Leo Smith here, his more than fifty recordings, his dozens of collaborations with luminaries from all over the globe, his long engagement with creative music. No, we’re merely[...] Read more

Featured Article Alexander Varty Issue 133

HAVN Records: Fronting Art Music in ‘The Hammer’ First came the band, then the space, then the label.             The band is Haolin Munk, a jazz and hip-hop quartet formed in the early 2010s by drummer Aaron Hutchinson, tenor saxophonist Connor Bennett, alto saxophonist[...] Read more

Sound Notes Daniel Glassman Issue 133

Artificiel’s "Three Pieces With Titles" “I had never seen such new things before. I didn’t even know what a new object could be,” the poet and art critic André Salmon wrote, after visiting the studio of Pablo Picasso in the spring of 1914. Of particular interest to Salmon was Guitar, a wall-mounted 3-D[...] Read more

Visions of sound Greg J. Smith Issue 128

Kamancello explores a new duo dimension “Kamanche means little bow in Kurdish and Farsi,” says Shahriyar Jamshidi, the kamanche player in Kamancello, his Toronto-based duo with cellist Raphael Weinroth-Browne. The pair marry rich lyricism and microtonal ornamentation, influenced by Iranian, classical, and metal musics[...] Read more

Sound Bite Daniel Glassman Issue 129

Webber/Morris Big Band On a cold January evening in 2019, Angela Morris approaches the bandstand of Manhattan’s Jazz Gallery and announces that she will be able to conduct her piece that night. A few days ago it was still uncertain. Weeks earlier, on Christmas Eve, she broke her shoulder, making the arm[...] Read more

Profile Kurt Gottschalk Issue 133