Allison Cameron’s Rarefied Soundworld "I NEVER THOUGHT I WAS DOING ANYTHING DIFFERENT THAN ANYBODY ELSE—I just thought, I’m doing what anybody else would write,” states Allison Cameron, matter-of-factly. Anyone familiar with her music—or her characteristic wry humour—could read this particular[...] Read more

Featured Article Nick Storring Issue 122

Bug Incision: Calgary’s Cross-Pollination Buzz The world of free improvisation is like a parallel universe, a global underground community of nonidiomatic soundmakers, recording with each other in every imaginable permutation, connected via a proliferation of text- and link-heavy Web 1.0 sites, DIY venues, and CD-R labels, with a[...] Read more

Sound Bite Daniel Glassman Issue 131

What's Inside Musicworks 138? The final issue of 2020 is is dedicated to the art of conversation . . . in music and about music. Unable to practice, perform, or listen to music together in person in a room, music friends have been meeting each other in other kinds of venues—including the pages of Musicworks—to[...] Read more

Featured Article Issue 138

Gordan Monahan Gordon Monahan’s voice floats to me across the Internet from his farm, the Funny Farm, his home base in Meaford, Ontario.   Monahan was recently awarded a 2013 Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts, and is already planning a series of installations for 2013,[...] Read more

In the Works David McCallum Issue 116

Micachu & The Shapes FULL-TEXT AVAILABLE IN PRINT EDITION ONLY    Growing up on the outskirts of London, kids are drawn to the city by any number of attractions, from shops to sport matches, from galleries to gangsta posing. For Mica Levi, it was classical-music concerts. Growing up in an intensely[...] Read more

Featured Article Jonathan Bunce Issue 114

DEBBY FRIDAY’S ENERGY POTENTIAL Across the first few minutes of Bare Bones, the short-film debut by Vancouver artist Debby Friday, a growing, skittering sound unsettles an otherwise pastoral scene. In the film, Friday, a splash of presence in a white tulle dress, kneels riverside amid a verdant landscape. This moment might[...] Read more

Featured Article Brennan McCracken Issue 138

Nicole Lizée invites us to hear things her way Nicole Lizée is a huge fan of Alfred Hitchcock, science-fiction films, and Lars von Trier, the maverick Danish director whose Dogme (dogma), about film, inspires her own reflection on how to compose music. She says composers should be just as bold and inventive about creating music as von[...] Read more

Featured Article Richard Simas Issue 105

Gong Punks and Culture Bombs Gentle and intense, soothing and exhilarating, traditional Filipino kulintang music provides the kind of richly immersive experience that makes an hour go by in what seems like a minute. The intertwining, hypnotic rhythms of its gongs and drums rise and fall as the players change tempos and[...] Read more

Featured Article Mary Dickie Issue 128

Elastic Planets Stepping into this black cube is like entering an intergalactic observation deck. Enveloped by mechanical whirs, buzzes and clicks, a parade of heavenly bodies is presented for inspection. This particular set is kaleidoscopic in colour, malleable in shape, kinetic in nature, frenetic in texture[...] Read more

Visions of sound Jason van Eyk Issue 117

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

The Quiet Waves of Silla and Rise In early 2016 Ottawa-based DJ, producer, and dancer Eric Vani, aka Rise, was hired to create music to be played at the Canadian Museum of Nature’s Nature Nocturne—a themed-evening series that Vani describes as a “rave in the middle of dinosaur skeletons.”[...] Read more

Sound Bite Chaka V. Grier Issue 134