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Video Game Music: New Directions in Play The first time I played PaRappa the Rapper was a struggle. I was with my parents at a novelty deli where each table was outfitted with a television and a PlayStation video-game console. I didn’t have one at home, but a paper-thin, hip-hop cartoon[...] Read more
Another Timbre’s Canadian Composers Series “I earn my living as a sound recordist on TV programs,” Simon Reynell relates. “I don’t put creative energies into that, but it’s well paid, so I don’t have to work more than an average of six days a month, which allows me to spend most of my time on the[...] Read more
Bekah Simms’ Music of Discomfort Bekah Simms likes music that challenges. “I don't want to ever get too comfortable,” she tells me, as we sit down to talk about her work. “I don’t want it ever to be super easy to write a piece, because I feel like then I won’t be a better composer when I[...] Read more
What's Inside Musicworks 135? The artists in the Winter 2019 issue are connected through the sonic mycelium of Musicworks! Order the Winter issue now. Buffy Sainte-Marie's Illuminations Buffy Sainte-Marie’s Illuminations is one of the most sonically[...] Read more
Luke Nickel Transmits a Living Score Luke Nickel has written me a piece. No, wait. That’s not quite right. Luke Nickel has left me a series of sometimes vague, sometimes specific instructions via audio recordings of his voice, which I am only allowed to listen to[...] Read more
Giulia Regini's NeOnSound Italian composer Giulia Regini’s NeOnSound is the winner of the 2021 Marcelle Deschênes Prize in Electronic Music, as selected by the jury of Musicworks’ 2021 Electronic Music Composition Contest. “NeOnSound is an audiovisual composition inspired by Dan Flavin's[...] Read more
William Northlich’s Topaz 0.3nyV Edmonton, Alberta-based composer William Northlich, aka BlipVert, was awarded second place in the 2024 Musicworks Electronic Music Composition Contest for Topaz 0.3nyV. Click the PLAY button above to listen. Northlich shared some notes with Musicworks[...] Read more
Glenn Buhr FULL-TEXT AVAILABLE IN PRINT EDITION ONLY Definitions of personal style don’t get any clearer with life experience. This becomes obvious during my interview with Canadian composer and pianist Glenn Buhr. It also becomes clear however, that personal style[...] Read more
Sam Shalabi and the Evolution of a Global Aesthetic Sam Shalabi’s insightful musical take on the world can provoke both discomfort and laughter. On his numerous solo albums, he meshes guitar, oud, and field recordings into an electroacoustic collage. He leads a wide variety of small and midsize groups that encompass a who’s who of[...] Read more
Rachael Wadham: Installing A Quiet Sound-World FULL-TEXT AVAILABLE IN PRINT EDITION ONLY The work of Vancouver-based sound artist, improviser, and composer Rachael Wadham often hinges upon a certain pack-rat sensibility, with sounds scavenged from mundane, remote, or even derelict sources, squirrelled away with humble[...] Read more
The Tao of Gayle Last year in mid October, while scrolling down Facebook, I came across a densely expressive and evocatively written post from Montreal singer Sarah Albu, who was “surfacing momentarily,” she wrote, from a recording project “revisiting, revising, and recording” the[...] Read more
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
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