Amy Brandon is Capturing Intimate Chaos The first time I met guitarist-composer Amy Brandon, we talked about the lineage of a particular sound.             Her 2019 composition Mimic—written while she participated in the Canadian League of Composers’[...] Read more

Featured Article Sara Constant Issue 134

Eighty-five scores celebrate Pauline Oliveros Still Listening: New Works in Honour of Pauline Oliveros (1932-2016) is a project initially conceived to mark Oliveros’ eighty-fifth birthday on May 30, 2017. Eighty-five artists were invited to create eighty-five new compositions, each with a duration of eighty-five seconds. Organized by[...] Read more

In the Works Lawrence Joseph Issue 127

Tim Olive’s Flexible Aesthetic It’s a typically humming Saturday night at the Tranzac Club. Different events are in progress in each of the Toronto venue’s three rooms. The Tiki Room (the smallest and most living-room-like of the three) is hosting a special edition of the Audiopollination series, which is[...] Read more

Profile Joe Strutt Issue 135

Adam Basanta “I’ve always been interested in perception and apperception,” writes Montreal-based composer Adam Basanta in a recent e-mail correspondence. “This has led me, as a musician and composer, to centre my work on listening as a perceptual and psychological experience.[...] Read more

Sound Bite Nick Storring Issue 111

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

Featured Article Heather Roche Issue 132

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

Thomas, Farah, and D’Eon I’m sitting with Thom Gill and we’re talking about his most recent EP Such Is Your Triumph, arguably his most intimate and personal set of recordings to date. In addition to his beautifully hushed and harmonically inventive takes on two gospel songs made famous by the Clark[...] Read more

Featured Article Nick Storring Issue 112

Pleasure Calls, by Camae Ayewa and Carmel Farahbakhsh Pleasure Calls is a collaborative, interdisciplinary installation and performance by Camae Ayewa and Carmel Farahbakhsh that activates revolutionary ways of loving one another. The installation is the culmination of a week-long residency in early March of 2019 at the Khyber Centre for the[...] Read more

Visions of sound Nicholas Dourado Issue 133

Field Notes From Fort McMurray in the damp morning air: rain pitter-patters on whispering leaves. inherited onomatopoeic vocabulary; true but tried tropes carrying with them vague echoes of that singular safety known to the time when board books taught us to affix words to sounds, predictably, repeatably. a wind sighs,[...] Read more

Sonic Geography Theo Di Castri

Jean-François Laporte A maze of thin, transparent hose bundled by lock ties runs along the walls and floors of a spacious studio painted white from floor to ceiling. At the back of the studio near a tool and supply room, an air compressor kicks into action with a thump. Hissing air begins filling the lengthy[...] Read more

Featured Article Richard Simas Issue 113

Colin Stetson's Sound Story Stories in which the protagonist blossoms, finds themselves, or rediscovers their roots appear everywhere. Their ubiquity makes it awfully tempting to replicate this narrative when telling the story of a solo artist who has arrived at a uniquely focused sound world. Yet sometimes it’s more[...] Read more

Featured Article Nick Storring Issue 116