Petra Glynt experiments in celebration Ancient rock carvings at Petroglyphs Provincial Park in eastern Ontario inspired Alexandra Mackenzie to call her latest solo musical project Petra Glynt. Evoking rock, ancient cultures, flashes of reflected light, and the enduring power of art, the name seems perfectly apt. Petra Glynt may[...] Read more

Sound Bite Mary Dickie Issue 119

Tosca Terán Has a Brand New Spawn Bag The lobby is cavernous and cool compared to the heat under the blazing mid-afternoon sun outside. It’s mid July, and I’m visiting Toronto’s Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) on a decidedly peculiar mission: to listen to music made by fungus. As part of the seventh edition[...] Read more

Featured Article Greg J. Smith Issue 135

The Ever-Evolving Sounds of Thanya Iyer The music of Thanya Iyer (the name of the musician–composer as well as of her band) is impossible to define—both for her fans and for herself. “I can’t really place the genre of the music that we’re trying to do,” acknowledges Iyer from her home in[...] Read more

In the Works Chaka V. Grier Issue 132

Pheeroan akLaff Pheeroan akLaff believes in drums first, rather than last. He can drive an ensemble forward with the machine-gun attack of his snare and the rolling thunder of his bass and toms, compounding and enriching the music with dense polyrhythms, or using the metallic shimmer of his cymbals to surmount[...] Read more

Featured Article Stuart Broomer Issue 114

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

Sarah Davachi flies into psychoacoustic space One could say that Sarah Davachi’s drone-based music is all about meditative states, or texture, or duration. But more than anything else, it’s about balance—between the theoretical and the practical, the material and the cerebral, the antique and the avant-garde, the[...] Read more

Sound Bite Alexander Varty Issue 122

Leah Reid’s Reverie Leah Reid’s electronic music compositions explore and reveal the possibilities that exist between the abstract spaces in which she structures her compositions and the everyday timbres outside her window. Reid attended high school at the Walnut Hill School for the Arts in Massachusetts[...] Read more

Sound Notes Jennie Punter Issue 145

Qikiqtaaluk, Nunavut Mount Thor   Sometimes the Arctic sun never goes down, never rises. Today though, in the middle of the Akshayuk Pass, I wake up just before the sunrays reach the thin layer of ice on my tent. It is early, dark, and cold. The wind is tirelessly beating against everything that[...] Read more

Sound Notes Bea Labikova Issue 135

The Blessed Riders of Streetcars in Vienna Streetcars in Vienna are blessedly quiet. The machines—brand new, high-tech plastic platforms—announce themselves on approach with only a slight electric hum. I now react to their high pitch with the same short sprints I used to make to catch the lumbering College streetcar in[...] Read more

Sonic Geography Caitlin Smith Issue 118

The Unsung Songbooks of Dave Burrell TO SAY THAT PIANIST, COMPOSER, AND—AT THIS POINT—JAZZ ELDER DAVE BURRELL WAS NOT made for these times is a bit of a shortsighted claim. Burrell is a jazz classicist preceded by a reputation for free improvisation. He was present for the fabled Parisian Summer of 1969, when[...] Read more

Sound Notes Kurt Gottschalk Issue 122