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

New Age Music—The Second Wave I’m lying on the living-room floor. I’ve been like this for two hours, on my back, in the dark, headphones on. The record on the turntable is literally locked in its groove and producing a low-note drone that at times sounds like a whale’s moan or some sort of detuned,[...] Read more

Featured Article Jay Somerset Issue 107

Sarah Hennies, Linguist in the Land of Noises Identity is a deeply personal, elusive, and complex thing, and thus, a common source of creative fuel. Yet for the endless variety of discrete identities and individual perspectives on the topic, there is a dominant set of tropes around the way that identity is addressed artistically. The[...] Read more

Featured Article Nick Storring Issue 130

Victoria Composers Cultivate a Place to Listen Why has a vibrant community of emerging composers chosen British Columbia’s cozy, scenic capital over more bustling contemporary-music hubs? THERE'S A DEEP HUSH in the church where I am sitting and nervously listening to an especially slow and fragile performance of[...] Read more

Featured Article Nick Storring Issue 129

Anna Pidgorna's Invented Folk Songs With its balance of bold colour palettes, strong melodic profiles, and unexpected performative elements, composer Anna Pidgorna’s work has been catching eyes and ears of late. Her chamber opera On the Eve of Ivan Kupalo recieved a 2013 SOCAN Foundation Award, and Light-Play through[...] Read more

In the Works Nick Storring Issue 123

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

Roscoe Mitchell and the Montreal-Toronto Art Orchestra The year 2017 is being widely celebrated as the centenary of jazz, marked by the hundredth anniversary of the music’s first recordings, the Original Dixieland Jazz Band’s “Livery Stable Blues” and “Dixie Jass Band One Step.” Jazz began as a spontaneous,[...] Read more

Featured Article Stuart Broomer Issue 127

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

The Musical Worldview of Nick Dourado IT'S A DREARY WINTER NIGHT IN TORONTO. It’s already super late—the last of four bands has already played, and the makeshift bar within the makeshift venue has been closed for a good half hour. Although things are winding down, a healthy crowd is hanging out, chatting, and[...] Read more

Featured Article Nick Storring Issue 126

The Radical Transcriptions of sfSound PERHAPS NO OTHER AMERICAN METROPOLIS is more associated with important countercultural movements than the San Francisco Bay Area. From the Beats of the 1950s and the hippies of the 1960s to the radical punks of the ’70s and ’80s, the “city by the Bay” has long[...] Read more

Featured Article Dan Joseph Issue 122

Tim Hecker It’s a sensation particular to staying up all night—that in-between place on the cusp of complete exhaustion and utter lucidity, where fatigue and receptivity somehow reach a simultaneous peak. No longer fighting to stay awake, you’re charged with a directionless urgency,[...] Read more

Featured Article Nick Storring Issue 114