Vanese "VJ" Smith is Right on Time Vanese (pronounced va-NIECE) “VJ” Smith and I are on the Spadina streetcar, chatting like old friends. Just minutes earlier we met for the first time. I arrived from up North (aka Thornhill) in a state of winter-blues petulance, but when I saw her bright smile and waving arm from[...] Read more

Profile Chaka V. Grier Issue 130

Kyle Brenders It’s 1999. The millennium is approaching, and Kyle Brenders, teenage saxophonist, is living the small-town Ontario version of the jazz life. He’s a member of the Bill Sherry Big Band, playing vintage swing tunes for dancers in the St. Thomas municipal arena, decades-old tunes[...] Read more

Sound Notes Stuart Broomer Issue 108

Listening as Territory “I grew up in a tiny village in the North Yorkshire Moors,” explains British sound artist Mark Peter Wright. “I was always outdoors, and I collected anything and everything: stones, feathers, empty shotgun cartridges.” Now in his early thirties and based in London,[...] Read more

Sound Bite Julian Cowley Issue 114

Anna Höstman Tunes In To Her Roots There’s no place like home. For Anna Höstman, winner of the 2013 Toronto Emerging Composer Award, home is the Bella Coola Valley, a remote wilderness wonderland on British Columbia’s central coast. Its rich cultural history dates back 10,000 years to the Nuxalkmc people (now[...] Read more

In the Works Jennie Punter Issue 117

FET.NAT’s Post-Punk Palimpsests Around twenty years ago, a post-punk revival was supposedly upon us. Reissue compilations proliferated alongside a crop of new artists who audibly drew from the genre’s heyday. Where punk-rock wedded a rock ethos with rebellious politics (or sometimes just rebellious posturing), post-punk[...] Read more

Profile Nick Storring Issue 136

The Glittery World of Olivia Shortt Olivia Shortt may not be a household name, but anyone who’s caught one of their eccentric stage performances—either solo or in avant-garde ensembles—has probably not forgotten them. Over the past few years, Shortt has built an enviable résumé. They made their[...] Read more

Featured Article Chaka V. Grier Issue 138

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

Kaïa Kater and the Creative Power of Letting Go Kaïa Kater is a gifted storyteller. Drawn to history, the Montreal-based musician and composer strings together tales that marry the elusive past with an ever-shifting present. From a young age, Kater, who studied cello and piano as a child, found refuge in songwriting. “I didn[...] Read more

Featured Article Chaka V. Grier Issue 150

The Genre of Morgan-Paige Morgan-Paige Melbourne was a child prodigy who started playing piano at three and singing and composing shortly afterwards. Soon she was winning piano competitions, and at sixteen she had her first composition published with SOCAN. It looked like she was heading for a glittering career as a[...] Read more

Sound Bite Mary Dickie Issue 138

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