The Sound Future of Virtual Reality I HEAR A PERCUSSIVE THUD. SOMETHING IS HITTING THE FLOOR IN FRONT OF ME REPEATEDLY. It’s reverberating (I’m in a large room, I guess) and the rhythm is punctuated by frenzied bursts of high-pitched squeaks nearby. In the distance, I hear shuffling and the murmur of voices[...] Read more

Featured Article Greg J. Smith Issue 126

James Rolfe FULL-TEXT AVAILABLE IN PRINT EDITION ONLY. I first met James Rolfe nearly twenty years ago, when we were finalists in the 1990 edition of the CBC National Radio Competition for Young Composers. As a frequent visitor to Rolfe’s Toronto apartment at that time, I was afforded an insider[...] Read more

Featured Article Chris Paul Harman Issue 105

Senyawa plays the music of the universe On a chilly, rainy Thursday May night, a crowd of sixty or so people, spread unevenly around the pews of Halifax’s Fort Massey United Church, is waiting. OBEY Convention creative director Andrew Patterson has just introduced Indonesian “doom folk” duo Senyawa, but after the[...] Read more

Sound Bite Daniel Glassman Issue 128

Gong Punks and Culture Bombs Gentle and intense, soothing and exhilarating, traditional Filipino kulintang music provides the kind of richly immersive experience that makes an hour go by in what seems like a minute. The intertwining, hypnotic rhythms of its gongs and drums rise and fall as the players change tempos and[...] Read more

Featured Article Mary Dickie Issue 128

Olivia Block FULL-TEXT AVAILABLE IN PRINT EDITION ONLY     The sound of a clarinet passage emerges from a quiet section and is punctuated by a series of minute electronic tones. Accompanying the clarinet is a recording of the wind, but the sound is more than just that of a rush of wind; it is[...] Read more

Featured Article Chris Kennedy Issue 112

Dasha Rush: Dark Hearts of Space The prospects are grim for a person who has fallen into a black hole. The gravitational forces exerted by these mysterious regions of space are so strong that nothing—not even light—can escape, once it passes a certain proximity threshold. From a safe distance, the unlucky soul[...] Read more

Visions of sound Greg J. Smith Issue 125

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

New Stages For New Music Intense purple LED light washes over the Thin Edge New Music Collective (ABOVE PHOTO) as they scramble to soundcheck, seeming to heighten the chaotic mood at Long Winter, Toronto’s monthly interarts festival series during the coldest season. Two different sources of electric guitar[...] Read more

Featured Article David Dacks and Peter Burton Issue 125

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

Jay Crocker Navigates the Music of Obstacles "THEY WERE EXPECTING TO HAVE A swinging kind of jazz party, but we were doing nothing of the sort that night.” Percussionist Chris Dadge is recalling a particularly memorable gig at the Beat Niq Jazz & Social Club—a trad jazz club in downtown Calgary—during[...] Read more

Featured Article Andrew Patterson Issue 122