Ohama’s Alternative Dimensions Tona Walt Ohama has lived many lives. Born on a potato farm in Southern Alberta, he has spent the past forty years making passionate, deeply personal music while forging friendly connections with anyone who enters his orbit. Since his debut album, the 1982 cassette release Midnite News,[...] Read more

Profile Jesse Locke Issue 143

Sarah Neufeld: Solo Violin, Guerrilla-Style “I COULDN'T EVEN PLAY A NOTE. If you even breathe, your breath becomes this crazy, feathery freight train of echo.”   Sarah Neufeld recalls her first visit to Devil’s Mountain with a mixture of fear and delight. The site of an abandoned array of[...] Read more

Profile Jonathan Bunce Issue 117

The Combine Project The Combine Project (2004-09) is a series of kinetic sound sculptures constructed from an abandoned 1964 Allis-Chalmers All-Crop combine harvester. I discovered it ten years ago on a property my wife and I purchased when we moved from Toronto to rural Ontario. The piece of outdated farm[...] Read more

Visions of sound Steven White Issue 107

Avatar Orchestra Metaverse FULL-TEXT AVAILABLE IN PRINT EDITION ONLY   Avatar Orchestra Metaverse is a global collective making new music within the virtual-reality platform Second Life, an online three-dimensional program that allows users to interact through in-world avatars (users’ digital[...] Read more

Visions of sound Tina M. Pearson Issue 106

All-Set! Editions: Essentially Not Jazz Dapper Toronto imprint All-Set! Editions may be a newcomer to the subterranean ecosystem of experimental music distribution, but it already has a clearer sense of self than other more established labels. It’s spearheaded by a trio of composer-players, multi-instrumentalist Mike Smith,[...] Read more

Sound Notes Nick Storring Issue 127

Scrap Arts Music: Dr. Seuss meets steampunk Scrap Arts Music is a joyous collision of creativity, experimental sound, and energetic movement, with percussion pieces performed on reborn hunks of junk. It’s challenging to describe and impossible to ignore.   Since 1998, when he founded Scrap Arts Music in[...] Read more

Sound Bite Linda Barnard Issue 139

Tristan Perich’s 1-Bit Symphony Tristan Perich’s 1-Bit Symphony (2009–10) is an electronic composition in five movements on a single microchip housed in a CD jewel case. 1-Bit Symphony is not a recording in the traditional sense; it is a complete electronic circuit that literally performs its music once it is[...] Read more

Visions of sound Tristan Perich Issue 109

Lido Pimienta curates a sonic community Colombia-born, Toronto-based Lido Pimienta has been called “the consummate collaborator”—and with good reason. Although she writes, sings, produces, and plays many instruments—and is certainly talented and strong-willed enough to make recordings on her own—[...] Read more

Sound Bite Mary Dickie Issue 120

Joseph Shabason’s patient unravelling When we listen to music, are we meant to enter the hearts and minds of those who’ve created it? Or is listening more of an interior experience—of turning inwards and creating space to experience our own feelings? For Joseph Shabason, the answer to both questions is yes.[...] Read more

Sound Bite Brennan McCracken Issue 132

Rings of Beijing I sit staring at the laptop screen in my Beijing hotel room. Writers’ block. Silently trying to formulate words. No sounds enter my consciousness. Only the insistent hum of the laptop. Until my listening body is dropped into a pool of sound. Concentric sonic circles ripple out from the[...] Read more

Sonic Geography Millie Chen Issue 110

Bagpipes Blew My Mind My partner Emily and I moved to Glasgow from Toronto a year ago. The first TV shows we saw included a pipe-band championship and a shepherding competition. Both were brilliant to listen to. We thought that’s what TV was going to be here. It isn’t. And aside from the guys on[...] Read more

Sonic Geography Josh Thorpe Issue 132