Jean-Sebastien Audet’s Songs of Ephemera Jean-Sebastien Audet and I drink coffee in a café on Toronto’s Queen Street West, as we try to pin down his elusive music. The man who has kindly given us his larger table is now squeezed into a corner with his laptop and is feigning interest in nondescript wall art. He perks up[...] Read more

Featured Article Chaka V. Grier Issue 131

A Walk in the Barrios Buenos Aires, also known as Capital Federal, is the largest city in Argentina, with a population of three million—thirteen million including the greater urban area. The city is located on the western shore of Rio de la Plata (River of Silver), the widest estuary in the world, which[...] Read more

Sonic Geography alcides lanza Issue 117

Tenzier: History Outside the Margins “There’s a group of students who used a term I really liked: countermemory,” Tenzier founder Eric Fillion tells me over Skype from Montreal. “I almost like that better than counterculture.” He’s talking about Tenzier, the avant-garde label which has put[...] Read more

Sound Bite Kristel Jax Issue 124

The Astral Excursions of John Mills-Cockell The imagination of electronic composer John Mills-Cockell exists in a liminal space. His music, with its neon-pastoral glow, feels neither jarringly futuristic nor soothingly nostalgic. Nevertheless, as the very first Canadian owner of a Moog synthesizer (purchased the same day Wendy Carlos[...] Read more

Featured Article Jesse Locke Issue 127

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

Carmen Braden Raises the Volume on the Subarctic “I'M JUST GOING TO TOUCH IT ON THE TOP," SAYS CARMEN BRADEN, LOOKING AT A BLACKENED PORCUPINE-LIKE LUMP OF ICE. "WHAT I THINK WILL HAPPEN: IT'S JUST GOING TO FALL APART. READY?"   It’s May 2014, and she’s talking to a camera. Her now-[...] Read more

Profile Samia Madwar Issue 126

The Swedish Sound-Art Scene Nadine Byrne Monochrome images of two young women—evidently sisters—stare out impassively from oval apertures that resemble Victorian cameo brooches. A gauzy ectoplasmic fabric oozes from their mouths while, in an aperture between them, their faces merge in a dreamlike blur[...] Read more

Featured Article Julian Cowley Issue 108

Kristen Roos FULL-TEXT AVAILABLE IN PRINT EDITION ONLY.   Every musician in the world produces invisible waves when making music—such is the nature of sound. Relatively few musicians, however, are concerned with those waves once they are absorbed and processed by the auditory system of[...] Read more

Profile David Dacks Issue 106

Rocío Cano Valiño’s Intortus The title of Intortus, a recent electronic composition by Rocío Cano Valiño, is a word used for a kind of cirrus cloud with twisted, seemingly entangled filaments. Even casual cloudwatchers know that these painterly wisps are shapeshifting storytellers; they may start out[...] Read more

Sound Bite Jennie Punter Issue 151

Eliza Kavtion’s Call and Response In her spellbinding live show, Montreal-based multi-instrumentalist Eliza Kavtion twists threads from documentary films, punk-rock distortion, and hip-hop innovation together with her wailing, virtuosic guitar playing. She and guitar become one: a fury of fuzzy drones, rhythmic sputters, and[...] Read more

Sound Bite Peggy Hogan Issue 137