Featured Articles

The Complex Stillness of Mark Ellestad “For me, there is a kind of stillness in music that comes from a generous and welcoming place. It has nothing to do with speed or style or tradition or school. It can come from dark or light, from any shade of intensity. It doesn’t need to express anything at all. I love it when[...] Read more

Profile Julian Cowley Issue 142

Ociciwan Contemporary Art Collective: in memoriam . . . Project THE EIGHTH PROJECT initiated by the Edmonton-based Ociciwan Contemporary Art Collective, in memoriam . . . , was nominally about a performance, but soon morphed into a unique achievement of seemingly infinite layers. Its complex genesis, motivations, resonances, and residual impact[...] Read more

Featured Article Ian Crutchley Issue 132

SlowPitchSound and the Universe Between the Grooves When it comes to picking the defining factors of a musical practice, some artists view their work as a single, continuous process, homing in on a specific vision and returning to it repeatedly. Others are the opposite—traversing a multitude of styles and sounds as they launch[...] Read more

Featured Article Sara Constant Issue 144

The Tao of Gayle Last year in mid October, while scrolling down Facebook, I came across a densely expressive and evocatively written post from Montreal singer Sarah Albu, who was “surfacing momentarily,” she wrote, from a recording project “revisiting, revising, and recording” the[...] Read more

Editorial Jennie Punter Issue 142

The Aural Perspectives of Brodie West People love a good Jekyll-and-Hyde story, and when it comes to artists, the extreme disparities between their personal and creative lives offer endless fascination. These supposed paradoxes affirm the specious belief that artistic expression magically transcends selfhood. They’re also[...] Read more

Featured Article Nick Storring Issue 128

Émilie Payeur FULL-TEXT AVAILABLE IN PRINT EDITION ONLY   Émilie Payeur is young and inspired. “Electroacoustic music is a different kind of music,” she says. “To me, it is even more than music. It’s literally sound painting, and that is why it should be seen[...] Read more

Sound Bite Ted Harms Issue 109

MUSICWORKS UNVEILS 2016 CONTEST WINNERS MUSICWORKS UNVEILS 2016 CONTEST WINNERS   Vancouver musician Craig Aalders and B.C. poet Tom Wayman win top marks in Musicworks’ 2016 Electronic Music Composition and Sonic Geography Writing Contests   For the first time in Musicworks contest[...] Read more

Sound Notes

Tim Olive’s Flexible Aesthetic It’s a typically humming Saturday night at the Tranzac Club. Different events are in progress in each of the Toronto venue’s three rooms. The Tiki Room (the smallest and most living-room-like of the three) is hosting a special edition of the Audiopollination series, which is[...] Read more

Profile Joe Strutt Issue 135

crys cole amplifies personal space I first saw crys cole perform in a tiny gallery in Winnipeg’s Chinatown. Seated with a contact mike, a pane of glass, and little else, cole reflected the minimalism of her setup in quiet soundscapes and restrained gestures. Immediately, she had the room under her command. There was a[...] Read more

Featured Article Kristel Jax Issue 125

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

Eldad Tsabary FULL-TEXT AVAILABLE IN PRINT EDITION ONLY   Israeli-Canadian composer Eldad Tsabary is omnivorous when it comes to digesting various influences, both musical and otherwise. With strong ties to Montreal’s electroacoustic scene, and as a lecturer in Concordia University[...] Read more

In the Works Nick Storring Issue 108

Spool: Music in the Margins CERTAIN LABELS are very much the product of a particular vision and exude cohesion of an almost iconic order—one that even seems to magically weather shifts in taste and approach. ECM’s elegant black and white photography, sans serif typeset, and crisp, reverberant sonic profile[...] Read more

Sound Notes Nick Storring Issue 129