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Eliot Britton FULL-TEXT AVAILABLE IN PRINT EDITION ONLY By his own account, Eliot Britton’s music treads dangerous territory. “I represent huge problems with art music and the whole idea of art music,” he says, and goes on to describe how in his compositions within the[...] Read more
New Frequencies This issue of Musicworks comes preloaded with guitars. Hollow, heavy, bowed, cracked, pedalled, flung. Trusty companions. Feedback demons. Easy to pick up, hard to put down. While I do not declare this as The Guitar Issue, I do aver that the guitar informed my aleatoric curatorial process[...] Read more
What's Inside Musicworks 153? ON THE COVER QUINTON BARNES Compulsively creative, fiercely political, and boldly queer, Montreal emcee and electronic producer Quinton Barnes is making music that meets the moment. Following the release of several self-produced solo albums—including Code Noir, which made[...] Read more
Timothy Roy’s “dans les dents de la guivre” Saint Paul, Minnesota-based composer Timothy Roy’s “dans les dents de la guivre” was awarded second place in the 2023 Musicworks Electronic Music Composition Contest. Format: Binaural Stereo . . . please listen with headphones! [...] Read more
Tim Hecker It’s a sensation particular to staying up all night—that in-between place on the cusp of complete exhaustion and utter lucidity, where fatigue and receptivity somehow reach a simultaneous peak. No longer fighting to stay awake, you’re charged with a directionless urgency,[...] Read more
The Musical Lightness of Éric Normand The world of improvised music has spawned a core of musician–organizers who have built scenes and networks and record labels to support and extend the music. Few, however, have achieved what Éric Normand has, creating a hotbed of free improvisation in the relatively isolated[...] Read more
The Radical Transcriptions of sfSound PERHAPS NO OTHER AMERICAN METROPOLIS is more associated with important countercultural movements than the San Francisco Bay Area. From the Beats of the 1950s and the hippies of the 1960s to the radical punks of the ’70s and ’80s, the “city by the Bay” has long[...] Read more
music, interrupted A barrage of media releases announcing the cancellation or postponement of concerts and festivals—in my hometown of Toronto, in music hubs across Canada and beyond—began hitting my inbox with increasing intensity the second week of March. Like many who actively follow, attend,[...] Read more
Manuella Blackburn’s Landline In the pantheon of sounds, the tone, whirr, and ring of the rotary phone belong in the “gone but not forgotten” gallery. If someone’s mobile phone rings à la Ma Bell—as opposed to the usual pulsating buzz, pop-tune riff, or synthesized animal sound—we[...] Read more
Darsha Hewitt Following the work of Darsha Hewitt is like feeling your way through the inside of an electronic circuit. It is tactile, visceral. Her trial-and-error approach comes from a truly experimental place, and during my conversation with her, I suggest that I have imagined her jotting down[...] Read more
Wadada Leo Smith and the Possibilities of Dreaming Think of this as a sketch. We’re not going to get into a complete report on the doings of Wadada Leo Smith here, his more than fifty recordings, his dozens of collaborations with luminaries from all over the globe, his long engagement with creative music. No, we’re merely[...] Read more
The Warp and Weft of Kelly Ruth In the history of musical instruments, the questions asked are pretty standard: Who played it? What did they play? How did it evolve? Kelly Ruth’s instrument, the weaving loom, carries an entirely different kind of history. It brings to mind mythology, solitary artisans, beautiful[...] Read more
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