Jeff Morton FULL-TEXT AVAILABLE IN PRINT EDITION ONLY   I imagine that what I hear echoing off the walls of the white-cube gallery is the proceedings of a robot congress, a cacophonous, fevered debate on robot rights—and not a single little robot agrees with any other. I detect[...] Read more

In the Works David McCallum Issue 113

Shifting the Narrative The time for postponing discussions of environmental issues is over. This is the main thrust of two music-and-sound-powered documentary projects, both of which aim to encourage honest conversations about climate change and to explore the many ways our lives intertwine with—and impact[...] Read more

Featured Article Jesse Locke Issue 139

Kamancello explores a new duo dimension “Kamanche means little bow in Kurdish and Farsi,” says Shahriyar Jamshidi, the kamanche player in Kamancello, his Toronto-based duo with cellist Raphael Weinroth-Browne. The pair marry rich lyricism and microtonal ornamentation, influenced by Iranian, classical, and metal musics[...] Read more

Sound Bite Daniel Glassman Issue 129

HAVN Records: Fronting Art Music in ‘The Hammer’ First came the band, then the space, then the label.             The band is Haolin Munk, a jazz and hip-hop quartet formed in the early 2010s by drummer Aaron Hutchinson, tenor saxophonist Connor Bennett, alto saxophonist[...] Read more

Sound Notes Daniel Glassman Issue 133

The Audible Connections of Xuan Ye On Xuan Ye’s website, layers of text, symbols, and images float across the home page like something halfway between poetry and code. The site is an ever-changing digital archeology of her artistic works across a wide range of sonic and visual media. All of it defies categorization. In[...] Read more

Featured Article Sara Constant Issue 136

Fuhong Shi Closes the Distance If Canada has any meaning to most Chinese, it is likely through a widely read essay written by the late Chairman Mao in praise of Dr. Norman Bethune, the Montreal doctor who ministered to Mao’s suffering soldiers during the Long March of the late 1930s.   Musically,[...] Read more

Sound Bite William Littler Issue 117

The Evolution of The Muted Note The Muted Note is a marriage of music, dance, and poetry—specifically, the poetry of the late Canadian writer P. K. Page. Her work was the unexpected catalyst for the first creative collaboration between Scott Thomson and Susanna Hood, both of whom were long-time linchpins of Toronto[...] Read more

Featured Article Jonathan Bunce Issue 120

Manuella Blackburn’s Home Truths U.K. composer Manuella Blackburn’s composition Home Truths won the Marcelle Deschênes Prize in Electronic Music in the 2023 Musicworks Electronic Music Composition (EMC) Contest. This donor-supported annual prize awards $300 to a self-identified female or non-binary composer with[...] Read more

Featured Article

Jessica Moss Explores the Orchestra Within If there is a through line connecting traditional Eastern European klezmer, indie rock, and experimental drone music, it can be found in the work of Jessica Moss. Whether her music is acoustic or electronic, post-rock or post-classical, a stark and dramatic amplified violin performance or a[...] Read more

Featured Article Mary Dickie Issue 143

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