Nick Storring
Jerusalem In My Heart. If He Dies, If If If If If If. Jerusalem In My Heart’s second album bristles with all the forward momentum that was lurking just below the surface of its debut release. Noted producer Radwan Ghazi Moumneh is in charge of the sonic aspect of the Montreal-based[...] Read more
Manticore. Universal Time / Nebulous Pink Cloud. On its second EP, Toronto duo Manticore continues its exploration of song on the cusp of improvisation and utterances verging on language. The duo’s rather commonplace instrumentation (you guessed it: guitar and voice) may offer a certain familiarity, but its[...] Read more
JOYFULTALK. Muuixx. Muuixx recalls that fecund period during the 1990s when some notable electronic music was celebrated for its eccentric intrepid quality. But JOYFULTALK, the latest project of Nova Scotia resident Jay Crocker, isn’t nostalgic; rather, it leans toward creating something indelible. What[...] Read more
Susan Alcorn. Soledad. Astor Piazzolla’s eccentricity as a composer is overshadowed by his reputation as one of the foremost exponents of tango music. The ostensible genre designation tends to mask his poignant and peculiar mixture of forlorn sentimentalism, tense dissonances, and covert use of noise. Susan[...] Read more
André Cormier. Zwischen Den Wolken. It’s often tempting to interpret the presence of abundant silence in music as a gesture of aggressive austerity. Yet André Cormier’s solo piano work Zwischen den Wolken—performed by Markus Kreul on a new recording released on Redshift—makes it very[...] Read more
Cluttertones. Ordinary Joy. If the word clutter evokes the notion of a copious mess, its use in the moniker of Toronto-based Rob Clutton’s quartet The Cluttertones—Lina Allemano (trumpet), Clutton (bass), Tim Posgate (banjo and guitar) and Ryan Driver (synthesizer, piano, voice)—suggests more of a[...] Read more
Matana Roberts. Coin Coin Chapter Three: River Run Thee. The third instalment of Matana Roberts’ Coin Coin presents an utterly overwhelming listening experience—a densely netted mass of images, information, and deeply visceral sensations, so profusely intelligible that it becomes opaque with stimuli. Where the[...] Read more
Chris Strickland. Animal Expert. Animal Expert unfolds through an elegantly opaque, almost inscrutable logic—one which gradually overpowers, rather than satisfies, one’s desire for an audible syntax. Distinct, indelible impressions begin to form: the odours and dimensions of a particular space, the feeling of[...] Read more
Ian William Craig. A Turn Of Breath. In the late 1980s and early ’90s, there was a palpable enthusiasm for experimentation among various musicians who had been lumped together under banners like gothic or ethereal. In addition to austere post-punk and maudlin glam-posturing, this multifarious category also encompassed[...] Read more
Avec Le Soleil Sortant De Sa Bouche. Zubberdust! Zubberdust! blasts off with whimsical punk-rock exuberance into a patchwork quilt of insistent interlocking grooves, fluorescent panels of synthesizer, and various could’ve-been aural hallucinations. Both hypnotic and jagged, the music of Avec Le Soleil Sortant De Sa Bouche transfixes[...] Read more
Sarah Peebles. Delicate Paths. The thin, luminous sound of the shô, a Japanese mouth organ, is very particular and very beautiful—presenting a pleasant and impossibly clear glassy tonal surface. Sarah Peebles’ new shô-centred disc Delicate Paths demonstrates a thorough, painterly understanding of[...] Read more
Hecker. Articulação. Much of Florian Hecker’s downright preposterous music could easily be regarded as the absurdist vanishing point of technological vanguardism in computer music. Both boisterously noisy and eerily austere, with its hyperactive bursts of sound, his music often feels as though it’s[...] Read more
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