Togetherness! Togetherness! The Montreal-based band Togetherness! injects a shot of jubilant foot-patting rhythm into free-form improvisation. The band splashes a couple of trumpeter Ellwood Epps’ high-spirited compositions into the swirling pool of free-jazz, high-life, second-line, and brass-band creations that[...] Read more

Recordings Ken Waxman Issue 130

Éliane Radigue. Occam Ocean 1 The French composer Éliane Radigue has moved through various stages in her career. After working as an assistant to electronic-music pioneer Pierre Henry, she started using controlled feedback to create pieces. She worked with synthesizers for a considerable time, then decided to have[...] Read more

Recordings René van Peer Issue 130

Keiji Haino and John Butcher. Light Never Bright Enough. It’s not unusual in improvised music to find unlikely partnerships onstage. English saxophonist John Butcher and Japanese singer-guitarist-percussionist Keiji Haino might seem like such a pair. Much of Butcher’s work is refined exploration of the saxophone’s sonic[...] Read more

Recordings Stuart Broomer Issue 130

Matthew Bailey's Camargo (self-released) On two recent albums, Toronto multi-instrumentalist Matthew Bailey taps into the imaginations of digital-age dreamers. Camargo, a solo release, and Vol. 1, a release by ES + MB, Bailey’s improv duo with Edwin Sheard, differ aesthetically. The former is filled with angular electronic[...] Read more

Recordings Laura Stanley

Ensemble SuperMusique. Les porteuses d’Ô. In its first twenty years under founders Danielle Palardy Roger and Joane Hétu, Montreal’s Ensemble SuperMusique has established itself as Canada’s most broadly exploratory midsize ensemble (here numbering thirteen), investigating and combining contemporary composition,[...] Read more

Recordings Stuart Broomer

Tyshawn Sorey. Verisimilitude. Depending on where you find him, Tyshawn Sorey might appear as a jazz drummer (the Vijay Iyer Trio or the group Paradoxical Frog, with Ingrid Laubrock and Kris Davis), as a new-music percussionist, a multi-instrumentalist (playing piano and trombone) or as a composer. Like George Lewis (with[...] Read more

Recordings Stuart Broomer Issue 129

Steve Roach. Structures from Silence. Since the mid-2000s, a lot of ambient music has been moving into increasingly abrasive and gothic territory—at times even cozying into the coffin right next to doom metal. The recent reappraisal of New Age music, on the other hand, has brought some welcome sweetness and even humour[...] Read more

Recordings Nick Storring Issue 129

Rasmussen, Dorji, Damon. To The Animal Kingdom. To these ears, the most exciting improvised music—regardless of its temperament—carefully balances surprise and stability. The strongest performances of this work tend to maximize the friction between compulsive change and the urge to establish a clear, communal sound world[...] Read more

Recordings Nick Storring Issue 129

Pauline Oliveros and Connie Crothers. Live At the Stone. The first, last, and only musical meeting between jazz improviser Connie Crothers (1941–2016) and electronic-music icon Pauline Oliveros (1932–2016) took place in August 2014. It is preserved in its entirety on this disc. Oliveros and Crothers were probably surprised by how many[...] Read more

Recordings Ken Waxman Issue 129

George Lewis & Splitter Orchestra. Creative Construction Set™. American trombonist George Lewis’ three-part Creative Construction Set™ (CCS) for Berlin’s Splitter Orchestra (SO) is an organic recasting of ideas first advanced by the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians’ (ACCM) sextet the Creative Construction[...] Read more

Recordings Ken Waxman Issue 129

Daniel Lentz. River of 1,000 Streams. Daniel Lentz is one of a number of composers who emerged in the wake of American minimalism and used some of the movement's primary tenets to leverage a distinct, hard-to-pin-down voice. But the sweeping River of 1000 Streams, a work for solo piano and cascading delays, is anything but[...] Read more

Recordings Nick Storring Issue 129