Anthony Braxton. Echo Echo Mirror House. At the 2011 Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville, composer and saxophonist Anthony Braxton led a septet in his Composition No. 347+. That “+” in a Braxton title will usually be followed by a series of numbers indicating interpolated compositions, but in No. 347[...] Read more

Recordings Stuart Broomer Issue 117

Antoine Beuger, Jürg Frey. Dedalus. This CD documents the performance of two compositions by flutist Antoine Beuger and one by clarinettist Jürg Frey at a side space of Les Instants Chavirés in Montreuil, France. Beuger and Frey are both longtime members of Wandelweiser Group, a collective of international composers[...] Read more

Recordings Chris Kennedy Issue 117

Insubordinations The shifting technological terrain that has brought about the decline of the CD, the rise of the download, and the return of the LP, invites inventive solutions from musicians who want to get their music heard. In this spirit, the Swiss netlabel Insubordinations combines free downloads along[...] Read more

Recordings Stuart Broomer Issue 117

Centrediscs On the surface, Centrediscs seems like a relatively simple proposition: a specialized recording label that showcases the work of Canada’s most talented composers. This is exactly what the Canadian Music Centre set out to do in 1981, under the initiative of national director John Peter[...] Read more

Recordings Jason van Eyk Issue 116

Standing Wave. Liquid States. Standing Wave has a been a fixture on Vancouver’s new-music scene since 1991, exploring a wide variety of aesthetics commensurate with the varied backgrounds of its members. Liquid States, the ensemble’s third CD, documents four recent commissioned works for the ensemble.[...] Read more

Recordings Nick Storring Issue 116

David Rosenboom. In The Beginning. Not unlike James Tenney, his late former colleague at York University, David Rosenboom is highly adept at taking rigorously structured systems and rendering them in a manner that is observable and bursting with sound colour. This two-disc set compiles the titular cycle of pieces whose creation[...] Read more

Recordings Nick Storring Issue 116

Aki Onda. Cassette Memories vol. 3, South of the Border. When Aki Onda released the first two volumes of his Cassette Memories series almost a decade ago, part of their radical appeal was the idea that someone would continue to use cassette Walkman recorders as their medium. Onda not only used them, but wielded them like a DJ, creating dense and[...] Read more

Recordings Chris Kennedy Issue 116

Yang Jing and Christy Doran. No. 9. One of the more striking recent developments in improvised music has been the entry of several musicians trained in Chinese traditional music. There’s Min Xiaofen, a pipa player and singer residing in New York, who worked with the late Derek Bailey (the usually adversarial guitarist[...] Read more

Recordings Stuart Broomer Issue 116

Jerusalem In My Heart. Mo7it Al-Mo7it. Radwan Moumneh is one of the key players in the Montreal scene that orbits Constellation, Alien8, and other local labels. As cofounder-producer at the celebrated Hotel2Tango studio and a collaborator with Land Of Kush, Cursed, and Eric Chenaux, among others, he’s helped shape a sizable[...] Read more

Recordings Nick Storring Issue 116

Hywel Davies. Hywel Davies. Composer Hywel Davies’ latest album is—surprisingly, given his prolific output—only his second solo album. The first, 1998’s Natural Language, was a beguiling collection of collaged sounds. This release, much of it recorded at the Banff Centre, is based in more[...] Read more

Recordings Louise Gray

John Butcher. Winter Gardens. John Butcher is one of the world’s most resourceful solo improvisers, a musician who has extended his saxophones in uncanny ways, creating waves of complex continuous sound with overtones arising and disappearing to the accompaniment of sudden percussive explosions. This LP contains[...] Read more

Recordings Stuart Broomer Issue 116