ITACA 4et. Vortex. Reflecting the breezy looseness of Vancouver, the city in which it was recorded, Vortex by the ITACA 4et moves with the lightness and ebullience of cool West Coast jazz, with jagged sonic shoals just beneath the surface. Formed in 2016, ITACA 4et comprises two Canadians, clarinetist Fran[...] Read more

Recordings Ken Waxman

Pantayo. Pantayo. Pantayo is five Toronto-based women who bring ancient Philippine kulintang music and modern Western pop styles together in a fascinating, startling, and exciting new hybrid.   The band members—Eirene Cloma, Michelle Cruz, Joanna Delos Reyes, and sisters Kat and Katrina[...] Read more

Recordings Mary Dickie

Mark Segger Sextet. Lift Off. Lift Off is a collection of eight compositions by drummer Mark Segger, recorded by his sextet with trumpeter Jim Lewis, trombonist Heather Saumer, reed-player Peter Lutek (tenor saxophone and clarinet), keyboardist Tania Gill (piano and melodica), and bassist Rob Clutton. Recorded in Toronto[...] Read more

Recordings Ian Crutchley Issue 136

Joyfultalk. A Separation of Being. From the musical mind of Nova Scotia-based Jay Crocker (aka Joyfultalk), A Separation of Being is a colourful, sophisticated, tripartite composition rooted in his unique brand of minimalism. The album’s incredibly striking artwork is based on Crocker’s own system for visualized[...] Read more

Recordings Monica Pearce Issue 136

Aquakultre. Legacy. Black Buffalo Records. The dazzling debut album from Halifax hip-hop–neo-soul outfit Aquakultre is both the product of personal redemption and a promise to build a better world.   In 2013, at age nineteen, Lance Sampson was convicted of drug trafficking. While serving a five-year sentence at[...] Read more

Recordings Jesse Locke

Anna Höstman / Cheryl Duvall. Harbour. As a child, Anna Höstman loved to play piano. She gave a performance of her earliest written work at age twelve, a joyful experience that she later compared to setting a boat on a river and being carried downstream. On Harbour, recorded at Toronto’s Glenn Gould Studio, and the[...] Read more

Recordings Julian Cowley Issue 136

Works by Alberta composer Mark Hannesson featured on three Edition Wandelweiser Records albums Neil Young’s music is maybe one of the last things one would associate with Wandelweiser, the international collective of composers known for their copious silences, extended durations, and soft dynamics. However, on Albertan member Mark Hannesson’s guitar work If I appear[...] Read more

Recordings Nick Storring

Ian William Craig. Red Sun Through Smoke. In the summer of 2018 wildfires tore through British Columbia, leaving the city of Kelowna enveloped in smoke. Composer and singer Ian William Craig, who had temporarily relocated there from his Vancouver home, recorded what would become Red Sun Through Smoke. Craig’s grandfather had[...] Read more

Recordings Laura Stanley Issue 136

crys cole. Beside Myself. Beside Myself, the second full-length album by Canadian sound artist crys cole, is a peculiar beast. Its two tracks, both clocking in around twenty minutes, feature immersive soundworlds that are constantly transforming. The Nonsuch begins with the sound of cole writing with a pencil. The[...] Read more

Recordings Joshua Minsoo Kim Issue 136

Lina Allemano’s Ohrenschmaus. Rats and Mice / Lina Allemano. Glimmer Glammer. Since 2013, trumpeter Lina Allemano has been dividing her time evenly between two cities, maintaining her eponymous quartet and developing other initiatives in Toronto, while studying extended techniques and expanding her musical impulses across a broad range of improvisatory ensembles in[...] Read more

Recordings Stuart Broomer Issue 136

Rob Clutton with Tony Malaby. Offering. Bolstering his skills as an improviser and composer, Toronto bassist Rob Clutton reconstitutes some of his previously recorded improvisations as notated kernels for this program with New York saxophonist Tony Malaby. No rote recapitulations here, those themes and others are stretched and[...] Read more

Recordings Ken Waxman