Phil Minton / Veryan Weston. Ways for an Orchestra. English singer Phil Minton and pianist Veryan Weston have been working together since the early 1980s, their wayward path crisscrossing and combining music hall, art song, free improvisation, and union anthems. Usually restricted to duo and quartet formats, here they make the most of a[...] Read more

Recordings Stuart Broomer

Charles Barabé. La lente histoire de l’oubli. Based in Victoriaville, Quebec, the prolific electronic composer Charles Barabé has become a preeminent figure in the North American tape-label underground with a varied five-year streak of releases for notable imprints such as Jeunesse Cosmique, Orange Milk, Crash Symbols, and Astral[...] Read more

Recordings Nick Storring

Tomeka Reid Quartet. Old New Having played with a who’s who of the Chicago jazz scene young and old—Nicole Mitchell, Joshua Abrams, Roscoe Mitchell, Jaimie Branch—for well over a decade, cellist Tomeka Reid isn’t lacking in avant-garde bona fides. Yet her work under her own name, in an updated[...] Read more

Recordings Daniel Glassman Issue 135

Oiseaux-Tempête. From Somewhere Invisible. “He sips tea with lemon, while I drink coffee. / That’s the difference between us.” Transporting the words of the late Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish into contemporary us-and-them politics, Dutch vocalist G.W. Sok (cofounder and former frontman of The Ex) returns to[...] Read more

Recordings Tom Beedham Issue 135

James O’Callaghan & Ensemble Paramirabo. Alone & Unalone. Montreal’s James O’Callaghan exemplifies a wave of younger composers whose unique remedies have successfully healed some of the major ideological rifts that characterized twentieth-century music. This new disc, immaculately performed by the brilliant and agile Ensemble Paramirabo[...] Read more

Recordings Nick Storring Issue 135

NakedEye Ensemble. Toy. The electroacoustic chamber group NakedEye Ensemble, based in Lancaster, Pennsylvannia, includes electric guitar, saxophone, flute, cello, electric bass, percussion, piano, and often toy piano. The ensemble walks a line between experimental classical music, avant jazz, and classic rock. On[...] Read more

Recordings Monica Pearce Issue 135

Kathryn Ladano. Masked. Kathryn Ladano studied with Montreal free-improv VIP Lori Freedman, is based in Kitchener, Ontario, and focuses her practice on improvisation. She explores the multiple identities of the bass clarinet on her latest album Masked, which is framed by the idea of how an instrument serves as a[...] Read more

Recordings Monica Pearce Issue 135

heArt Ensemble. From the Basement The historical importance of the Quatuor de jazz libre du Québec has been well recognized. Recent book (Eric Filion’s Jazz libre et la revolution québécoise, M Éditeur) and archival CD (Jazz libre du Québec: musique-politique—1971-74, Tour de[...] Read more

Recordings Lawrence Joseph Issue 135

Plumes. Oh Orwell. Veronica Charnley and Geof Holbrook have often walked a tightrope between pop and classical music in their work, incorporating classical elements into their indie pop or vice versa. But sometimes they prefer to keep the two streams separate, which is probably why the couple has sometimes[...] Read more

Recordings Mary Dickie Issue 135

Pursuit Grooves. Bess. For some, the name Bessie Coleman will not ring a bell. She was the first African American–Indigenous female to receive an international pilots’ licence in 1921. Famous in her time, Coleman died at age thirty-four, nearly 100 years ago. Although her life is rarely discussed today[...] Read more

Recordings Chaka V. Grier Issue 135

Land of Kush. Sand Enigma. Sand Enigma is a vision. Not in the sense of a future or even a past, but of a roiling, tempestuous, and contradictory present. Composer and bandleader Sam Shalabi has created a movie—and without trotting out the cinematic tropes, this release has a comprehensive narrative, one that[...] Read more

Recordings Nilan Perera Issue 135