Sarah Davachi. Gave in Rest. Calgary-born and currently resident in Los Angeles, Sarah Davachi has quickly developed a significant reputation creating music that is ambient, minimalist, and highly compelling. She recently spent a summer in Europe exploring her fascination with the acoustic properties of ancient churches[...] Read more

Recordings Stuart Broomer Issue 132

The Cluttertones with Lee Pui Ming. Leeways. Bassist Rob Clutton has been composing for his group the Cluttertones for over a decade, modelling his work for a quartet that includes trumpeter Lina Allemano and guitarist–banjoist Tim Posgate, with Ryan Driver playing analog synthesizer and singing. The approach is unusual,[...] Read more

Recordings Stuart Broomer

Brodie West Quintet. "Clips." There’s something different afoot in saxophonist Brodie West’s quintet, its singular construction of a jazz combo with alto saxophone, piano, bass, and drums—as traditional as Brubeck to that point—and a departure from the norm with a second set of drums. The sound[...] Read more

Recordings Stuart Broomer

Festival de International Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville, 34th Edition. As spring erupts in the Centre-du-Québec region, so too does FIMAV, the festival of exploratory music that’s been running since 1984. “Eclectic” barely describes the four-day event. Its scope ranges from near-silent to deafening, from the ineffable to the ridiculous[...] Read more

Concerts and Events Stuart Broomer Issue 131

Bonneau / Heward / Thomson. 4 X 3. This is a trio of Montreal improvisers with an unusual configuration of instruments and a rich, if not that well-known, backstory.   John Heward has a long history as a drummer—including partnerships with saxophonists Joe McPhee, Glenn Spearman, and Joe Giardullo[...] Read more

Recordings Stuart Broomer

Peggy Lee. Echo Painting. Composer and cellist Peggy Lee has made major contributions to Vancouver music. She’s active in free-improvisation and chamber-music settings and much between and beyond; however, her identity grows much more distinct in her roles as bandleader and composer. She regularly leads octets[...] Read more

Recordings Stuart Broomer

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

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

Joëlle Léandre and Phil Minton. Léandre-Minton. Few musicians possess the spontaneity and sheer presence of French bassist Joëlle Léandre and English vocalist Phil Minton. Here the two senior masters meet on a Paris stage in October 2016, delivering a three-part concert Si, lence/ Is/ blu, ish. Léandre is a master of[...] Read more

Recordings Stuart Broomer Issue 129

Political Ritual. Political Ritual. Political Ritual, the eponymous release by the Québécois electronic music duo of Maxime Corbeil-Perron and Félix-Antoine Morin, presents itself as a mystery, white print on a grey cover, a series of lighter, vertical oscilloscope intrusions appearing almost possibly[...] Read more

Recordings Stuart Broomer