Vanessa Ague
Sarah Davachi, Dicky Bahto. Music for a Bellowing Room. | Sarah Davachi. The Head as Form’d in the Crier’s Choir. Sarah Davachi’s drones are unearthed from the deep. The Los Angeles-based Canadian composer’s pieces draw equally from the tenets of early music and La Monte Young-esque minimalism, blending ancient and modern into solemn meditations. Her latest two releases, Music for a[...] Read more
Sophie Dupuis. Comme Bon Lui Semble. On Comme Bon Lui Semble, Sophie Dupuis crafts eerie atmospheres with a dreamy haze. The New Brunswick-based composer and violinist is an expert at writing diaphanous melodies using ghostly extended techniques. With this album, which takes its inspiration from visual art, she showcases her[...] Read more
Spektral Quartet, Julia Holter, and Alex Temple. Behind the Wallpaper Behind the Wallpaper occupies the unknown space just before a transformation is complete. Inspired by composer Alex Temple’s gender transition, the album explores themes of renewal and realization and is performed by Chicago’s Spektral Quartet and singer-songwriter Julia Holter.[...] Read more
Jason Doell. Becoming in Shadows ~ Of Being Touched On Becoming in Shadows ~ Of Being Touched, Jason Doell’s piano and electronics roam wherever they please. The Toronto-based composer and sound artist created the music by recording piano phrases and tinkering with them using an algorithmic program, but it rarely sounds inflexible.[...] Read more
Carmen Jaci. Happy Child. Netherlands-based French-Canadian Carmen Jaci crafts maximalist collages out of electric shards. Classical symphonies crash into dance beats and video game music-like bleeps, all coloured in neon. Happy Child codifies her style in seven pieces, each capturing a lightheartedness—and[...] Read more
No Hay Banda. I Had a Dream About This Place No Hay Banda, a commissioning group, presenter, and record label founded in Montreal in 2016, codifies their work in the Canadian experimental music scene on their adventurous debut album, I Had a Dream About This Place. The four-track record presents winding, texturally explorative pieces[...] Read more
Marina Hasselberg. Red Ricercar Primo, by composer Domenico Gabrielli, opens Vancouver cellist Marina Hasselberg’s Red by dropping us into a hollow, windy atmosphere that feels a little like a haunted house. Her cello gradually enters with a Bach-like solo, resonant and a little forlorn, surrounded by[...] Read more
An Laurence 安媛. Almost Touching. Montreal-based guitarist and vocalist An Laurence (An Laurence 安媛, in full) fervently explores every crevice of her instruments on her debut album Almost Touching. The record features six works for guitar, voice, and electronics, each traversing a different sonic palette including spiralling[...] Read more
Bekah Simms. Ghost Songs. On Ghost Songs, Toronto-based composer Bekah Simms has written music made of flying sparks and haunted echoes. The JUNO- and Gaudeamus Award-nominated composer often explores all-consuming atmospheres through visceral textures and nervous energy. Ghost Songs follows this trajectory, creating[...] Read more
Aiyun Huang. Resonances. On Resonances, Toronto-based percussionist Aiyun Huang showcases an eclectic range of musical ideas. The seven-track album is out on the Chicago label Sideband, which was founded in 2020 to present a wide spectrum of new-music records. Resonances features works by an assortment of[...] Read more
Alex Eddington. A Present from a Small Distant World. An a cappella chorus of alien echoes accompanied by gritty electronics launches A Present from a Small Distant World. It is singing President Jimmy Carter’s 1977 Voyager speech, the grainy reverberating voices chanting “we cast this message / into the cosmos,” ringing in[...] Read more
Saman Shahi. Breathing in the Shadows. Iranian-Canadian composer Saman Shahi is full of surprises. He writes music for anything from films to electric guitars, makes rock fusion music, and directs concert bands. On Breathing in the Shadows, his debut album, he pulls yet another compositional style from his massive toolkit in[...] Read more