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Simon Cacheux’s InnerSelf

Simon Cacheux works as a musician, sound designer, and sound artist. He is interested in the texture of sounds, how they blend with each other, and in the microfictions that occur within the sounds themselves. His work leans towards minimalism—in particular drones, ambient, and noise music. His deep interest in technology has lead him exploreContinue reading “Simon Cacheux’s InnerSelf”

James O’Callaghan’s Bodies-Soundings

James O’Callaghan’s Bodies-Soundings, winner of Musicworks’ 2014 Electronic Music Composition contest, is a highly suspenseful acousmatic piece in which sounds are partially diffused through tactile transducers (specialized speakers that transmit sound through any object to which they’re attached) that are attached to an acoustic guitar and a toy piano. The two instruments are not playedContinue reading “James O’Callaghan’s Bodies-Soundings”

Lido Pimienta curates a sonic community

Colombia-born, Toronto-based Lido Pimienta has been called “the consummate collaborator”—and with good reason. Although she writes, sings, produces, and plays many instruments—and is certainly talented and strong-willed enough to make recordings on her own—Pimienta’s aesthetic absolutely requires the participation of others. “I would die!” she says of the notion of creating music on her own.Continue reading “Lido Pimienta curates a sonic community”

Margaret Noble’s Safer Is Better

With an underground club DJ’s flair for performance and a conceptual artist’s commitment to the rigorous investigation of ideas, San Diego interdisciplinary artist Margaret Noble explores in her sound work Frakture the resonance in contemporary society of George Orwell’s 1949 dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. First presented as a solo electronic–acoustic performance at the experimental musicContinue reading “Margaret Noble’s Safer Is Better”

Eliot Britton

FULL-TEXT AVAILABLE IN PRINT EDITION ONLY By his own account, Eliot Britton’s music treads dangerous territory. “I represent huge problems with art music and the whole idea of art music,” he says, and goes on to describe how in his compositions within the context of his Ph.D. in music research at McGill University, he’s inchingContinue reading “Eliot Britton”

Bennett Jenisch

In addition to having recently won the Musicworks Electronic Music Contest with his first ever acousmatic piece, Buried Gesture, Bennett Jenisch also writes and performs with his live electronic band Moth Vegas. “I would say that probably about half of what I produce is stuff like the Moth Vegas project [an audiovisual project with collaboratorContinue reading “Bennett Jenisch”

Émilie Payeur

FULL-TEXT AVAILABLE IN PRINT EDITION ONLY Émilie Payeur is young and inspired. “Electroacoustic music is a different kind of music,” she says. “To me, it is even more than music. It’s literally sound painting, and that is why it should be seen from the pictorial composition side.” The influence of painting on her electroacoustic compositionContinue reading “Émilie Payeur”

Graham Flett

FULL-TEXT AVAILABLE IN PRINT EDITION ONLY  Trying to get to the heart of Graham Flett’s musical style is a slippery task. “I have a variable aesthetic,” muses the tall, lean, shaggy-haired composer sitting across from me in a modern Amsterdam café. “I have leanings towards certain things I like to do.” The remark is vague,Continue reading “Graham Flett”

Analia Llugdar

FULL-TEXT AVAILABLE IN PRINT EDITION ONLY In her music, Montreal composer Analia Llugdar delves deeply into the primal interior of sound, as evidenced by a sampling of her work from 2003 to 2009. There are compositions for solo cello, small (trio) and large ensembles, often incorporating singing and speaking voices, as well as a music theatreContinue reading “Analia Llugdar”

Thierry Gauthier

FULL-TEXT AVAILABLE IN PRINT EDITION ONLY “My artistic evolution,” Thierry Gauthier writes, “has been characterized by the intensity of impulse, immediacy, and the urgency to create; the quest for a paroxysm and the absolute; the same sense of urgency as found in the punk movement.” This is still true, he maintains, after two decades ofContinue reading “Thierry Gauthier”

Ian Battenfield Headley

“Working with John Chowning at MusicAcoustica in Beijing was like touching history,” confesses a reverent Ian Battenfield Headley during our Skype call. “I had this image of him being this serious composer who doesn’t take time to speak to underlings, but he’s actually incredibly nice. The thing is, he has tinnitus, so he doesn’t knowContinue reading “Ian Battenfield Headley”

Listening as Territory

“I grew up in a tiny village in the North Yorkshire Moors,” explains British sound artist Mark Peter Wright. “I was always outdoors, and I collected anything and everything: stones, feathers, empty shotgun cartridges.” Now in his early thirties and based in London, Wright is still actively involved with landscape, but his childhood enthusiasm forContinue reading “Listening as Territory”

Adam Basanta

“I’ve always been interested in perception and apperception,” writes Montreal-based composer Adam Basanta in a recent e-mail correspondence. “This has led me, as a musician and composer, to centre my work on listening as a perceptual and psychological experience.” The cerebral nature of this statement is in direct contradiction to the playful Web image ofContinue reading “Adam Basanta”

Terri Hron joins the flock

The slight, bright-eyed woman comfortably seated in her sunny Montreal studio is known as a musical beast. Hard to imagine. But the epithet is just one of several that contemporary recorder player and composer Terri Hron has earned—not on the expected grounds of virtuosity, but rather for her self-described unrefined and unconventional technique. Yes, you’veContinue reading “Terri Hron joins the flock”