PERHAPS NO OTHER AMERICAN METROPOLIS is more associated with important countercultural movements than the San Francisco Bay Area. From the Beats of the 1950s and the hippies of the 1960s to the radical punks of the ’70s and ’80s, the “city by the Bay” has long attracted creative visionaries, free thinkers, and fringe seekers. AmidstContinue reading “The Radical Transcriptions of sfSound”
Artist Archives
Nicole Lizée
I asked Nicole Lizée, newly commissioned to compose a work to commemorate the hundredth anniversary of John Cage’s birth, if she has ever before composed with that iconic artist in mind. How could she not? She is, after all, known for her nonstandard use of instruments, prepared turntable, found objects, and dance music—all elements associatedContinue reading “Nicole Lizée”
Cage And Duchamp’s Reunion
FULL-TEXT AVAILABLE IN PRINT EDITION ONLY On the periphery of the dimly lit stage of Toronto’s Ryerson Theatre, four musicians are setting up musical instruments, laptops, and various musical gadgets in preparation for the evening’s all-night performance. Audio cables snake across the stage to converge in the centre, where a technician is plugging them intoContinue reading “Cage And Duchamp’s Reunion”
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”
Barry Truax
With a friendly disposition and unassuming personality, Barry Truax would hardly be thought of as a trailblazing radical. But this soft-spoken composer and teacher is a groundbreaking Canadian icon. Not only did Truax pioneer granular synthesis with the PODX computer music system, he is viewed the world over as an electroacoustic compositional guru. At sixty-threeContinue reading “Barry Truax”
Charles Stankievech
FULL-TEXT AVAILABLE IN PRINT EDITION ONLY Some time ago, a friend and I were talking outside a gallery, when suddenly we saw a bright green object sear through the night sky. Assuming it to be a stray firework, we waited for the expected explosion and crackles. We waited and waited, then waited some more.Continue reading “Charles Stankievech”
Kristen Roos
FULL-TEXT AVAILABLE IN PRINT EDITION ONLY. Every musician in the world produces invisible waves when making music—such is the nature of sound. Relatively few musicians, however, are concerned with those waves once they are absorbed and processed by the auditory system of the listener. Kristen Roos is an artist who exploits the power of invisibleContinue reading “Kristen Roos”
Tom Zé
FULL-TEXT AVAILABLE IN PRINT EDITION ONLY The romantic Brazil—the one that ensnares tourists—does not include the Brazilian Northeast. Miles from Rio de Janeiro, this place is worlds removed from the urban sophisticates that dwell in the south. To Brazilians and northerners alike, the Northeast has its own mythology. Its interior, the sertão, is aContinue reading “Tom Zé”
Joëlle Léandre
For Joëlle Léandre it all begins and ends with the double bass. After playing the often unwieldy bull fiddle from the age of nine and carefully studying its intricacies, she creates with it sounds so personal that defining them as free music, new music. or anything else, is beside the point. Since the late 1970s, Paris-basedContinue reading “Joëlle Léandre”
Braids, Grimes, and Doldrums
In 1981 in a small town called Dunedin in New Zealand, a trio of young musicians called The Clean, recorded a handful of fuzzy, sloppy pop songs on a four-track Portastudio. For connoisseurs of what is now known as indie-pop, their infectious energy and heartfelt yearning have stood the test of time. Theirs was musicContinue reading “Braids, Grimes, and Doldrums”