Susan Alcorn moves through life in methodical motion, a few beats slower than the usual rapid flow. At the 2020 edition of Toronto’s Women From Space festival, held in mid March, the pedal steel guitarist’s entrancing performance made the Burdock Tavern feel as if clocks had frozen and the room had entered zero gravity. InContinue reading “Susan Alcorn’s Vibrant Deviations”
Author Archives: Musicworks
Markus Floats’ Motion Emotion
How do you think and write about sound outside of metaphor? Is music necessarily tethered to other aspects of our sensuous and interior lives? Or can we appreciate its meaning more essentially—as energy and dynamics, waves and reverberation? These questions come up around the work of many contemporary musicians working in and around unconventional composition.Continue reading “Markus Floats’ Motion Emotion”
An Inexhaustible Source of Wild Music
In the 1970s, electronic music studios at the University of Toronto and McGill University sparked exciting ideas in guitar composition. With a focus on the evolution of Canadian works for guitar and electroacoustics, guitarist and composer Amy Brandon tracks key events and works from then to now. (Check out Amy’s SoundCloud playlist at the bottomContinue reading “An Inexhaustible Source of Wild Music”
C. Diab’s Cascadian Guitar Music
Vancouver-based bowed guitarist Caton Diab (who composes as C. Diab) makes sonorous music that you feel deeply. Primarily crafted on an acoustic guitar with a pickup, effects pedals, a loop station, and bow, Diab’s textured and mournful tones rattle your bones and settle into your heart, coaxing you into acknowledging your emotions. Diab has referredContinue reading “C. Diab’s Cascadian Guitar Music”
Eliza Kavtion’s Call and Response
In her spellbinding live show, Montreal-based multi-instrumentalist Eliza Kavtion twists threads from documentary films, punk-rock distortion, and hip-hop innovation together with her wailing, virtuosic guitar playing. She and guitar become one: a fury of fuzzy drones, rhythmic sputters, and menacing loops, out of which emerge soaring melodies and defiant roars. Off the stage, Kavtion considersContinue reading “Eliza Kavtion’s Call and Response”
Casey Koyczan Resonates the Future
In early July 2020 it was my pleasure to interview Tlicho Dene interdisciplinary artist Casey Koyczan. He is extremely generous and open. I have done my best to represent our conversation in order for readers to discover and understand his creative practices. Focusing on the Northwest Territories, specifically Yellowknife, where he lived for several years,Continue reading “Casey Koyczan Resonates the Future”
New Frequencies
This issue of Musicworks comes preloaded with guitars. Hollow, heavy, bowed, cracked, pedalled, flung. Trusty companions. Feedback demons. Easy to pick up, hard to put down. While I do not declare this as The Guitar Issue, I do aver that the guitar informed my aleatoric curatorial process for Musicworks 137. Last year Nova Scotia guitaristContinue reading “New Frequencies”
A message from the Musicworks Board of Directors
The Board of Directors of Musicworks acknowledges that the new and experimental music scenes covered in the magazine are built on a foundation of systemic racism, and that through our content we have facilitated and upheld that system. Musicworks is a long-standing publication dedicated to expanding the usual understandings of music by covering new andContinue reading “A message from the Musicworks Board of Directors”
What’s Inside Musicworks 137?
The Fall 2020 issue comes preloaded with guitars. Hollow, heavy, bowed, cracked, pedalled, flung. Trusty companions. Feedback demons. Easy to pick up, hard to put down . . . just like every issue of Musicworks! BUY THE FALL 2020 ISSUE FROM OUR SHOP OR SAVE 50% OFF THE COVER PRICE WITH A SUBSCRIPTION TO MUSICWORKS. SUPPORT CREATIVEContinue reading “What’s Inside Musicworks 137?”
FET.NAT’s Post-Punk Palimpsests
Around twenty years ago, a post-punk revival was supposedly upon us. Reissue compilations proliferated alongside a crop of new artists who audibly drew from the genre’s heyday. Where punk-rock wedded a rock ethos with rebellious politics (or sometimes just rebellious posturing), post-punk let exploratory radicalism infiltrate the music itself. Looking at that much-touted resurgence withContinue reading “FET.NAT’s Post-Punk Palimpsests”