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”
Author Archives: Musicworks
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”
The Many Trajectories of Erin Rogers
Erin Rogers and Dennis Sullivan are facing each other on the stage of Manhattan’s Le Poisson Rouge in late February of 2020, a small table of gear between them. They take turns triggering samples of sportscasters by pounding large, illuminated buttons as if playing bare-knuckle Whac-a-Mole, altering sample speeds with joysticks and catch-and-releasing looped phrases.Continue reading “The Many Trajectories of Erin Rogers”
Curtis Running Rabbit-Lefthand Ignites the Rhythm of the People
Blackfoot Confederacy member Curtis Running Rabbit-Lefthand is the founder and executive artistic director of Indigenous Resilience in Music (IRIM), a collective that supports Indigenous musicians and youth in their learning, performing, recording, and collaborating. The group’s Indigenous-led workshops and events address topics ranging from spiritual values and language reclamation to the basic practicalities of howContinue reading “Curtis Running Rabbit-Lefthand Ignites the Rhythm of the People”
The Audible Connections of Xuan Ye
On Xuan Ye’s website, layers of text, symbols, and images float across the home page like something halfway between poetry and code. The site is an ever-changing digital archeology of her artistic works across a wide range of sonic and visual media. All of it defies categorization. In concert programs, the first sentence of herContinue reading “The Audible Connections of Xuan Ye”
Neither Here Nor There: Musical Identity in the Global Flow
It is impossible to stand still nowadays in the face of worldwide security concerns. With climate change, wars, oppressive political climates, and alarming epidemics, the ability to move around physically has become a humanitarian necessity for many. The commodification and hyperrealism of the Internet produce spaces that everyone now negotiates with trepidation. The rise ofContinue reading “Neither Here Nor There: Musical Identity in the Global Flow”
Anthony Pateras: Sonic Phenomena in Real Time
The music of Anthony Pateras covers vast expanses of composition and improvisation, of acoustic and electronic instrumentation, and combinations of these. He is also a virtuosic pianist. Between 2012 and 2019 he created Immediata, an ambitious series of fifteen albums, self-released over seven years, of music created in various modes and contexts, in order to explore howContinue reading “Anthony Pateras: Sonic Phenomena in Real Time”
Backxwash—The Healing Music of Productive Rage
If you want to win over rapper and producer Backxwash (Ashanti Mutinta), start a conversation with her by talking about the outlier sounds of American rapper–producers Missy Elliot and Timbaland. I’m speaking with her a couple of days after she fired up audiences at her first-ever Toronto show—the February edition of the eighth annual LongContinue reading “Backxwash—The Healing Music of Productive Rage”
music, interrupted
A barrage of media releases announcing the cancellation or postponement of concerts and festivals—in my hometown of Toronto, in music hubs across Canada and beyond—began hitting my inbox with increasing intensity the second week of March. Like many who actively follow, attend, present, or document live music, I had been aware that a sound-dampening waveContinue reading “music, interrupted”