One afternoon last August, I watched performer-composer Kalun Leung wave his wrist as a shriek of clarinet notes wailed through the high-ceilinged main room at Perte de Signal, a small multimedia studio in Montreal’s Mile End neighbourhood where he’s an artist-in-residence this year. With another swoop of his hand, a cluster of trombone notes explodedContinue reading “Kalun Leung is Taking His Trombone Into Uncharted Territory”
Author Archives: Musicworks
The Art of Troubleshooting
Writer and musician Julia Eckhardt has noted that we tend to use the word “quality” as a way of making vague value judgments about music, without ever having to justify them. “Speaking about quality in music seems to be simply a way to divide music into the categories of ‘good’ and ‘bad,’ without ever askingContinue reading “The Art of Troubleshooting”
Koala Karnival is Deeper than the Dancefloor
Montreal is known for its exciting nightlife, teeming with live music, outdoor festivals, and sweaty dance clubs. Lately, a different kind of outing has emerged on the local scene. Instead of dancing, you sit. Instead of talking, you listen. No beat or booze, just bliss. “In my community, a lot of us meet on theContinue reading “Koala Karnival is Deeper than the Dancefloor”
Music as a Teaching Lodge: Marek Tyler’s ASKO
On “nôkosiw,” the opening track of nêhiyaw (Cree) drummer Marek Tyler’s 2024 solo debut ASKO, his mother’s voice tells the listener, “As an artist you’re not the creator.” With ASKO, also the name of his solo project, he is shifting from the indie rock of nêhiyawak—his previous amiskwaciy-wâskahikan (Edmonton)-based band with guitarist Kris Harper andContinue reading “Music as a Teaching Lodge: Marek Tyler’s ASKO”
First-place winner, Musicworks 2024 Electronic Music Composition Contest: Rocío Cano Valiño’s Intortus
The title of Intortus, a recent electronic composition by Rocío Cano Valiño, is a word used for a kind of cirrus cloud with twisted, seemingly entangled filaments. Even casual cloudwatchers know that these painterly wisps are shapeshifting storytellers; they may start out looking like contrails or skywriting, then turn into strands of punk-rock hair orContinue reading “First-place winner, Musicworks 2024 Electronic Music Composition Contest: Rocío Cano Valiño’s Intortus”
Leaf Music’s Uniquely Canadian Colours
These days the world of pop music often seems to be winding itself into a kind of ouroboros of nostalgia, with anniversary reissues, reunion tours, and tribute acts programmed at venues far and wide—but are we making enough space in those places for new and innovative music? It may be less obvious, but some ofContinue reading “Leaf Music’s Uniquely Canadian Colours”
NOISE VS. PLEASURE
Canadian musicologist and historian Dr. Marcia Jenneth Epstein is the author of Sound and Noise: A Listener’s Guide to Everyday Life (2020). She listened to Lola de la Mata’s album Oceans on Azimuth in advance of her conversation with writer Angus MacCaull about how the body interprets sound. This interview has been edited for lengthContinue reading “NOISE VS. PLEASURE”
Michiyo Yagi, Sarah Pagé, and Hiroko Nagai are freeing the koto from tradition
My imagination never lingered on dragons, the stuff of legends and good fortunes, until I came across Japanese koto instruments being sold at an online auction site. Thirteen tetron strings laid taut on six-foot paulownia wood bodies, requiring adjustable bridges to tune them and three finger picks to make sounds. The dragon symbolism was notContinue reading “Michiyo Yagi, Sarah Pagé, and Hiroko Nagai are freeing the koto from tradition”
Lola de la Mata’s Tinnitus Tracks
One evening in 2019, U.K.-based conceptual sound artist Lola de la Mata was out for dinner in London, sipping sake as chatter filled the low-lit room. Without warning, feedback from a nearby speaker blasted her left ear. Someone had plugged an electric keyboard into the restaurant’s soundboard without checking that its master fader was atContinue reading “Lola de la Mata’s Tinnitus Tracks”
Yoo Doo Right drives instrumental post-rock beyond the horizon
Yoo Doo Right’s Justin Cober is drawn to nature’s violent tendencies. The grainy black-and-white photo on the cover of the Montreal experimental rock group’s third and most recent album, From the Heights of Our Pastureland, shows a monstrous, perfectly formed tornado funnel bearing down on a streetscape of cowering power lines and low-rise buildings. TakenContinue reading “Yoo Doo Right drives instrumental post-rock beyond the horizon”