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”
Author Archives: Musicworks
The Joy of Discovery
When I was working at the Kingston Whig-Standard in late 1980s, when the daily was still independently owned, I would make my way up the city’s main drag at least once a week for some serious crate-diving (back then, people were replacing their vinyl with CDs like mad), then head home with an armload ofContinue reading “The Joy of Discovery”
Divorce Records
“It depends on what you call the beginning, I guess,” says Darcy Spidle when probed about the origins of his experimental music label, Divorce Records. “The first thing I did with the label— about fifteen years ago—was to make big posters that said ‘Music Sucks,’ and then put the Divorce logo underneath. I pasted themContinue reading “Divorce Records”
Composer Wolf Edwards loads the chamber
Wolf Edwards’ various stories are so interesting and so curiously entwined that it’s hard to know where to start. Working in the fish-packing plants of Ucluelet, B.C., the ugly-duckling sibling of Tofino’s trendy swan? Playing guitar on the stage of some black-hole dive with anarcho-punk band Iskra? Swapping musical knowledge with British violinist Irvine Arditti,Continue reading “Composer Wolf Edwards loads the chamber”
Video Game Music: New Directions in Play
The first time I played PaRappa the Rapper was a struggle. I was with my parents at a novelty deli where each table was outfitted with a television and a PlayStation video-game console. I didn’t have one at home, but a paper-thin, hip-hop cartoon dog named PaRappa that goes on some sort of adventure inContinue reading “Video Game Music: New Directions in Play”
Myriam Bleau spins Soft Revolvers
In a darkened room, an artist is manipulating four translucent circular objects on a tabletop, moving from one to another. Audience members gather around. The objects emit light. Their spinning motion activates deep tones and beats that crackle and whir, and snippets of voice that drop in and out. The sounds fade as the spinningContinue reading “Myriam Bleau spins Soft Revolvers”
Kris Davis nurtures new shapes in jazz
Kris Davis is working on setting a routine. It’s not an unusual task. It’s one that new mothers all over Brooklyn who work odd hours have to contend with. But it’s a challenge. She’s up at six a.m. every day with her son, who turned one in July 2014. While on new-mother duty, Davis isContinue reading “Kris Davis nurtures new shapes in jazz”
Field Notes From Fort McMurray
in the damp morning air: rain pitter-patters on whispering leaves. inherited onomatopoeic vocabulary; true but tried tropes carrying with them vague echoes of that singular safety known to the time when board books taught us to affix words to sounds, predictably, repeatably. a wind sighs, branches rustle. the sounds of a forest reclaimed, tenuous rootsContinue reading “Field Notes From Fort McMurray”
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”
Play Your Piano
For twenty years I’ve been roommates with a mahogany-stained Heintzman upright piano that has been in my family for five decades. I’ve played numerous black Yamaha uprights and Steinway grands; once, I performed Chopin pieces on an enormous brown Bösendorfer that put me so in the moment that the piano seemed to be playing itself.Continue reading “Play Your Piano”