The Toronto-based Lina Allemano Four—the experienced musical chefs who sauté the ingredients in this six-course musical feast—have been cooking on trumpeter Allemano’s originals since 2005. Alongside her gritty and dulcet trumpet textures are reed garnishes from Brodie West’s alto saxophone, bassist Andrew Downing’s upfront throbbing, and Nick Fraser’s chunky drumbeats. Vegetables is cleverly paced toContinue reading “Lina Allemano Four. Vegetables.”
Genre Archives
Angelica Sanchez & Marilyn Crispell. How To Turn The Moon.
How to Turn The Moon is a trip. This fresh duo album from New York avant-garde heavy-hitters Angelica Sanchez and Marilyn Crispell takes two pianos to expansive and unexpected places. The potential for sonic deluge in the pairing of similar instruments is magnified by the piano’s capacity for polyphony and projection, but this overload isContinue reading “Angelica Sanchez & Marilyn Crispell. How To Turn The Moon.”
Kind Mind. Kind Mind.
Near the end of the eighteenth century, the German theorist Friedrich Schlegel proposed the fragment as an emergent refashioning of the form of criticism. Inherent to the short form of the fragment was a questioning of wholeness: for Schlegel, the fragment was not a recovered piece of some lost whole, but rather a sort ofContinue reading “Kind Mind. Kind Mind.”
Ingrid Laubrock + Kris Davis. Blood Moon.
One thing that might be said about any great ensemble of improvisers is that any subgrouping of members might be isolated and seen as a core. That’s arguably the nature of music built from improvisation, at least when done well: paradoxically, the elements stand alone by leaning on each other. As such, a core commonContinue reading “Ingrid Laubrock + Kris Davis. Blood Moon.”
Maria Schneider Orchestra. Data Lords.
I am finding myself irresistibly drawn to the dark side. Composer and bandleader Maria Schneider’s latest release posits a Manichaean struggle characterized as a struggle between the seductive but alarmingly fast-growing digital kingdoms Google and Facebook and the healing but threatened realm of Nature. The Digital World—one half of this handsomely packaged double-CD set—dives intoContinue reading “Maria Schneider Orchestra. Data Lords.”
Indweller. Living Gem.
Indweller is the new collaborative duo of Toronto-based multidisciplinary audiovisual artist and producer Ilyse Krivel (eternalrealworld) and multi-instrumentalist Colin Fisher. Living Gem, their remarkable debut, showcases their complementary approaches, while probing the very nature of collaboration. Krivel recorded Fisher performing saxophone, guitar, and drum parts, and then constructed each song out of those building blocks,Continue reading “Indweller. Living Gem.”
Mark Miller. Of Stars and Strings: A Biography of Sonny Greenwich.
In 1945 World War II was over and Herb Greenidge had just returned from his stint overseas, bringing with him a guitar that fascinated his third child. But rather than emulate dad—an accomplished pianist but a mediocre plectrist at best—Herbert Junior pursued a more idiosyncratic path. “His initial response to the presence of a guitarContinue reading “Mark Miller. Of Stars and Strings: A Biography of Sonny Greenwich.”
Witch Prophet. DNA Activation.
Witch Prophet is a fitting name for Ayo Leilani, whose enchanting, bold, and malleable vocals, hypnotic rhythms, and profound lyrical wisdom conjure powerful stories. Her latest release, DNA Activation, both lives up to and expands on the achievement of her stunning 2018 solo debut, The Golden Octave. Here the Ethiopian-Eritrean-Canadian singer-songwriter sings in English, Amharic,Continue reading “Witch Prophet. DNA Activation.”
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”
ITACA 4et. Vortex.
Reflecting the breezy looseness of Vancouver, the city in which it was recorded, Vortex by the ITACA 4et moves with the lightness and ebullience of cool West Coast jazz, with jagged sonic shoals just beneath the surface. Formed in 2016, ITACA 4et comprises two Canadians, clarinetist François Houle and drummer Nick Fraser, and two Italians,Continue reading “ITACA 4et. Vortex.”