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”
Genre Archives
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”
Women from Space Festival.
Music always comes from somewhere—some particular where. And the most particular place is identity. The name that Bea Labikova and Kayla Milmine chose for their newly founded festival, Women from Space, simultaneously denotes the first place and the furthest: woman, space—the one where we come from, the other where we go. The festival’s four nightsContinue reading “Women from Space Festival.”
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”
Mark Segger Sextet. Lift Off.
Lift Off is a collection of eight compositions by drummer Mark Segger, recorded by his sextet with trumpeter Jim Lewis, trombonist Heather Saumer, reed-player Peter Lutek (tenor saxophone and clarinet), keyboardist Tania Gill (piano and melodica), and bassist Rob Clutton. Recorded in Toronto following the group’s return from a European tour in 2016, the albumContinue reading “Mark Segger Sextet. Lift Off.”
Aquakultre. Legacy. Black Buffalo Records.
The dazzling debut album from Halifax hip-hop–neo-soul outfit Aquakultre is both the product of personal redemption and a promise to build a better world. In 2013, at age nineteen, Lance Sampson was convicted of drug trafficking. While serving a five-year sentence at Springhill Institution, he taught himself guitar and wrote the song “Sure.” Released forContinue reading “Aquakultre. Legacy. Black Buffalo Records.”
Lina Allemano’s Ohrenschmaus. Rats and Mice / Lina Allemano. Glimmer Glammer.
Since 2013, trumpeter Lina Allemano has been dividing her time evenly between two cities, maintaining her eponymous quartet and developing other initiatives in Toronto, while studying extended techniques and expanding her musical impulses across a broad range of improvisatory ensembles in Berlin. While the Berlin experiences clearly mark recent Toronto enterprises like the Titanium RiotContinue reading “Lina Allemano’s Ohrenschmaus. Rats and Mice / Lina Allemano. Glimmer Glammer.”
Rob Clutton with Tony Malaby. Offering.
Bolstering his skills as an improviser and composer, Toronto bassist Rob Clutton reconstitutes some of his previously recorded improvisations as notated kernels for this program with New York saxophonist Tony Malaby. No rote recapitulations here, those themes and others are stretched and pulsate with the same cultivated freedom the duo brings to the completely improvisedContinue reading “Rob Clutton with Tony Malaby. Offering.”
Tomeka Reid Quartet. Old New
Having played with a who’s who of the Chicago jazz scene young and old—Nicole Mitchell, Joshua Abrams, Roscoe Mitchell, Jaimie Branch—for well over a decade, cellist Tomeka Reid isn’t lacking in avant-garde bona fides. Yet her work under her own name, in an updated string band with guitarist extraordinaire Mary Halvorson, bassist Jason Roebke, andContinue reading “Tomeka Reid Quartet. Old New”
heArt Ensemble. From the Basement
The historical importance of the Quatuor de jazz libre du Québec has been well recognized. Recent book (Eric Filion’s Jazz libre et la revolution québécoise, M Éditeur) and archival CD (Jazz libre du Québec: musique-politique—1971-74, Tour de bras) releases have highlighted the cultural role the group played in Quebec and the continuing vitality of theirContinue reading “heArt Ensemble. From the Basement”