Musicworks turns 40 this year. It’s been quite a journey from the DIY newsprint tabloid published in 1978 to Musicworks 130—our first-ever full-colour issue! Buy the print issue (or print+CD combo) from our shop, or start your subscription today. On the Cover Montreal guitarist, oud player, and composer Sam Shalabi has been active across a diversityContinue reading “What’s Inside Musicworks 130?”
Genre Archives
Sam Shalabi’s Land of Kush. Sand Enigma.
Sam Shalabi’s musical worlds are a collision of the Montreal Mile End art–noise–rock–improv scene and the bona fide craziness of Cairo—a city where societal and political instability weaves a shifting sand of death and beauty. It’s easy to see how the effect of these two influences have thoroughly permeated Shalabi’s take on the world, withContinue reading “Sam Shalabi’s Land of Kush. Sand Enigma.”
Spring 2018
Tyshawn Sorey. Verisimilitude.
Depending on where you find him, Tyshawn Sorey might appear as a jazz drummer (the Vijay Iyer Trio or the group Paradoxical Frog, with Ingrid Laubrock and Kris Davis), as a new-music percussionist, a multi-instrumentalist (playing piano and trombone) or as a composer. Like George Lewis (with whom he studied and played) and Anthony BraxtonContinue reading “Tyshawn Sorey. Verisimilitude.”
Rasmussen, Dorji, Damon. To The Animal Kingdom.
To these ears, the most exciting improvised music—regardless of its temperament—carefully balances surprise and stability. The strongest performances of this work tend to maximize the friction between compulsive change and the urge to establish a clear, communal sound world—from the vantage points of both the ensemble and the listener. This deliciously raucous trio outing ridesContinue reading “Rasmussen, Dorji, Damon. To The Animal Kingdom.”
Pauline Oliveros and Connie Crothers. Live At the Stone.
The first, last, and only musical meeting between jazz improviser Connie Crothers (1941–2016) and electronic-music icon Pauline Oliveros (1932–2016) took place in August 2014. It is preserved in its entirety on this disc. Oliveros and Crothers were probably surprised by how many musical ideas they shared. Both had an unerring sense of rhythm coupled withContinue reading “Pauline Oliveros and Connie Crothers. Live At the Stone.”
George Lewis & Splitter Orchestra. Creative Construction Set™.
American trombonist George Lewis’ three-part Creative Construction Set™ (CCS) for Berlin’s Splitter Orchestra (SO) is an organic recasting of ideas first advanced by the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians’ (ACCM) sextet the Creative Construction Company (CCC). The essence of this performance is how this mixture of improvisation and composition can be expressed flexiblyContinue reading “George Lewis & Splitter Orchestra. Creative Construction Set™.”
Joëlle Léandre and Phil Minton. Léandre-Minton.
Few musicians possess the spontaneity and sheer presence of French bassist Joëlle Léandre and English vocalist Phil Minton. Here the two senior masters meet on a Paris stage in October 2016, delivering a three-part concert Si, lence/ Is/ blu, ish. Léandre is a master of finding fresh dimensions and new voices in her instrument, andContinue reading “Joëlle Léandre and Phil Minton. Léandre-Minton.”
Gordon Grdina Quartet. Inroads.
Moving away from the hushed nature of his earlier chamber music, Vancouver guitarist and oudist Gordon Grdina enlists a trio of New Yorkers to toughen his sound while maintaining its fluidity. The nine tracks on Inroads find keyboardist Russ Losing frequently elaborating themes in double counterpoint with Grdina’s pointed strumming; clarinetist and alto saxophonist OscarContinue reading “Gordon Grdina Quartet. Inroads.”
Saxophonist Karen Ng Sets The Scene
THINK OF ANY STYLE OF MODERN saxophone playing, and chances are Toronto’s Karen Ng has done it, and done it beautifully. Her tone can be eerily high and pure, rich and fluid, deep and mellow, alluringly tender or startlingly abrasive. Her fingers fly in a dazzling, exuberant run, then slow down to effect a gentleContinue reading “Saxophonist Karen Ng Sets The Scene”