Since 1999, the Ryan Driver Quintet (as well as his Sextet and Quartet) has been serving up a unique, cooked take on jazz balladry—especially at its monthly residency at Toronto’s Tranzac venue. Ryan Driver Quintet Plays the Stephen Parkinson Songbook, its first studio recording, could gain the quintet a more international recognition, with the vinylContinue reading “Ryan Driver Quintet Plays The Stephen Parkinson Songbook.”
Genre Archives
Petra Glynt experiments in celebration
Ancient rock carvings at Petroglyphs Provincial Park in eastern Ontario inspired Alexandra Mackenzie to call her latest solo musical project Petra Glynt. Evoking rock, ancient cultures, flashes of reflected light, and the enduring power of art, the name seems perfectly apt. Petra Glynt may be an experimental, mostly electronic music act, but just as petroglyphsContinue reading “Petra Glynt experiments in celebration”
The Intimacy of Summer Listening
One Friday evening in early May, I jumped on my bicycle and dipsy-doodled to the Music Gallery along Toronto’s pothole-ravaged streets. Musician–producer Radwan Ghazi Moumneh was premiering a new work by Jerusalem In My Heart, the evolving performance project he founded in 2005. With a Canadian tour in the early summer, and European dates inContinue reading “The Intimacy of Summer Listening”
Healing Power Records Hits Toronto With a Sonic Balm
The last place you’d expect to hear a comprehensive showcase of a modern experimental music community is on a dance mix. But with Heart of Toronto, a 2013 CD and download compilation, the Toronto-based label Healing Power has done just that. A compelling snapshot of North America’s fourth-largest city’s dizzyingly interconnected underground music scenes, HeartContinue reading “Healing Power Records Hits Toronto With a Sonic Balm”
Tanya Tagaq Grabs The World By The Throat
Watching Tanya Tagaq perform is more than just an auditory and visual experience: it’s physical. As the Nunavut-born, Manitoba-based throat singer moves around a stage, she unleashes something fierce and powerful that comes from deep within her body, yet seems positively unearthly. She mostly improvises her performances, tapping into traditional Inuit throat singing—growling, cooing, howling,Continue reading “Tanya Tagaq Grabs The World By The Throat”
What is an instrument?
One late November day last year, during a family visit to Amsterdam, I stepped out after dinner and took the tram to Oostenburg, a former harbour hub near the city centre and now being redeveloped as a mixed-use area. After several wrong turns I found the trail-markers (pink birdhouses!) that led me to the canal-facingContinue reading “What is an instrument?”
Suoni per il Popolo, 13th Edition.
Long-running festivals conserve freshness by avoiding stale recipes based on previous successes. Montreal’s Suoni per il Popolo retains the same inviting aroma as the nearby twenty-four-hour bagel factories. With 150 sets of music, film, and workshops spread over eighteen days of nonstop activity, borders between genres dissolve and unpredictable combinations coalesce. Guest curators Ken Vandermark,Continue reading “Suoni per il Popolo, 13th Edition.”
Sarah Neufeld: Solo Violin, Guerrilla-Style
“I COULDN’T EVEN PLAY A NOTE. If you even breathe, your breath becomes this crazy, feathery freight train of echo.” Sarah Neufeld recalls her first visit to Devil’s Mountain with a mixture of fear and delight. The site of an abandoned array of geodesic domes that served as a U.S. listening-station during the Cold War,Continue reading “Sarah Neufeld: Solo Violin, Guerrilla-Style”
Scott Walker. Bish Bosch.
Scott Walker’s output since 1995’s Tilt is unquestionably some of the most flamboyantly unique and ambitious song-craft of the past two decades, and Bish Bosch is no exception. The prevailing feeling is one of revolting and sensational corporeality—teeming with brusque immediacy. The quality and proximity of his botched croon often sounds haunted and otherworldly. HereContinue reading “Scott Walker. Bish Bosch.”
Buke and Gase. Function Falls EP.
Buke and Gase are a Brooklyn-based duo that makes a robust racket from a ramshackle collection of homemade and home-modified instruments. And it’s their unique instruments—Arone Dyer’s Buke (“byook,” a baritone ukulele) and Aron Sanchez’s Gase (“gace,” formerly “Gass,” a guitar bass) that gave the band their curious moniker. B&G caught the attention of musicContinue reading “Buke and Gase. Function Falls EP.”