For over thirty years, the Richard L. Hearn Generating Station was something of an urban myth in Toronto. A massive, decommissioned power plant, shuttered in 1983, it sat there at the edge of the city’s consciousness on the industrial Port Lands, loved only by urban explorers of abandoned spaces—until 2015, and Unsound, that is. ThoughContinue reading “Unsound Toronto. Part of Luminato Festival.”
Genre Archives
The Material Soundscapes of Roarke Menzies
On a Sunday afternoon this past June I visited Outlet Fine Art, one of many independent galleries and performance spaces that have popped up in and around the Brooklyn neighbourhood of Bushwick in recent years. I was there to attend a performance by sound artist Roarke Menzies, the second in his series of appearances inContinue reading “The Material Soundscapes of Roarke Menzies”
Erin Gee Sings the Body Electronic
SHOULD YOU EVER FIND YOURSELF IN A CONFINED SPACE WITH ERIN GEE, PREPARE TO BE ENTERTAINED, AND PERHAPS ALSO PUZZLED—AT LEAST BRIEFLY. “If someone meets me in an elevator,” she tells Musicworks in a telephone interview from her office in downtown Montreal, “my elevator pitch is that I explore the communicative potential of the human voice inContinue reading “Erin Gee Sings the Body Electronic”
Frances White and Kristin Norderval. She Lost Her Voice / That’s How We Knew.
Seductive and hypnotic, this is an utterly convincing work for voice and electronics—not an easy combination. For forty-five minutes, it moves slowly through a text by the piece’s director, Valeria Vasilevski, and blurs genres (chamber opera? theatre work? song cycle?) with its sensual, rhapsodic sound world. Frances White’s music is spectacularly beautiful: soprano Kristin Norderval’sContinue reading “Frances White and Kristin Norderval. She Lost Her Voice / That’s How We Knew.”
Tristan Perich. Parallels; Telescope; Active Field; Dual Synthesis.
Across his body of work, composer and conceptualist Tristan Perich varies from electronoise and glitched-out video to sound installations and drawing machines. But what he is no doubt most known for is a singularly focused and wonderfully varied approach to composition. His “one-bit music” got a fair bit of attention with the release of aContinue reading “Tristan Perich. Parallels; Telescope; Active Field; Dual Synthesis.”
Sarah Hennies. Gather & Release.
The phenomenological aspect of sound has long been the foremost concern of percussionist and composer Sarah Hennies’ work. While her music often exploits the way we hear, it never comes off as some mere exercise. Gather & Release bends her fascination with the psychological ramifications of listening into an unprecedented shape. This ambitious new workContinue reading “Sarah Hennies. Gather & Release.”
Dasha Rush: Dark Hearts of Space
The prospects are grim for a person who has fallen into a black hole. The gravitational forces exerted by these mysterious regions of space are so strong that nothing—not even light—can escape, once it passes a certain proximity threshold. From a safe distance, the unlucky soul would appear to stretch and smear as it approachedContinue reading “Dasha Rush: Dark Hearts of Space”
Aaron Oppenheim’s October 12, 2014 (excerpt)
October 12, 2014 (excerpt) is a recording of a live performance held in New York City on October 12, 2014 as part of ABC No Rio’s COMA Series, which presents experimental and improvised music. “This piece uses samples of voice for all of its material, manipulated in real time using my custom Max/MSP live instrument,”Continue reading “Aaron Oppenheim’s October 12, 2014 (excerpt)”
Jonathan Adjemian and Mike Smith. Transcombobulation.
Even though it’s likely that analogue synthesizers are even more popular now than in their supposed heyday, it’s still difficult not to associate their sound with another era. Fortunately, the Toronto synth duo of Mike Smith and Jonathan Adjemian don’t let that get in the way of their originality. In fact, if their debut together—oneContinue reading “Jonathan Adjemian and Mike Smith. Transcombobulation.”
Tenzier: History Outside the Margins
“There’s a group of students who used a term I really liked: countermemory,” Tenzier founder Eric Fillion tells me over Skype from Montreal. “I almost like that better than counterculture.” He’s talking about Tenzier, the avant-garde label which has put out five critically acclaimed vinyl releases in as many years, as well as Tenzier theContinue reading “Tenzier: History Outside the Margins”