On my first few listens to the four pieces included on Allison Cameron and Contact’s A Gossamer Bit, I felt that two of the compositions were quite good—so good, in fact, that I decided a fifty percent average wasn’t at all bad and started questioning how good something needs to be in order to be good.Continue reading “Allison Cameron and Contact. A Gossamer Bit.”
Genre Archives
The Unsung Songbooks of Dave Burrell
TO SAY THAT PIANIST, COMPOSER, AND—AT THIS POINT—JAZZ ELDER DAVE BURRELL WAS NOT made for these times is a bit of a shortsighted claim. Burrell is a jazz classicist preceded by a reputation for free improvisation. He was present for the fabled Parisian Summer of 1969, when he and other players of free jazz found aContinue reading “The Unsung Songbooks of Dave Burrell”
Susan Alcorn. Soledad.
Astor Piazzolla’s eccentricity as a composer is overshadowed by his reputation as one of the foremost exponents of tango music. The ostensible genre designation tends to mask his poignant and peculiar mixture of forlorn sentimentalism, tense dissonances, and covert use of noise. Susan Alcorn, herself an expert in oblique lyricism, understands this very well. HerContinue reading “Susan Alcorn. Soledad.”
Festival of New Trumpet Music: 2nd Edition.
Featuring the instrument in all imaginable contexts, the Festival of New Trumpet (FONT) Music was founded in New York City twelve years ago by Dave Douglas and the late Roy Campbell, Jr. FONT Music Canada is now in its second year, imported north by former Montrealer Aaron Shragge (who helps organize the NYC version), alongContinue reading “Festival of New Trumpet Music: 2nd Edition.”
Allison Cameron’s Rarefied Soundworld
“I NEVER THOUGHT I WAS DOING ANYTHING DIFFERENT THAN ANYBODY ELSE—I just thought, I’m doing what anybody else would write,” states Allison Cameron, matter-of-factly. Anyone familiar with her music—or her characteristic wry humour—could read this particular remark as either amusing or evasive, disarmingly so. But, as I gradually realize, it’s actually rather telling of herContinue reading “Allison Cameron’s Rarefied Soundworld”
Andrew Staniland accelerates toward the next idea
IN 2013, NASA CONFIRMED THAT the Voyager 1 probe had become the first manmade object to cross the heliopause, leaving the bounds of our solar system and entering interstellar space. In addition to its scientific instruments, Voyager 1 was famously carrying a Golden Record entitled The Sounds of Earth. Put together by a committee led by notedContinue reading “Andrew Staniland accelerates toward the next idea”
Vancouver’s Intercultural Music Scene
Intercultural music-making in British Columbia is nothing new. Gold seekers brought the violin to the province’s north in the 1890s, and their jigs and reels were quickly adapted by the region’s Tahltan musicians into a true hybrid form. In the mid-1960s, Vancouver performers from a variety of ethnic backgrounds found common cause in the R&BContinue reading “Vancouver’s Intercultural Music Scene”
Chenoa Anderson. Krishna’s Flute.
Chenoa Anderson’s second collection of new Canadian music for solo flute is a fantastic—and often quite fantastical—survey of what’s going on, coast to coast, in this admittedly specialized field. Focusing on works that incorporate an electronic element, either through prerecorded sounds or computer-based processing of the acoustic instrument, it’s a subtle and heady affair andContinue reading “Chenoa Anderson. Krishna’s Flute.”
André Cormier. Zwischen Den Wolken.
It’s often tempting to interpret the presence of abundant silence in music as a gesture of aggressive austerity. Yet André Cormier’s solo piano work Zwischen den Wolken—performed by Markus Kreul on a new recording released on Redshift—makes it very difficult for anyone to make such an accusation. Zwischen den Wolken, which runs almost eighty minutesContinue reading “André Cormier. Zwischen Den Wolken.”
Composer Wolf Edwards loads the chamber
Wolf Edwards’ various stories are so interesting and so curiously entwined that it’s hard to know where to start. Working in the fish-packing plants of Ucluelet, B.C., the ugly-duckling sibling of Tofino’s trendy swan? Playing guitar on the stage of some black-hole dive with anarcho-punk band Iskra? Swapping musical knowledge with British violinist Irvine Arditti,Continue reading “Composer Wolf Edwards loads the chamber”