Some musicians fall in love with an instrument at a very young age and never look back; others experiment with many different ones before they find the ideal match for their talents. Cris Derksen is one of the latter. As a child, she first wanted to play flute, then saxophone, then double bass. Later, atContinue reading “Cris Derksen enhances her sonic adventure”
Genre Archives
Los Arroyos in Stereo
A springtime hike through the hills of the Sierra Nevada, Andalucía, Spain. I follow my guide, Neftali, scrabbling up switchbacks, sweat from the raw sun cooling in the alpine breeze swishing my neck. The hike has been filled with talk. Neftali pointing out species, warning of sliding scree. He tells me the legends of theContinue reading “Los Arroyos in Stereo”
Meet Our 2014 Contest Winners
TORONTO, CANADA Montreal composer and sound artist James O’Callaghan’s Bodies-Soundings has won first place in Musicworks’ 2014 Electronic Music Composition contest. “I’m very grateful for Bodies-Soundings to have this recognition!,” O’Callaghan says. “Composition is usually a very insular, introspective process for me, and so once a work is released into the wild it’s a pleasure to seeContinue reading “Meet Our 2014 Contest Winners”
The Mystical Instruments of Walter Smetak
In March 2014, I found myself facing the late Walter Smetak’s Pindorama, a seven-foot-two-inch-tall instrument installation comprising seven calabash gourds arranged in a diamond-like formation and resting on a bamboo pedestal. Dozens of clear plastic tubes with flute mouthpieces fixed at their ends hung from the gourds. Cowbells were suspended from the frame. Later, duringContinue reading “The Mystical Instruments of Walter Smetak”
Send + Receive: A Festival of Sound, 16.
Send + Receive (s+r), a sound-art showcase held annually in Winnipeg, is curated around a different theme each year. Its acknowledged aims are to highlight the contributions of women to sound art, to develop an audience for emerging local artists, and to utilize different venues from one night to the next. This helps focus theContinue reading “Send + Receive: A Festival of Sound, 16.”
Nick Storring. Gardens.
We think of gardens as something we make. You start a garden and tend to it. It is yours. But the garden has most likely been there for a very long time. You just mould it to your own purposes. If you ask a rosebush how long it has been there, it won’t know whatContinue reading “Nick Storring. Gardens.”
Divorce Records
“It depends on what you call the beginning, I guess,” says Darcy Spidle when probed about the origins of his experimental music label, Divorce Records. “The first thing I did with the label— about fifteen years ago—was to make big posters that said ‘Music Sucks,’ and then put the Divorce logo underneath. I pasted themContinue reading “Divorce Records”
Myriam Bleau spins Soft Revolvers
In a darkened room, an artist is manipulating four translucent circular objects on a tabletop, moving from one to another. Audience members gather around. The objects emit light. Their spinning motion activates deep tones and beats that crackle and whir, and snippets of voice that drop in and out. The sounds fade as the spinningContinue reading “Myriam Bleau spins Soft Revolvers”
Field Notes From Fort McMurray
in the damp morning air: rain pitter-patters on whispering leaves. inherited onomatopoeic vocabulary; true but tried tropes carrying with them vague echoes of that singular safety known to the time when board books taught us to affix words to sounds, predictably, repeatably. a wind sighs, branches rustle. the sounds of a forest reclaimed, tenuous rootsContinue reading “Field Notes From Fort McMurray”
Jaap Blonk
Ever since his performances of classic Dada sound poetry in the late ’70s, Dutch performer–composer Jaap Blonk has been a prolific explorer of the limits of oral sound. He has developed an extensive body of work centred around his own vocal invention and innovation, frequently including acoustic instruments, electronics and, more recently, studio and liveContinue reading “Jaap Blonk”