For twenty years I’ve been roommates with a mahogany-stained Heintzman upright piano that has been in my family for five decades. I’ve played numerous black Yamaha uprights and Steinway grands; once, I performed Chopin pieces on an enormous brown Bösendorfer that put me so in the moment that the piano seemed to be playing itself.Continue reading “Play Your Piano”
Genre Archives
Caduc
The word caduc translates from French as both obsolete and deciduous. Appropriately, the roster of Mathieu Ruhlmann’s humble Vancouver imprint, Caduc, plays right at the intersection of the organic world and senescent technology. Since late 2011, Caduc has built a catalogue of improvised and intuitively constructed music whose sonic fibre is audible, and often quite delicate.Continue reading “Caduc”
Hecker. Articulação.
Much of Florian Hecker’s downright preposterous music could easily be regarded as the absurdist vanishing point of technological vanguardism in computer music. Both boisterously noisy and eerily austere, with its hyperactive bursts of sound, his music often feels as though it’s untouched by human agency or intuition. Devoid of elegant contours—or the mere hint ofContinue reading “Hecker. Articulação.”
David Grubbs. Records Ruin the Landscape: John Cage, the Sixties and Sound Recording.
An endless stream of recordings flows through the Internet. Listeners rejoice in having easy access to over a century of music, their mood dampened only in contemplation of the terabytes of sound they will never find time to hear. Few, however, have stopped to study how this increased availability affects their perception of music history.Continue reading “David Grubbs. Records Ruin the Landscape: John Cage, the Sixties and Sound Recording.”
Quatuor Bozzini
Quatuor Bozzini is poetry, sweat, talent, idealism, determination, love, survival, fate, and a wonderful wild dance with the spirits. For fifteen years, the Montreal ensemble has steadfastly explored the notion of what contemporary music means today. The players are irrepressible creators and innovators, whether working in the far lands of experimental sound art, the closeContinue reading “Quatuor Bozzini”
Harry Partch’s Delusion of the Fury.
A resonant boom rippling through your body—that is the impact of the Marimba Eroica, arguably the lowest-pitched percussion instrument in existence. Four thick slabs of wood up to eight feet long—each placed over a sizable resonator—make you feel rather than hear its monumental presence. It is one of the twenty-five-odd instruments built by composer HarryContinue reading “Harry Partch’s Delusion of the Fury.”
GGRIL. Combines.
The GGRIL (Grand Groupe Régional d’Improvisation Libérée) is one of Canada’s few large improvising ensembles, a feat made more improbable by their location in relatively isolated Rimouski. From a population of 46,000, bassist Éric Normand has managed to assemble a group of up to fourteen people that has begun to cultivate its own identity, evidentlyContinue reading “GGRIL. Combines.”
Juan Blanco. Nuestro Tiempo / Our Time.
Through most of the twentieth century, Cuban composer Juan Blanco (1919–2008) was an active and collaborative creator and cultural leader in his homeland—primarily, though not exclusively, through his work in electroacoustic music. “No Cuban composer epitomized musical innovation better than Blanco, who melded new music, electronic instruments, improvisation, and the island’s unique musical heritage,” wroteContinue reading “Juan Blanco. Nuestro Tiempo / Our Time.”
Nate Wooley’s Seven Storey Mountain
Jump into an early version of Nate Wooley’s Seven Storey Mountain, and you land in dark and turbulent, almost infernal terrain. Sounds are dense and blur into one another: trumpet amplified to distortion levels; prerecorded tape of unidentifiable noises; dense, rapid drumming of indecipherable rhythms. Later versions add more orderly elements: passages of stable pitchContinue reading “Nate Wooley’s Seven Storey Mountain”
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”