Interrupted—like most music festivals—by the global pandemic, Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville (FIMAV) prided itself on being one of the first organizations to resume live programming, albeit with strict COVID-19 protocols, and its all-Canadian lineup thankfully delivered the goods for music-starved concertgoers. Since FIMAV’s 2020 edition never took place, the festival programmed severalContinue reading “Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville, 37th edition.”
Genre Archives
Hearth. Melt.
Hearth is hot. The embodied listening in this quartet of pan-European improvisers is palpable. This is engaging improv, in which clear intention drives artful exploration. Abstract instrumental language revolves with choreographed clarity around a conceptual centre. Melt, which was recorded live at the Portalegre Jazz Festival in 2020, is produced by band members Susana SantosContinue reading “Hearth. Melt.”
Suddenly Listen Expands its Chamber Space
Trust. Vulnerability. Flexibility. Holistic listening. Non-hierarchical cooperation. Embrace of the unknown. Sense of adventure. These are some of the themes that arise when considering improvised music. If you have ever attended a concert of free-improvised music, you might have experienced that terrifying and exhilarating feeling of unpredictability and risk that stems from listening to musicContinue reading “Suddenly Listen Expands its Chamber Space”
Lina Allemano Four. Vegetables.
The Toronto-based Lina Allemano Four—the experienced musical chefs who sauté the ingredients in this six-course musical feast—have been cooking on trumpeter Allemano’s originals since 2005. Alongside her gritty and dulcet trumpet textures are reed garnishes from Brodie West’s alto saxophone, bassist Andrew Downing’s upfront throbbing, and Nick Fraser’s chunky drumbeats. Vegetables is cleverly paced toContinue reading “Lina Allemano Four. Vegetables.”
Angelica Sanchez & Marilyn Crispell. How To Turn The Moon.
How to Turn The Moon is a trip. This fresh duo album from New York avant-garde heavy-hitters Angelica Sanchez and Marilyn Crispell takes two pianos to expansive and unexpected places. The potential for sonic deluge in the pairing of similar instruments is magnified by the piano’s capacity for polyphony and projection, but this overload isContinue reading “Angelica Sanchez & Marilyn Crispell. How To Turn The Moon.”
Saw-whet Records: Prairie Experimentalists Unite
For Saw-whet Records’ Ethan Bokma, putting an album together means exactly that: a new release requires not only great music and a cover design, but also blank, unassembled album jackets, glue, spray paint, and several types of adhesive tape. A prominent bass clarinetist on the Edmonton scene and a reliably frequent audience member at otherContinue reading “Saw-whet Records: Prairie Experimentalists Unite”
Kind Mind. Kind Mind.
Near the end of the eighteenth century, the German theorist Friedrich Schlegel proposed the fragment as an emergent refashioning of the form of criticism. Inherent to the short form of the fragment was a questioning of wholeness: for Schlegel, the fragment was not a recovered piece of some lost whole, but rather a sort ofContinue reading “Kind Mind. Kind Mind.”
Ingrid Laubrock + Kris Davis. Blood Moon.
One thing that might be said about any great ensemble of improvisers is that any subgrouping of members might be isolated and seen as a core. That’s arguably the nature of music built from improvisation, at least when done well: paradoxically, the elements stand alone by leaning on each other. As such, a core commonContinue reading “Ingrid Laubrock + Kris Davis. Blood Moon.”
New Hermitage. Unearth.
Unearth is a fitting title for the fifth full-length release from the Halifax- and Montreal-based improvisational quartet New Hermitage: spectral yet grounded, these recordings capture a group of musicians committed to the perception-shifting possibilities of close attention. The four players who make up New Hermitage—Andrew MacKelvie, India Gailey, Ross Burns, and Ellen Gibling—cite Pauline Oliveros’sContinue reading “New Hermitage. Unearth.”
ITACA 4et. Vortex.
Reflecting the breezy looseness of Vancouver, the city in which it was recorded, Vortex by the ITACA 4et moves with the lightness and ebullience of cool West Coast jazz, with jagged sonic shoals just beneath the surface. Formed in 2016, ITACA 4et comprises two Canadians, clarinetist François Houle and drummer Nick Fraser, and two Italians,Continue reading “ITACA 4et. Vortex.”