Montreal-based guitarist and vocalist An Laurence (An Laurence 安媛, in full) fervently explores every crevice of her instruments on her debut album Almost Touching. The record features six works for guitar, voice, and electronics, each traversing a different sonic palette including spiralling, distorted electronics, folksy acoustic tunes, and breathy vocalizations. Through these eclectic and surprisingContinue reading “An Laurence 安媛. Almost Touching.”
Genre Archives
The Complex Stillness of Mark Ellestad
“For me, there is a kind of stillness in music that comes from a generous and welcoming place. It has nothing to do with speed or style or tradition or school. It can come from dark or light, from any shade of intensity. It doesn’t need to express anything at all. I love it whenContinue reading “The Complex Stillness of Mark Ellestad”
Various Artists. Music for Violas, Bass Clarinets & Flutes.
As a conceptual blueprint, Lori Freedman’s To the Bridge (2014) connects five miniatures using four bridges. As a solo performance and listening experience, it’s a riveting, visceral tour de force. This recording was made at a concert of music with spectral orientation, hosted by London’s Café Oto in December 2019, with the world poised toContinue reading “Various Artists. Music for Violas, Bass Clarinets & Flutes.”
Anoush Moazzeni Weaves a New Narrative
In Anoush Moazzeni’s The drops of the rain become one with me, small mechanisms move inside and above an open grand piano. Wooden structures glide across the piano strings of their own accord, hammering and pressing the instrument with mallets, while microphones pick up sounds that are then processed digitally on a computer. Moazzeni, seatedContinue reading “Anoush Moazzeni Weaves a New Narrative”
Joseph Shabason. The Fellowship.
On the first track of Joseph Shabason’s third solo album, The Fellowship, the voice of a child emerges from a sepia-toned gloom, repeating in various speak-singing phrasings, “Did you get a good picture?” Legacy, intergenerational interdependence, and our collective yearning for meaning are clearly top of mind as The Fellowship simultaneously considers past, present, andContinue reading “Joseph Shabason. The Fellowship.”
The Glittery World of Olivia Shortt
Olivia Shortt may not be a household name, but anyone who’s caught one of their eccentric stage performances—either solo or in avant-garde ensembles—has probably not forgotten them. Over the past few years, Shortt has built an enviable résumé. They made their Lincoln Center debut at the 2018 Mostly Mozart festival’s concert of Michael Pisaro’s monumentalContinue reading “The Glittery World of Olivia Shortt”
DEBBY FRIDAY’S ENERGY POTENTIAL
Across the first few minutes of Bare Bones, the short-film debut by Vancouver artist Debby Friday, a growing, skittering sound unsettles an otherwise pastoral scene. In the film, Friday, a splash of presence in a white tulle dress, kneels riverside amid a verdant landscape. This moment might feel serene were it not for its soundtrack:Continue reading “DEBBY FRIDAY’S ENERGY POTENTIAL”
Trase Pa: Choreographing the Soundworld of David Bontemps’s Traces
In most cultures there has always been a synergetic interplay between music and dance—one informing and amplifying the other. Music exemplifies the physicality and rhythmicity that exists in a dancing body. The synergy of dance and music is a repertoire of invitations to the spaces in between—where syncopation meets breath and elicits feeling, and whereContinue reading “Trase Pa: Choreographing the Soundworld of David Bontemps’s Traces”
The Genre of Morgan-Paige
Morgan-Paige Melbourne was a child prodigy who started playing piano at three and singing and composing shortly afterwards. Soon she was winning piano competitions, and at sixteen she had her first composition published with SOCAN. It looked like she was heading for a glittering career as a concert pianist. But, like so many young BlackContinue reading “The Genre of Morgan-Paige”
Aidan Baker’s Ambient Autonomy
Over the past twenty years, Berlin-based Canadian guitarist and composer Aidan Baker has developed a creative rhythm, using his guitar as a gateway to seemingly disparate sounds and marrying noise, krautrock, metal, drone, and free jazz in thrilling and unexpected ways. Through his workmanlike approach, he has amassed a sprawling discography—the selected discography on hisContinue reading “Aidan Baker’s Ambient Autonomy”