Vancouver-based bowed guitarist Caton Diab (who composes as C. Diab) makes sonorous music that you feel deeply. Primarily crafted on an acoustic guitar with a pickup, effects pedals, a loop station, and bow, Diab’s textured and mournful tones rattle your bones and settle into your heart, coaxing you into acknowledging your emotions. Diab has referredContinue reading “C. Diab’s Cascadian Guitar Music”
Genre Archives
Eliza Kavtion’s Call and Response
In her spellbinding live show, Montreal-based multi-instrumentalist Eliza Kavtion twists threads from documentary films, punk-rock distortion, and hip-hop innovation together with her wailing, virtuosic guitar playing. She and guitar become one: a fury of fuzzy drones, rhythmic sputters, and menacing loops, out of which emerge soaring melodies and defiant roars. Off the stage, Kavtion considersContinue reading “Eliza Kavtion’s Call and Response”
Yves Charuest. Le Territoire de l’anche.
Yves Charuest is a distinguished alto saxophonist with deep roots in improvised music, including five years spent in German bassist Peter Kowald’s trio and decades of collaboration with fellow Québécois musicians. On Le Territoire de l’anche (territory of the reed), Charuest steps out for an hour-long series of eleven solo improvisations. Charuest possesses an originalContinue reading “Yves Charuest. Le Territoire de l’anche.”
Casey Koyczan Resonates the Future
In early July 2020 it was my pleasure to interview Tlicho Dene interdisciplinary artist Casey Koyczan. He is extremely generous and open. I have done my best to represent our conversation in order for readers to discover and understand his creative practices. Focusing on the Northwest Territories, specifically Yellowknife, where he lived for several years,Continue reading “Casey Koyczan Resonates the Future”
Hope Lee. Across the Veiled Distances.
Covering almost four decades of Hope Lee’s writing for the piano, Across the Veiled Distances encompasses a wide musical investigation in a retrospective album of her evolving relationship to the instrument. Through five works, Lee layers foreground and background piano gestures, balancing moments of deliciously angular dissonances with delicately evolving lines. Featuring thoughtful interpretations fromContinue reading “Hope Lee. Across the Veiled Distances.”
Anthony Pateras: Sonic Phenomena in Real Time
The music of Anthony Pateras covers vast expanses of composition and improvisation, of acoustic and electronic instrumentation, and combinations of these. He is also a virtuosic pianist. Between 2012 and 2019 he created Immediata, an ambitious series of fifteen albums, self-released over seven years, of music created in various modes and contexts, in order to explore howContinue reading “Anthony Pateras: Sonic Phenomena in Real Time”
Anna Höstman / Cheryl Duvall. Harbour.
As a child, Anna Höstman loved to play piano. She gave a performance of her earliest written work at age twelve, a joyful experience that she later compared to setting a boat on a river and being carried downstream. On Harbour, recorded at Toronto’s Glenn Gould Studio, and the first release devoted entirely to Höstman’sContinue reading “Anna Höstman / Cheryl Duvall. Harbour.”
Ian William Craig’s Sonic Alchemy
To many listeners, Ian William Craig’s debut LP, A Turn of Breath (Recital, 2014), seemed to materialize out of thin air—and not just because it was his first commercial release: one can hear almost spectral voices attempting to penetrate layers of electromagnetic detritus, like choral music trickling in from the spirit world. One can definitelyContinue reading “Ian William Craig’s Sonic Alchemy”
Baroque to the Future
Few musical relationships are as difficult to parse as those between musicians and the instruments they play. It’s a type of interaction that feels like it should be simple—something transactional, between human subject and sounding object—but in practice, objects, especially culturally situated ones, can come with as much baggage as their owners. Often they haveContinue reading “Baroque to the Future”
Kathryn Ladano. Masked.
Kathryn Ladano studied with Montreal free-improv VIP Lori Freedman, is based in Kitchener, Ontario, and focuses her practice on improvisation. She explores the multiple identities of the bass clarinet on her latest album Masked, which is framed by the idea of how an instrument serves as a mask to facilitate deeper expression of the self.Continue reading “Kathryn Ladano. Masked.”