Astor Piazzolla’s eccentricity as a composer is overshadowed by his reputation as one of the foremost exponents of tango music. The ostensible genre designation tends to mask his poignant and peculiar mixture of forlorn sentimentalism, tense dissonances, and covert use of noise. Susan Alcorn, herself an expert in oblique lyricism, understands this very well. HerContinue reading “Susan Alcorn. Soledad.”
Genre Archives
Vancouver’s Intercultural Music Scene
Intercultural music-making in British Columbia is nothing new. Gold seekers brought the violin to the province’s north in the 1890s, and their jigs and reels were quickly adapted by the region’s Tahltan musicians into a true hybrid form. In the mid-1960s, Vancouver performers from a variety of ethnic backgrounds found common cause in the R&BContinue reading “Vancouver’s Intercultural Music Scene”
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”
Sarah Peebles. Delicate Paths.
The thin, luminous sound of the shô, a Japanese mouth organ, is very particular and very beautiful—presenting a pleasant and impossibly clear glassy tonal surface. Sarah Peebles’ new shô-centred disc Delicate Paths demonstrates a thorough, painterly understanding of this instrument’s saturated astringency in solo, small ensemble, and electroacoustic contexts. There’s a contemplative austerity to theContinue reading “Sarah Peebles. Delicate Paths.”
Lido Pimienta curates a sonic community
Colombia-born, Toronto-based Lido Pimienta has been called “the consummate collaborator”—and with good reason. Although she writes, sings, produces, and plays many instruments—and is certainly talented and strong-willed enough to make recordings on her own—Pimienta’s aesthetic absolutely requires the participation of others. “I would die!” she says of the notion of creating music on her own.Continue reading “Lido Pimienta curates a sonic community”
Digital Primitives. Lipsomuch & Soul Searchin’…
This two-disc release features a trio of free-jazz stalwarts who do not engage in your standard squawk session. Instead, they slice ninety-four minutes into nineteen funky cuts, as much influenced by country blues, rock, and various world musics as by modern strains of jazz. Digital Primitives is Assif Tsahar (tenor sax, bass clarinet, and mbira),Continue reading “Digital Primitives. Lipsomuch & Soul Searchin’…”
The Restless Art of Radwan Ghazi Moumneh
It’s Friday night in Montreal, and a who’s who of local musicians is packed into the back room of Casa del Popolo to check out the first public appearance of Master of Masters My Master. Nobody knows anything about the music they are about to hear. All they have to go on is an eventContinue reading “The Restless Art of Radwan Ghazi Moumneh”
The Intimacy of Summer Listening
One Friday evening in early May, I jumped on my bicycle and dipsy-doodled to the Music Gallery along Toronto’s pothole-ravaged streets. Musician–producer Radwan Ghazi Moumneh was premiering a new work by Jerusalem In My Heart, the evolving performance project he founded in 2005. With a Canadian tour in the early summer, and European dates inContinue reading “The Intimacy of Summer Listening”
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.”
Victor Gama builds a brave new soundworld
Wherever Victor Gama plays, you can be sure clusters of people will be jostling to percuss the upturned metal bowls of his tipaw (so called because the surface of the instrument looks like the pads of a tiger paw), to bow the eight metal strings of the tahra, or simply to wander the length ofContinue reading “Victor Gama builds a brave new soundworld”