Watching Tanya Tagaq perform is more than just an auditory and visual experience: it’s physical. As the Nunavut-born, Manitoba-based throat singer moves around a stage, she unleashes something fierce and powerful that comes from deep within her body, yet seems positively unearthly. She mostly improvises her performances, tapping into traditional Inuit throat singing—growling, cooing, howling,Continue reading “Tanya Tagaq Grabs The World By The Throat”
Genre Archives
What is an instrument?
One late November day last year, during a family visit to Amsterdam, I stepped out after dinner and took the tram to Oostenburg, a former harbour hub near the city centre and now being redeveloped as a mixed-use area. After several wrong turns I found the trail-markers (pink birdhouses!) that led me to the canal-facingContinue reading “What is an instrument?”
Fuhong Shi Closes the Distance
If Canada has any meaning to most Chinese, it is likely through a widely read essay written by the late Chairman Mao in praise of Dr. Norman Bethune, the Montreal doctor who ministered to Mao’s suffering soldiers during the Long March of the late 1930s. Musically, according to Lawrence Cherney, artistic director of Toronto musicContinue reading “Fuhong Shi Closes the Distance”
The New Sounds of Lebanon
The experimental music scene in Beirut, Lebanon, may exist in relative geographic isolation from other global movements of a similar ilk, but over the past fifteen years it has become a dynamic hub for a dense concentration of fiercely independent musical voices. From humble beginnings and tiny numbers, the close-knit community has grown and thrived,Continue reading “The New Sounds of Lebanon”
Yang Jing and Christy Doran. No. 9.
One of the more striking recent developments in improvised music has been the entry of several musicians trained in Chinese traditional music. There’s Min Xiaofen, a pipa player and singer residing in New York, who worked with the late Derek Bailey (the usually adversarial guitarist sounded just like a pipa for the occasion) and JohnContinue reading “Yang Jing and Christy Doran. No. 9.”
Jerusalem In My Heart. Mo7it Al-Mo7it.
Radwan Moumneh is one of the key players in the Montreal scene that orbits Constellation, Alien8, and other local labels. As cofounder-producer at the celebrated Hotel2Tango studio and a collaborator with Land Of Kush, Cursed, and Eric Chenaux, among others, he’s helped shape a sizable amount of music behind the scenes. Jerusalem In My HeartContinue reading “Jerusalem In My Heart. Mo7it Al-Mo7it.”
Summer 2013
Milan
FULL-TEXT AVAILABLE IN PRINT EDITION ONLY A sonic spectre is haunting Milan’s music scene. That ghostly presence is Giuseppe Verdi (1813–1901), Italy’s best-known composer of romantic operas, who moved to the city when young, shot to fame with Nabucco in 1842, and whose repertoire has been a staple of Teatro alla Scala ever since. Verdi,Continue reading “Milan”
Tom Zé
FULL-TEXT AVAILABLE IN PRINT EDITION ONLY The romantic Brazil—the one that ensnares tourists—does not include the Brazilian Northeast. Miles from Rio de Janeiro, this place is worlds removed from the urban sophisticates that dwell in the south. To Brazilians and northerners alike, the Northeast has its own mythology. Its interior, the sertão, is aContinue reading “Tom Zé”
Paris, France
On June 21, 1982, the French Ministry of Culture introduced the first Fête de la Musique (meaning celebration/feast of music, and a homophone of Faites-musique—make music), a large street party where musicians reignite ancient pagan solstice rituals in spontaneous concerts featuring amateur and professional musicians from all genres. Noise and drinking restrictions are relaxed, andContinue reading “Paris, France”