This beautiful recording is largely sourced from a performance of Craig Hilton playing the guzheng. The first track, Sans Mouvement I, is a relatively untreated sound recording of Hilton bowing the guzheng, with a slight reverb applied—creating a blissfully full sound that envelops the room. Only toward the end of the track does an insect-likeContinue reading “Craig Hilton & Tomas Phillips. le gout de néant.”
Genre Archives
Daniel Kernohan, Editor. Music is Rapid Transportation… From The Beatles to Xenakis.
I’m an avid music collector with wildly eclectic tastes, and this book spoke to me like few books have before. I instantly connected with the accounts by the seven individuals involved in the project. In the book’s first section, music enthusiasts and contributors Lawrence Joseph, Dan Lander, Donal McGraith, Bill Smith, Alan Stanbridge, Scott Thomson,Continue reading “Daniel Kernohan, Editor. Music is Rapid Transportation… From The Beatles to Xenakis.”
Flow Festival. Helsinki, Finland. August 13–15, 2010.
Since its inception in 2003, Helsinki’s Flow Festival has become a major highlight of the Finnish music calendar. This year’s seventh edition certainly didn’t disappoint. Perfect summer weather, a unique urban site, top-notch programming, and careful execution combined to create excellent reviews and a record-breaking 50,000-plus attendance. While Flow’s programming is decidedly varied—genres ranged fromContinue reading “Flow Festival. Helsinki, Finland. August 13–15, 2010.”
Havana, Cuba
What does a city sound like whose history spans periods of colonial opulence, Mafia casino decadence, and a dying communist revolution? The habanera, the salsa, and reggaeton. Havana’s storied past has produced a musical culture as varied and deep as the sociopolitical eras that it has survived. During the nineteenth century Havana gave birth toContinue reading “Havana, Cuba”
Sainkho Namchylak, Nick Sudnick. Not Quite Songs.
Sainkho Namchylak, a native of Tuva, is relatively well known for her brilliant accommodation of throat-singing techniques to free improvisation, using a body of traditional techniques to create music of extraordinarily expressive power, mixing high-pitched metallic sounds and multiphonics in ways that can both surprise and move a listener. Her partner here, Nick Sudnick, isContinue reading “Sainkho Namchylak, Nick Sudnick. Not Quite Songs.”
Terri Hron joins the flock
The slight, bright-eyed woman comfortably seated in her sunny Montreal studio is known as a musical beast. Hard to imagine. But the epithet is just one of several that contemporary recorder player and composer Terri Hron has earned—not on the expected grounds of virtuosity, but rather for her self-described unrefined and unconventional technique. Yes, you’veContinue reading “Terri Hron joins the flock”
G20
“Down with capitalism, up with socialism!” This distorted-megaphone message is heard against a backdrop of African drumming, French resistance songs, and the constant whirr of helicopters overhead. The rally organizers direct the crowd, “Please walk slowly and peacefully out of the park and west toward City Hall, where we will start our speeches.” It isContinue reading “G20”
Debashis Sinha
“La montaña. El cuervo. Cada mota de polvo elevada por mis pasos alberga incontables palabras,” intones the deeply resonant voice, as the rhythmic sound of footsteps fades up and a single gong-stroke repeats slowly. This is Kailash, a radiophonic work by Toronto’s Debashis Sinha, commissioned from him in 2009 by Centro para la Difusión deContinue reading “Debashis Sinha”
Louise Gray. The No-Nonsense Guide To World Music.
At a mere 167 pages, this little guide might justifiably raise suspicions about exactly what nonsense was jettisoned to make this book so compact. While it is scanter on information than the books put out by Rough Guides, Gray’s guide offers a compelling issue-and-topic-driven understanding of world music. She cogently illustrates the rationale behind thisContinue reading “Louise Gray. The No-Nonsense Guide To World Music.”
Chris Abrahams and Clare Cooper. Germ Studies for Guzheng and DX7.
As befits its name, Germ Studies for Guzheng and DX7 is a series of 198 miniatures, most ending in mere seconds, improvised on guzheng and the DX7 synthesizer. Partly intended, it seems, as a lark—the two-disc set comes with humorous illustrations of each germ, drawn by fellow musicians—the music still holds attention as an intriguingContinue reading “Chris Abrahams and Clare Cooper. Germ Studies for Guzheng and DX7.”