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Greetings all!

I'll keep this short and sweet as there's a bunch of new information below. 

This month I'm highlighting some events at the Music Gallery's X-Avant Festival while also whispering news of
A. Hutchie's (Aaron Hutchinson) forthcoming LP/CD Potion Shop (coming out November 20th on Cosmic Resonance), pre-orders of which drop this Friday!

Keep scrolling for more details, friends (and be sure to check out my recent Bandcamp recommendations at the end). Stay safe and well!

—~ Nick Storring



                                                            


MUSIC GALLERY'S X-AVANT FESTIVAL
October 1st — October 18th, 2020 (Online)

More information here

Despite everything the wonderful folks at the Music Gallery have managed to mount what looks like a very exciting online edition of their 15th annual X-Avant Festival.  Covering a typically eclectic cross-section of exploratory sounds, the festival opens tomorrow with an homage to the much-loved and recently-passed Ron Gaskin, and subsequently features a host of concerts, talks and more distributed across the next two weeks. Below are some of my personal highlights but please follow the link above to get the full aerial view.

Sunday, October 4th — 7 PM : Thin Edge New Music Collective & Tara Kannagara
My consistently impeccable friends, the Toronto chamber ensemble Thin Edge New Music Collective performs a program of work by Anahita Abbasi, Leila Adu, Lieke Van Der Voort, and Franghiz Ali-Zadeh in a double bill with trumpet-wielding sophisti-pop queen Tara Kannagara. It's a match made in heaven if you ask me, even if (especially because?) it defies conventional curatorial wisdom. 

INFO HERE

Sunday, October 11th — 1 PM : c_RL & Olivia Shortt
This inspired exquisite-corpse-style event features one of my absolute favourite Toronto improvising outfits c_RL (Allison Cameron, Germaine Liu, Nicole Rampersaud) with the truly remarkable saxophonist, composer, and multifaceted artist Oliva Shortt. It was originally slated to be a part of the Göteborg Art Sounds Festival in Sweden, but of course, this cultural exchange was curtailed on account of circumstances. On the upside, though, this online iteration (still co-presented with GAS Festival) makes this partnership (and the unique recombinatory presentation) available for all.

INFO HERE

Friday, October 16th — 7 PM : Du Yun & OK Miss + Classic Roots

OK Miss, led by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Du Yun, was concocted to offer "a singular experience—a group existing as both rock band and chamber ensemble, all while fostering all that exists in-between." Here, this wild genre-bulldozing combo appears alongside deliciously bass-saturated Toronto techno artist Classic Roots in an event co-presented with the Aga Khan Museum.

INFO HERE


                                                            

ANNOUNCING! A. Hutchie — Potion Shop
(LP/CD/DL out: November 20th on Cosmic Resonance) PRE-ORDER FRIDAY!

Potion Shop is a pop record but embraces everything from ethereal folk to esoteric rhymes, from sunburnt soul to lysergic lullabies, all the while showcasing Hamilton's A. Hutchie (aka Aaron Hutchinson) and his distinctive and decidedly psychedelic arrangements. One may know Hutchinson as a member of Haolin Munk, Eschaton or as one of the founders of celebrated venue/label HAVN. He has also collaborated with the likes of Lea Bertucci, JFM, Ellis, Zoon and YlangYlang. Here, his crisp wind arrangements crawl forth from thick synth haze, as 808 drums rain down on choruses of birds, and muffled pianos meander past distended, muck-encrusted drum samples. It's also a vehicle for songs courtesy of a diverse cast of guests, variously featuring Hamiltonian vocal protagonists Sarah Good and Benita Whyte of Persons Crew, Doom Squad's Allie Blumas, pre-eminent MC Emay, Kirk Starkey of classical fusionists Quarteto Gelato, and countless others.

PRE-ORDER HERE
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Luciane Cardassi — Going North
(CD/DL out: October 30th on Redshift Records) PRE-ORDER NOW!

Award-winning pianist Luciane Cardassi’s Going North vividly unfolds a magic-realist homage to her two homelands with eight piano (+ voice) and electronics pieces from some of Canada and Brazil’s most intriguing composers. These carefully selected pieces collectively inhabit a world that is opaque yet ethereal, introspective but restlessly dynamic. Each one’s electroacoustic elements read as organic, psychedelic extensions of her performance rather than as contrived digital appendages—an impression helped by Cardassi’s enviable precision and exquisite command of the piano’s extended vocabulary.  Obladada recently remarked that "it has created its own abstracted zone, a form of mutant jazz or textural electronics as much as a gently fragmenting multi-layered suite. A wildly odd and bristling work, squeezing every thoughtful drop out of seldom grouped and gathered ingredients."

PRE-ORDER HERE
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junctQín — reTHiNK
(CD/DL out: October 23rd on Redshift Records) PRE-ORDER NOW!

Toronto’s junctQín—comprised of Stephanie Chua, Elaine Lau and Joseph Ferretti—commemorates a decade of intrepid exploration with their long-awaited debut album. Offering a spirited and diverse collection of multi-limbed pieces spanning Maurice Ravel’s 1918 curio Frontispice to works by contemporary music’s leading up-and-comers (including Emily Doolittle, Alex Eddington, and Monica Pearce), reTHINK captures everything from phantom textures summoned from the piano’s inner sanctum to Casio-caressing postmodernism. It’s a buoyant and decidedly celebratory album that sits at the sweet spot between virtuosity and focussed listening, and whose whimsy always remains anchored in profound musical insight.

PRE-ORDER HERE
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Piano and Erhu Project — Volume 3
(CD/DL out now on Redshift Records)

The third instalment of Corey Hamm (piano) and Nicole Ge Li's (erhu) remarkable PEP (Piano and Erhu Project) is the culmination of a nine-year exploration of their unique instrumentation including international tours, and award nominations, as well collaborations with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, and many of contemporary music's most brilliant minds. The present volume features noted composers such as Gao Ping, Michael Finnissy, Somei Satoh, Gabriel Prokofiev and more, lovingly sequenced into what the WholeNote's Andrew Timar recently called an "exhilarating program" 

ORDER HERE
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New Hermitage — Unearth
(CD/DL out: September 17th — New HermitagePRE-ORDER NOW!

Following their Music Nova Scotia Award-winning collaboration with Jeff Reilly, the fifth album by Halifax / Montréal-based improvising quartet New HermitageUnearth, unfolds through a series of whispered vignettes, offering the ensemble’s most focussed and cohesive statement to date. Drawing on the spontaneous music practice of leader Andrew MacKelvie’s mentor and collaborator Jerry Granelli, Pauline Oliveros’ Deep Listening™, and a vocabulary of eco-dystopian imagery (as reflected in their name), the record follows a dream-like logic, superimposing soft timbral impressions and tangled melodic evasions, as though interpreting a half-erased chalk portrait of spiritual free jazz. 


PRE-ORDER HERE
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NOTABLE TITLES FROM R~M ARTISTS


Recent coverage for Riparian Media Artists:

Obladada on Luciane Cardassi's Going North

Rocky Mountain Outlook on Luciane Cardassi

Esoteros on New Hermitage's Unearth

Troy Dostert (All About Jazz) on New Hermitage's Unearth

Normand Babin (Neomemoire) on New Hermitage's Unearth

Grego Applegate Edwards (Gapplegate Classical-Modern Music Review) on PEP (Piano and Erhu Project)'s Volume 3

Remy Franck (Pizzicato.Lu) on PEP (Piano and Erhu Project) Volume 3

Griffin Martel (Musicworks) on Jordan Nobles' Chiaroscuro

Ken Waxman (JazzWord) on Rob Clutton Trio's Counsel of Primaries



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FURTHER BANDCAMP SOUNDS TO EXPLORE

Patrick Graham — Lumina
Montréal percussionist Patrick Graham possesses enviable insight into tone and that's the glue that binds this engrossing album of textural improvisations. Graham deploys an array of different instruments (and expertise) from many different origins but sidesteps appropriative referencing in favour of deft atmospheric world-building. 

A. Hutchie — Executioner
I gave you the low-down on Mr. Hutchie above, but this just-released single on David "Egyptrixx" Psutka's Halocline Trance imprint, offers a different side of his work. Well... more acurately two different sides. While the eerie title track carves out a space somewhere between Xiu Xiu and the sparser moments of Laura Nyro's New York Tendaberry, the flip, "Disklavier" is a colourful wide-screen adventure through various textures. 


Beverly Glenn-Copeland — Transmissions
At Last! (get it?) a recording that documents the glory and wonder of Beverly Glenn-Copeland's recent re-emergence. Sure, his classic records are unassailably brilliant and powerful, but anyone that's seen him live in the past few years can attest to the singular magic, wisdom, and generosity he summons in concert.  On this career-spanning compilation Transmissions there are a number of such new moments... and hopefully this means there'll be many more to come. 

Najva Ensemble & Reza Manbachi — Passing Through The Dark
There seems to be a lot of interesting innovation of various kinds happening within the local West Asian/ Middle Eastern traditonal music scenes and Iranian composer and tar player Reza Manbachi is a prime example. His ambitious new release Passing Through The Dark sees him leading an 11-piece group within the classical frameworks while taking intriguing formal and coloroustic turns, leaning into the microtonal intervals inherent to this music. 

Marc Sabat & The Harmonic Space Orchestra — Gioseffo Zarlino (2015​/​2019)
Speaking of microtonality, reading about Canadian Berlin-residing composer Marc Sabat, you're likely to discover his exhaustive research into Just Intonation. While that's certainly fascinating, what I find even more compelling is the wondrous overall sound of his music. This beautiful new 72-minute recording is no exception. It unfolds its material patiently while offering delicate-but-bold contrasts.


EX POM — Much of A Sound

EX POM is the duo of Robin Dann (fearless leader of Toronto faves Bernice) and the ubiquitous Ben Gunning on the newly minted Tone Bonk label. The music is pretty much precisely what you expect and that's a good thing. The songs are playful but wistful, hovering but groovy, catchy but circutious, and housed in crisp, nuanced electronic production. A funny deet: the guests session musicians are all saxophonists — namely Joseph Shabason, Karen Ng, and Ted Crosby.
 

For more recommendations, check out my collection (and wishlist) on Bandcamp : https://bandcamp.com/nickstorring


                                                             

 
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