Writing

MUSIC JOURNALISM

My writing about music and musicians has appeared regularly in Musicworks Magazine since 2008. In 2015, I became one of their contributing editors.  Within that time I’ve written everything from reviews to cover features, spanning various styles of across the gamut of exploratory music.  In 2017, my profile on Halifax musician Nick Dourado was nominated for a National Magazine Award (Best Profile).

Here is a selection of features I’ve written for them:
Maria De Alvear, Rebel By Nature (Issue 131)
Sarah Hennies, Linguist In The Land Of Noises (Issue 130)
Allison Cameron’s Rarefied Soundworld (Issue 122)
The New Sounds of Lebanon (Issue 117)

And here are some selected reviews:
Samuel Andreyev — Music With No Edges (Online)
Kyle Gann — Hyperchromatica (Issue 132)
Rasmussen, Damon, Dorji — To The Animal Kingdom (Issue 129)
Matana Roberts — Coin Coin Chapter 3: River Run Thee (Issue 121)
Linda Catlin Smith — Ballad (Issue 108)
Brian Ruryk — Cycle of Fords (Issue 107)

My work has also appeared in The Wire, Exclaim!, and the Banff Centre’s InStudio Magazine, including their Spring 2018 cover story. I also recently wrote my first piece for The WholeNote, a page-long review of Paul Dolden’s Golden Dolden box-set.

LINER NOTES

In addition to critical/ journalistic writing about music, I’ve also crafted notes to accompany a number of notable recordings:

Memory Pearl — Music for Seven Paintings (2020, Idée Fixe Records)
An intriguing proposition: lush, downright beautiful synthscapes that are crafted with the intention of honouring—but not necessarily narrating—seven abstract-expressionist paintings (by some of its most noted practitioners)

Rob Clutton Trio — Counsel of Primaries (2020, Snailbongbong Records)
Rob Clutton Trio features its namesake leading saxophonist Karen Ng and drummer Nick Fraser through exquisitely porous and peculiar compositions. These pieces are both unmistakably his, but also offer considerable space for the voices of his collaborators.

Anna Höstman (Cheryl Duvall, Piano) — Harbour (2020, Redshift Records)
Debut full-length featuring piano works from celebrated Victoria-based composer Anna Höstman as played by Toronto pianist Cheryl Duvall (co-founder of Thin Edge New Music Collective).

Rob Clutton & Tony Malaby — Offering (2019, Snailbongbong Records)
Duo recording from Toronto bassist and composer Rob Clutton and NYC saxophonist Tony Malaby. The album blends free improvisations and a unique compositional approach devised by Clutton and involving the transcription his own freeform playing.

New Chance — Hardly Working (2019, New Chance)
Special risographed piece to accompany this album’s release event. New Chance creates stunning house music that subverts elements of the idiom’s history to produce a sound that’s both innovative and deeply familiar.

Various Artists — Electronic Voyages: Early Moog Recordings 1964-69 (2019, Waveshaper Media)
I interviewed a number of electronic music innovators to discuss their unique approach to this emerging technology. The compilation features tracks from Lothar and the Hand People, Joel Chadabe, Herbert Deutsch, and more.

Bekah Simms — Impurity Chains (2018, Centrediscs)
Juno-nominated compendium by this emerging Canadian composer working at the refreshing intersection of modernist-derived gestural-timbral exploration, and wide-eyed, Internet-addled wonder.

Michael Vincent Waller — Trajectories (Vinyl Edition — 2017, Recital)
An essay on Waller’s uniquely personal fusion of generous lyricism and post-minimal aesthetics accompanies this album’s limited edition vinyl release.

The Canadian Composers Series (2016-7, Another Timbre)
Ten-CD series of work by various experimental Canadian composers including Linda Catlin Smith, Cassandra Miller, Martin Arnold, Lance Austin Olsen, Alex Jang, Isaiah Ceccarelli, Marc Sabat, and Chiyoko Szlavnics. My essay appears in an accompanying booklet with photos, art and interviews, and online.

Syrinx — Tumblers From The Vault (2015, RVNG)
A reissue of the entire discography of pioneering Canadian trio.

Intersystems — Intersystems (2014, Alga Marghen)
Essay for a book accompanying this complete-discography reissue by this unclassifiable 1960’s interdisciplinary collective.