MC Maguire – Dystophilia
MC Maguire Orchestra/CPU
Neuma 190 (neumarecords.org)

The other day when I heard my neighbour’s pounding bass (something pop, disco or otherwise annoying) I responded by turning Dystophilia, M.C. Maguire’s new release, up to 11; the battle ended soon after. He offers sound-pressure supremacy that out-cools whatever tired torch song or clichéd show tune my neighbour enjoys. As a pacifist I don’t relish these battles, and only engage when the next-door volume is too high for my peaceful soul, but Maguire’s Yummy World (track one, followed by Another Lucid Dream) provides sonic delight as well as firepower. That said, I caution against the all-out assault: this is rich and textured music, so while high-volume might be your thing, you’ll possibly miss some of the depths if you indulge in your kink too much. You do you, though, no judgement.

Gone are the days, I think, when record executives would target sound thieves in their war on audio crime (aka creativity). There’s just way too much borrowing or sampling today. They all make a mint on streaming platforms, anyway, enjoying profits from the Justin Biebers of the industry. How can they prevent Robin Hoodlums like Maguire from using a tune like Yummy to generate the mind-blowing soundscape presented here? Do I hear the Beebs? Arguable. What I definitely hear is pop-mageddon, a kind of hyper-layered riff on every aspect of the aesthetic. 

One reviewer references (or steals, I think) John Oswald’s term “plunderphonics;” Oswald got in trouble with another Michael, the late King of pop. I’d be disappointed to learn either that Maguire had received warning shots across his bow, or worse, had bowed to the power of Big Music’s money managers and received permission to extrapolate the stuff he uses/sends up/improves. Anyway, the result is exciting, even if not used in battle.

Jan Järvlepp – Sonix and Other Tonix
Various Artists
Navona Records nv6603 (navonarecords.com)

Ottawa-based Jan Järvlepp is an experienced composer, freelance and orchestral cellist, teacher and recording technician. After completing a doctorate in composition and 20th century avant-garde music, he began composing in the neo-tonal style instead, incorporating accessible classical, contemporary, world, folk, jazz, pop and rock music styles for various instrumentations. 

Sonix, composed for the Mexican Ónix ensemble, combines elements from two of his earlier works. Performed here by Trio Casals with guests Chelsey Menig flute and Antonello DiMatteo clarinet, there’s exciting listening throughout with opening fast tonal minimalistic lines, a middle section with supportive piano background below calming lyrical flute, and repeated accented descending short lines to closing loud rock chord. Trio Casals perform Trio No. 3, Järvlepp’s three movement musical protest against the rise of surveillance. The first movement Surveillance Cameras Everywhere features repeated piano rhythms with accented instrument shots imitating surveillance cameras snapping pictures. 

Nishikawa Ensemble performs Shinkansen, a two-movement ride on a Japanese bullet train musically driven here by short percussive hits. Members of the Benda Quartet perform Trio No.5, for violin, viola and cello, Järvlepp’s protest over the COVID shutdown rules. Strength in the Face of Adversity has a classically-influenced violin melody, and the constant rhythmic backdrop keeps the tense music and listener moving during the shutdown. 

The solo piano Insect Drive was composed at home during lockdown with Järvlepp’s self-described “treble sounds and bouncy rhythms.” It is performed here by Anna Kislitsyna. Trio Casals returns for In Memoriam, a respectful, caring, sad lyrical compositional tribute for his late brother.

Listen to 'Jan Järvlepp: Sonix and Other Tonix' Now in the Listening Room

Realm
Allison Burik
Independent (allisonburik.bandcamp.com)

As a gender-fixed male, I bear some shadowy traits that may include misogyny, and certainly some measure of toxicity; these are my boulder on the slope, if you’ll allow it. And how might this disclosure bear on this review? I can’t deny that I was reluctant or even unwilling to engage with Realm, featuring the music and performance of Allison Burik. Such subtext as one can read in the liner notes and source materials of the disc’s inspirations would indicate a staunch, maybe even aggressive, feminism in the author, with a certain degree of warning of the potential cost of being a disrespectful male. Track 6, Heiemo og Nykken, references a folk tale wherein an attempted seduction of N by H (the dark spirit of the deeps) ends badly for H(im). 

But, you see, it’s all deeply beautiful, if mostly sombre. The multi-abled Burik plays and sings overlays of bass clarinet, alto sax and flute, as well as guitar. Their voice is true, although there is a risky low low alto vocal that pairs in fantastic fragmenting unison pitch with the bass clarinet. Beware such witchery! It’s potent. 

I am enamored of the kind of instrumentalism where beauty of tone results from musicianship, and only in its service. Such is the approach I hear here; I believe we are all in some ways vain, but mostly it’s just better to be good. Burik makes the instruments work, with surprising and fascinating techniques.  

I could go on, but you won’t benefit from reading more description, and there are confines I would exceed. Better you should grab the disc, the beauty outbids the fearsomeness. The final track is built around a poem by Sappho, and it’s stunning.

Three Cellos
Kenneth Kirschner
Greyfade (greyfade.com)

Recently-founded creative record label Greyfade has taken contemporary music production and financial compensation ethics to a new level; they are refusing to stream. Not on any platform will you find their presentations; they offer downloads only. As described by Greyfade’s founder Joseph Branciforte when explaining some of the reasoning behind the download-only access, he refers to the resurgence of vinyl being the most intimate, commercial-free listening experience: “…in the digital realm, we believe that the direct download model most closely mirrors this private interaction and should be the preferred mode of exchange.” By avoiding the financial dissuasions of streaming, the label is committed to an artist-led production that hopes to fairly compensate creators for their work. 

Although the hard copy of the accompanying linen-bound book was not available for this review, the PDF featured 87 pages of casually written blog-like descriptions of the process, beginning with the uncertainty of converting Kirschner’s digital composition Three Cellos to Branciforte’s painstakingly detailed transcriptions, to then being precisely interpreted by cellist Christopher Gross. The book may not be a gripping read for the average listener, but it does shed some interesting light on the process, the details and the complexities of composing and then notating from various MIDI sources. In the composer’s own words: “The primary challenge with transcribing my work is, of course, the total lack of metric structure… It’s not that the meters are strange or difficult – it’s that they’re just not there at all.”

 This album will take some gentle peeling back to reveal the qualities it hopes to share, namely the dedication and craftsmanship that was poured into this translation from digital composition to acoustic interpretation. I might have enjoyed having access to the original MIDI compositions in order to fully appreciate the transformation. The nine tracks bear similarities but repeated deep listening slowly unfolds the nuances and range of energy played with supreme skill, precision and sensitivity by cellist Gross. A standout track is Part 3, the most dynamic and accessible in form.

Melia Watras – Play/Write
Melia Watras; Various Artists
Planet M Records PMR-005 (meliawatras.com/playwrite-album)

In the midst of contemporary classical music releases that tend to bank on a cerebral approach to music, here is an album that requires listening with one’s heart. Exploring the relationship between words and music, and close collaborations with composers, performers, writers and poets, Play / Write unfolds an exquisite world in which beauty and dreams flirt with sorrow. Compositions by Melia Watras (also a superb violist), Frances White and Leilehua Lanzilotti focus on strings and involve texts by Herbert Woodward Martin, James Pritchett, Luce Irigaray and Michael Jinsoo Lim (who also plays violin) forming a close bond between what is felt and what is just implied.

The album opens with Watras’ 5 Poems of Herbert Woodward Martin (for narrator, violin and viola). Watras has a particular knack for string writing, expertly using colours and timbres to create melodic and textural vignettes that underline the flow of Martin’s wonderful poetry, spoken theatrically and amusingly by Carrie Henneman Shaw. Performances by Watras and Lim are sensuous and beautiful, particularly in Frances White’s As night falls for violin, viola, narrator and electronic sounds. This poignant piece follows the memories of the female narrator (Sheila Daniels) as she lays on her deathbed. The boundaries between a dream world and reality are dissolved with a juxtaposition of the background and foreground sounds, that is so brilliant we feel intimately involved in its setting. The music adds a visceral dimension to the beautifully simple text by James Pritchett, with string segments going in and out, conversing or lamenting, and never letting go of the intensity of the experience. Lanzelotti’s to be two for violin and viola ends the album’s sonic journey in serene surrender.

Project Earth: The Blue Chapter
Iris Trio
Centrediscs CMCCD 33924 (cmccanada.org/shop/cmccd-33924)

Newfoundland is poetry and birds and surf, rocks and accents and music. This disc, from the Iris Trio, performing the music of jazz pianist Florian Hoefner, and including the poems of Don McKay, provides a window opening into the experience of being there, reminding the listener to seek what is wild or untainted, if anything of that nature remains to be found. 

Artistic activity that attempts what Blue Chapter does, whether effectual or not, always makes me sad. Fortunately in this instance, it doesn’t also provoke grumbles; rather, I can just listen and forget that the world these artists want to help us appreciate may already be gone. Consider the lament McKay has written for the now extinct Great Auk, whose calls were described in words by naturalists; they died out before the advent of sound recording. Spoken word followed by a musical soundscape, both words and musical cries make us lament what we missed. The sadness isn’t that we don’t know what the cry was like, but that we never will. In Song for the Song of the Great Auk the pathos is undeniable. Kudos to all three players (Christine Carter on clarinet, violist Zoë Martin-Doike and pianist Anna Petrova) for their confident and calm expression. 

In his note in the liner material, McKay ruefully comments on his approximate success in staying “on cue” (“with the beat” for the musicians among us). It’s fun to imagine him struggling on the learning curve with the band, and managing at a far better rate than his self-assigned 70%. 

And there are fun tracks too, there are joyful expressions, there’s a Newfie kitchen party among the nesting birds on the islands. Forgive me for feeling Blue, but that is the colour of this chapter, the first, says the publicity material, of three. We look forward to the next two.

Walter Kaufmann – Piano Concerto No.3; Symphony No.3
Elisaveta Blumina; Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin; David Robert Coleman
CPO 555 631-2 (cpo.de)

After fleeing Nazism in 1934, Czech-Jewish Walter Kaufmann (1907-1984) composed and conducted for radio in Bombay and films in London, then became the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra’s first music director (1948-1957) before teaching ethnomusicology at Indiana University. When I reviewed the first-ever CD of his music (The WholeNote, September 2020), performed by Toronto’s ARC Ensemble, I wrote, “(I) hope that this superb CD will inspire more recordings of Kaufmann’s music.”

That’s exactly what happened! That CD so “fascinated” Berlin-based conductor David Robert Coleman that he decided to record four works selected from Kaufmann’s manuscripts in Indiana University’s library. Three of these works reflect Kaufmann’s studies of Indian ragas, melodies and rhythms, admiringly incorporated into his essentially European, late-Romantic compositions, just like the pieces recorded by the ARC Ensemble.

Symphony No.3 (1936) and An Indian Symphony (1943) date from Kaufmann’s years in India. Soulful woodwind solos, pulsating strings and dramatic brass and percussion recall the music of solemn Hindu rituals and jubilant dances that I heard during three trips to India. Six Indian Miniatures (1965), dominated by long-lined, wistful woodwind melodies over slowly throbbing strings and percussion, ending in boisterous revelry, testify to Kaufmann’s enduring love of India’s music. 

There’s nothing “Indian” about Kaufmann’s colourfully exuberant, Ravel-like Piano Concerto No.3 (1950), two extroverted, percussive movements framing a contemplative Andante, brilliantly performed by Elisaveta Blumina. Conductor Coleman, echoing my 2020 review, hopes this CD will help Kaufmann’s music “find the recognition it deserves.” So do I.

Ebony Chants
Paolo Marchettini
New Focus Recordings FCR402 (newfocusrecordings.com)

Ebony Chants, featuring the music of clarinetist Paolo Marchettini, is a day in the life of the second-most listenable woodwind (after bassoon). It opens with the first of Due Canti: Il canto del giorno, and closes, after much business and play, with the suitably named counterpart, Il canto della notte.

  For several works Marchettini is joined by  Meng Zhang and Ka Hei Chan on clarinet and Tommy Shermulis on bass clarinet. The parts are rotated democratically (if the listing order on the jacket indicates what it seems to). They are all excellent, and the material is mostly in brief segments lasting in the range of one to three minutes. Most delightful are his Cinque Fanfare Napoletane, which reference popular traditional melodies with affection and humour. Nothing is ever trite, although on the overly-serious side I am less of a fan of Nec Clari, a somewhat foggy multi-track overdubbing of the composer’s own playing. At over six minutes I lose attention (a product of my times, I admit), and I find his tone on bass clarinet to be less than compelling. Shermulis, by contrast, sounds terrific both as ensemble member and soloist for Entrée, a tough-sounding solo work. I’d love to hear him take a swing at Soft, Franco Donatoni’s work for the same instrument. 

Sad to say, the online jacket material includes only Marchettini’s bio details, not those of his collaborators, a detail I mentally file alongside other examples of sub-optimal digital publishing.

Listen to 'Ebony Chants' Now in the Listening Room

Kamala Sankaram – Crescent
Kamala Sankaram; Andie Tanning; Ludovica Burtone; Joanna Mattrey; Mariel Roberts
Neuma 187 (neumarecords.org)

Listening to Crescent by Kamala Sankaram it is important not to be blinded by her use of post-production techniques and devices. Focus your attention instead on the theme of the programme: the all-too-prescient demise of humanity by its own hand raised as if in a defiant gesture aimed at mastering the fate of spaceship earth.

The programme is divided into two works – Crescent, a hypnotic and lyrical chronology of the destruction of the beautiful ecology of the planet that has forgotten its celestial creation, terrestrial beauty and artful history. Cue the poetry of W.B. Yeats here. This is en route to destruction by manufactured scientific pseudo-progress. This demise is tracked by Sankaram’s mesmerising narration of her Heat Map series, to show how over the past hundred years or so the planet is hurtling towards destruction by global warming. This part of Sankaram’s programme ends with the clairvoyant, vocal-and-percussion driven song Crescent delivered in a sotto voce wail.

The second part of the programme features Sankaram’s voice emerging through a tremendous arco introduction by a string quartet. This work is entitled 5 Rasas (rasa means essence or taste). The pregnant vibrancy of the bowed introduction redolent of bells, electronica and field recordings of the twittering songs of birds, has a mystical pastoral quality. Sankaram’s vocals emerge from this prerecorded passage like an electrifying polytonal scherzo, performed with an almost mesmeric processional rhythm.

Listen to 'Kamala Sankaram: Crescent' Now in the Listening Room

Takács Assad Labro
Takács Quartet; Julien Labro; Clarice Assad
Yarlung Records YAR59691 (yarlungrecords.com)

The Takács Quartet was formed almost 50 years ago in 1975 in Hungary. Now based in the United States, original member András Fejér (cello) is joined by Edward Dusinberre and Harumi Rhodes (violins) and Richard O’Neill (viola). World-renowned for their performances of traditional mainstream string quartet repertoire and some contemporary works, here they expand outside the classical realm with guests Julien Labro (bandoneon/composition) and Clarice Assad (piano/vocals/composition).

The seven compositions jump around stylistically yet still connect. Circles by Bryce Dessner begins with Labro’s calming bandoneon changing to fast florid virtuosic lines supported by contrasting strings with detached ascending/descending lines and rhythmic shots. Labro composed Meditation No.1 during the pandemic. The lyrical bandoneon plays held notes above string lines, tight conversations with strings, bellows shakes and tango stylings referencing Labro’s respect for Piazzolla and Saluzzi. 

Multi-talented Clarice Assad is represented by three works here. She composed and performs Luminous from Pendulum Suite for solo piano where the fast percussive piano start leads to modulating lines drawn from Brazilian jazz supporting her rhythmic scat-like vocalizations. Constellation is a three-movement work for piano and violin to be played in any order. The final track, Assad’s Clash, is inspired by society’s stressful social tensions. Intriguing strings at times sound like solos yet all fit together. A great mix of snippets of styles and tempi, I like the accents and string plucks making a “clash” effect, and the closing dark, grim cello and bandoneon interchanges. Intriguing works by Milton Nascimento and Kaija Saariaho are also included, making for a brilliant, wide-ranging and colourful disc.

Listen to 'Takács Assad Labro' Now in the Listening Room

Summertime in Leith – In Concert at the Historic Leith Church
Paul Novotny; Robi Botos
Triplet Records TR10026-ATMOS (tripletrecords.com)

When two of Canada’s finest, most skilled and internationally acclaimed jazz musicians come together in a performance of phenomenal symbiosis, it is an occasion worthy of celebration. As the title of this fine recording would suggest, bassist/producer Paul Novotny and pianist (and Oscar Peterson protégé) Robi Botos graced the stage of the Historic Leith Church in Annan, Ontario on Georgian Bay and performed much loved compositions for an enraptured audience. With exquisite production, all of the electricity and spontaneity of the live event has been captured here. 

Six dynamic tracks are included in the recording – each one a rare jewel. Appropriately Gershwin’s Summertime opens the programme. The arrangement begins with a deep, languid bass pizzicato, which intertwines with diaphanous upper register piano keys as the tune morphs into a sensual, timeless journey. Novotny’s solo is lyrical, facile and loaded with emotional colours, and Botos answers with deeply rhythmic ideas, never overplaying.

A stand-out is the duo’s take on Wheatland from Peterson’s Canadiana Suite. Novotny and Botos capture the majesty of central Canada, grooving à la the iconic Peterson and yet putting their own, contemporary and harmonically complex stamp on it. Novotny uses the full scope of his bass to create fluid, gravitas-laden tones that are imbued with a profound sense of rhythm and joy, and Botos is just simply breathtaking.  

Another highlight is The Flick which comes from Earl VanDyke (Motown’s “Soul Brothers”). This track is pure adrenaline, excitement and elation, with Novotny relentlessly laying it down while Botos fearlessly dives deep into blues and American soul. On this brilliant and well-produced project, the pair have created not only an auditory delight, but healing music for our very souls. Bravo!

Listen to 'Summertime in Leith: In Concert at the Historic Leith Church' Now in the Listening Room

Oh Mother
Andrea Superstein
Cellar Music CMR082823 (cellarlive.com)

Despite often deifying our mothers, as men we tend to allow ourselves to – wittingly or unwittingly – either ignore motherhood or push it so far into the background as to forget it might even be “a thing.” On her wonderfully lyrical jazz recording Oh Mother, and after sharing her experiences as a mother of course, Andrea Superstein reminds us of both the potent struggles and unfettered joys of motherhood.

The album comprises mostly originals, except for Everywhere by Christine McVie, May You by Ayelet Rose Gottlieb and So In Love by Cole Porter. The apogee of this fine record is, however, Superstein’s The Heart Inside, with its long, sculpted lines, arranged by Superstein and Elizabeth Shepherd, delivered with uncommon grace and beauty by Superstein. Here, as elsewhere, her vocals are light, plaintive and display a colourful, many-splendored sonority. 

Superstein’s introspective vocal exhortations are boosted by inspirational instrumentation that lift the songs into a higher realm. Best of all these are honest sounds of love, joy, and serenity – all of which are de rigueur the province of a woman who has made a life in which art and parenthood are aglow with success and pride.

The performers inhabit the songs with idiomatic allure, and a children’s choir adds charming recitations which are spliced into Superstein’s memorable vocals. This is a musical treat not simply for mothers – young or old – but for lovers of fine vocal music everywhere.

Listen to 'Oh Mother' Now in the Listening Room

Available Light
Daniel Janke Winter Trio
Chronograph Records CR-104 (danieljanke.com)

Daniel Janke has had a varied career over several decades as pianist, composer, filmmaker and more. He is based in the Yukon where you might see him composing for and conducting the Problematic Orchestra, recording in his studio, playing jazz in a local lounge or directing a film. But a month later he could be in Berlin as the Musical Director for a Bowie retrospective, performing at a new music festival in Kitchener, Ontario or taking part in a music residency in France, which is where he met Basile Rahola (bass) and Ariel Tessier (drums). 

Available Light is his second album using the name Winter Trio and it contains original and traditional pieces emphasizing Janke’s gospel roots. For example, the final song Gospel for Betty is a gorgeously deliberate piece named for his mother who sang gospel songs. The traditional Blessed Assurance receives a beautiful treatment beginning with a sparsely improvised solo piano building into the full trio and then lightens into a modestly stated melody. Available Light is an elegant and subtle album that contains jazz and new music sophistication while never straying too far from its gospel fundamentals.

Listen to 'Available Light' Now in the Listening Room

Magpie
Sarah Jerrom
TPR TPR-0019-02 (sarahjerrom.com)

The incredible Sarah Jerrom’s 2024 suite Magpie shows her heading – with a superbly orchestrated large ensemble – into the countryside of her (ostensible) childhood, making friends with the fabled magpie (and other birds) in the Canadian forest. I have long been an unabashedly dyed-in-the-wool admirer of the songwriter and vocalist; now I have decided that I would like to sojourn into the wilds of her interior landscape with her.

On the eight sections of Magpie, you will hear the sense of freedom in her voice as she remembers the birds of the Canadian Rockies and the elk of the forest, while the elegance of her voice and visionary music and the superbly rehearsed big band become part of a sweeping landscape that mixes beauty and danger, and the sounds of animals and birds, in particular the flight of her magpie. 

But should I journey with Jerrom, I couldn’t match the brilliance of her travelling companions: among them the inimitable flutist Laura Chambers, oboist Cheih-Ving Lu, saxophonists Tara Davidson, Mike Murley, Kirk MacDonald and Shriantha Beddage, trumpeters James Rhodes and Kevin Turcotte, trombonists Olivia Esther and William Carn, the magical pianist Nancy Walker, bassist Rob McBride and drummer Ernesto Cervini.

In such songs as Circling Feathers, or The Mountain Cries, and in Jerrom’s ethereally beautiful vocals everywhere – whether evocative of freezing nights or long rainy days – each track takes us into some wild place with trusted and inspiring musical friends.

Listen to 'Magpie' Now in the Listening Room

Mike Downes – The Way In
Mike Downes; Robi Botos; Ted Quinlan; Joaquin Nunez Hidalgo; Davide di Renzo
M Music (mikedownes.bandcamp.com/album/the-way-in)

Versatility and the ability to bend and cross genres are valued qualities in musicians. Multi-JUNO award winning, renowned bassist Mike Downes is the embodiment of these qualities. His newest release is a great showcase of his prolific talents as a unique and captivating musician and composer. The track list is chock-full of songs penned by the bassist himself and his lyrical compositional style is accessible  and able to be enjoyed and appreciated. Downes himself says the album showcases his “deep gratitude to the long lineage of extraordinary bassists who blazed the way forward.” There’s a certain beauty and humbleness there when a musician who so many look up to pays homage to his idols in such a way. 

These pieces are such a fitting example of Downes’ sensitive and melodious style of playing, he makes his instrument truly “sing.” What is exceptional is how he draws out such emotions and creates a truly clear imagery in the listener’s mind; he has a way of making the bass into a storyteller, almost as if we’re listening to it speak and sing to us. Coming back full circle to the versatility mentioned earlier, each song has a completely unique and distinct feel, even very specific textures which come to the forefront through the different ways in which Downes creates sounds and layers them; from bowing to rhythmic tapping and melodious pizzicato. A must-add to your music collection!

Listen to 'Mike Downes: The Way In' Now in the Listening Room