Tag Archives: music

Eric Brace’s Cartes Postales

I’ve been reviewing the music of Eric Brace for perhaps 15 years now, and I didn’t think he could surprise me much. I’ve enjoyed him solo and in various permutations – with his band Last Train Home, with Peter Cooper … Continue reading

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The Weather Station’s self-titled album

Toronto-based musician Tamara Lindeman records and performs as The Weather Station. This self-titled album is her fourth release under that name, and it’s a bold, self-confident report back from the baffling frontiers of adulthood, relationships, independence, dependence and life in … Continue reading

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Ugasanie’s Border of Worlds

Ugansie is the name under which Russian musician Pavel Malyshkin creates his art, which is called dark polar ambient. Border of Worlds is his fourth release since he started making this kind of music in 2010. This one is focused … Continue reading

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Jackie Shane’s Any Other Way

I don’t feel too bad about not knowing who Jackie Shane is, because she’s mostly unknown outside of Toronto, where she had a brief career as a soul singer in the 1960s. But I do feel bad that I never … Continue reading

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Saffron Ensemble’s Will You?

I can’t get enough of the music made by Shujaat Husain Khan and Katayoun Goudarzi. Fortunately, they make a lot of music, whether as a duo or in ensembles with other musicians. The thread that runs through their music is … Continue reading

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Bert Jansch’s Living in the Shadows (Part 1)

Bert Jansch, who died in 2011, was quite a prolific musician for quite a long time. I was a rather casual fan of his — well, actually I was an intense fan of one of his albums, and a casual … Continue reading

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The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band 50th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition

Somehow 50 years have come and gone since Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was released. And unless you’ve been living in a cave (or have been too preoccupied with the intense political goings-on around the world in 2017), you … Continue reading

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Cats Laughing’s A Long Time Gone – Reunion at MiniCon 50

“Achievement unlocked!” I have to confess something to you.  The reason I asked to review this CD and DVD set wasn’t because I knew about the band.  It was because I like cats, and the band name is incredible.  So … Continue reading

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Toby Faber’s Stradivari’s Genius: Five Violins, One Cello, and Three Centuries of Enduring Perfection

One of the most shamefully puzzling phenomena in the history of our continual technological “progress” is the simple fact that a violin maker of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries manufactured instruments that no one has since been able … Continue reading

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Colin Symes’ Setting the Record Straight: A Material History of Classical Recording

One of the fundamental concepts of contemporary critical theory, whether it be post-modern, feminist, post-colonial, queer theory, or whatever subset one has chosen, is “discourse.” Discourse in this sense is not to be taken as mere converse employing words as … Continue reading

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