Yang Chen’s skronk blang-blang
Percussionist Yang Chen interview: We discuss music-making as a social practice, how great percussion sounds, marching bands in Texas, shifting senses of time, and how a piece can go...
new music
Allison Cameron has charme
Composer and improviser Allison Cameron on indeterminacy, charme, wonder, cadences, fragmented melodies, treating the ensemble as a single instrument, codas, the ineffable, prepared vibraphone, small noise improvisation, and much...
Just music
This month it’s mostly listening. We listen to Allison Cameron, Powerdove, Semay Wu, Jon Hassell, Ailbhe nic Oireachtaigh, Eric Chenaux, and Raven Chacon and Marc Sabat…not necessarily in that...
Stephen Chase on natural harmonics
A listening session and interview with composer / improviser Stephen Chase. Stephen and Josh met at Glasgow’s Tectonics Festival to chat about various works. Listen to Stephen’s works for...
Stephen Chase follows his nose
A listening session and interview with composer / improviser Stephen Chase. Stephen and Josh met at Glasgow’s Tectonics Festival to chat about various works. Listen to Stephen’s works for...
Fun House Mirrors: Interview with composer Charles Uzor
This interview with composer Charles Uzor discusses melody, timbre, texture, mimicry, guitars, accordions, Ligeti, and more. We listen to a work for guitar and accordion, a guitar quartet, a...
Robert Ashley’s Perfect Lives
Today we just listen to two acts of Perfect Lives by Robert Ashley. A strange ‘opera’ for TV. This is one of my all-time favourites. It has old synths,...
One-man orchestra Nick Storring
Host Josh Thorpe and composer Nick Storring listen to and discuss Storring’s music and others. ‘What a Made-up Mind Can Do’ begins with what one might call noise, improvisation,...
More disoriented states with Linda C. Smith
In this interview and listening session with Linda Catlin Smith we listen to and discuss unusual music. We hear Smith’s strange piece Drifter for piano and guitar performed by...
Hard to pin down with Ailie Ormston
Glasgow composer and performer Aillie Ormston makes music that’s beautiful and strange. The music is very detailed and specific, yet feels effortless. We listen to and discuss two works...
Feathers and energy with Matana Roberts
In this interview Matana Roberts and host Josh Thorpe, we discuss and listen to some excerpts of Roberts’ new release on Constellation Records… it’s Coin Coin Chapter 5 (as...
Horse harps, games, and Rhodri Davies
Welsh harpist Rhodri Davies speaks with host Josh Thorpe about the telyn rawn, a horse-hair harp Davies made and performs with. We listen to a short work on this...
A Great Mess with Linda Catlin Smith
Josh Thorpe and composer Linda Catlin Smith listen to and discuss unusual music. We hear two of Smith’s recent works for piano quintet (piano and string quartet) as well...
Interview w/ viola player Ailbhe Nic Oireachtaigh
Ailbhe joins me to listen to the viola, the violin, some guitars, a horse-hair harp, some outside jazz and a sewing machine. Ailbhe’s great to speak with and her...
Rat-drifting launches 3 new titles
One of our favourite record labels, Rat-drifting (based in Toronto and France), recently re-launched on BandCamp after a few years of rest. The other day three new records came...
Bands of Rubber from Allison Cameron
Here’s a composed piece for the Rubber Band Quartet from Toronto improviser and composer Allison Cameron. It’s strange and particular music, radical but gentle, emerging from mundane materials, amplification,...