Through a Musical Lens: Reverie by Daou

How many times have we walked or driven past another human being living a shattered life? Random by happenstance and anonymous save for their fleeting presence as we pass by, how often do we take time to ponder what brought them to that point and whether they once were happy or could be again? On…

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Travelogue: New sounds for a new year

While it may have been a year to forget in many ways, 2022 left us with plenty of fine music to savor thanks to the irrepressible creative drive of the artistic community. Having spent the better part of the past two weeks immersed in a great deal of that music, it is time to take…

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2022 in Review: Electroacoustic, Folk, and Jazz

This is a category I especially enjoy each year for its variety, eclecticism, and nomadic spirit. Here is a selection of memorable releases from the musical edge lands where electroacoustic music and field recordings meet folk, jazz, and other analog experiments in sound.

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2022 in Review: A Sense of Place and Time

The act of creating a sense of a place or capturing a moment in time is a fairly common motif in a great deal of instrumental music, especially ambient, but it is intrinsically at the very core of these works released in 2022. Some are personal narratives or depictions of landscape either real or imagined while…

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VIDEO PREMIERE: Summerfallow by Michael Scott Dawson

The field recordings at the heart of Music For Listening by Canadian sound artist, multi-instrumentalist Michael Scott Dawson were originally collected with something different in mind, an album of prairie birdsong using fragments collected during walks through the pastures and farmland on the outskirts of his childhood hometown that never came to fruition. A phone…

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A Conversation with Michael Scott Dawson

Michael Scott Dawson is a Canadian sound artist, multi-instrumentalist and community builder who explores ambient and electro-acoustic compositions through synthesis, field recordings, tape loops and manipulations. While much of his solo and collaborative work focuses on efforts to reconcile his relationship with music and technology, he is also a member of the free jazz collective…

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2021 in Review: Electroacoustic & Experimental Folk

A selection of memorable releases from the year from the musical edgelands where electroacoustic ambient and field recordings meet acoustic, folk, and other analog experiments in sound.

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2021 in Review: A Sense of Place and Time

The act of creating a sense of a place or capturing a moment in time is a fairly common motif in a great deal of instrumental music, especially ambient, but it is intrinsically at the very core of these works released in 2021. Some are personal narratives or depictions of landscape either real or imagined while…

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VIDEO PREMIERE: “Peer” by Kinbrae & Clare Archibald

Circular patterns are at the heart of the first collaborative album between Kinbrae (twin brothers Mike & Andy Truscott) and fellow Fife-based writer and artist Clare Archibald. Much of the meaning behind what they have created is condensed into its succinct title – Birl of Unmap. Birl is a Scots word meaning ‘to spin’ –…

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