The Edmonton, Alberta, Canada Vertrek Ensemble of Vadim Budman on guitars and trumpet and Ron de Jong on percussion, in their first album, collecting solos, duos, and trios with guests Mark Kelly on banjo and Ian Birse on guitar & effects, predating their albums with legendary improvisers Derek Bailey and Euguene Chadbourne.

Outstanding instrumental work as New York improvising bassist Joe Fonda and Allman Brothers drummer Jaimoe join forces with Italian jazz musicians Tiziano Tononi, Alberto Mandarini, Gianluigi Paganelli, Beppe Caruso and Finnish guitarist Raoul Bjorkenheim, plus a host of guest musicians, as they hybridize jazz, rock, blues, avant and jam music with consummate skill.

The Canadian trio of clarinetist Francois Houle, pianist Alexander Hawkins and drummer Harris Eisenstadt first met in 2014 for the Vancouver International Jazz Festival, taking several years to get them together again for this beautifully lyrical and sophisticated album of chamber jazz, with compositions from all three plus pieces by Steve Lacy, Andrew Hill and Charles Ives.

The second issue in the 40th anniversary year of Canada's foremost magazine exploring new music in composed, improvised, experimental and other unusual musics, articles including Peggy Lee, Circuit Bending, composer Maria de Alvear, an article on the Bug Incision label, plus a 14-track CD with tracks to accompany the articles, plus album reviews, live reviews, &c. &c.

During guitarist Joe Morris' stay as a visiting scholar at University of Calgary, Morris joined the Chris Dadge / Jonathon Wilkes duo, first on stage and then in the studio to record this first-rate album of collective improvisation, merging idiosyncratic percussive activity, abstract and lyrical sax declarations, and profound and pointillistic guitar work.

Formed in 2002 as a quartet, then in 2005 as the trio of Chris Dadge (percussion, trumpet, bass), David Laing (bass & trombone), and Scott Munro (sax, melodica, &c), then as the duo of Dadge & Monro in 2008; 2016 found the trio together again in Calgary for the closing of the Emmedia performance space, their entire set of unique collective improv captured for this CD.

In it's 40th year, the Canadian music journal Musicworks, with a reflection on their journey, alongside articles about guitarist Sam Shalabi, composer Sarah Hennies, the music series SONICBernheim in Louisville, Kentucky, electronic-music producer Vanese "VJ" Smith (Pursuit Grooves), and a 13-track CD with music from the those artists and more.

Verge Music founder Daniel Kernohan aka Dee Kay and radio host Dan Lander developed this album of electroacoustic interaction between 1987-1989 in a dilapidated row house on "the wrong side of the tracks" in Toronto, using "instruments, toys, stuff, sound" to create an amusing, sometimes startling, and insightful series of interactions; unpredictable and interesting.

Celebrating 40 years as a performing ensemble, the West Coast saxophone quartet ROVA of Bruce Ackley on soprano saxophone, Steve Adams on alto & sopranino saxophones, Jon Raskin on baritone saxophone, and Larry Ochs on tenor saxophone, reworked compositions from all members transversing their past 34 years, in an absolutely impressive and diverse album.

The Canadian Council for the Arts commissioned this work by Hungarian composer Gyula Csapo, a student of Morton Feldman amd John Cage, realized by Montreal's Quatuor Bozzini quartet, "Deja? Koja?" meaning "Already? Where to?" is a three-part work with two intermissions, an epic work that references the same basic materials in a variety of perspectives.

Commissioned by Coastal Jazz and Blues and premiered at the 2016 Vancouver International Jazz Festival, cellist Peggy Lee's suite for ten players includes some of the most interesting improvisers on the Vancouver scene, the music multi-layered, texturally varied and melodically rich, with beautiful melodic passages, driving rhythm, and incendiary improv; outstanding!

Canada's premiere creative and new music magazine in their 129th issue, Winter 2017/18, with Geronimo Inutiq on the cover, plus articles on University of Victoria's music department, reedist Karen Ng, Hans-Joachim Roedelius, Kamancello, Quasar saxophone quartet, Biophilia, Spool, and an 11-track CD with music from those artists and more.

Montreal's superb ensemble of improvisers explore the integration of composed music with improvisation, here in 3 graphic scores from from Danielle Palardy Roger, Joane Hetu, and Lisa Cay Miller, allowing individual performers extensive freedom within fixed compositional frameworks leading to extraordinary and unexpected results, captured lived at Amphitheatre du Gesu in 2017.

A wonderfully inventive and enjoyable solo guitar album from Montreal guitarist Bernard Falaise, a member of Miriodor, Klaxon Gueule, les Projectionnistes, Diesel and other groups, here mostly focused on acoustic guitar with open turning fed into effects pedals, alongside pieces for electric guitar, glockenspiel and melodica; magnifique!

With many participants from Ensemble Musique and the Montreal Musique Actuelle scene, composer and multi-instrumentalist Jean Derome directs an ensemble into the exploration of electricity and "Resistances", blending electronics, turntable, 60 Hz hums and other electronics into an orchestra of improvisers executing his dynamic 16 movement composition.

On the 30th anniversary of the Victo Festival Anthony Braxton took to the stage for a magnificent solo performance on the alto sax, performing 8 spontaneous compositions and an 8+ minute version of "Body and Soul", seamlessly crossing lyrical and complex approaches to the horn using his unique intervallic, trimbral and diagrammatic language, a stunning and embraceable accomplishment.

Summer 2017 issue of Canada's premiere new music magazine, with a CD featuring tracks from selected artists covered in the magazine; Bekah Simms; Senyawa; Pantayo, HanHan, and Luyos MC; Brodie West; Artificiel; Another Timbre's Canadian Composers Series; Vicky Chow; Festival de International Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville, 33rd Edition reviewed; &c. &c.

A diverse set of artist interpret a random page from Cornelius Cardew's "Treatise", using the score alone with each artist unable to hear what the other participants were playing, which Spool label-leader Daniel Kernohan assembled into these 10 incredible audio tracks, each roughly 4:35 long, in a great interpretation of Cardew's (in)famous work.

A richly refined and sophisticated album drawing on improvisation, experimenation and rock elements from the collaborative Vancouver ensemble Sick Boss of core members guitarist Cole Schmidt, bassist James Meger and drummer Daniel Gaucher, with guests including guitarist Tony Wilson, cellist Peggy Lee, trumpeter JP Carter, synth player Tyson Naylor, &c. &c.

Presented at the Vancouver International Improvisation Festival and the Vancouver International Jazz Festival, guitarist Ron Samworth's conceptual work explores the life and dreams of a dog, with narration from Barbara Adler and an incredible ensemble including cellist Peggy, keyboardist Wayne Horvitz, trumpeter JP Carter, drummer Dylan van der Schyff, etc.

Named for the moment when a Peregrine Falcon falls from flight to attack its prey, the Vancouver duo of Gordon Grdina on guitars, oud, electronics and Kenton Loewen on drums and percussion present a heavy album of improvised rock with raw energy, riveting technique and powerful grooves with an Arabic influence and essence; of interest to King Crimson fans.

Ensemble leader and tuba player Carl Ludwig Hubsch created this musical concept inspired by the guitar player Keith Rowe, exploring one static sound in the ensemble, maintaining it and in the same time interacting with utmost care and openness for any necessary change, in a 22-piece ensemble of exceptional players.

Taking two of Montreal's most vital musicians, guitarist Rene Lussier and clarinetist Robert Lepage, and joining them with the far-ranging string quartet Le Quatuor Bozzini for a stunning album that merges chamber music, noise music, and improvisation without leaving behind melody, intention and direction; magnificent!

"Sombre is an unlikely pairing yielding unexpected results. The classically trained harpist Helene Breschand meets the maverick avant rock guitarist Jean-Francois Pauvros. She plays an electro-acoustic harp, which -- unlike Zeena Parkin...

"The album title, Moment de Bonheur, is rather trite, but the concert was marvelous and the recording preserves all of its intensity and charm. This was a first meeting between Jean Derome (flutes, alto sax) and Louis Sclavis (clarinets...

"Even though Canadian saxophonist Paul Cram has led his orchestra for years, first in Toronto and then Halifax, Campin Out is the first recording by this ensemble since the 1987 LP Beyond Benghazi. One cannot accuse Cram of being too pr...

"Since the release of Sudori with his Sud Ensemble in 1995, Italian trumpeter Pino Minafra remained discreet as a leader, preferring to blend his voice among others in large-scale groups like the Italian Instabile Orchestra, Gianluigi T...

"Prior to the release of this CD, Mexican flutist/pianist Roberto Morales Manzanares was virtually unknown in North America. He met Japan-born violinist Mari Kimura when she played at Callejon del Ruido, a new music festival Manzanares ...

"Vancouver pianist Paul Plimley and his comrades, bassist Lisle Ellis and drummer Scott Amendola, have issued a tough little gem of a recording in Safe-Crackers. Plimley's pianism ranges in voice from fierce avant-garde improvisation to...

1. Aventure Quebecoise I 13:13

2. Aventure Quebecoise II 8:35

3. Aventure Quebecoise III 9:37

4. Aventure Quebecoise IV 10:23

5. Aventure Quebecoise V 15:39

"The Hard Rubber Orchestra is a funkier incarnation of the NOW Orchestra. Led by trumpeter John Korsrud, it uses a similar pool of Vancouver musicians, although the instrumentation here focuses on brass and a rhythm section. Cruel Yet Fa...

Spring 2016 issue of Canada's premier music magazine, including a 10-track CD of musicians featured in this issue's magazine. Contents include: articles on Craig Aalders' el8dEra 3m; , Eighty-five scores celebrate Pauline Oliveros; Toronto label All-Set! Editions; Thin Edge New Music Collective; electronic composer John Mills-Cockell; and much more!

"Recorded in studio in November 1996, Ben Goldberg's project Eight Phrases for Jefferson Rubin was his second composition for sextet (after Twelve Minor, released by Avant in 1998). Rubin, who died tragically at the age of 35, was one o...

"Three traditions, three musics? Hardly. This trio of improvisers -- Michel Doneda, soprano saxophone; Benat Achary, vocals, percussion; Kazue Sawai, koto -- forgoes all pretenses of speaking a universal language or separate ones, but i...

"This trio allies the spirited lightness of the Italian scene with the pastoral feel of the Swiss. Italian bassist Daniele Patumi and Swiss pianist John Wolf Brennan already played together in Pago Libre, an ensemble sharing a lot of af...

"When Gianni Gebbia performed with his trio Terra Arsa at the Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville in May 1997, he was already well-established in the Italian new jazz scene. His style draws from Coltranian jazz, ...

"Music for Three Rivers presents four improvisations (totaling 45 minutes) from British pianist Chris Burn's performance at the Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville in May 1996, as well as five studio recordings f...

"Recorded live at the Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville in May 1996, In the Land of Milk and Honey features trombonist Anne-Marie Roelofs' Waste Watchers trio, which also features Johannes Krämer (electric ...

...

"In 1996, Thurston Moore was still mostly known for his work with the rock group Sonic Youth. In 1996, the Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville was an established institution in the realm of serious experimental, ...

"Psycho-Acoustic is guitarist Elliott Sharp and harpist Zeena Parkins, and Blackburst is their first album together under that name (their first album was titled Psycho-Acoustic and simply credited to Sharp and Parkins). As with their f...

"Recorded live at the Victoriaville Festival in 1996, this disc features the Italian saxophone and improvisation master surrounded by a band from heaven -- or hell, depending on your view of modern free jazz -- ensuring his own "social s...

The West Coast Rova Saxophone quartet in a 7 track studio album from 1995, from Jon Raskin on alto saxophone, baritone saxophone, sopranino saxophone, Steve Adams on alto saxophone, sopranino saxophone, Bruce Ackley on soprano saxophone, tenor saxophone and Larry Ochs on tenor saxophone, sopranino saxophone.

"Anamnesis: Ecumenical Mysteries was Yugoslavian saxophonist/composer Boris Kovac's first release out of Europe (on the Canadian label Disques Victo). It was also his first work recorded in Yugoslavia following the war that forced him t...

"Canadian baritone saxophonist Charles Papasoff has, with this recording, pulled off the heretofore unimaginable: pulled together a sextet comprised strictly of baritone players from Europe and North America and commissioned each member...

"Even for the avant-garde fan acquainted with the Far East Side Band's first CD, Caverns, Urban Archaeology cannot fail to surprise. The group's blend of Oriental and Occidental instruments and music forms provides quite a change of sce...

"Even though J.A. Deane has collaborated with many American avant-garde musicians, his solo albums are few. Sadly, his most accessible is also one of his less interesting. Nomad is an untypical release in the catalog of the label Disques...

"Sudori is, simply put, an avant-jazz rollercoaster with blues, Dixieland, circus music, and free improvisation all tumbling in your stomach with strong Italian herbs and spices. Trumpeter Pino Minafra is accompanied by his Sud Ensemble...

"Superb, simply superb, but also disorienting and disquieting: that's Happy Wretched Family, Non Credo's second album, seven years after Reluctant Hosts. The avant-pop format found on the first LP has evolved into twisted shards of pop ...