Volume 29 Issue 1 | September 2023

as a form of apology”.
Masaki and each composer talk about
their musical and technological creative
process and working together in the informative
Transformation Documentary Film.
The music, visuals and hi-tech interactions
on Transformation are indeed unforgettably
transforming.
Tiina Kiik
...and the Lord Hath Taken Away
The Holy Gasp
Independent (theholygasp.bandcamp.com)
! If, like me, you
had neither heard
of, nor listened
to, The Holy
Gasp before, the
mere thought of
approaching this
album would be to
expect something
spiritually inclined.
After all an ensemble called The Holy Gasp…
well, what other kind of music would the
ensemble make? Moreover, the album is titled
… and the Lord Hath Taken Away, a direct
quote from The Book of Job, of the Bible’s
Old Testament spoken by the afflicted man
himself at the height of his long suffering.
However, as it turns out, the ensemble’s
frontman, Toronto-born poet, composer
and vocalist of repute, Benjamin Hackman –
knowledgeable as he as about scripture – is
also a wonderfully free-thinking musician
who can wield his impressive tenor voice and
move easily between a kind of opera recitative,
he’s-a-jolly-good-fellow klezmer,
moaning blues-inflected vocals and any other
style that his extraordinary music demands.
Hackman’s multi-faceted skills and this
shape-shifting music are eloquently articulated
by the musicians in this large ensemble.
And it is all held together as if in an enormous
musical sculpture by the extraordinary Robert
W. Stevenson who conducts it all. To experience
a snapshot version simply skip from the
darkening of The Merry Man of Uz to Who
Framed Moishe Hackman? to the rollicking
Everything Where It Should Be. But do that
and you will be missing out on 15 other songs,
each with its own evocative mystery and
musical thrill.
Raul da Gama
Za Klavir: For the Piano
Nina Platiša
Independent (ninaplatisa.com)
! Elemental
and concise –
most under three
minutes – the
27 pieces of Za
Klavir: (For the
Piano), composed
between 2018 and
2022, are subtly
spiced with piquant sprinkles of Balkan folk
idioms. Engagingly varied in tempo, rhythm
and mood, they share unadorned melodic
lines and sparse accompaniments, often only
simple pedal points.
Belgrade-born composer/pianist Nina
Platiša, now based in Guelph, came to Canada
as a three-year-old in 1994. Responding to my
email query, she wrote, “When I was young,
my mom taught my sister and me Balkan folk
songs… As I began to compose the solo piano
pieces that would eventually make up this
album, the music to which I felt the closest
connection was often the simplest, pieces
with simple melodies and harmonies akin to
those of Balkan folk music – unpretentious
and transparent. They seemed to issue from
me naturally.”
Save for the concluding Saputnik
(Companion) No.1, the pieces are numbered,
not named. In an interview posted online,
Platiša described three of them, beginning
with the solemn No.7. “I saw an image of
it being played at the funeral of my grandfather
or great uncle. I pictured my family and
friends dancing to No.20 at my family’s slava
(saint’s day) and I saw myself playing No.25
for a newborn baby.”
I was particularly enchanted by the delicate,
melancholy beauties of Nos.5, 11, 14
and 19, reminiscent of Satie’s haunting
Gymnopédies. I found Za Klavir compelling
listening throughout; you may, too.
Michael Schulman
Emilie Cecilia LeBel – field studies
Jane Berry; Cheryl Duvall; UltraViolet;
Ilana Waniuk
Redshift Records TK530 (emilielebel.ca/
discography)
! Prolific Canadian
composer Emilie
LeBel has roots in
the contemporary
concert music
scenes in Toronto
and Edmonton.
Recorded in both
cities, field studies
features five chamber works composed
between 2016 and 2022.
It’s tempting to describe LeBel’s accomplished
and mature compositional language
as postminimalism. On closer listening
however, it’s in turn austere, serene and
sonically challenging, but also lush and
lyrical. It embraces solitary long tones as
well as complex harmonies and microtonal
gestures. This complexity questions any neat
“minimal” pigeonholing.
Another sonic signature is LeBel’s ingenious
use of coloured noise, exploiting the vast
spectrum between conventional instrumental
tone and white noise. In even if nothing but
shapes and light reflected in the glass for alto
flute, baritone sax and electronics, “tactile
transducers on prepared snare and tom
drums” supply the sonic grit. They provide a
textural counterpoint to the two wind instruments’
built-in wind sounds as well as to
their more typical lyrical voices.
Nor is LeBel afraid of boldly combining
inherently contrasting instruments. For
example, evaporation, blue is scored for the
unlikely paring of piano and harmonica,
both played with conviction and delicacy by
Toronto pianist Cheryl Duvall.
LeBel’s considerable orchestration chops
are aided by her close attention to the
strengths and limitations of instruments and
voices. Beautifully played by Ilana Waniuk,
further migration for solo violin illustrates
the former, while drift for voice and chamber
ensemble animated by Jane Barry’s relaxed
voice, the latter. I wouldn’t be surprised if an
opera is in LeBel’s future.
Andrew Timar
Sources
Louise Campbell
Redshift Records (redshiftmusicsociety.
bandcamp.com/album/sources)
! Ambient soundscapes
can be
fascinating. It’s a
mystery to me that
some can also be
as listenable, out
of context, as the
material on this
new disc. That’s a
long-winded roundabout compliment to the
creator of Sources, multi-disciplinary clarinetist
Louise Campbell. Full disclosure: I too
am a Campbell, of the Irish variety, so call me
biased at an odd angle.
The clarinet on these four tracks is rarely
heard without many layers of electronic
manipulation applied. Campbell’s playing is
equal to the material she writes without ever
being showy. The point is not to highlight the
instrument nor the player, but to distill the
sounds she generates into evocations. The
first track, Songbird, is a psychedelic dawn
chorus set in Georgian Bay. Swirl (an elegy
to her late father) evokes tiny watery movements
at the edge of Le Fleuve St. Laurent.
Briefly, Campbell allows her sound to stand
unclothed by electronic reverb and echo, a
breathtaking moment. Playing Guitar Gear
rocks on about Campbell’s hometown of
Montreal. It’s the most dynamic piece, and
while I don’t get what it’s about, it’s fun.
The first three tracks each last around
ten minutes, and the fourth, People of the
Sea, balances the length almost exactly at 33
minutes. Also a music therapist, Campbell
allows one to wander about within the
sounds. I found myself hearing it accompanying
my thoughts on a range of things
(including editing other reviews) and when
I checked in it was mostly finished. At some
point a single line became several, and a
stationary colour became something like a
melody. The texture is pebbled, not granular
but bumpy, like distressed beach-glass. The
46 | September 2023 thewholenote.com