Recording: Magic Hour

Artist: Magic Hour

Song: unknown^*

Recorded at The Music Gallery (Departures Series), December 20, 2016.

Magic Hour - unknown

This year-closing entry in the Music Gallery's offsite Departures series returned to St. George the Martyr, taking advantage of the room's acoustics to situate this show "in the round" with the performers radiating music outward from the centre. Perched on a riser a bit over from the headlining set's workstations, Melissa Moore (a.k.a. Magic Hour) sat cross-legged, an array of high- and low-tech music-making implements spread around her. After a quiet invocation with bells and a singing bowl, this section mixed live and prerecorded percussion into something reminiscent of Francis Bebey's electronic grooves — and from there the set closed with an expansive ramble based on acoustic guitar abstractions. There was a sense of this being both a spiritual release and a seriously-considered bit of sonic sculpting — you'll have to keep an eye out for more, as there doesn't seem to be much online from this project yet.

^* Does anyone know the title to this one? Please leave a comment!