Recording: Ng/Melanson/Moffett/Ewen

Artist: Karen Ng/Philippe Melanson/Joe Moffett/Sandy Ewen

Song: [1st piece, two excerpts]

Recorded at The Tranzac's Southern Cross Lounge (Karen Ng's Monthly), July 27, 2023.

Karen Ng/Philippe Melanson/Joe Moffett/Sandy Ewen - [1st piece, excerpt 1]

Karen Ng/Philippe Melanson/Joe Moffett/Sandy Ewen - [1st piece, excerpt 2]

After solo sets from visiting musicians Joe Moffett (trumpet) and Sandy Ewen (guitar), the pair were joined by Karen Ng (alto sax) and Phil Melanson (percussion) for a group encounter, with the visitors' extended techniques helping to find several new moods and zones to lounge around in.

You can check out some more from this set over on youtube:

Recording: Sandy Ewen

Artist: Sandy Ewen

Song: [excerpt]

Recorded at The Tranzac's Southern Cross Lounge (Karen Ng's Monthly), July 27, 2023.

Sandy Ewen - [excerpt]

It's always a treat to see guitarist/extended technique virtuoso Sandy Ewen in action. With a pan pedal spreading rattles, chimes, buzzes and clonks across the stereo field there are whole universes being explored here.

Recording: Sandy Ewen & Allison Cameron

Artist: Sandy Ewen & Allison Cameron

Song: [excerpt, in two parts]

Recorded at Array Space (Audiopollination and Dark Matter present), August 14, 2022.

Sandy Ewen & Allison Cameron - [excerpt, part 1]

Sandy Ewen & Allison Cameron - [excerpt, part 2]

A pleasing return of an annual tradition of a late-summer visit to these parts from New York-based prepared guitarist Sandy Ewen. Playing two collaborative sets, the night closed with an inspired match with noisemaker Allison Cameron, where the pair's sounds and textures rubbed together tantilizingly but left plenty of space.

You can watch this entire set over on Audiopollination's youtube page:

Recording: Ewen/Newman/Maraj

Artist: Sandy Ewen/Kurt Newman/Kieran Maraj

Song: [last section]

Recorded at Array Space (Audiopollination and Dark Matter present), August 14, 2022.

Sandy Ewen/Kurt Newman/Kieran Maraj - [last section]

A pleasing return of an annual tradition of a late-summer visit to these parts from New York-based prepared guitarist Sandy Ewen. Playing two collaborative sets, the first saw her matched with Kurt Newman (electric guitar) and Kieran Maraj (granularized laptop samples) for a densely-packed stereophonic skronk-treat.

You can watch this entire set over on Audiopollination's youtube page:

Recording: Samantha Riott & Sandy Ewen

Artist: Samantha Riott & Sandy Ewen

Song: unknown^*

Recorded at Array Space, August 12, 2019.

Samantha Riott & Sandy Ewen - unknown

Prepared guitarist Sandy Ewen was the familiar name to me in this pairing, though she was in a support role here, providing textures for NYC-based spoken word artist Samantha Riott. Even without the squeal and spronk behind her, this would register as fucking punk rock — Riott is in a lineage that includes, say, Lydia Lunch and Kathy Acker, but as she gained momentum in examining boundaries (self/other, silence/noise, madness/sanity) her initial reference point was No Trend's "Reality Breakdown" and one could almost hear her shouting "all I wanted was a Pepsi!" before veering into even darker terrains.

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

Recording: Sandy Ewen

Artist: Sandy Ewen

Songs: [two excerpts]

Recorded at The Tranzac's Southern Cross Lounge (Ayal Senior presents), August 11, 2019.

Sandy Ewen - [excerpt 1]

Sandy Ewen - [excerpt 2]

Ayal Senior asked me to guest-curate his Sunday afternoon slot at The Tranzac, and by a lucky stroke Sandy Ewen happened to be in town. Bringing her usual assortment of preparations, her stereo-panned guitar manipulations moved from rings and rumbles to crafty, quiet drones.

Recording: Ewen/Newman/Newman

Artist: Sandy Ewen/Kurt Newman/Paul Newman

Song: [2nd piece, in two parts]

Recorded at The Tranzac's Southern Cross Lounge (H.W.G. Showcase), July 14, 2018.

Sandy Ewen/Kurt Newman/Paul Newman - [2nd piece, part 1]

Sandy Ewen/Kurt Newman/Paul Newman - [2nd piece, part 2]

There was a hint of sadness to this night as it was the only surviving vestige of the planned second instalment of the Eclec~Tic~Toc Fest, which was brought low by some of the perennial problems with finding suitable spaces for DIY events in this city. That was far outweighed, however, by a chance to catch up with the now-expatriated force of nature known as {AN} EeL, joyfully mashing musicians together just as he does on some his mail-art-styled recording projects.

This opening trio almost certainly arose from that "looks good on paper" sense of experimentalism, as on a stylistic level this was a somewhat counter-intuitive agglomeration. It made sense that guitar-clanger Sandy Ewen (with her bells, chalk, steel wool and glowing wire-coils) was seated in the centre here, as there was a sense that the others were adorning her sound-world. She certainly served as a carefully-negotiated meeting point for K.N.'s penchant for shredding and P.N.'s long-breath saxophone flow.

Recording: Sandy Ewen with Brandon Valdivia

Artist: Sandy Ewen with Brandon Valdivia

Song: [last section]

Recorded at 918 Bathurst (OPEN: an evening of sound interactions), November 8, 2017.

Sandy Ewen with Brandon Valdivia - [last section]

This pleasing night out, curated by Nick Storring's Riparian Acoustics, was a fundraiser for Musicworks Magazine. On the cusp of celebrating its 40th anniversary, MW has been pretty on-point lately, written about (and by!) some MFS faves, with spot-on examinations of weird sounds in the here-and-now plus savvy historical excavations. In the face of a last-minute cancellation, the organizers brought in Sandy Ewen (who had played a solo set the night before) to join forces with Brandon Valdivia (who was on hand for another collaborative set with Pursuit Grooves). Working from behind the drumkit, his roiling undercurrent provided some propulsion to nudge Ewen into a noisier zone than she'd explored on her own. This turned out to be an improvised addition to the night that really paid off.

Recording: Sandy Ewen

Artist: Sandy Ewen

Song: [excerpt from first piece]

Recorded at Belljar Café (Track Could Bend #32), November 7, 2017.

Sandy Ewen - [excerpt from first piece]

This month saw TCB moving to a new home — where, auspiciously, the streetcar tracks bend right outside the front door. Being pretty locally focused, it's also an auspicious treat to be able to offer a stage to a visiting musician — although NYC-via-Austin guitarist Sandy Ewen does indeed have some local roots. Armed with only a stereo pan pedal to two amps, Ewen used an arsenal of extended techniques to wrangle creaky sound-sculptures from her strings.

[Start your new year off the best way — the next Track Could Bend is on Tuesday, January 2nd and will feature sets from Bachelard, LUKA, and tendencyitis.]

Recording: Sandy Ewen

Artist: Sandy Ewen

Song: [two excerpts]

Recorded at Array Space (Audiopollination #53.3), August 21, 2017.

Sandy Ewen - [excerpt 1]

Sandy Ewen - [excerpt 2]

As when I had seen Sandy Ewen at Audiopollination a year ago, I was amazed at the sonic range she could derive simply from electroacoustic manipulations. Forgoing tonebending pedals (she simply had a volume pedal that altered the mix between her two amps) the set was a treat to watch all the treatments, bits of metal finding their way onto the guitar neck — and sometimes then clanking to the floor.

Recording: Sandy Ewen + co.

Artist: Sandy Ewen/Andrew Furlong/Olya Glotka / Sandy Ewen/William Davison/Alan Bloor/Michael Lynn / Sandy Ewen [solo]

Songs: [excerpts from several improvisations]

Recorded at Array Space (Audiopollination #45.1), August 7, 2016.

Sandy Ewen/Andrew Furlong/Olya Glotka - [second piece]

Sandy Ewen + William Davison + Alan Bloor + Michael Lynn - [excerpt from first piece]

Sandy Ewen - [excerpt 1]

Sandy Ewen - [excerpt 2]

Toronto-born/Austin-based guitarist Sandy Ewen is an architect and visual artist whose musical practice has seen her work alongside Tom Carter, Damon Smith & Weasel Walter, Jaap Blonk and Weird Weeds. This trip to Toronto saw her play a couple shows alongside local improvisers as well as showing off her solo styles. Guitar laid across her lap, her implements included street chalk, steel wool, a mangled pet brush and some other tools to achieve skritchy-scratchy stereophonic sawing, a volume pedal ping-ponging her sound to a pair of amps behind her. The first set with Andrew Furlong's double bass work left some sonic space for dancer Olya Glotka to bend and twist in, while a noise-off with William Davison (contact mic'ed devices) Alan Bloor (amplified sawblade) and Michael Lynn (bass) filled up the room with whitenoise swells and buzz-sproing-rattle. Her closing solo set showed the range of sounds she can generate from her toolbox, ranging from coughing grinds to a pleasing drone that sounded like something generated by an e-bow and loop pedal, but required only her practical effects.

[Al always, you can checkout a full recording of the night over on Audiopollination's bandcamp. The series returns with another vising player — St. Louis-based violinist Alex Cunningham — on Saturday, August 27th.]