Recording: Michael Snow + Casey Sokol

Artist: Michael Snow + Casey Sokol

Song: [excerpt]

Recorded at The Music Gallery ("X Avant X"), October 15, 2015.

Michael Snow + Casey Sokol - [excerpt]

This year's X Avant not only celebrated the festival's tenth anniversary, but also the Music Gallery's 40th season. No surprise, then, that the festival incorporated various methods to look back at the MG's legacy. After a panel bringing together all of the Gallery's Artistic Directors, the festival kicked off with this pairing of MG founders who could often be found improvising together at the original St. Patrick Street location. Playing side-by-side on grand pianos, Snow and Sokol produced rolling swells of notes, the density thickening and then dissipating.

Recording: Parmela Attariwala

Artist: Parmela Attariwala & Adele Armin / Parmela Attariwala/Branko Dzinovic/Robert Aitken / Parmela Attariwala/Jeff Burke/Casey Sokol / Parmela Attariwala + Shahriyar Jamshidi

Songs: [excerpts from improvisations]

Recorded at Array Space (Audiopollination 28.2), March 10, 2015.

Parmela Attariwala & Adele Armin - [excerpt from an improvisation]

Attariwala-Dzinovic-Aitken - [excerpt from an improvisation]

Attariwala-Burke-Sokol - [edited excerpt from an improvisation]

Parmela Attariwala + Shahriyar Jamshidi - [excerpt from an improvisation]

This Audiopollination kept Parmela Attariwala busy all night long in four sets that saw her pitted against a variety of different sounds. A quiet duet with Adele Armin (violin) hinted at classical austerity, and a trio alongside Branko Dzinovic (accordion) and Robert Aitken (flute) felt like formalized fragments from a folksong, here being subverted by Attariwala skrtching at her strings with a block of styrofoam. Another trio with Casel Sokol (piano and prepared piano) and Jeff Burke (bassoon, theremin) took things on an abstract rocketship ride. A closing duet with Audiopollination favourite Shahriyar Jamshidi (kamanche) was a satisfying close to the night. Kudos once more to Audiopollination for putting such a wide range of sounds together.

[These field recordings, especially the first couple, are a little on the lo-fi side. You'll get a nicer sound if you check out the full recordings over at Audiopollination's bandcamp page.]