Constellation Records
Album Review: Jessica Moss – ‘Unfolding’: The Montreal violinist/composer’s most incisive, inspirational statement to date.
Violinist and composer Jessica Moss has always made instrumental music that speaks out. Her essential work does more than reflect times, events and tragedies, it engages with them and voices our emotions about what is being witnessed or endured. Her last two studio albums, ‘Phosphenes’ from 2021 followed a year later by ‘Galaxy Heart’, captured …
Album Review: SANAM –‘Sametou Sawtan’: Absorbing, ambitious free rock fusion from the peerless Lebanese six-piece.
It takes a singular vision to bring something new to the post rock table these days, loud/quiet trajectories and obtuse time signatures have long been overplayed, but Lebanese sextet SANAM definitely are a band that deliver that much needed fresh perspective. The group’s members (Sandy Chamoun /vocals, Antonio Hajj /bass, Farah Kaddour/buzuq, Anthony Sahyoun/ guitar …
Album Review: T. Gowdy – ‘Trill Scan’: Inspired Early music and darkwave alchemy.
It was a question of time before Canadian producer/audio-visual artist T.Gowdy’s background filtered through to his engrossing electronic music and that time is now. Gowdy’s new album ‘Trill Scan’, his third for Constellation, with its ethereal vocal harmonics and sinuous acoustic instrumentation makes careful sonic connections with college years spent as a professional choral singer …
Album Review: Joni Void – Every Life Is A Light : The Montreal sound artist delivers a new experimental-pop touchstone.
Pinning, hash-tagging, mood-boarding, even crisply describing Joni Void’s music gets no easier. Maybe the role Void plays is as a post post-sampling, cut & paste collagist or re-imaginer of the already re-imagined? Perhaps experimental glitch artist, sonic mind-scrambler or underground sound documentarian sums up other dimensions of their singular approach? Probably the best that can …
Album Review: Godspeed You! Black Emperor – “No Title as of 13 February 2024 28,340 Dead” : intense, probing and cathartic contemporary rock.
Let’s start with some facts. Godspeed You! Black Emperor are a seminal alt rock, orchestral collective formed 1994 in Montreal. People who write about contemporary music see their early noughties trilogy (F♯ A♯ ∞, Lift Your Skinny Fists like Antennas to Heaven and Yanqui U.X.O.) as definitive long form, instrumental statements. If you are reading …
Album Review: WE ARE WINTER’S BLUE AND RADIANT CHILDREN –’No More Apocalypse Father’: A probing, poetic and profound alt-rock record of today.
While much contemporary music of today seems required to focus on the ‘me’ some artists continue to probe wider into the things that ‘we’ do collectively, the injustices, the inhumanities, the inequalities. Since co-founding the seminal Godspeed You! Black Emperor and the agit post rock assembly Thee Silver Mount Zion, Efrim Manuel Menuck has been …
Track / Video: WE ARE WINTER’S BLUE AND RADIANT CHILDREN –GY!BE/Big|Brave/Ada affiliates announce tumultuous debut album.
A post rock summit, confluence or collab, some might even toss in the supergroup label if they were feeling flippant. Whatever you want to call the artistic meeting of minds that is WE ARE WINTER’S BLUE AND RADIANT CHILDREN (or WAWBARC between friends) it offers up the enticing prospect of new collective music from Mat …
Album Review: Kee Avil -‘Spine’: experimental pop with a thrilling, raw urgency from the Montreal artist.
Two years ago Montreal producer Kee Avil’s debut for Constellation ‘Crease’ turned heads with its leftfield pop mosaicism, an intricate patterning of vocal, sound and instrumental shapes set with experimental glue but framed in song form. Now at last we have the follow up ‘Spine’, again via Constellation, and a chance to engage with Avil’s …
Album Review: ‘FYEAR’ – a phenomenal, poetic statement from the Montreal post-jazz ensemble (aka. FYEAR)
Music and poetry, poetry and music, the Montreal convened collective FYEAR show how potent this combination can be on this self-titled debut, out now via Constellation. Led by poet/novelist Kaie Kellough and composer/saxophonist Jason Sharp, FYEAR the ensemble has been evolving through a project-based approach for several years now culminating with the ambitious, multi-movement composition …
Track/ Video : Avant pop experimentalist Kee Avil previews gripping new album ‘Spine’ with the tense and tactile ‘Felt’.
Two years ago Montreal producer Kee Avil’s debut for Constellation ‘Crease’ caused quite a rumpus with its avant-pop mosaicism, all intricate vocal, sound and instrument patterns set within an experimental glue and deceptive song structure. Bandcamp made ‘Crease’ album of the day and year-end lister, Mojo pinned on four-star acclaim and The Quietus were rightly …