When Chromatics showed up as live performers in a roadhouse scene of 2017's Twin Peaks: The Return, it felt like they had stepped into a spo...

Collaboration and hybridization are two forces that yield interesting musical mutations, and this is especially true when the splicing invol...

So how does a punk band last 40 years and not lapse into self-parody? Here is a partial list.   By showing punk is not anti-intellectual....

French duo Xavier Garcia and Lionel Marchetti were given a special setup on a small, raised stage surrounded by the audience on all sides. T...

It could be festival fatigue messing with the senses, but drummer Tyshan Soren repeatedly pulled off the same subtle trick: biding time thro...

As an undeniable force of nature, one of Keiji Haino's innate abilities is not necessarily to play with others. He thrives in situations whe...

As a musician, organizer, label boss and all-around local hero for decades, Joane Hétu has a deep, deep Rolodex. The contact list came in ha...

Pianist Vijay Iyer is at that point in his career, just past 40 years old, where his status as a promising new voice is near fully mutated i...

A strong opening and closing can really make a performance, and that is where Montreal's Philippe Lauzier and Rimouski's Éric Normand really...

On paper, this pairing seems strange. Elder statesman of jazz Roscoe Mitchell — founding member of the Art Ensemble of Chicago, which celebr...

While deliberate and considered are not alien adjectives to apply to many performances at FIMAV, few this year earned them as thoroughly as...

There is something about the balance between easy apprehension and surprise in Norwegian guitarist/composer Kim Myhr's music that delights a...

French guitarist Julien Desprez's technique might require the coining of a new musical field — pedal dancer — a field wherein he immediately...

The musical partnership between Peter Brötzmann and Heather Leigh is one of those anomalies akin to the internet memes of bonds between arma...

Debuting as a composer and conductor after a couple of decades appearing at FIMAV in an array of ensembles and musical duties, Montreal´s ow...

The French duo of Émilie Siaut (aka Madame Patate) and Christophe Petchanatz (Klimperei) are a bit of an anomaly in the predominantly object...

Early on in the concert, Elena Kakaliagou described a song she and her musical partner Ingrid Schmoliner would play as being about displacem...

Bassist Barre Phillips would not appreciate the mention of his age, though he referred to it obliquely in one of his between-piece addresses...

Midnight shows at FIMAV are generally given over to the more fringe elements and emerging artists in the "musique actuelle" realm. Montreal´...

Bang on a Can, from NYC, have been around in some form or other for almost as long as the 35 years of the Festival International de Musique...