Rating: NNNNN
Connecting the strands of Toronto’s improvised music underground can be a tough slog.
Recordings are released on tiny labels, concerts happen in lofts, rehearsal spaces and churches, and musicians seem to move weekly between different projects.
As last year’s closure of the Music Gallery showed, creating a dedicated community space for a resolutely uncommercial form of music is almost impossible, unless the space is a virtual one.
Since May 2000, the weekly SoundList e-mail primer has acted as a kind of cyberspace community for the improvised music scene. Sent out every Wednesday night to more than 500 subscribers, the List, founded by improviser and composer Rob Wannamaker, runs down shows for the week, detailing who’s playing where and in what configuration.
In a marginal music community like this, with precious little press exposure elsewhere, SoundList has become a crucial tool for musicians and improv music fans wanting to know what’s going on.
“I was a fan of experimental music, and it seemed like there was so much stuff around town that I couldn’t keep track of it all,” Wannamaker explains. “I starting writing dates and locations of shows down and eventually figured that if I was doing it, others probably were, too.
“I’m surprised at how successful it’s become, but it also made sense. There was a place in the community for it. I don’t even think all the players knew what was going on around town, and in some cases it’s fostered collaborations between different musicians who’ve met’ on the list.”
To sign up for SoundList, send an e-mail to soundlst@audiolab.uwaterloo.ca. Note the missing “i.”
