Sound of the Mountain
“Should you be without any information and listening to this music, you could easily believe this is some electro-acoustic music; maybe of objects pushed around on a carpet, but then heavily amplified; very soft in volume but very powerful at the same time. This is some fascinating stuff.”
-Frans De Waard, Vital Weekly.
“There’s an aesthetic dimension to Sound Of The Mountain which I like, whereby they transcend the materiality of the situation and start to stir our dreams and imagination with their deep rumbly sounds.”
Ed Pinsent (The Sound Projector, 2018)
A duo featuring the hollowed-out sounds of Elizabeth Millar (amplified clarinet) and Craig Pedersen (amplified trumpet).
Since forming in 2015, they have played over 150 concerts together, developing a sound language which merges acoustic and electronic textures through amplification and extended performance techniques. With this language they create long-form improvised soundscapes, evoking a vast range of textures, from silence and spaciousness, to rumbling bass and room saturation. The duo works with closely-mic’d instruments and minimal equalization, avoiding the use of effects pedals and loops, such that their constant physical attention drives the music. The whistles and creaking of metal and reed anticipate the more dense moments of distortion and feedback in pieces that can be appreciated as discreet moments, or longer forms.
Active touring artists, they have played internationally in Japan, Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Mexico and Australia, and coast-to-coast throughout Canada. Making a point of collaboration, the duo has collaborated with Japanese improvised music pioneers Toshimaru Nakamura, Tetuzi Akiyama, Takahiro Kawaguchi, Michiyo Yagi, Akira Sakata and Tim Olive, Canadian experimental trailblazers like the electro-acoustic duo Instant Places, Tone Deaf’s Matt Rogalsky, or Guelph’s own hurdy-gurdy player Ben Grossman, and members of Quebec’s experimental electronic community Alain Lefevbre, Anne-F Jacques, and Alexandre St-Onge, along with many many more. Favouring community-building and DIY ethics you’re most likely to hear them playing in your friend’s basement, artist-run-centres, galleries and cafes.
For concert listings and other news visit: soundofthemountain.com
On Mystery & Wonder:
MW001, Sound of the Mountain, Amplified Clarinet and Trumpet (2017)
MW008, Sound of the Mountain with Tetuzi Akiyama and Toshimaru Nakamura, amplified clarinet and trumpet, guitars, nimb (2019)
On other labels
845 Audio, Elizabeth Millar, Tim Olive, Craig Pedersen, Charm Point, (2019)
Read Full Reviews:
MW001: 2018-04 on The Sound Projector by Ed Pinsent
MW001: 2017-09 on Vital Weekly by Frans De Waard
MW008: 2020-01 on Dusted Magazine by Bill Meyer
MW008: 2019-11 on Wholenote Magazine by Stuart Broomer
MW008: 2019-10 on Toneshift.net by TJ Norris
MW008: 2019-10 on Nitestylez by BAZE.DJUNKIII
MW008: 2019-12 on Point of Departure Moment’s Notice by Michael Rosenstein
MW008: 2019-11 on Jazz Tokyo by Akira Saito
MW008: 2019-10 on Vital Weekly by Frans de Waard
