A quick confession to start. The Moderns is meant to be a wide-ranging, inclusive space. Its purpose is to present multiple styles of contemporary music together, so that lovers of one or other genre discover music they might not have come across otherwise.
Truthfully though, these pages represent a synthesis of work that is sent to me. Not all of it of course – my role here is to curate. But if a recording doesn’t show up in my inbox, it almost certainly doesn’t show up on this site. Even artists I admire get left out when whomever is responsible for media distribution doesn’t have modernslove@gmail.com on their list.
This was on my mind as I headed out to see claire rousay at The Monarch Tavern here in Toronto on Thursday evening. She was kind enough to put me on her guestlist – the show also featured sparkling performances by Karen Ng and rEmPiT g0dDe$$.
It’s been awhile since I featured rousay on The Moderns, so I went in expecting a set of her lovely sound art. What we got instead was a deeply personal, conventional (by rousay standards) set of heartbreakers. The material can be found on her April release sentiment, which I’m embarrassed to say I missed until now.
Like Thursday night’s set, sentiment combines gentle electric guitar, violin, electronically treated vocals and enough found sound recordings to provide cohesion between the new music and rousay’s back catalogue. The work is mesmerizing to a degree that I haven’t heard in years. It is gentle, explicit and so fully realized that we can only hope this is a new direction she intends to explore further.
Don’t be surprised if you see sentiment in a prominent spot on this year’s favourites list. Mine and others.
Meantime, we can look forward to a remix album on Nov. 6. It features contributions by Andrew Weathers, Patrick Shiroishi, Maral, Gretchen Korsmo, more eaze, AMULETS and M Sage.
The Moderns 
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