Karen Ng, the builder
Mar. 26: putting saxophone in dialogue with electronics, Ng brought her album Backwards Blue to the Western Front
Toronto-based improviser Karen Ng played the Western Front last night in support of Backwards Blue, her debut record as a leader. The set also featured four guests, locals who weren't on the album. One was Tyson Naylor, playing a RadioShack Realistic MG-1, an analog synth that Ng credited with spurring on her project. Later, three other saxophonists appeared in dramatic fashion: Gordy Li, Ruthie Ha, and Nanaimo's Liam Murphy.
Backwards Blue came out on October 17th via the label Halocline Trance, founded in Toronto by experimental musician David Psutka. (I've covered one of their previous releases: local guitarist and SFU professor Eldritch Priest's Dormitive Virtue.) I looked up the word halocline, and it means something like 'an area where saltwater and freshwater overlap', which gives divers a shimmering optical illusion, perhaps a trance. It's an obscure enough word that the abstract video for one of the album's most abstract tracks. "Inflatable Grey", ends with a stylized misspelling of it.
On the album, Ng plays saxophone, clarinet, synthesizer, bass, and guitar; Psutka joins her on guitar and electronics. For an electroacoustic improv record, Backwards Blue is relatively gentle. Each of its nine tracks has a name with an adjective and a colour, while the cover art shows nine objects with those colours, out of sequence. Few synths hiss or blare. Bass loops and synth chords anchor some tracks. A sweet, haunting surprise awaits at the end of the last track.
