77 (2020), is the second movement of For Ash (2019-21), a short, three-movement work for solo piano dedicated to my friend, Ash Mistry. In contrast to some of my earlier piano music, there is greater focus on melodic design and variations in harmonic voicing and less on structural symmetry, balancing lyrical and systematic aspects. Each of the three movements explores a melodic line in two parallel voices, mostly in intervals of a third in the first movement and fourths in the other two.

Composed February 2020
Recorded April 2022, unedited take on digital piano

Photo: Forks of the Credit Provincial Park, Caledon, 2020

Music and composer’s notes copyright Bruce A. Russell 2025

For Ash, II. 77

In August 1999, while I was co-hosting Radio Music Gallery, I was fortunate to have composer Ann Southam (1937-2010) as a guest. It was optional content for the show, unrelated to promoting the concert calendar at The Music Gallery, but more than relevant to the focus of the organization in those years. Early on a Friday morning, she ascended the stairs to the attic studio in the old 91 St. George St. location of CIUT, introduced tracks from recent CD releases of her work, and answered a few questions.

More here: https://elmahboob.com/2024/01/27/ann-southam-interview-fragment/

Technical note: I've posted the digitized audio of the cassette without any editing or cleanup. Two recordings of her music can be heard briefly (15-20 seconds each).

— Bruce A. Russell

Ann Southam Interview Fragment

For Ash (2019-21) is a short, three-movement work for solo piano dedicated to my friend, Ash Mistry. In contrast to some of my earlier piano music, there is greater focus on melodic design and variations in harmonic voicing and less on structural symmetry, balancing lyrical and systematic aspects.

Each of the three movements explores a melodic line in two parallel voices, mostly in intervals of a third in the first movement and fourths in the other two. In the third movement—"78"—a three-note pattern rotates through pairs of notes then is layered upon itself, expanding as the harmony develops.

https://elmahboob.com/2025/03/16/78-for-piano/

Composed March 2021, recorded March 2025, Roland digital piano

Photo: 5:48 a.m., June solstice, 2021, Toronto

Music and composer’s notes copyright Bruce A. Russell 2025

For Ash, III. 78

"Now or Now" (1990) is a song recorded late at night at York U. It appeared on Home, a cassette that was part-album, part compilation which I shared with a small group of friends.

I played through the song structure on an out of tune acoustic with no click, added sampled instruments, then sang tired, also out of tune vocals. Rough sketches with flubs were fine with me — I was discovering my own playing and composing style, and the next idea was always calling.

It's a weird blend of proggy quirkiness, minimalist melo-rhythm and 80s band roots. The lyrics were sort of absurd, channeling fears of 21st century, authoritarian dystopia and collapse.

Composed, recorded and mixed to cassette March 6, 1990
upright piano, Roland S-50 sampler, Roland DEP-5, TASCAM 8-track 1/2 inch reel-to-reel tape
Cassette first transferred to digital 2017, audio unmastered

Photo: performing at McLaughlin College, April 1990

Music and composer’s notes copyright Bruce A. Russell 2025

Now or Now

"Dance to the Music" (1988) is an experimental cover of the Sly & The Family Stone song, made at the end of my adolescence. It was my submission for a first-year electronic composition assignment to produce a subversive pop piece. Musical pastiche and parody had already been in my wheelhouse as an artsy, neurodivergent teen.

I was in the process of examining inheritances that had felt hidden, in this case, soul, reggae and beat mixing, while simultaneously moving towards experimentalism. While my musicianship was developing well, some of the vocal shtick and cultural performances were naive or questionable. Such are the impulsive, unvarnished constructions of youth. The song later appeared on my DIY cassette album Circus in a slightly less anarchic mix.

In the late 1980s, the audio revolution of digital sampling was happening in the world. At the same time in the junior studio at York U, I had reel-to-reel tape, an editing bay, splicing tape and a room big enough to wind great lengths of tape around mic stands. This is how I made the loops from "Dance to the Music" and "You Can Make It If You Try," which were especially crunchy, sourced from a cassette (and, by the final mixdown, many generations away from the original performances by the band).

RIP Sly Stone (1943-2025)

Recorded on 4-track cassette, remixed to 1/4" tape, March 1988
Yahama DX-27, Apple II/Soundchaser, Roland DEP-5 fx, 1/4" tape loops and inserts from found and copyrighted tape sources, splice editing
Transferred to DAT September 1990, audio unmastered

Photo: December 1987

Music and composer’s notes copyright Bruce A. Russell 2025

Dance to the Music

From a live broadcast of Radio Music Gallery on CIUT 89.5 FM, August 29, 1998. Source audio is an aircheck recording on cassette, digitized in July 2025. The release of this interview was authorized by Linda Catlin Smith.

https://elmahboob.com/2025/08/04/interview-with-linda-catlin-smith/

– Bruce A. Russell

Interview with Linda Catlin Smith

Study for Two Pianos and Tape (1990) is a collaboration with Garnet Willis (garnetwillis.com) (@https://soundcloud.com/garnoying). We were electronic music students of Philip Werren and composition/music history students of James Tenney at York University. The piece was recorded live at a student recital, where both Werren and Tenney were in attendance. This is a single mic recording that has survived several stages of media storage.

https://elmahboob.com/2025/08/21/199035-study-for-two-pianos-and-tape/

Garnet is an award-winning interdisciplinary artist, audio engineer, composer and instrument builder. I highly recommend exploring his groundbreaking work. He's also one of the first friends I made in Toronto.

Note: this recording is dynamic, beginning quietly and becoming loud in several segments.

Recorded in concert, April 5, 1990, DACARY, York University
Two pianos, reel to reel tape (Yahama DX-27, Roland S-50, DEP-5 effects)
DAT recording transferred to cassette in 1990, transferred to CD-R in 2003

Artwork: sketch for the concert program, artist unknown

Music and composer’s notes copyright Bruce A. Russell 2025

Study for Two Pianos and Tape

Nerve (1990) is the first cassette album I had duplicated, with a run of 50 copies. It combined scrappy portastudio recordings made in my basement apartment with more polished tracks recorded with a mix of personal and professional equipment at York U. Not all of it holds up, student work or not, but some of my best early efforts were made here.

"Empire in Recline" is an instrumental mix of a song on Nerve. It fuses nu jazz funk and synth rock. The digital clav riff and gated drum sounds are of the period. No programming was used, all parts were played manually.

This track is a reconstruction of the original production using digitized stems from the 4-track cassette. I made several edits to the drum track to sync it to the unedited main keyboards; the tape and recorder were 20 years old at the time of digitizing and not reproducing the audio at a consistent speed. For the last minute, the drums and main keyboards are running together without any edit points. I have left in artifacts such as hiss, an audible punch-in on the drums, loose rhythm and keyboard flubs. There are no newly added effects or processing.

Composed and recorded November 1989
Yahama DX27 synth, Roland S-50 sampled drums, Tascam Porta One
Cassette 4-track stems transferred to digital 2009
Reconstruction in GarageBand, October 2025

Image: Nerve cassette J-card layout (detail), incorporating a photo by James McGuire

Music and composer’s notes copyright Bruce A. Russell 2025

Empire in Recline

See my composer SoundCloud at soundcloud.com/brussell