ANDREW MacKELVIE

ANDREW MacKELVIE’S MANY WORLDS

WTETN Records

Picture yourself on a bike, stopped at a traffic light, when out of nowhere a car hits you from behind and sends you flying over your bicycle handles, crashing to the ground.

“I recall those few seconds passing as hours while I realized that I was about to die,” Andrew MacKelvie recalls.

The woodwind player did survive, but with major injuries; a broken back, shattered knee, and other bones in his body were broken. That was in 2012.  Following months of immobility, he re-learned to walk again. However, he survived with enduring chronic pain. It reminds him every day of an incident that changed his entire life. This album is an act of stubborn resistance; a testament to his strength. But it’s also made of music that screams his pain to the world, yet exhibits his strength, courage and determination to move forward.

This is experimental music. It’s an avant-garde production, premiering improvised psychedelic songs that unfold chapters of his life.  The titles say it all: “Impact/Awake” opens the album, followed by “Disentomb the Brain Function,” with another composition titled “Testament.”

Surrounded by some of the best Canadian musicians, the Halifax-based saxophonist and composer uses jagged abstraction to present these songs.  They are electronically enhanced, cloudy with soundscapes that scream and scratch their way across my listening room.  If you love the avant-garde and experimental music, this album will please.

MacKelvie can play most any genre of music and is a respected session musician.  He is also on the JUNO-nominated Jerry Granelli record “What I Hear Now.”  In 2020, he was the inaugural recipient of “Upstream Music Association’s Paul Cram Creation Award.”  It was accompanied by a commission from Symphony Nova Scotia.  MacKelvie’s original piece “Treize Treize” debuted in 2023 and was a concerto for improvising saxophone and drum kit.

Andrew MacKelvie cites his improvised exchange with Angel Bat Dawid at the inaugural “EVERYSEEKER” Concert in Halifax, Nova Scotia among his career highlights, along with this recent album release. Postscript: Please design future album covers with readable font. The musician’s names deserve to be legible.

ANDREW MacKELVIE BAND: Andrew MacKelvie, alto & soprano sax/bass clarinet; Doug Cameron, drums/percussion/clapping; Gabriella Ciurcovich, bass; Ross Burns, guitar/tambourine/ clapping; Ellen Gibling, harp/clapping; Tom Richards, organ/trombone/euphonium/keyboard; Andrew Jackson, trombone; Jackson Fairfax-Perry, tenor sax/ synthesizer. GUESTS: Lance Sampson (aka: Aquakultre), Meghan Gilhespy, & Zoe Leger, vocals. Michael C. Duguay, melodica.        

Reviewed by Dee Dee McNeil

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