{"id":152533,"date":"2026-02-10T16:19:27","date_gmt":"2026-02-10T21:19:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/panm360.com\/records\/karen-ng-backwards-blue-halocline-trance-album-critique-review-impro-improv-avant-garde-experimental-toronto\/"},"modified":"2026-02-10T16:26:05","modified_gmt":"2026-02-10T21:26:05","slug":"karen-ng-backwards-blue-halocline-trance-album-critique-review-impro-improv-avant-garde-experimental-toronto","status":"publish","type":"records","link":"https:\/\/panm360.com\/en\/records\/karen-ng-backwards-blue-halocline-trance-album-critique-review-impro-improv-avant-garde-experimental-toronto\/","title":{"rendered":"Karen Ng – Backwards Blue"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Toronto improviser (saxophone, clarinet, guitar, double bass) Karen Ng has accustomed us to all sorts of spontaneous exuberances over the past years. But in a purely acoustic format. With Backwards Blue<\/em>, she reinvents herself by adding electronics to her universe. Listening to the album, one wouldn’t have believed it was the first time. Ms. Ng has a good command of the language of electro-acoustic fusion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Improbable Colors<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The music on Backwards Blue<\/em> is evanescent, built on ineffable symbolism and beautifully expressed, I would say, by the titles of the pieces, chosen by the artist to associate various intangible adjectives with all sorts of colours. What might an Inflatable Grey, a Tactile Black, a Flimsy Pink or a Backwards Blue look like? Even better: how might they sound?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vital Intuitions<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Some intuitions come to life in an expected way, like this Impact Purple<\/em> that strikes the ears with multiple sound grains shot by Ng, her saxophone, and the synths. Or Brittle Brown<\/em>, which seems to atomise as the listening progresses, Tactile Black <\/em>mentioned earlier, which seeks to embody itself almost carnally, Flimsey Pink <\/em>in the process of fading, or Hollow Gold<\/em> expressed by an ultra-muted electro drone and ending, surprise, with an acoustic guitar refrain with folk accents! At the bottom of the cavity, there was a nugget!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Others show their condition less clearly and end up escaping our attention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Surrealist palette<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Karen Ng uses the entire expanded range of musical playing to express her surreal ideas: extended techniques, atonal sound squeaks, and sometimes even a bit of almost Coltrane-like lyricism. Not forgetting the use of synthetic lutherie artifices that aptly dress the extravagances of the composer-performer.
Backwards Blue <\/em>is a fascinating album, if only for the improbable images it suggests and seeks to translate into astonishing sounds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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