The Fall 2021 issue connects music artists of distinctive styles and distant places with expertly crafted words and carefully chosen images. It is accompanied by a CD of deeply felt, hand-blown music, enhanced with chiselled edges and unusual colours. The first season of Understory—a new improvised-music recording series that responds to the unique combination of physical isolation and technological fluency in pandemic times—features 42 artists from different genres and places; participants Lan Tung, Gabriel Dharmoo, and SlowPitchSound share their first impressions. British composer Frank Denyer discusses the early years of his music education, and his evolution as a composer, ensemble leader, and scholar. Parker Mah (Montreal) and respectfulchild (Saskatoon) discuss how their creative expression is a counterpoint to the dominant culture of the cities where they live and work. Composer Taylor Brook discusses how his interests (such as Hindustani music and speculative fiction) and surroundings inform his apperceptive music. Argentine composer Rocío Cano Valiño discusses Okno, first-place winner of Musicworks’ 2020 Electronic Music Composition Contest and inaugural winner of the Marcelle Deschênes Prize in Electronic Music, a new prize for female-identifying and non-binary composers. Dr. Norah Lorway discusses the experimental electronic-music netlabel Xylem Records.

On the CD: Fourteen tracks of new and previously unreleased music from artists in the Fall 2021 issue.