EL MAHBOOB

expressing black mood

  • 1995+30 líthos klásma

    líthos klásma (1995) was commissioned as the acousmatic score to the dance piece “Meshing” by Dave Wilson and the Parahumans. It premiered as part of the show Coded in October 1995. Part composition, part soundscape, it was a self-contained production on the Korg 01/WFD workstation, which was a convenient and affordable way for me to work.

    The score is typical of my style at the time, incorporating modified factory patches, ambient synth drones, drums, metallic percussion, canonic loops, and digital noise gestures. The waveform shaping, automated mixing, panning, and precision reflect several years of exploration using the above device and its predecessor, the Korg M1. 

    The workstation is set to a just intonation tuning as follows (in cents deviation from equal temperament): C -16, C# -31, D -12, D# 00, E +39, F +4, F# -33, G -14, G# -2, A -49, A# +2, B +41.

    Composed and recorded September-October 1995

    Korg 01/WFD, live transfer to CD-R, August 2000, unmastered

    Image: my birthday, January 1995

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

  • Kool & the Gang: Middle Years 74-78

    These are the years of Kool & the Gang you may not know as well. They’re just as monumental in shaping Black dance music, hip hop and sampling history as the early or peak years.

    Between the release of funk anthems culminating in the gold-certified Wild and Peaceful album and the start of a chart-topping, mainstream run with the platinum-certified Ladies’ Night, the band created some of their most refined, eclectic and inventive self-produced music. Sometimes they innovated; often, they borrowed from their contemporaries or leaned heavily on referencing earlier work, and they began to struggle for traction. Some critics didn’t get it. Throughout, the band’s work remained expertly crafted, soulful, joyous and stanky, with a positive spiritual message, all without a lead singer.

    While not easily defined as a style period, the middle years are fully evidenced in the six albums represented here. The band’s sound is saturated with influences, presenting new variations on other styles already in the air, then resolving back to their core jazz and funk roots. Virtually all of the music is driven by Robert “Kool” Bell’s bass, Ronald Bell’s (Khalis Bayyan’s) arrangements, tenor sax and spacy synths, George Brown’s solid, often-sampled drumming, and those signature horns.

    Everybody’s Dancin’ (excerpt) | Everybody’s Dancin’ (1978)
    L-O-V-E | Open Sesame (1976)
    Mighty Mighty High | The Force (1977)
    Universal Sound | Love & Understanding (1976)
    Ride the Rhythm | Spirit of the Boogie (1975)
    I Like Music | Everybody’s Dancin’
    Ancestral Ceremony | Spirit of the Boogie
    Gift of Love | Open Sesame
    Just Be True | The Force
    All Night Long | Open Sesame
    Summer Madness | Light of Worlds (1974)
    Here After | Light of Worlds
    Free | The Force
    Sunshine | Open Sesame
    Peace to the Universe | Everybody’s Dancin’
    Love & Understanding (extended version) | Kool & the Gang Spin Their Top Hits (1978)
    Spirit of the Boogie | Spirit of the Boogie

    All albums released on De-Lite Records

    Kool & the Gang: Middle Years 74-78

    Compiled 2021-22
    Lightly mixed tempos and keys, retaining original long fades
    August 2025

    Ibrahim El Mahboob

  • 1990+35 Study for Two Pianos and Tape

    Study for Two Pianos and Tape (1990) is a collaboration with Garnet Willis. 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.

    I created the tape by layering synth lines, drones and homemade samples, varying the tape machine speed during mixing to create glissando effects. I then added a series of very quick cuts with a razor blade and blank leader tape.

    Garnet is playing a grand piano, and me a partially prepared upright, which he later detuned while I played to create further glissando effects. The piano parts are semi-improvised around a D-flat extended/microtonal tonic centre. A classmate volunteered to mix the tape around the room speakers during the performance. There were random pans and fade ins and outs, to which we responded with active gestures, minimalism and a hint of romanticism.

    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

  • Interview with Linda Catlin Smith

    On August 29, 1998, composer, educator and former Arraymusic Artistic Director Linda Catlin Smith walked up to the attic studio of CIUT 89.5 FM on St. George St. and gave a brilliant, illuminating, live interview on Radio Music Gallery. I was a year into hosting the show, brash and awkward, and yet made space for Linda to speak expansively about her work and ideas. She was gracious in correcting my on-air mispronunciation of her name. I was fortunate to have made this early connection, and be present for what in retrospect felt like a composition lesson.

    The source audio is an aircheck recording on cassette, digitized in July 2025. The release of this interview was authorized by Linda Catlin Smith.

    Recordings referred to during the interview:

    The Surroundings (1995), performed by Barbara Pritchard

    The View from Here (1992), performed by Barbara Pritchard

    Versailles (1988), performed by Les Coucous Bénévoles

  • 78, for piano

    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.

    The movement titles reference years in the late 1970s, evoking nostalgia for my childhood and the popular emergence of minimalism and electronic dance music. The opening chords of the first movement—the fourth, fifth and sixth degrees in the key of G-flat major, which recur in this movement—are also callback to the era.

    The music of For Ash and its main idea of two parallel voices was later used as the basis for “dyad,” the first movement of my piano trio we have lived before (2021). The material is explored differently in each instance.

    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

  • Arraymusic New Encounters II

    On Saturday, February 15, 2025, Arraymusic presents the second in a concert series I’ve titled New Encounters. In-person and livestream tickets available here. I curated this program, and it’s wonderful to assist in bringing these composers to a new audience.

    Curator’s Note: The idea of the New Encounters concert, in contrast to its older cousin Four New Works, is that the pieces on the program are previously unheard by Arraymusic audiences if not all world premieres. This year, we’re fortunate that all four works will indeed be premieres, two of them arrangements by Pouya Hamidi and Morgan-Paige Melbourne of their existing music, and two freshly minted compositions by Maria-Eduarda Mendes Martins and Eldritch Priest. These creators are from very different sound worlds, and I’m excited for those to align in one evening with the Array Ensemble.

  • The No Normal Podcast Interview

    In August 2024, I recorded an interview with composer and educator Reid Contreras Woelfle for New Music Edmonton‘s The No Normal podcast. Grateful for the chance to expand on where I’m at, four years into this chapter, the rebirth. Available on SoundCloud (see below) and as an Apple podcast.

  • New String Quartet World Premiere: ex aliis matres

    I’m pleased to announce the completion of a new work for string quartet, ex aliis matres, an autobiographical dedication to my mothers, a thematic embodiment of my origin story and a spiritual sequel to my first quartet, Madra. And I’m very much looking forward to the work’s premiere performance by the musicians who commissioned it, the Isabel String Quartet, in Kingston, Ontario (my birthplace) on February 24, 2025. The concert takes place in the beautiful Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts at Queen’s University. I will be in attendance at the event.

  • Loss at Under the Radar Festival, Harlem NYC, January 2025

    Loss, the multimedia performance in which I acted as composer, music director and pianist/keyboardist in Toronto in June 2023, will return from January 9-11, 2025 at the Apollo Theater, Harlem, New York City, presented by the Apollo in partnership with the Under the Radar Festival. It’s an intimate, multigenerational family story about grief and healing, written by Ian Kamau and his father Roger McTair (1943-2024), and shared live on stage with music, video, sound and lighting design. Created by and for people of African/Caribbean descent, it’s one of the most personally resonant projects I’ve been connected with so far. I’m excited to reunite with Ian and the creative team including my fellow musicians, and to have my performance debut in the US at this historic location and venue. Tickets: https://www.apollotheater.org/event/loss https://utrfest.org/program/loss

  • In Conversation with Stephanie Chua and Adam Sherkin

    On Thursday, November 14th, I will be part of Artists in Conversation, discussing my piano compositions in person with junctQín keyboard collective‘s Stephanie Chua and Piano Lunaire‘s Adam Sherkin, and listening to them perform solo selections of mine that they are also playing in concerts during November. Questions and input from those in attendance are welcome. Details are below.

    Date & Time: Thursday, November 14th, 7:30 pm (doors 7:00 pm)
    Location: Arraymusic, 155 Walnut Ave, 2nd floor, Toronto
    Admission: Free
    Duration: 1 hour
    Register your attendance in advance: info@pianolunaire.org

    Go to my Events page to see the concerts related to this event.

    There is also a Facebook event page.