This Friday, August 7th the Canadian saxophonist and composer Nicola Miller presents her sophomore release alongside her band Living Things, SPIT! out on LP, CD, and digitally from the Canadian label Watch That Ends The Night.
When Canadian saxophonist and composer Nicola Miller launched her debut recording, Living Tings, back in 2024 on Cacophonous Revival, she had only recently begun re-emerging after spending considerable time away from performing and composing. With her second LP, SPIT! on the horizon, this hiatus now feels like a distant memory. Her previous outing garnered considerable acclaim from an assortment of outlets—Stereogum’s Phil Freeman, for one, touted it as “unearthly, fascinating music.” It also received a nomination for Jazz Album of the Year from Music Nova Scotia. On top of that, Miller was also named ArtsNS’ Emerging Artist of the Year and commissioned by Symphony Nova Scotia as a result of being presented with Upstream Music Association’s Paul Cram Award. During this time, she appeared on stages that include the Guelph Jazz Festival and the Open Waters Festival, and is now pursuing her DMA in Jazz Performance at the University of Toronto.
Suffice to say that even with her commitment to deeply idiosyncratic music-making, she has already woven herself into the fabric of jazz and improvised music within Canada. SPIT! documents the same band as its predecessor, with Miller leading on alto saxophone (and fute on track 3), Frank Gratkowski on bass clarinet (plus an alto sax cameo on the opener), Doug Tielli on trombone, Nicholas D’Amato on bass, and Nick Fraser on drums. While it shares other attributes with the previous release, there are a number of new developments.
For one, she has shifted over to the Canadian imprint Watch Tat Ends Te Night, home to various restless experimentalists such as Quinton Barnes, Alex Lukashevsky, as well as acclaimed projects from label co-founders Andrew MacKelvie and Michael Cloud Duguay. Musically speaking, SPIT! exudes newfound energy and momentum right out of the gate, and thisunderlying vitality persists throughout the record, even as it veers into various diferent musical terrain. It also feels more blatantly aligned with the jazz tradition than its predecessor.
Te title track opens with a robust unaccompanied moment from D’Amato, and as his playing coalesces into walking with Fraser bolstering him and the jagged tangles of horns emerge, it’s hard not to imagine the spectres of Mingus and Dolphy observing from the sidelines. Tis assertive, swinging greeting to the record immediately contrasts the opener of Living Tings which almost felt like an approximation of a feld recording. Gratkowski unleashes a propulsive alto solo, before passing it of to Tielli whose woozy trombone swoops eventually cajole Fraser and D’Amato to loosen the time-feel. As the rhythm section recedes, Tielli and Miller share a more abstract textural exchange before she’s left alone for a moment of frayed intimacy of shuddering multiphonics and microtonal infections. Shortly thereafter D’Amato and Fraser enter again ushering her out of the hush and back toward the aforementioned tangles that comprise the tune’s head.
photo by John DS Adams
Te frst of three sections of “Telecommunications” follows, eventually settling in a slow pulse that feels almost like a faded approximation of a samba, after a sputtering improvised passage. Over the bass and drums, Miller’s intricate multi-horn writing fourishes again with Gratkowski’s full expanse of bass clarinet bringing new colours in both the low and high registers. Te track ends in a similar manner to how it began, with textural squeals Miller reaches for the fute on the second movement of “Telecommunications,” with D’Amato picking up his bow and Fraser hisbrushes. Where the initial section of the piece has a thick, orchestral breadth to it, once its patient pulse is established, the music
assumes a more spacious and atmospheric quality. Tis gives way to an elusive solo from Tielli that both blends, and juxtaposes trombone and vocalization.
On the third instalment Fraser brings back the rhythmic electricity of the album’s frst track, but it’s Miller’s peculiar piecemeal form that propels it and produces intrigue. It starts with a brief, rhythmic chunk from the brass and winds before Fraser’s clattery entry. Te horns swell and swirl across the drums, before locking in to another drumless rhythmic interlude. When Fraser resumes, D’Amato fnally joins in as Gratkowski ofers a slap-tongue percussion over distant sax/ trombone pads. Tis section dissipates, leaving Miller and Tielli’s adrift. Te horn interruption makes its return in the form of a gnarled echo. Fraser replies, more clangorous and impassioned than ever, signalling the climax which occupies the fnal minute and a quarter of the piece. “Where’s Te Line” sheds the angularity in favour of an almost ballad-like character, albeit infected with the instrumentation quirks, dense harmonies, and timbral nuance of the band. In the fnal two minutes, this latter element becomes the focal point, producing rich spectral blooms as the piece concludes. “Drummers Are Bad” starts with a generous solo from Fraser that soon gives way to some sumptuously viscous ensemble writing. For almost four minutes, Fraser’s role is relegated to crisp punctuations as Miller, Tielli, Gratkowski, and D’Amato (in arco mode) alternate between intertwining long tones, futtering gestures and bursts of more emphatic articulation. Tese ftful moments of urgency eventually coax Fraser to join in again, resulting in a turbulent culmination. Yet he ultimately vanishes again, leaving the rest of the group to trace a three-minute denouement.
photo credit: author unknown
SPIT! continues to document Nicola Miller‘s unique artistry as well as the development of her band, Living Tings. As she and the group venture here into a more forthcoming mode of musical expression, with bolder compositions and dynamic spontaneity, they also continue to cultivate a penchant for timbral sophistication and murky nuance. SPIT! is a powerful and engrossing follow-up to her striking debut—one that continually surprises and delights listeners.
Canadian composer and saxophonist Nicola Miller has appeared in performances alongside a diverse cross-section of renowned artists including Nicole Rampersaud, Charlotte Hüg, India Gailey, Enrique Luna, Sam Wilson, Uri Caine, Tim Crofts, Glenn Patscha, and Nick Halley. She’s been featured at Guelph Jazz Festival, Open Waters and Halifax Jazz Festivals and also performed in contexts that span Berlin’s Volksbühne and Jazz Am Helmholtzplatz to Acadia University’s Physics Department. After graduating from Toronto’s Humber College in 2006, she ended up gravitating toward more pedagogical pursuits, only to ultimately enrol in a Masters’ program at Jazz Institut Berlin – Universität Der Kunst. It was there that she met her mentor, Frank Gratkowski and following Miller’s graduation in 2022, she formed the band heard on both the present recording and her 2024, inviting Gratkowksi aboard as a member. In addition to her own recordings, she has also appeared on acclaimed releases such as Enrique Luna’s La Luna Ensamble 1 (as featured in Enciclopedia Fonográfca del Jazz en México by Antonio Malacara), Joyfultalk’s Familiar Science (Constellation Recordings) and Jon Mckiel’s HEX (You’ve Changed). Pitchfork praised her contribution to the title track of the latter remarking “it’s the free-foating saxophone that tilts the song just of its axis.” Miller’s compositions have been commissioned by the UpStream Orchestra, an improvising large ensemble founded by the legendary Paul Cram, and the Alkali Collective. Frank Gratkowski‘s output traverses the broad context of contemporary improvised music, refusing to distinguish between composition and improvisation. Winner of the prestigious SWR Jazz Prize in 2005, he is a collaborator to the likes of Wilbert de Joode, Achim Kaufmann, Wolter Wierbos, Gerry Hemmingway, He has enjoyed performances at Donaueschinger Festival and the Huddersfeld Contemporary Music Festival, playing as a soloist with the orchestra of the Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR) and producing compositions for celebrated groups such as Apartment House, Ensemble Modern, Zeitkratzer, and Ensemble Musikfabrik.
Nicholas D’Amato is among Miller’s most frequent collaborators. Prior to moving to Nova Scotia, he studied with Michael Formanek for ten years and spent nearly twenty years immersed in New York City’s jazz scene, playing at beloved venues like Jazz at Lincoln Center, Te Blue Note, Birdland, Te 55 Bar, and Te Jazz Standard. Nicholas has performed in more than forty countries, playing many of the world’s biggest festivals and stages, including Te Hollywood Bowl, Montreux Jazz, North Sea Jazz, Jazz in Marciac, Monterey Jazz, Newport Jazz, Montreal Jazz, Koerner Hall, Glenn Gould Studio, and appeared on Te Tonight Show, Te Today Show. D’Amato has been a full-time faculty member at Acadia University since 2017 and continues to tour and record, leveraging this real-world experience to enrich his teaching. Doug Tielli has been friends with Miller since directly after undergrad years in Toronto. Tielli is known for his unique singersongwriter output on labels such as Tin Angel as well as a body of experimental music alongside the likes of Marshall Allen, Eugene Chadbourne, John Oswald, Evan Parker, Eric Chenaux, Brodie West, Martin Arnold, Ryan Driver. He also worked with Baby Dee, Devon Sproule, Jennifer Castle, The Constantines, Rheostatics, Snailhouse, Snowblink, Owen Pallett, Royal City and has had chamber works performed by Arraymusic, Contact Contemporary Music and Neither/Nor. Miller became better acquainted with drummer Nick Fraser during her time in Berlin, where Fraser would visit to perform with recent winner of the Deutscher Jazzpreis, Lina Allemano. Fraser is one of Canada’s most readily identifable and sought-after drummers working with the likes of Kris Davis, Ingrid Laubrock, Tony Malaby, Brodie West, Marilyn Crispell, Anthony Braxton, Joe McPhee, Ben Monder, and William Parker. For 10 years, he co-led the co-operative group Drumheller (which also included Tielli). His solo discography includes releases with Astral Spirits, Clean Feed, and Hat Hut and encompasses titles such as Owls in Daylight (1997), Towns and Villages (2013), If Tere Were No Opposites (2021), Farahser (2024), and Areas (2026).