There is a venerable history of popular songs used as the starting point for elaborate classical compositions, but 500 years ago Josquin and Dufay never imagined using a gargantuan digital orchestra with up to 300 layered tracks pushing architectural proportion and human perception to the max. And yet, that is exactly what composer, MC Maguire, does in his Toronto studio. It’s daunting, it’s overwhelming, and it has to be heard (preferably loud) to be believed.

Dubbed “the most irritating and spellbinding composer since Philip Glass”, Maguire states: “Central to my current aesthetic, is taking Pop hits, de- constructing them, and then reassembling the data into massive, abstract canvases. The purpose of this is to use the original primal musicality as a talisman to enter a new, dream-like, mathematically proportioned world.”

Transmutation of Things is his latest effort in pop culture-infested stratagems. It boasts two more-than-substantial works for orchestra and CPU (what used to be called Tape or Fixed Media). Deep in the genetic code of Predisposition you might unconsciously perceive an Ariana Grande tune being put through an 18th Century vegematic of stretti, augmentations, inversions, retrogrades, and hocketing machinations.

Apophis, on the other hand, references the asteroid of the same name due to hit Earth in 2029 (maybe). Aptly named after the Egyptian god of chaos, Apophis swirls and careens through space resolutely unrelenting, just before eliciting a gasp from Katy Perry’s Tsunami. Subsequent orgasmic mayhem ensues.

Such bathos may be absolutely nuts, but the music brims with ideas and abundant pleasures and has earned Maguire his reputation as “the most original Canadian composer since R. Murray Schafer.”

MC Maguire is a Toronto-based composer/producer who has created a quirky post-modern hybrid that combines classical, pop, jazz, electro-acoustic, and world music traditions. He works primarily in his studios’ multi-track environment combining live recording, sampling, synths, exotic plugins, and digital editing possibilities.