Keeping it tight

Tiny Sun: Jonathan Goldsmith, Martina Sorbara, Don Rooke (photo: Greg Pacek) Brevity, a friend of mine once remarked, can contain most things. Two of my favourite pieces of music are “Stay” by Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs and “Desireless” by Don Cherry, which clocked in at 1 minute 36 seconds and 1 minute 22 seconds respectively on their appearances in 1960 and 1973 but lack nothing in richness and enduring fascination. Now comes a Canadian trio calling itself Tiny Sun with an album which consists of 18 pieces, none of them lasting more than two minutes. I’m aware of Tiny Sun because their guitarist, Don Rooke, is a musician whose career I’ve followed with interest and admiration for many years through his work with Mary Margaret O’Hara and the Henrys. The other members of the line-up, all Toronto-based, are the film and TV composer Jonathan Goldsmith, who plays keyboards, guitar and bass here, and the singer Martina Sorbara, better known as Dragonette for her electropop work. By…