Photos — Pete Johnston Music

I grew up in Windsor, a small town in Nova Scotia that happened to be blessed with a vibrant musical culture. My father ran not only one of the top high school jazz programs in the province, but also one of the finest Dixieland bands north of Bangor, Maine. I grew up listening to my dad’s Louis Armstrong and Count Basie records, rebelled by digging deeply into Rush and Sonic Youth in my tender years, and came out the other side with a keen interest in Ornette Coleman, King Crimson, and psychedelic North Atlantic folk music.

Several degrees and a relocation to Toronto later, I find myself in a community of inspiring, creative musicians. Below is some information and sounds from groups I have led or been part of over the years.

Most of the music below is available for streaming and purchase on my Bandcamp page and on the major streaming services (Spotify, Apple Music, and Google Play)

Alasdair Roberts, Màiri Morrison, and Pete Johnston

As many Scots from both Highlands and Lowlands have done before them, musicians Màiri Morrison and Alasdair Roberts made the long journey over the ocean to Canada in June 2023. Theirs was not a perilous sea voyage — it was for a transatlantic collaboration instigated by Nova Scotian bass player and musical arranger Pete Johnston. The trip resulted in a new album, due out 25 April 2025 on Drag City Records. Titled Remembered in Exile: Songs and Ballads from Nova Scotia is Màiri and Alasdair's long-overdue second collaboration together following 2012's critically-acclaimed Urstan.

Recorded in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Remembered in Exile features ten traditional Canadian songs with Scottish roots that draw heavily on the pioneering work of Nova Scotian folklorist Helen Creighton. The album's songs are pulled from her works including Songs and Ballads from Nova Scotia and Gaelic Songs in Nova Scotia, out of a vast amount of traditional song material collected by Creighton on Canada's eastern seaboard. These songs are the musical artifacts of the westward journey undertaken by Scottish fishers, crofters, merchants and their families as they migrated - willingly or otherwise - to Canada from the 1600s to the mid-1800s. A native of the Isle of Lewis, Màiri takes the lead on a handful of Gaelic language songs throughout the album, while Alasdair leads on some Canadian variants of the types of Scots ballads he's known for.

Remembered in Exile constitutes a fine and fitting follow-up to Miri and Alasdair's first album together, charting new waters and reforging the longstanding bond between old Scotland and Nova Scotia.

Featuring an all-star cast of Pete Johnston’s Canadian collaborators, including: Jake Oelrichs (drums), Mike Smith (banjo, producer), Sarah Frank (fiddle), Andrew Killawee (harmonium), David Christiansen (clarinet), Tom Richards (trombone), and Nicole Rampersaud (trumpet).

Recorded at Fang Recording in Dartmouth, NS with engineers Alex Burris and Charles Austin.

Stranger Still

Stranger Still is a song project that explores the words of Hants County Nova Scotia-born poet Alden Nowlan (1933-1983). Featuring Mim Adams and Randi Helmers (voice), Rob Clutton (bass), and Pete Johnston on guitar, Stranger Still is either deceptively odd or deceptively straightforward. Nowlan's rural lyricism is paired with music that combines plainspoken folk singing with medieval counterpoint, minimalism, progressive rock, and Scandinavian folk music. The resulting songs are an exploration of how my roots in rural Nova Scotia have shaped the music I've made since leaving for the big city in 2001.

“The Songs Which Are evokes both the alluring Celtic folk roots of Canada's Maritime Provinces and the stark commanding beauty of plainsong… Words and music both reward a deep listen to this unusual offering.” Jeff Kaliss, Songlines

“The music of Stranger Still feels minimal in nature, but is maximal in effect... As a debut, it is a stunning, nuanced effort from a talented set of performers. 8/10” - Bryon Hayes, Exclaim! Magazine

“Pete Johnston’s song project Stranger Still played music profoundly rooted in the culture of his native Nova Scotia, setting works by the foundational Maritime poet Alden Nowlan. [The music was] a warm evocation of Nowlan’s work, suggesting medieval chant, minimalism, and folk music in a lucid rendering of hard-edged struggles suspended between vision and loss.” — Stuart Broomer, Musicworks

Stranger Still’s sophomore album The Songs Which Are is out now. Check out the Bandcamp link below to hear more. You can also find it on all the streaming services.

Stranger Still Live at the Canadian Music Centre, 30 Nov 2021

“I, Icarus” - with guest vocalist Laura Swankey

“The Drunken Poet” - with guest vocalist Laura Swankey

See Through 4 - Permanent Moving Parts

Permanent Moving Parts (2021) features a quartet of Lina Allemano (trumpet), Michael Davidson (vibes), Jake Oelrichs (drums) and Pete Johnston (bass). Building on 2020's False Ghosts, Minor Fears and Bog Standards, this record features more tunes that blur the lines between composition and improvisation in the tradition of the Jimmy Giuffre 3, Carla Bley, and Ornette Coleman, this time with some 1980s-era Rush mixed in to keep it real.

"The line-up of Toronto-based bassist Pete Johnston's See Through 4 typically changes from record to record, but this one's a keeper…they swing with such a light touch you might almost miss their covertly proggy digressions." - Bill Meyer, Wire (May 2021)

"Music with a free spirit, a distinct direction and full of surprising twists. They go from counterpoint to swing and everything comes out in a natural flow. Contemporary 'jazz' at its best!" - Geert Ryssen, Full Circle Music

"What Permanent Moving Parts has in common with Tristano and Dolphy, as it does with all the best jazz, is freshness, inventiveness and experimentalism. The band is also a listening band, in which the individual musicians are acutely attentive and responsive to each other... There a is a lot to be enjoyed here, and a lot of fun to be had doing so." Chris May, All About Jazz

See Through 4 - “Underground Over Night”

Live at the Emmett Ray in Toronto.

Lina Allemano - Trumpet

Michael Davidson - Vibraphone

Jake Oelrichs - Drums

Pete Johnston - Bass

See Through 4 - False Ghosts, Minor Fears

False Ghosts, Minor Fears (2020) features a quartet of Marilyn Lerner (piano), Karen Ng (saxophone), Nick Fraser (drums) andPete Johnston (bass). This band draws equally on the jazz and progressive rock traditions, with intricate compositions knit together with ensemble improvisations.

“The 4 looks and sounds like an acoustic jazz combo alto sax, piano, double bass, drums. But this music could fairly be called jazz-rock, and rock of a very particular stripe… His compositions sound nothing like prog rock now, but the way his music sequences dissimilar segments will make sense to anyone who spent some time listening to side long Yes and Genesis epics.” Bill Meyer, Dusted

"See Through 4 offer a further extension of Lennie Tristan's already abstracted linear vision, but composer Pete Johnston has a playful manner all his own." Stuart Broomer, Whole Note

See Through 4 Live at Array Music Studio, January 2019

See Through 4 - Bog Standards

Bog Standards (2020) features a quartet of Rebecca Hennessy (trumpet), Karen Ng (saxophone), Jake Oelrichs (drums) and Pete Johnston (bass). This band plays re-imaginings of tunes originally recorded by See Through Trio. New jazz standards, Hants County, Nova Scotia-style.

See Through 5

See Through 5 is a chamber-prog group that performs intricate, polyrhythmic compositions by bassist Pete Johnston. Featuring Tania Gill (piano), Karen Ng (saxophone and clarinet), Jake Oelrichs (drums), and Mike Smith (synth), See Through 5's music features swaths of electronic colour draped on top of acoustic instruments, wrapped in a minimalism-informed take on the rhythms of contemporary electronic dance music and the melodies of 1970s progressive rock.

"Perhaps the biggest compliment that could be paid to Johnston and company is that See Through 5 sound pretty much unlike anything else out there at the moment". Ron Schepper, textrua.org

See Through 5 Live

“I Can’t Forgive These Buildings” - Tranzac 2016

“Standing In The Dust Since Then” - Array Music Studio 2015

See Through Trio

See Through Trio is composed of Tania Gill (piano), Karen Ng (saxophone), and Pete Johnston (bass). Based in Toronto, the members of the trio share an interest in collective improvisation and collaborative composition. See Through Trio's music encompass a diverse range of influences, from the 1960s jazz avant-garde of Carla Bley and Ornette Coleman to psychedelic British folk. These distinct sounds are connected by the playful deconstructionist spirit of jazz. See Through Trio performs frequently in Toronto, and has toured the East and West coasts of Canada. Our debut CD Our Own Devices was released in June 2007; Lines and Spaces followed in 2009, Near Northern Static in 2012, and Parallel Lights, was released in 2014.

"Comprising three of Toronto's most skilled and downright interesting players, See Through Trio have delved deep into their own particular idiom ... fresh intrigue at each turn." at Nick Storring, Musicworks

See Through Trio Live at Array Music Studio 2014

“Tiny Spirits Lifting”

“Never The Right Angle”

See Through Two

See Through Two iS a duo project with the great bassist and composer Rob Clutton. Rob has been a mentor for me for many years, so it's a real privilege to get to play music with him. Slow Bend is our debut recording, and it features nine compositions by Pete Johnston that afford plenty of space for improvisation and general low end theorizing. Although it's mostly music for two basses, there are a few tunes thrown in that feature Rob on other instruments he plays.

”Some clever dulling on the basses makes this a most unusual and unique piece of contemporary jazz... a quiet symphony for the brain." Marty Delia, The Jazz Music Blog

Aurochs

Aurochs is: Ali Berkok (piano/accordion), Pete Johnston (string bass), Jake Oelrichs (percussion) and Mike Smith (electronics). We play long, gradually unfolding improvised pieces inspired by dub reggae, American minimalism, and 1970s krautrock."

"Aurochs' music sits at the rich intersection of classic jazz-piano-trio instrumentation and a peculiar, asperous strain of minimalism... At once hypnotic and disquietingly propulsive, Rational Animals leaves the listener somewhat fatigued, yet still craving more." Nick Storring, Musicworks