Doing Science is the sound of two restless musical minds inviting you into their laboratory. Guitarist Don Scott and producer/engineer Jean Martin built their new record from the ground up, with no pre-conceived notions of what the final product might sound like. Their process, grounded in curiosity and play, played out over the course dozens of sessions at Martin’s famed west-end Toronto recording space THE FARM. 

There, the duo re-combined and dissected musical fragments, examining their inner workings, reverse-engineering ideas and feeding them into a variety of unpredictable machines in order to reassemble sound into new and unexpected forms. The result is seven compositions that balance precision with surprise, where each track feels like it’s discovering itself in real time. Scott and Martin’s creative partnership began 15 years ago while working on records by Peripheral Vision, the acclaimed jazz quartet that Scott co-leads with bassist Michael Herring. With PV, their process extended beyond the initial live-off-the-floor quartet sessions. After recording, the quartet would get into all sorts of trouble in Martin’s studio, adding overdubs and layering effects in order to enhance the live acoustic foundation of the albums. But there were always limits in this context: at some point, their experiments had to be reined in to preserve the integrity of the band’s live sound.

The impetus for Doing Science was to flip that logic on its head: to build a project with no guardrails, where “taking it too far” wasn’t a mistake, but the entire point. This album is anything but clinical – don’t let the title lead you astray. The pulse of jazz and improvisation runs beneath layers of electronics, guitars, and manipulated textures, grounding the experiments in something deeply human. From intentional moments of rhythmic disorientation to lengthy meditations on minimalist patterns,

Doing Science thrives on the friction between chaos and control.

Scott and Martin’s musical relationship anchors the project, with Scott weaving guitar and synth lines through Martin’s programming and sonic architecture. They’re joined by trusted collaborators who each expanded the sonic palette in unique ways.

Michael Davidson contributed blistering improvisations, sophisticated harmonic colours, and mesmerizing rhythms on marimba and vibraphone. Dan Fortin laid down cool bass lines and quirky melodic inventions, while also addinglayers of bowed acoustic bass. Mack Longpre brought

deep-pocketed grooves and subtly minimal textures, adding a distinctly human pulse to a world crowded with machines. Together, they transform the act of doing science into a musical practice—an ongoing investigation where every sound is both question and answer.