Poor Pilgrim Island Show 4: The Legend of Snake Island (feat. Picastro, Eucalyptus, Not the Wind Not The Flag, Snowblink)
Various locations, Toronto Island. Sunday, July 18, 2010.
There are few things finer than a summer Sunday afternoon on Toronto Island. With some time on my hands, I headed over early, just to have some time to walk around a bit and to find a tree to sit under and read. Despite rain-threatening skies, it was pretty busy on the ferry over. The big draw was a festival of Indian culture, and there were lots of families heading over for that (and big lines at the tents offering free vegetarian food). I was looking for the slightly smaller crowd, though, which I found as I saw a few people ahead of me trickling into Franklin's Storybook Garden. I counted about forty-ish people on hand as things got underway at the first stop on this year's Poor Pilgrim Island Show, an annual event planned by Matt Cully, who is also known for his work as a member of local folk-shouters Bruce Peninsula.
The bands that Cully has invited out in the past generally come from both the song-singing, usually folk-ish scene as well as more experimental/improv groups, and Picastro, first up today, might be considered to exist right in the grey area between those two camps. Liz Hysen's drowsy, detuned compositions are flexible, like rooms in dreams that can change dimensions from moment to moment. As such, they can take on the shifts in approach brought on by her always-morphing backing band — it's not unusual to see the lineup shift from show to show, although there's a consistent core. Short one member to start ("if you see someone with a cello, wave them over," Cully commented while introducing the band), they played the first song as a trio, Hysen joined by regular drummer Brandon Valdivia and semi-regular (or, perhaps, formerly regular) guitarist Evan Clarke.1
As that ended, Nick Storring came into sight and joined the band on the storybook stage, briefly considering if it would be proper to use Mother Goose as a seat while playing (to which Hysen warned, "you're abusing the Franklin Garden!"). When Storring's cello joined in for "Split Head" it hit the mark perfectly and the rest of the set perfectly settled into that hazy, slightly worried vibe that the band expresses so well.
A couple songs later, after a lovely run through "The Stiff", everyone on stage was looking back and forth to see if they should do one more, but Cully, keeping things on schedule, decided to get things moving to the next stop. Promising some "dance music", he gave directions to the Gibraltar Point centre.
Listen to a track from this set here.
A nice walk over to Artscape Gibraltar Point — known to some local music fans as the home to the ALL CAPS/Wavelength Summer extravaganzas. A pause to nod hello to some local musicians recording next door at the Gas Station studio and then around back and in to the Fireplace Room. There were a few rows of chairs that were quickly filled, with more folks on top of that standing around as Jamie Shannon's puppet show began. An ugly duckling story with a Swamp Thing twist, all narrated by a shark, it was a little goofy but rather fun, and quite well done. Then, for the next musical set, everyone just had to turn their chairs one hundred and eighty degrees for Eucalyptus.
Which is possibly how far off I might have been in guessing what this band might be like. Except for Cully's promise of "dance music", I knew nothing about them, but looking at the players I quickly recognized most of the cast of notable local improvisers.2 It turned out that the band was put togther by saxophonist Brodie West to play (and play around with) calypso music — a genre that generally falls outside of both the boundaries of "cool" music and the sort of stuff that gets a lot of critical respect. But from these experienced hands, this sounded totally fun and vital, making all that moot.
The music sauntered along in a mellow vibe of the gentle calypso-inspired grooves, with a touch of Gilberto/Getz in there, too. West and Nicole Rampersaud's intertwining horns floated on the rhythm section while the whole thing was nudged along by Blake Howard's percussion. The band did five selections, and I'm not sure how many were originals — a couple sounded like they could well have been standards.3 The upshot was a delicious summertime languor, like leaning back and watching clouds — y'know; island music. A completely different sound than anything I was expecting to hear, and in this environment, totally delightful.4
Listen to a track from this set here.
And then it was back along the island's southern shore to the end of the Centre Island Pier, where Not the Wind, Not The Flag were setting up under the tall direction-pointing sign. There was a fine spray of drizzle, the sky looking like it was just on the cusp of raining, but it held off. I've never seen two sets that were alike from Brandon Valdivia and Colin Fisher, who really seem to enjoy fitting their music into whatever environment they're playing in. Here, the grey cloudy sky, impassive water and drifting, squawking seagulls served as the backdrop for a continuous twenty-minute improvisation that shifted as the pair each switched instruments.
The piece started off with a plinky duet of thumb piano (Valdivia) and banjo (Fisher). It took a couple minutes of the two playing off each other to fall into something, but then it began to build up beyond the sum of its parts. Valdivia then shifted to his minimal drumkit and that gave things a bit more structure. There was an interlude with Valdivia on the flute while Fisher set up an ngoni, and once he started playing that, the set hit its most fascinating stretch, with Fisher using some pedals to extend the instrument's sound.
The rain didn't come, the birds kept crying out, and while this was "outside" music, it was the most open set of the day, with plenty of non-concert attendees lingering around to listen in while they were chancing across this. And it all fit together pretty well.
Listen to a track from this set here.
From there, headed over to St. Andrew-by-the-lake, the pretty little church nestled in just behind Centerville. I'd not been in before, but it felt pretty comfortable in the narrow woodsy and stained-glass space. There was seating in the pews for maybe seventy people or so, and as walkers and bikers made their way over, the place filled up pretty well, with a smattering of folks sitting on the floor.
They'd be not too far from Snowblink's extended mini-choir — Isla Craig and Felicity Williams were sitting on the steps of the pulpit as principles Daniela Gesundheit and Dan Goldman perched above them in churchy throne-like chairs. It was just right for their spacious, clean-lined folk songs, and in a space like this, it was befitting that Gesundheit was forgoing her vocal looping effects, instead employing the well-arranged voices on hand.
Further showing their elastic penchant for collaborating, when Thomas Gill stood up between songs to move a view-blocking Bible stand out of the way, he got called up to add his voice as well. "We have lyrics," Gesundheit said, referring to the cheatsheets on hand, and Gill stayed up to add his vocals for a couple songs. The band is known for trying out some interesting covers, and this time around, they essayed Springsteen's "State Trooper". Audacious, perhaps, inasmuch as it might not call to mind The Boss so much as Cowboy Junkies, but worth it for the whoops and hollers at the end.
Although their album Long Live is just now getting a European release (and tour to match) it sounded here like there was some new material front and centre, and all top-notch stuff. Even if all the bodies on hand were making the room rather muggy, it was a delightful combination of venue and performer.
Listen to a track from this set here.
The rest of the day's acts can be found in a separate post here.
1 Clarke hung back a bit on some of the material from Become Secret, the band's latest, and was more heard on older stuff like "Car Sleep". I'm not sure if it was just his unfamiliarity with the newer stuff, but I enjoyed how, between songs, the members identified songs back-and-forth by playing the opening notes to each other, asking, "that one?" as if they'd forgotten the titles, or dared not speak them.
2 On this date, the band included:
Nicole Rampersaud - Trumpet
Brodie West - Alto Saxophone
Alex Lukashevsky - Guitar
Ryan Driver - Piano
Mike Smith - Bass
Nick Fraser - Drums
Blake Howard - Percussion
3 I'm assuming that the set's lead-off "Bossa", which you can hear at West's myspace, is an original.
4 Eucalyptus will be playing at the Holy Oak Café on December 16, 2010, which would be an excellent inoculation against the winter blues.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment