Sunday Playlist #30
Epigram - The Strangers We Are Becoming
Bell Orchestre - Icicles/Bicycles
Powerhouse Sound - Broken Numbers
Broken Social Scene - Meet Me in the Basement
Sunday Playlist is a semi-regular feature that brings back some of this blog's previously-posted original live recordings for an encore. You can always click the tags below to see what I originally wrote about the shows these songs came from.
Artist: The Rural Alberta Advantage
Songs: Starman [David Bowie cover] + Edmonton
Recorded at The Great Hall (PBR10 – Night 2), September 28, 2012.
The Rural Alberta Advantage - Starman
The Rural Alberta Advantage - Edmonton
Full review to follow. The RAA also led off with their contribution to Paper Bag's new Ziggy Stardust cover compilation (which you can grab here) and otherwise picked some highlights from their back catalogue in a sweaty singalong set. They'll be playing again with Dan Mangan at the Danforth Music Hall on October 25, 2012.
Artist: Cuff the Duke
Song: The Difference Between Us
Recorded at The Great Hall (PBR10 – Night 2), September 28, 2012.
Cuff the Duke - The Difference Between UsFull review to follow. Celebrating a ten-year anniversary of their own, Cuff the Duke devoted a good chunk of their set to songs from their debut album Life Stories For Minimum Wage. In the recent media blitz surrounding these concerts, Paper Bag co-founder Trevor Larocque has talked about how the label was inspired by Guelph's community-spirited Three Gut Records, so there was a nice synchronicity to have the band celebrating their first Three Gut release here — and all the more so since PBR has just given it a fresh vinyl reissue.
Artist: PS I Love You
Song: Don't Go
Recorded at The Great Hall (PBR10 – Night 2), September 28, 2012.
PS I Love You - Don't GoFull Review to Follow. The last time I caught PSI♥U was just on the cusp of the release of Death Dreams, with the band in its three-man incarnation. Reverting to a duo has meant no loss of volume, and Paul Saulnier's double-neck guitar-weilding showmanship is as ace as ever. The real revelation was drummer Benjamin Nelson coming up front for an excellent run through Bowie's "Moonage Daydream", as found on Paper Bag's new, celebratory Ziggy Stardust cover compilation, which you can grab here.
Artist: Elliott BROOD
Song: Johnny Rooke
Recorded at The Great Hall (PBR10 – Night 1), September 27, 2012.
Elliott BROOD - Johnny RookeFull review to follow. As they get further from the distortion-laced hollers of yore, Elliott BROOD feel like a band in transition. Playing a set that focused on their mellower side, the empty spaces that left in their sound were filled by Bob Egan, guesting on pedal steel and mandolin. Most of the songs would have been pleasing considered on their own, but I kept pining for the band to really tear it up for a song or two. By the time they did — "we've got two more songs!" we were told, about four songs after we we first told there would be two more songs — my attention was drifting. Still, there's no shortage of loveliness in this older chestnut laced with Egan's hurtin' pedal steel.
Artist: Woodhands
Song: unknown*
Recorded at The Great Hall (PBR10 – Night 1), September 27, 2012.
Woodhands - unknownFull review to follow. "I never said that I would give up!" It's been awhile since there's been a chance to catch Woodhands, which made this set — filled with brand new material — all the more special. In places that these works-in-progress felt more like "grooves" than "songs", but given their live M.O. and propensity to stretch things out, that's really nothing new. Snafus, Paul Banwatt's intense drumming, and Dan Werb rolling up his sleeves to declaim his intentions in shouted lyricbursts — this is why one goes to see Woodhands and it was all there in abundance.
* Does anyone know the title to this one? Please leave a comment!
Artist: Nate Young
Song: unknown*
Recorded at Holy Oak Café, September 26, 2012.
Nate Young - unknownFull review to follow. I wasn't familiar with Wolf Eyes member Nate Young, but the glacial doom of his set was right down my alley, the manipulated keyb sounds landing squarely between the sound of alienation and the closing credits music in one of those early 80's sci-fi/horror movies where everyone dies in the end.
* Does anyone know the title to this one? Please leave a comment!
Artist: The Knot
Song: [end of first piece]*
Recorded at Holy Oak Café, September 26, 2012.
The Knot - [end of first piece]Full review to follow. A satisfying night of unconventional music, with the first couple sets celebrating some new releases from the Arachnidiscs label. Improvising cellists Nick Storring and Tilman Lewis offer one side of a new entry in the label's exciting split tape series, and in this excerpt, we can hear them move from stately beauty to squeaking disarray to some plucked treated strings that sound like something from a nightmare version of Bartók.
* I suspect that this was an improvization without a title, but please leave a comment if you know otherwise!
Artist: Sun Araw
Songs: Canopy* + Born Under Punches [Talking Heads cover]
Recorded at The Shop under Parts & Labour, September 24, 2012.
Full review to follow. With all the talk of the weirdification of semipopular music, the night that was widely-assumed to see the movement's triumph on the big Polaris stage ended up with the award going to a far more mainstream (though hardly uninteresting) contender. In any case, I was content instead to be out in the trenches, as were some notables in the local weird/pop continuum, for what felt like a noteworthy cultural exchange, greeting Cameron Stallones and his comrades to town for the first time.
I almost didn't head out to this Monday night show, but was rather glad that I did — all of Sun Araw's repetitive grooves were pretty excellent, and the closing Talking Heads cover, complete with insistent lap steel chickenscratch funk guitar, was one of the best things I'd heard all year.
N.B.: Do note I made one slight edit to get rid of one loud burst of cellphone interference — there's a couple lesser blasts of it that I left in at the song's very end.
* Thanks to a commenter for passing along the title to this one.
Sunday Playlist #29
Getatchew Mekuria & The Ex & Guests - Eoleyo
The Soupcans - I Don't Wanna be a Soupcan
Join the The Soupcans and Teenanger for a tour send-off show on Tuesday (September 25, 2012) at Mây Café. Thighs open. (That is descriptive of the opening band; your reactions may vary.)
Sunday Playlist is a semi-regular feature that brings back some of this blog's previously-posted original live recordings for an encore. You can always click the tags below to see what I originally wrote about the shows these songs came from.
Artist: Bruce Peninsula
Song: Say Yeah
Recorded at The Junction Music Festival, September 22, 2012.
Bruce Peninsula - Say YeahFull review to follow. Dundas and Keele, with its small-town mainstreet feel, was full of life on this night for the Junction Music Festival. I don't get out that way as much as I might, but every time I do, I rather dig it, so it's nice to have more things pulling me out there. In honour of the neighbourhood, this song is presented in slightly-gritty street-fi.
Artist: The Flowers of Hell
Songs: Atmosphere [Joy Division cover] + Love Hurts1
Recorded at The Tranzac (Main Hall), September 21, 2012.
The Flowers of Hell - Atmosphere
The Flowers of Hell - Love Hurts
Full review to follow. Even at the release show for a covers album, Flowers of Hell are never a band to take the easy route, so the night included a few originals from the band's repertoire, and as many covers that weren't on Odes as ones that were. The biggest revelation of the night was vocalist Chloe Charles, who was a standout on these two tracks.
1 Hm. Not sure which artist I should say the Flowers of Hell are covering with this Boudleaux Bryant composition. This version doesn't have the bombast of the Nazareth version, the harmonies of Gram + Emmylou or the upbeat schmaltz of Jim Capaldi.
Artist: Ostrich Tuning
Song: unknown*
Recorded at The Tranzac (Main Hall), September 21, 2012.
Ostrich Tuning - unknownFull review to follow. Never a band in a rush, Ostrich Tuning let their tunes unfold before a seated crowd — a chance to really lean back and let the musical interplay unfold.
* Does anyone know the title to this one? Please leave a comment!
Artist: Cate Le Bon
Songs: Cyrk + Puts Me To Work
Recorded at Rivoli, September 18, 2012.
Full review to follow. In some other world, with her pure, clear voice, Cate Le Bon could have been a fine and proper folk singer, with gentle fingerpicked songs about vales and maidens' misfortunes. Instead, she has crafted a sound that relies on a certain folkie pastoralism, but has wedded it to a Velvet-y rock chug, albeit one with a vibe that we might say relies on magic mushrooms instead of amphetamines. Blowing into town on a cool autumnal breeze, there was an enthusiastic crowd out for this — and decent-sized, too, considering that there were something like four other noteworthy gigs also going down. But still, I think I made a good Tuesday-night choice.
Artist: Beams
Song: How Wonderful*
Recorded at Trinity-Bellwoods Park (Pitter Patter Festival Five), September 16, 2012.
Beams - How WonderfulFull review to follow. It might be mildly unnerving to hear a band singing a murder ballad where the deed is done "in the shadow of my favourite tree" when you are, in fact, sitting under a particularly nice one in Trinity-Bellwoods. And while there's a spooky frisson from Keith Hamilton's singing saw, the band's overall vibe was as sunny as the glorious day. Part of the Pitter Patter Festival, you'll be able to hear (and see) more of this set thanks to the folks at Live in Bellwoods, but here's a teaser for now, complete with a bit of wind noise against my mics toward the end.
* Thanks to ragandbone for passing along the title to this one.
Sunday Playlist #28
Art Bergmann (feat. Tony Dekker) - Sin City
Owen Pallett - Independence Is No Solution
Flowers of Hell - Muchomurky Bílé [Destroying Angel]
Flowers of Hell will be launching their new Odes album this Friday (September 21, 2012) at The Tranzac. MFS faves Ostrich Tuning are opening, and the whole night is highly recommended.
Sunday Playlist is a semi-regular feature that brings back some of this blog's previously-posted original live recordings for an encore. You can always click the tags below to see what I originally wrote about the shows these songs came from.
Artist: Bombino
Song: Tar Hani
Recorded at Rivoli, September 14, 2012.
Bombino - Tar HaniFull review to follow. Although Omara "Bombino" Moctar was plenty good when he first came to Toronto last summer, there was a deeper alchemy in effect now. Whether it was just in being a more experienced traveller, or having learned what impresses North Americans a little more, there was a difference not so much in kind, but in magnitude. The guitar tone was a bit more "rock" and it was put across with more swagger — but all of that is just a way to pull the audience into the groove-trance of this strikingly minimal music.
Artist: Julie Doiron & The Wrong Guys
Songs: Condescending You + Don't Cry No Tears [Neil Young cover]
Recorded at The Garrison, September 13, 2012.
Julie Doiron & The Wrong Guys - Condescending You
Julie Doiron & The Wrong Guys - Don't Cry No Tears
Full review to follow. Since last seeing this hard rockin' backing trio (featuring Eamon McGrath on guitar plus the Cancer Bats rhythm section of Mike Peters and Jaye Schwarzer) a couple times in February, they've acquired a band name and have just put out a 7". Now, with word that Doiron has decamped from Toronto to return to Sackville, it seems like we won't be seeing as much of this unit, although Doiron has assured us this won't be the last we hear from them. Given how they've more than doubled their repertoire, adding both new songs and reinterpretations of older material, it felt like there's still more to be explored from this lineup.
Artist: Dr. Ew
Song: Stay in Place
Recorded at Recorded at Clinton's Tavern, September 12, 2012.
Dr. Ew - Stay in PlaceFull review to follow. Although Drew Smith has been teasing us with some new songs and musical sketches on his soundcloud page, not much of that has filtered its way into his setlists yet. But alongside mainstays Andrew Scott (bass) and Jay Anderson (drums), the songs from Gadzooks got a new burst of energy from Jordan "AM Gold" Howard's guitar stylings.
Artist: Weaves
Song: unknown*
Recorded at Clinton's Tavern, September 12, 2012.
Weaves - unknownFull review to follow. By the time RatTail released their album back in February, they were no longer the band that'd made that sort of skewed-jangle pop, instead debuting a set of abstracted electronic music. And then they weren't a band at all. Now, singer/guitarist Jasmyn Burke has returned with her new project Weaves, using looping pedals to multiply her guitar and formidable vox. There was some talk from the stage that this is on its way to being a "band", but even in this solo incarnation (and the project's second gig) there's a lot here to be impressed by. Get in on the ground floor of this one, folks!
* Does anyone know the title to this one? Please leave a comment!
Artist: Mount Eerie
Songs: The Place I Live + Grave Robbers (feat. Julie Doiron)
Recorded at The Great Hall, September 10, 2012.
Mount Eerie - The Place I Live
Mount Eerie feat. Julie Doiron - Grave Robbers
Full review to follow. With a four-piece band in tow, Phil Elverum presented some of the new material from his new Clear Moon and Ocean Roar albums. There was a large crowd of devoted fans out for this, listening very raptly in unusual (though welcome) silence. That would be less required in some of the loudest parts, which were in turn reasonably bombastic and spacey — but there were also some quiet interludes, including a mid-set two-song turn from Julie Doiron for a couple songs from 2008's Lost Wisdom.
Artist: Steve Kado With...
Song: 2003 (for electric guitars) [excerpt]
Recorded at The Great Hall, September 10, 2012.
Steve Kado With - 2003 [excerpt]Full review to follow. Unlike the mixed ensemble I'd seen him present it with previously (or the all-keyboard version assembled for the recording), this presentation of Steve Kado's 2003 came tonight with eight guitars, one bass and two keybs — plus the always-present thumping drum-machine pulse under it all. This lineup makes sense, given the piece's genesis as a deployment of the minimalist methodology of Terry Riley's In C as applied to a single chord from a Wipers song.
Artist: Werner Puntigam & Matchume Zango
Song: [excerpt]*
Recorded at The Music Gallery ("Afro-European Soundscapes"), September 9, 2012.
Werner Puntigam & Matchume Zango - [excerpt]Full review to follow. This ain't your genteel coffee shop compilation-ready "fusion". Instead, Puntigam and Zango followed through on the idea of soundscapes, creating vivid musical tableaux that matched well with the slideshow of scenes of contemporary urbanity in Mozambique. This extract here sounds at the beginning like an electro-acoustic soundtrack to the greatest-ever African steampunk novel, which eases off into solo mbira from Zango before he's rejoined by Puntigam, who was making sounds that I never would have imagined would emerge from a conch shell.
* I'm not sure if this is a "song", or part of a suite, or an improvisation. Please leave a comment if you know the title!
Artist: Evelyn Mukwedeya & Memory Makuri
Song: unknown*
Recorded at The Music Gallery (Afro-European Soundscapes), September 9, 2012.
Evelyn Mukwedeya & Memory Makuri - unknownFull review to follow. A nifty opening set of traditional-style, mbira-based Zimbabwean folksongs from Mukwedeya & Makuri, who wanted the sit-and-listen Music Gallery crowd to clap and dance a little more. I hope to get another chance to hear from this duo.
* The title to this one was called out at the end: it's something like "Namun", but since I can only render it phonetically, please leave a comment if you know it for sure!
Sunday Playlist #27: Feelin' Exhausted, Ragin' On
Hospital Ships - I Want It to Get Out
Fred Squire - You Sing Low And We Will Sing High
Titus Andronicus - The Battle of Hampton Roads (Part I)
Sunday Playlist is a semi-regular feature that brings back some of this blog's previously-posted original live recordings for an encore. You can always click the tags below to see what I originally wrote about the shows these songs came from.
Artist: Lisa Bozikovic
Song: No Monument
Recorded at The Music Gallery, September 7, 2012.
Lisa Bozikovic - No MonumentFull review to follow. Wow. The show celebrating Lisa Bozikovic's first album was a good one, but this one celebrating the brand-new follow-up This Is How We Swim was a triumph. The arrangements are bolder and more confident, as is the songwriting. And the whole thing was tied together with the amazing projection art of Sean Frey, whose motifs teased out the song's meanings with symbolic grace. The songs on the album deal with death, loss and other transformations, but by the end I felt like I had head and seen something beautiful and affirming.
Artist: Kite Hill
Song: Picton Trip
Recorded at The Music Gallery, September 7, 2012.
Kite Hill - Picton TripFull review to follow. Against the sound of waves in the background, Ryan Carley and his seven (and sometimes eight) bandmates completed the long journey to the release of Rest & Run. Overhead artist Sean Frey used the bat/bird motifs on album's cover as the framing device for his beautiful projections, which made Kite Hill's music feel even more cinematic.
Artist: Jaill
Song: Waste a Lot of Things
Recorded at Rivoli, September 6, 2012.
Jaill - Waste a Lot of ThingsFull review to follow. On the road, facing a fairly sparse crowd, Milwaukee's Jaill scraped some of the popgloss off their songs, playing quick'n'vital versions of material old and new with fuck it, let's have a beer abandon.
Artist: Del Bel
Song: Dusk Light
Recorded at The Piston ("Wavelength 549"), September 5, 2012.
Del Bel - Dusk LightFull review to follow. Packing their seven-member road configuration onto The Piston's modest stage, there were a couple interesting new entries in Del Bel's setlist tonight — to find out what they are, you should head to one of the remaining shows on their mini-tour in Hamilton, London and Guelph over the next few nights. And in the meantime, here's one that wasn't a surprise in the setlist, but was particularly well-executed.
Artist: Minotaurs
Song: Open the Doors
Recorded at The Piston (Wavelength 549), September 5, 2012.
Minotaurs - Open the DoorsFull review to follow. A first chance to hear the material that will be coming out on the follow-up to The Thing did not disappoint, with Nate Lawr's new songs extending that album's funky afrobeat excursions.
Artist: Bang On a Can All-Stars
Song: Music For Airports 2/2 (composer: Brian Eno)
Recorded at The Music Gallery ("Ambient2: The Music of Brian Eno"), September 2, 2012.
Bang On a Can All-Stars - Music For Airports 2/2Full review to follow. Extending for the first time past the all-day New Music Marathon, Contact's INTERsection festival included this double-header Music Gallery show featuring live performances of two of Eno's ambient albums. Bang on a Can, of course, pioneered this a while back with their original presentation of the Music for Airports album, but this was the first time they performed their arrangements to a live screening of Frank Scheffer's films. Consisting of hazy, out-of-focus images of airplanes and people arriving and departing, the visual component was suggestive without being overly demanding, which is about right for this sort of music.
Artist: Contact
Song: Discreet Music (composer: Brian Eno)
Recorded at The Music Gallery ("Ambient2: The Music of Brian Eno"), September 2, 2012.
Contact - Discreet Music [excerpt]
Contact - Discreet Music [MFS Layers of Indeterminacy re-version]
Full review to follow. A lovely performance from Contact, re-arranging and extending Eno's stately decaying tape loops for live instrumentation. (Keep an eye out next year for a studio recording of their arrangement.) Interestingly, stretching the performance out to an hour brought to mind nothing so much as the work of Gavin Bryars (who was Eno's collaborator on the original album's flipside Pachelbel deconstructions) as suddenly one became attuned to minor variations in the long recurring loops of the piece's structure.
The Eno-esque approach is always to treat sonic elements as so much malleable stuff, so it was hard to resist the urge to play around with this recording a little bit. One could spend days tinkering, but here I have a rather quickly-conceived re-fashioning of the Contact performance that features several sections of the performance layered to play simultaneously, allowing "accidental" synchronicities to emerge.
Artist: INTERsection Air Raid Siren Ensemble
Song: Suite No. 2 for Air Raid Sirens
Recorded at Yonge-Dundas Square (INTERsection 2012), September 1, 2012.
INTERsection Air Raid Siren Ensemble - Suite No. 2 for Air Raid SirensFull review to follow. The day started with a nine air-raid siren salute, hand-operated klaxons slowly being revved up to louder and higher pitches. But on a second go-round before Bang on a Can's headlining set, they really — and I may be using this expression literally for the first time — cranked it up.
Artist: Contact
Song: Gamelan Grunge
Recorded at Yonge-Dundas Square (INTERsection 2012), September 1, 2012.
Contact - Gamelan GrungeFull review to follow. The day's hosts played an abbreviated set to keep things running on time — an Allison Cameron piece was sadly skipped, but this one by Vivian Fung and a new one by Jerry Pergolesi offered some good oomph to the crowd spread out across the square. This one especially won the approval of a self-appointed conductor who was grooving to this right up front.
Artist: Mark Stewart
Song: Electric Counterpoint [Part 1]
Recorded at Yonge-Dundas Square (INTERsection 2012), September 1, 2012.
Mark Stewart - Electric Counterpoint [Part 1]Full review to follow. Playing while being soaked in the golden glow of the evening sun peeking around the skyscrapers, Bang on a Can's Mark Stewart presented this Steve Reich piece arranged for solo electric guitar and backing tracks. What struck me was how contemporary this sounds in a pop music context. If you blind-posted this as the product of some hot new Williamsburg band ("RIYL: Buke + Gass, Animal Collective") people would "like" it without batting an eye.
Artist: Ashley Bathgate
Song: Industry
Recorded at Yonge-Dundas Square (INTERsection 2012), September 1, 2012.
Ashley Bathgate - IndustryFull review to follow. Some of the more interesting material at this year's New Music Marathon came from a trio of solo sets by members of the headlining Bang On a Can All-Stars. This one features a winning combination of cello and distortion.
Sunday Playlist #26: Holiday Monday comeback edition — "I Just Feel Fine"
After a longer-than-expected hiatus, time to get back to my Sunday Playlists. These ones seem to have a reasonably mellow, end-of-summer feel.
The Phonemes feat. Maggie MacDonald - Cet air-là
Mean Red Spiders - I Just Feel Fine
Sunday Playlist is a semi-regular feature that brings back some of this blog's previously-posted original live recordings for an encore. You can always click the tags below to see what I originally wrote about the shows these songs came from.
Artist: Crosss
Song: Old Sound*
Recorded at The Silver Dollar, August 31, 2012.
Crosss - Old SoundFull review to follow.
* Thanks to Andrew for passing the title to this one along.
Artist: Dilly Dally
Song: Green*
Recorded at The Silver Dollar, August 31, 2012.
Dilly Dally - GreenFull review to follow.
* Thanks to a commenter for passing along the title to this one.
Posts
All Comments
