Thursday, July 21, 2016

Recording: Isla Craig

Artist: Isla Craig

Song: Gregory

Recorded at Prairie Drive Park (Feast in the East 58), July 9, 2016.

Isla Craig - Gregory

A beautiful day out in Scarborough. Thanks to Toronto Arts Foundation's Arts in The Parks, Feast In The East received the resources to host this free event which brought art, food and music to the rolling hills of Prairie Drive Park. By offering a free meal and inviting park patrons of all ages to explore and interact with the installations, this felt like a most gracious imposition on the normal order of the park, which is obviously well-loved and well-used by inhabitants of the neighbouring highrises — a sharing of the space instead of a culture blitz from outside. An excellent day out, this had a mellow and friendly vibe. Toronto needs so much more of this: having "culture" dispersed more widely throughout this sprawling city, giving locals a chance to see something that might not normally happen in their neighbourhood while giving seekers a chance to hang out in hitherto-unexplored pockets. It makes the city feel bigger and more cozy all at once.

After a recent Continental Drift-style excursion, Isla Craig was back with her cosmic voyaging crew (Bram Gielen, bass; Johnny Spence, synth; Evan Cartwright, percussion), offering some soulful sounds as day turned to evening and a crescent moon started to rise over Crescent Town. Ivy Mairi came up to sing backing vox on this and a few other tunes, while Martha Farquhar-McDonnell joined in on "Bold Poachers", which was recently featured on FitE's cookbook/compilation.

No comments:

Post a Comment