Recording: Travis Laplante

Artist: Travis Laplante

Song: unknown^*

Recorded at Yonge-Dundas Square (Intersection Festival – Day 2), September 3, 2016.

Travis Laplante - unknown

A lovely day, warm in the sun with a cool breeze, the Intersection Festival once again filled Dundas Square with music of all kinds, offering a counterpoint to business at usual in the ad-basked concrete canyon. With Tad Michalak (of Burn Down the Capital/Feast in the East) again taking a leading role in curating the day, the music had nods to the festival's more chamber music-intensive past while upping the noise and weirdness reverberating off the surrounding walls. That had a sort of push-pull effect on the passers-by, sometimes drawing them in, sometimes causing evident confusion and moving along.

I'd previously seen Brooklyn-based Laplante perform a couple years back with his sax quartet Battle Trance, in a small room with no amplification. This solo set — in the middle of the vast open square, speakers blasting his sounds off the hard surfaces — was rather the opposite, but the intensity of the performance was the same. With his circular breathing diving a steady wave, his pieces ranged from Reich-ian repetition to more soulful plaints in a non-stop advance. With night closing in on the square, it felt like his sounds were pulling all the corners of the square in a little tighter.

^* Does anyone know the title to this one? Please leave a comment!