In the absence of concert listings, my regular Monday dispatches have fallen off. After bringing some life to the blog with the "bumping into" series, I figure I should get back in the groove. I'm guessing that this will be a bit like what used to get shoved into the end of the post when I was doing listings — some bandcamp suggestions, nods to a few livestreams, and sundry community notes (email me if you have anything that needs broadcast in the latter category!). Plus maybe a look back through the MFS archives.
Community notes:
- Kith & Kin are keeping their annual Holiday Wassail virtual this year, so keep an eye out on their facebook page for some videos of their beautiful harmonies, knitting together sounds from multiple traditions.
- The Music Gallery's Emergents Series returns in grand style this week with "Possible Worlds", a 4-part series "dedicated to musical world-building". Besides the "standard" (that is to say, utterly unpredictable) Emergents concert (from Skin Tone and Stephanie Castonguay, "diving into hacking, breaking and reinventing"), there's also "Community Sound", "a workshop led by saxophonist, clarinetist, instrument maker, and MG family member Naomi McCarroll-Butler, who will be leading us through a series of guided improvisations using graphic scores and conduction. Aimed at community members and early-career artists interested in exploring collective music-making, this will be a community space for people with different artistic interests and backgrounds to meet, speak and create together." [free sign-up at the door!] And on top of that, Unit 2 curates "Parallel Playfields", "a collection of experimental performances exploring noise, improvisation and different textures of sound. Featuring performances by Sa.resi, Deidre, and Vixu."
- Meanwhile, The Music Gallery, The Intersection Festival and a whole host of wonderful people are joining together with the TTC for A More Beautiful Journey, "a landmark XR (extended reality) audio installation that will transform Toronto public transit in 2022 – providing riders with generative, location-specific soundtracks for their commutes. Through the platform’s mobile, web-based interface, users will experience ambient songs, soundscapes, and scores for over 30 stretches of above-ground TTC line. Custom audio is contributed by artists from, and for, neighbourhoods spanning the breadth of Toronto’s public transit lines." Artists who are interested in contributing to these soundscapes should respond to the Open Call on the website by February 7, 2022.
Concert listings:
- Tranzac NYE (feat. Lightman Jarvis Ecstatic Band / New Chance) / The Tranzac 2021-12-31 (Friday). $27.54. [FB event]
Bandcamp corner:
- Julie Doiron returns with I Thought Of You (out now from the always-essential You've Changed label). Still full of her customary self-reflection and moments of hard-won determination, this might be her least rough-hewn (and most classic-rock leaning) album to date, thanks to ace musicians Daniel Romano, Ian Romano and Dany Placard.
It happened this week...
Speaking of the Tranzac, I stuck my head into the Southern Cross last weekend, when I was there on my first trip back to see the Ryan Driver Sextet in the Main Hall. The new bar is still under construction, but I'm starting to hear rumours of things being scheduled there. So in anticipation, here's some sounds from Toronto's best music room...
- ... on December 13, 2019 at The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge).
Colin Fisher/Ted Crosby/Evan Cartwright - [set 2, first piece]
- ...on December 18, 2019 at The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge).
Lina Allemano/Rob Clutton/Blake Howard/Brodie West - [set 1 excerpt]
[Do remember that you can click on the tags below to go back and find the original posts (and often, more stuff) from these artists.]
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