Monday Roundup #265

Concert announcements:

Labyrinth Ontario presents Makam Nights (feat. Behnoosh Behnamnia / Naghmeh Farahmand) / The Tranzac (Living Room) 2025-02-19 (Thursday). $pwyc. [FB event]

Cooked Raw Presents (feat. Context NA / Understanding) / Dina's Tavern 2025-02-19 (Thursday). $20. [more info]

Mehdi Rostami / The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2026-02-20 (Friday – early) [more info]

BPM (Big Percussion Meeting) (feat. Amiel Ang / Em Wright / Greg Harrison / Joyce To / Mitch Lohmeier / Rumi Jeraj) / The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2025-02-20 (Friday) [more info]

JS Presents! Ep. 66 (feat. Alex Samaras / Jessica Stuart/JESSA) / The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2026-02-21 (Saturday – 5 p.m.) [FB event]

Rapallo (Marker Starling [full band]) / Dina's Tavern 2025-02-21 (Saturday). $20. [more info]

Our Full Selves (feat. ROSINX) / The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2026-02-21 (Saturday) [more info]

Imaginary North and The AMBiENT PiNG present Ambient Afternoon (feat. anthéne / moonwatch.er / Daena Delam / Sparkling Water) / Society Clubhouse 2025-02-22 (Sunday – 2 p.m.). $10, NOTAFLOF, fully accessible and family friendly. [FB event]

Cooked Raw Presents (feat. Triples [EP release!] / Poolblood / Amelia Maxwell) / Dina's Tavern 2025-02-26 (Thursday). $20. [more info]

Nash the Slash Rises Again! + Concert ["...a one night only event featuring the theatrical premiere of Nash the Slash Rises Again!, an in-person Q&A with the filmmakers and collaborators, plus a live musical performance with special guests!"] (feat. Ian Blurton/Christine Duncan/Rebecca Hennessy/Rob Higgins/Friendly Rich Marsella/Andrew Noseworthy/Frank Pahl/Eiyn Sof with house band: Kevin Breit/Dave Clark/Rebecca Hennessy/Michael Herring/Elena Kapeleris) / Hot Docs Cinema 2026-03-13 (Friday). $20 (general)/$15 (members). [FB event]

Is your show missing from this list? Submit it via this form!

---

Shows this week:

Soundstreams Encounters: Arvo Pärt at 90 (feat. Erika Raum/Oskar Daniel-Raum/Xin Wang) / Hugh's Room 2026-02-09 (Monday). $free with reservation. [more info]

Mike DeiCont Trio [Mike DeiCont/Eric West/Leland Whitty] / The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2026-02-09 (Monday) [more info]

Brodie West presents (feat. Brodie West's Double Double Basses Quintet [Patrick O'Reilly/Josh Cole/Rob Clutton/Nick Fraser/Brodie West]) / The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2025-02-11 (Wednesday – early) [more info]

mdbm [Michael White/Maggie Keogh/Don Rooke/Blake Howard] / The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2026-02-11 (Wednesday) [more info]

Max Donaldson [solo piano record launch] / Sellers & Newel 2025-02-13 (Friday). $15 minimum donation. [FB event]

Audiopollination (feat. Liam Alduous/Plastic Heart Surgery x lovesick/erin gray / Jamie Eriksen/Janel Jones/Nyda & Lief / Ryan Kinney/Travis John/Bri Clarke) / Arrayspace 2026-02-13 (Friday). $pwyc, notaflof. [FB event]

Soundstreams presents: Arvo Pärt at 90 (feat. Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir) / Yorkminster Park Baptist Chuch 2026-02-14 (Saturday). $33.25 to $89.75. [more info]

PIX FILM presents: Sound and Visuals (feat. Fabian Lanzmaier/Madi Piller / Allison Cameron) / PIX FILM 2026-02-14 (Saturday). $free with ticket. [FB event]

---

Video hits:

• This looks like a fun little encounter:

---

It happened this week...

• ...on February 10, 2015 at The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge).

Aurochs - [set 1, first piece]

• ...on February 10, 2015 at The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge).

bedroom - [excerpt 2]

[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.]

Recording: Aurochs with special guest Kurt Newman

Artist: Aurochs with special guest Kurt Newman

Song: [2nd set excerpt]

Recorded at The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge), December 30, 2022.

Aurochs with special guest Kurt Newman - [2nd set excerpt]

[before start of set]

Kurt Newman: Anything I should know?

Pete Johnston: We don't play very much... also, we're not a rhythm section.

Been a fair while since I'd caught up with Aurochs, in fact not at all since their significant shift earlier this year, which saw co-founder/pianist Ali Berkok depart from regular duties with the group on moving out of town. The remaining members (Pete Johnston, bass; Jake Oelrichs, percussion; and Mike Smith, processing) have continued on, with their monthly residency slots now featuring a rotating cast of guest performers.

Kurt Newman brought out his pedal steel for this instalment, gliding along for a couple sets and giving Smith an output so he could add some extra manipulations and spacializations to his sounds. To connect with the pedal steel's vibe, Johnston swapped double bass for bass VI, so there were some moments of minimal Nashville (though not quite Nashville Minimalist) sounds. Things actually got a little frisky — if not a gallop then nudging into a drunken waltz, but the back half of both sets found the musicians zoned in to some really pleasing flows.

Speaking of which, here's some sounds/visuals from the second half of the first set:

Recording: Aurochs

Artist: Aurochs

Song: [set 1, 3rd piece]

Recorded at The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge), December 27, 2019.

Aurochs - [set 1, 3rd piece]

Classic four-piece Aurochs jams to close out the year, these two sets saw the members pushing apart a bit and exploring some branching paths before falling back into some mindmeld grooves.

[Aurochs promise to play very quietly tomorrow night (Friday, January 31st) at The Tranzac.]

Recording: Aurochs

Artist: Aurochs

Song: [set 1, 2nd piece]

Recorded at The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge), December 28, 2018.

Aurochs - [set 1, 2nd piece]

A quiet evening at The Tranzac, the sort of night where instead of introducing the bandmembers at the end of the set, bassist/podcaster/raconteur Pete Johnston instead introduced each of the audience by name. But instead of using the room in the room (and a quiet evening in the Main Hall with no sound bleeding through) to add more quiet space to their music, the group went the other way, with Johnston's fuzzy bass textures pushing the group into some pretty rockin' territory. Even with extra volume and velocity, there was still room for the pieces to unfold in some surprising and rather satisfying ways, with Mike Smith's dub interventions on Ali Berkok's piano and Jake Oelrichs' percussion folding in nicely at the edges.

[Aurochs will be back in the Southern Cross on Friday, February 22nd.]

Recording: Aurochs

Artist: Aurochs

Songs: [two excerpts]

Recorded at The Tranzac's Southern Cross Lounge (Somewhere There Creative Music Festival – Show 3 late-night afterparty), February 24, 2018.

Aurochs - [excerpt from Set 1, first piece]

Aurochs - [excerpt from Set 2, first piece]

A "typical" night from the Aurochs, doing nothing more than letting their dazzlingly-inventive musical vocabulary unveil itself in slow-motion.

[Aurochs will be taking their regular turn in the Southern Cross this Friday (April 27th).]

Recording: Aurochs

Artist: Aurochs

Song: [set 2, part 1]

Recorded at The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge), October 27, 2017.

Aurochs - [set 2, part 1]

With just drummer Jake Oelrichs, bassist Pete Johnston and pianist Ali Berkok on stage, this was a night of "Aurochs classique". (Fourth member Mike Smith was, in fact, "in the house", so to speak, playing in the Tranzac's Main Hall as a member of U.S. Girls' band.) Without Smith's dub-smear signal processing, this outing saw the group at their most Necks-like, slowly developing themes being passed back and forth from one player to another.

Aurochs bassist Pete Johnston will be bringing some of his See Through Music to The Tranzac tonight (Wednesday, November 29th).]

Recording: Aurochs with Jean Martin

Artist: Aurochs with Jean Martin

Song: [excerpt]

Recorded at The Tranzac's Main Hall (All-Set! Autumn Release Show), October 28, 2016.

Aurochs with Jean Martin - [excerpt]

This second release spectacular from All-Set! Editions added three new albums to their catalogue, and all three of the recombinant groupings played to celebrate. Since the release of their Rational Animals album a couple years ago, Aurochs have evolved from the original trio, seeing Mike Smith join the ranks as a sound manipulationist. Another Helpful Medicine sees a more warped'n'ziggzagged group with Ali Berkok's piano (and accordion), Pete Johnston's bass and Jake Oelrich's percussion building and burbling through a continuously-evolving improvisation, further filtered through Jean Martin's mixage. To give a taste of the process that created the album, the group invited Martin to join them at this release show, adding further layers of melting, ping-ponging swooning dub-drip interference to the musical interface.

Recording: Aurochs with Christine Bougie

Artist: Aurochs with Christine Bougie

Song: [excerpt from first set]

Recorded at The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge), March 8, 2016.

Aurochs with Christine Bougie - [excerpt from first set]

Aurochs have been known to spice up their regular Tranzac timeslot (second Tuesday of every month!) with an occasional guest performer. This night saw local master guitarist/lap steel player Christine Bougie sitting in to help the trio push beyond their regular zone — the results ranged from ambient swells (as heard here) to echoplexed songbursts.

Recording: Aurochs

Artist: Aurochs

Song: [set 2 excerpt]

Recorded at The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge), December 8, 2015.

Aurochs - [set 2 excerpt]

For the festive special edition of their monthly Tranzac residency, Ali Berkok, Pete Johnston and Jake Oelrichs snuck in a few xmas carol interpolations into their grooves, while once again Mike Smith provided sonic manipulations that ranged from subtle extensions to dub-remix-y lurches.

[Aurochs will be back in action on the second Tuesday of next month — that'd be January 12th — in the early slot in the Southern Cross.]

Recording: Aurochs

Artist: Aurochs

Song: [set 1 excerpt]

Recorded at The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge), September 8, 2015

Aurochs - [set 1 excerpt]

Back at it over at their monthly Tranzac residency, the quartet was in pleasingly subtle territory for much of the night, with pianist Ali Berkok and bassist Pete Johnston prepared to settle into some circular, looping grooves while percussionist Jake Oelrichs would occasionally punt for field position. Meanwhile groovulator Mike Smith's presence was felt throughout, but never unduly called attention to itself, as he manipulated and extended the others' sounds, occasionally creating four-dimensional bubbles rippling the sonic spacetime fabric.

[Aurochs will be back in action on the second Tuesday of next month — that'd be October 13 — in the early slot in the Southern Cross.]

Recording: Aurochs

Artist: Aurochs

Songs: [opening sections from two sets]

Recorded at The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge), February 10, 2015.

Aurochs - [set 1, first piece]

Aurochs - [set 2, first piece]

It was probably not too much of a surprise to see Aurochs playing as a quintet, with Ali Berkok (piano, accordion), Pete Johnston (double bass) and Jake Oelrichs (percussion) joined by occasional fill-in and general co-conspirator Mike Smith, playing an assemblage of effects pedals bundled together into a sort of analog synthesizer. Throughout the night he would add subtle extensions to the others' sounds, from dub-style echo to ambient expansions. To give a little taste of what Smith was up to, here's the opening section of each of the night's two sets, with Berkok on accordion.

[You can hear some longer extracts from the night over on the band's soundcloud page. And do note that the group is playing the Tranzac again tonight (Saturday, February 14th) for a special all-standards Valentine's Day set.]

Recording: Aurochs

Artist: Aurochs

Song: Dwindling Doors

Recorded at The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge), July 8, 2014.

Aurochs - Dwindling Doors

Full review to follow. A slightly unusual night for this instalment of Aurochs' monthly residency. With bassist Pete Johnston out out town, Mike Smith was drafted to sit in alongside Ali Berkok (piano) and Jake Oelrichs (percussion). Given that all three have played with each other in various other projects, it was no surprise that there was an easy, free-flowing familiarity here. Just as in their regular lineup, Aurochs is very much a three-headed beast (as opposed to, say, a "piano trio"), where anyone is liable to take hold of a piece and shift things in a new direction. The band can be found playing an early show on the second Tuesday of every month at The Tranzac, and their Rational Animals album is recommended.

Bonus! You can find the band's recording of this full show on soundcloud.

Extra bonus! So, Mr. New Phone over here realized that he can capture moving pictures with the thing. Are some short clips a useful addition to the audio recordings? The sound isn't going to be great, but it adds something else, maybe. Thoughts?