Showing posts with label avery strok. Show all posts
Showing posts with label avery strok. Show all posts

Saturday, October 19, 2019

Recording: Lorde Awesome

Artist: Lorde Awesome

Song: [excerpt]

Recorded at Yonge-Dundas Square (Intersection Day 3), August 31, 2019.

Lorde Awesome - [excerpt]

Once more, Tad Michalak's Burn Down the Capital brought a full day's worth of entertainment to the concrete canyon of Yonge-Dundas Square. Random passers-by would occasionally stop and regard the proceedings with curiosity, bemusement or disdain while in the background the thrum of the busker's amplification outside Eaton Centre seems to grow louder every year, sharing the sonic space with sirens and engine roars. Starting the day was a rare field trip for this east-end drone collective, who have been holding down a monthly residency at the Only Café for the past 8+ years under the guidance of Avery Strok. Playing seven deep at one of the side-stage zones on the floor of the square, the group shored up their sonic ramparts with plenty synth textures, sax diversions, and occasional theremin.

[You can always catch Lorde Awesome at The Only Café – just around the corner from Donlands Station — on the first Thursday of the month, so keep an eye out for the next one will on November 7th.]

Saturday, June 27, 2015

Recording: Sound Séance Continuous Drone Ensemble

Artist: Sound Séance Continuous Drone Ensemble

Songs: [two excerpts from an improvisation]

Recorded at Geary Lane ("Sound Séance I": Day 2), June 14, 2015.

Sound Séance Continuous Drone Ensemble - [excerpt 1]

Sound Séance Continuous Drone Ensemble - [excerpt 2]

Kudos to Invocation TO's Jay Pollard for making the Sound Séance about more than just the trio of big, nightly concerts. Afternoon events are a lot harder to get people out for, but some of the festival's best moments came in the daytimes. Rainy weather caused Sunday's plans to be scaled back (with an upstairs patio party scrapped) but the monumental dronezone in the venue's main area was more than enough.

With an ad hoc ensemble that mixed together members of projects like Knurl, Lorde Awesome, Isles Day, Sexy Merlin and Brigitte Bardon't, this was conceptualized as a five-hour continuous drone. With players deciding when to drop in and out, it actually ended up being closer to three-and-a-quarter hours when everything was said and done (said and droned?), but that was still plenty of time to lay back and zone out for a wide-ranging sonic soak. (The full lineup, which shifted throughout the duration of the piece was: Kristel Jax, Avery Strok, James Beardmore, Steve Benesko, Marcus Beiner, Alan Bloor, William Davison and Sean Dunal.)

Bonus! Here's some footage I shot when I headed outside for some fresh air:

Tuesday, June 9, 2015

Recording: Someflowers of Hell

Artist: Someflowers of Hell

Song: Improvisation in A [first section]

Recorded at Dundas Video ("Track Could Bend #3"), June 2, 2015.

Someflowers of Hell - Improvisation in A [first section]

Listening to this fabulous krautrockish improvisation, one could hardly guess that it came from a unit beset with gear trouble. Rallying to play with the sounds they could salvage, this ad hoc ensemble of members and friends of Flowers of Hell seized the moment and turned in a very tasty performance, pushed to the next level by Mike Duffield's driving drums. Ian McPhedran (once of Ostrich Tuning; now of Bodies That Matter) was a steadying influence on drone guitar while Ben Sirois, whole violin was on the fritz, contributed by generating and processing feedback loops through his pedals while guest Avery Strok (of Lorde Awesome) added synth and theremin textures.

[Track Could Bend will return to Dundas Video on July 7th — more details coming soon!]