Recording: Mad's Happy Music

Artist: Mad's Happy Music

Songs: Plan D + Don't Talk (Put Your Head on My Shoulder) [Beach Boys cover]

Recorded at Wenona Lodge (Track Could Bend #74), December 6, 2022.

Mad's Happy Music - Plan D

Mad's Happy Music - Don't Talk (Put Your Head on My Shoulder)

I've seen trumpeter Madeleine Ertel enlisted for quite a few noteworthy local ensembles and was pleasantly surprised to see her also enjoying a sideline in piano pop, so when offered a chance to bring something to TCB I was happy to see her vision combining those threads. Emerging as something of a chamber pop ensemble, this group (with Aline Homzy on violin, Beth Silver on cello, and Alexa Belgrave on keys) played some of Ertel's instumental pieces, but also incorporated her singing as well. Covering Brian Wilson and Antônio Carlos Jobim gives a sense of her ambitions, and her arrangements of self-penned material like "Giving Up Again", which offered some Bacharach vibes, shows she's willing to take on the challenge. Hopefully we'll get more chances to hear further developments in this vein.

You an check out some video from this set over on the TCB youtube playlist:

[Track Could Bend is back at Wenona tonight (January 3rd) with music from Alex Ven's Ambient Works (featuring Andrew Noseworthy/Alex Ven/Yang Chen/Zain Solinski/Adrian Irvine) and Chapped Lips (Annie Elgie/Patrick O'Reilly/PT Sandberg)]

Recording: Mika Posen String Quartet

Artist: Mika Posen String Quartet

Song: Pathways [excerpt]

Recorded at Highway 407 Station (Intersection Day 1: Music For Subways), August 29, 2019.

Mika Posen String Quartet - Pathways [excerpt]

A couple years back, Intersection made its first step into presenting creative sounds in unconventional environments. This sequel moved from the core to the end of the line, exchanging a jam-packed greenhouse for plenty elbow room in the city's newest subway stations. Mika Posen (playing viola and joined by Aline Homzy and Jessica Hana Deutsch on violin and Beth Silver on cello) brought the most on-point and musically-pleasing of the night's sets to Highway 407 Station, whose very name evokes a sort of grim, romanceless utilitarianism — and where the click-clack of the fare gate behind the audience added small waves of percussion as each arriving trainload of passengers departed the station.

Her "Pathways" uses a graphic score in the shape of the subway map, the various stations marked with one of five different colours. The musicians pick their own starting station on the map and play the associated musical instruction, coming to a common held note when a train pulls in to the platform below the players and each then moving on to the next station on their score when the train departs. As such, the piece will never quite unfold the same way twice, although the various parts of the score are designed to stay in pleasing consonance in any combination.

[Mika Posen's electronic project Merganzer will be celebrating the release of its new Montage album at a Venus fest-presented show at The Drake Hotel on Saturday, October 26th, alongside Leucrocuta and Blue Light.]

Recording: Emily Denison Septet

Artist: Emily Denison Septet

Songs: Crazy [composer: Willie Nelson] + And So It Goes [composer: Billy Joel]

Recorded at The Emmet Ray, July 29, 2018.

Emily Denison Septet - Crazy

Emily Denison Septet - And So It Goes

Though currently based in Montréal, trumpeter Emily Denison makes fairly frequent forays to her old stomping grounds — and this busy Sunday saw a flurry of activity. This group — a fairly ambitious undertaking for a late afternoon slot at a quiet bar — was probably as much as anything a chance for Denison to flex her muscles as an arranger and have a chance to perform with some old comrades. Bringing soft lushness to both pop and jazz tunes meant that the likes of Sam Amidon and Thelonious Monk were rubbing shoulders and fit in equally in Denison's aesthetic of niceness ("only the most wholesome music that sounds as sweet as honey"). It was also a good opportunity to hear Laura Swankey as a song-singer, given most of the places we cross paths hew towards improvisation. The group also included Nelson Moneo (viola), Beth Silver (cello), Patrick O'Reilly (guitar), Victor Vrankulj (double bass), and Mark Ballyk (drums).

[Emily Denison will be back in town — and back at The Emmet Ray — as part of Nick Fraser's "new(ish)" quartet next week (Monday, September 24th) and the same group will be at The Tranzac the following night.]