Monday Roundup #250

Concert announcements:

Sonomadic Improv presents (feat. SOMA [Anita Katakkar/Kayla Milmine/Jonathan Kay] / Reagan Mitchell/Brandon Davis/Stefan Hegerat) / The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2025-11-05 (Wednesday) [more info]

Living Hour (Cootie Catcher / Westelaken) / The Baby G 2025-11-07 (Friday). $24.98, 19+. [FB event]

More Noise Please! Presents: Nightmare in November! (feat. God of Gaps / Colby Richardson / DJ Plague / Esther Splett / The Great Octopus / Esssena) / BSMT 254 2025-11-07 (Friday). $15/PWYC. [FB event]

Prince Nifty/Colin Fisher / Le Monde 2025-11-07 (Friday). $20. [more info]

Ayal Senior & Friends (feat. Ayal Senior & Kurt Newman / James M. Creed / Nick Flanagan / Tea Time) / The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2025-11-09 (Sunday – 2:30 p.m.) [FB event]

Cheryl Duvall [premiering "Amor Fati", for solo piano and offstage electronics — an hour-long work by James O’Callaghan which unfolds in complete darkness] / Canadian Music Centre 2025-11-13 (Thursday). $15 arts workers/seniors, $20 general. [more info]

The Afton Project [album release concert!] [Laura Swankey/Aline Homzy/Andrew Marzotto/Michael Davidson/Devin Patten/Eric West] / Annette Studios 2024-11-14 (Friday). $20. [FB event]

Liquid Architecture (feat. Sonia Leung / Zack Goldstein / Arie Verheul van de Ven / Ryan Kinney) / St Matthew's Clubhouse 2025-11-22 (Saturday). $10. [FB event]

Live in the Library: Jambo Hakuna Matata (feat. Adam Solomon) / Toronto Public Library – Parkdale Branch 2025-11-28 (Friday). $free, all-ages, no ticket or registration required. [FB event]

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

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Shows this week:

Patrick Smith Residency (feat. Patrick Smith/Tania Gill/Max Simpson/Eric West) / Dina's Tavern 2025-10-27 (Monday). $no cover. [more info]

CCMC [Christine Duncan/Cheryl O/Rick Sacks/Mani Manzinani/Casey Sokol/John Oswald] / Array Space 2025-10-30 (Thursday)

Transmit Presents: Halloween Spectacular costume party (feat. Tijuana Bibles / catl. / Pit Scum) / The Garrison 2025-10-31 (Friday). $19.99, 19+. [FB event]

Exit Points #65: Spooooooooooooooooky Edition (feat. unni/Andrew Timar/Mina Zaghari/Nidhi Baadkar/Broken Pink Umbrella/Michael Palumbo / WEI EN/Judy Luo/Ruthless Design/Garden Of Magic/Zack Goldstein) / Array Space 2024-10-31 (Friday). $17.52-$28.27, all-ages. [FB event]

coexisDance #111 (feat. Leelee Oluwatoyosi / Eko Davis / Anh Phung / Abbey Richens / Annie Elgie / Jamarie William / Rod Campbell / Racha Moukalled) / Canadian Contemporary Dance Theatre 2024-11-01 (Saturday). $15 (sliding scale)

Given: 2+2 (Sweet Lips & Touch Me, Don't Forget Me) / 24hr atm lotto 2025-11-02 (Sunday) [more info]

Small World Music presents Toronto Indo-Jazz Festival: New Horizons (feat. Amrita [Kayla Milmine/Anita Katakkar] / Gandhaar & Dhaivat) / Small World Music Centre 2025-11-02 (Sunday). $37.61. [tickets + more info]

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Bandcamp corner:

• A retrospective one this time 'round, as this fine album from community stalwart Paul Newman turns 10 today!

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It happened this week...

• ...on October 28, 2019 at The Tranzac (Tiki Room).

Stephen Parkinson & Friends - [set 1, edited excerpt]

• ...on November 2, 2019 at a house party.

Charlotte Cornfield - Storm Clouds

[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: Charlotte Cornfield

Artist: Charlotte Cornfield

Songs: Storm Clouds + Andrew

Recorded at a house party, November 2, 2019.

Charlotte Cornfield - Storm Clouds

Charlotte Cornfield - Andrew

Are house shows the Next Big Thing? Wooed by the glitz of app-enabled venture capital companies, there've been some thinkpieces on this topic lately, as if people gathering together with their friends and making music was an unconsidered possibility before there was a profiteering digital middleman on the scene. Still, as affordable spaces for intimate performances dwindle in our city, more folks do seem to be open to sharing their spaces for small-scale shows — which, on the one hand, creates wonderful opportunities to see great artists up close (and pay them money directly for their art!) but could also reinforce our music scenes as siloed, gated communities, where you have to "know someone" to even know that a cool show is happening.

Closing out the "show" portion of this particular birthday party, Charlotte Cornfield stripped back some of the songs from her The Shape of Your Name album, as well as testing out some new material — one song was even new to drummer Evan Cartwright (who was doing double-duty on the night).

Recording: Tatsuya Nakatani

Artist: Tatsuya Nakatani / Tatsuya Nakatani Gong Orchestra

Songs: [two excerpts] / [excerpt, in two parts]

Recorded at The Music Gallery @ 918 Bathurst, May 26, 2018.

Tatsuya Nakatani - [excerpt 1]

Tatsuya Nakatani - [excerpt 2]

Tatsuya Nakatani Gong Orchestra - [excerpt, part 1]

Tatsuya Nakatani Gong Orchestra - [excerpt, part 2]

The past couple years have seen a series of visits from master percussionist Tatsuya Nakatani, each of which has seen him welcomed by an increasing crowd of astonished admirers. It was therefore fitting for the Music Gallery to provide the resources to take things up to the next level and host a manifestation of Nakatani's Gong Orchestra. Providing the beautiful percussive hardware, Nakatani relies on local programmers to create an ensemble, which then spends the day together learning his vocabulary before performing for the public. The instructions specify that the musicians can be at different levels of experience (and, in fact, do not even need a background in percussion) so it's no surprise that the MG was able to use its many connections into many different scenes to come up with a diverse ensemble. Members included: Brenda Joy Lem, Katie Jensen, Debashis Sinha, Charlotte Cornfield, Rupert Ojiji Harvey, Kristyn Gelfand, HanHan, Alex Punzalan, W. A. Davison, Tréson Alman, Jenn Kitagawa, Bryan W. Bray, Laura C. Bates and Raphael Roter.

Before starting the concert with a captivating solo set, Nakatani reminded the crowd that this isn't so much a musical undertaking as a "vibration project" so that should be kept in mind in listening to these artifacts here — it's nowhere near as wonderful as feeling the vibrations live and in person, where the listener gets to lean in closer to hear the tiniest bowed overtones before being bowled over by mallet-clanging thunderstorms. That feeling of vibration-over-sound was even more intense with the ensemble playing together, while Nakatani conducted the group to create intense phasing and other effects across the length of the churchlike hall.

Recording: Charlotte Cornfield

Artist: Charlotte Cornfield

Song: Aslan

Recorded at The Dakota Tavern ("Jason Collett's Basement Revue"), December 26, 2013.

Charlotte Cornfield - Aslan

Full review to follow. Besides filling in on drums for a couple other artists, Toronto native (and current New Yorker) Charlotte Cornfield also played an assured mini-set fronting her own trio, showing off some tunes that'll likely turn up on the forthcoming follow-up to her Two Horses album.