Monday Roundup #93

Concert announcements:

Track Could Bend #73: Splendid Industries Presents (feat. Erin Corbett/Michael Palumbo/Sinéad Bermingham/Tyson Headon/Paul Geldart/Curtis Whittaker) / Wenona Lodge 2022-11-01 (Tuesday). $pwyc. [FB event]

Sideshow (feat. No Hay Banda [Jeff Stonehouse/Lori Freedman/Yves Charuest/Geneviève Liboiron/Jean René/Émilie Girard-Charest/Daniel Áñez/Noam Bierstone/Steven Kazuo Takasugi/Gabriel Dufour-Laperrière]) / Array Space 2022-11-02&03 (Tuesday & Wednesday). $20 / $15 (choose your price). [FB event]

The Music Gallery's Departures Series (feat. Oren Ambarchi & crys cole / Amahl Arulanandam/Allison Cameron/Colin Fisher/Araz Salek) / The Tranzac (Main Hall) 2022-11-05 (Saturday). $13.92 advance ($11.35 Students/Arts Workers/MG Members), all ages. [FB event]

Hieronymus Harry [The River of Doom album release!] (Carl Didur) / Cecil Community Center 2022-11-12 (Saturday). $20. [FB event]

Isla Craig [Echo's Reach album release!] (Sarah Good & The Bads) / The Tranzac (Main Hall) 2022-11-15 (Tuesday). $16.93. [more info]

Justin Orok [Kanata album release show!] / Sellers & Newel 2021-11-17 (Thursday). $15 minimum donation, reservations required. [FB event]

Man Made Hill (Tommy Tone / Doom Tickler) / Bar Orwell 2022-11-18 (Friday). $8, NOTAFLOF. [FB event]

Ex Machina [works by Olivier Messiaen, Mari Alice Conrad, Bekah Simms, James O'Callaghan, Gordon Fitzell] (feat. Standing Wave Ensemble) / St. George by the Grange 2022-11-20 (Sunday). $35.00. [FB event]

Psychic Weapons (Ohmno / Dark Tapes) / See-Scape 2022-11-24 (Thursday). $10. [FB event]

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Shows this week:

Music by Harry and Furlong (feat. Harry Vetro/Max Stover/Dan Pitt / Andrew Furlong/Kurt Newman/Patrick O'Reilly) / The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2022-10-26 (Wednesday) [FB event]

Karen Ng Presents: Many People (feat. Mark Ballyk/Ted Crosby/Madeleine Ertel/Colin Fisher/Andrew Furlong/Naomi McCarroll-Butler/Kaelin Murphy/Karen Ng) / The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2022-10-27 (Thursday) [FB event]

The Ryan Driver Sextet / The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2022-11-28 (Friday)

Death to T.O #10 [members of Breeze, Rapport, Nyssa, Praises, Dilettante, C.J Wiley, Shitbats, Theo Vandenhoff, Witchrot, Secret Sign, Blanks, Nutrients, World news performing as Abba, Depeche Mode, Roxy Music, Dolly Parton, The Doors, Nancy Sinatra, Orchestral Manouveres in the Dark, The Cramps, Kate Bush, The Cure, The Kinks, The Pixies, Flight of the Conchords] / Lee's Palace + The Cave 2021-10-29 (Saturday). $20 advance, 19+. [FB event]

$™ presents (feat. JazzTobacco / Infinite Monotremes) / The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2022-10-29 (Saturday) [FB event]

Cosmic Homeostasis XVII / The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2022-11-30 (Sunday – 2:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.) [FB event]

Aline's étoile magique [Aline Homzy/Thom Gill/Daniel Fortin/Michael Davidson/Marito Marques] / The Rex 2021-10-30 (Sunday) [FB event]

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In the mix:

• New drone mix! Autumn ambient sounds, suitable for watching the leaves dropping from the trees. Sounds by Marianne Faithfull & Warren Ellis, The Green Kingdom, Zacht Automaat, BABEL, Cole Pulice & Nat Harvie, Pharaoh Sanders, Dominique Lawalree, Music For Sleep, Fallen, and Blue Light.

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Livestream nation:

• During the more acute phases of the pandemic, Michael Palumbo perfected the social and technical setups required to facilitate a live improvised electoacoustic meetup, and his Exit Points series continues online Wednesday (October 26th) with sets by Adrian Russouw/Marc-Alexandre Chan/Nick Fox-Gieg and Owen Kurtz/Michael Palumbo, as well as the usual "switchemups" community jams. (You can sign up for the latter and get more information generally here.)

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It happened this week...

• ...on October 24, 2013 at Izakaya Sushi House.

Marine Dreams - I Won't Be Abandoned

• ...on October 25, 2013 at The Garrison.

Disappears - Power

[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: Disappears

Artist: Disappears

Song: Power

Recorded at The Garrison, October 25, 2013.

Disappears - Power

Full review to follow. At their one-a-year pace, Disappears have dispatched fourth album Era with the same sort of machinelike efficiency found in their music. And with the new album in hand, it was nice to see the band back in town, presenting the new songs wrapped in an incredible wall of volume at The Garrison. As soon as the guitars kicked in at the set's beginning, the row of people in front of me all stepped back at once, as if they had been physically pushed. That overwhelmingness made the first twenty minutes or so of the set the most mind-blowing, but this pretty impressive all the way through, thanks in no small point to drummer Noah Leger, who is doing an admirable job replacing Steve Shelly in providing precision minimal rhythmbursts.

Recording: Disappears

Artist: Disappears

Song: Revisiting

Recorded at The Garrison, April 15, 2012.

Disappears - Revisiting

Full review to follow. Although the band impressed with the material from the new Pre-Language album, it was when they revisited this one from the previous Guider that they were at their most incendiary, with Steve Shelley compressing all of Faust IV into twelve minutes of sheer krautrock groove.

Sunday Playlist #17

Sunday Playlist #17

Zeroes [now known as Suuns] - Mudslinger

Tropics - Pale Trash

Tropics will be playing at the Four Corners II show at the Steelworkers Hall on Friday, July 22, 2011.

Young Mother - The Well-Tempered Male

Rockets Red Glare - A Mutation

Disappears - Marigold

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Sunday Playlist is a semi-regular feature that brings back some of this blog's previously-posted original live recordings for an encore. You can always click the tags below to see what I originally wrote about the shows these songs came from.

Recording: Disappears

Artist: Disappears

Song: Halo^*

Recorded at Sneaky Dee's, June 22, 2010.

Disappears - Halo

My notes for this set can be found here.

^* This is the song's title as per the band's setlist, but I can't find reference to it anywhere. It might be new, or this might be a partial/informal title — feel free to correct me if you can!

Gig: Disappears

Disappears (Lovers Love Haters)

Sneaky Dee's. Tuesday, June 22, 2010.

Woe to the touring band that hits town on a stinkin' Tuesday night. Unless you've somewhat established or riding some hype, it's tough to get people out. Even still, I was surprised to find a nearly-empty venue when I climbed the stairs up to Sneaks. Even as the openers took the stage, there weren't many bodies in front of the stage.

I had never heard of Lovers Love Haters, and as they hit the first strains of "Dead End Trail" — also the first track on their agreeable self-released EP — the first thing I jotted in my notebook was "sounds like: The Organ". Which, I found out after, turned out to be on point as frontwoman Debora Cohen was, in fact, the guitarist in that band. That's not to say that this is just a re-hash, but obviously Cohen helped shaped The Organ's sound and is working from some of the same aesthetic starting points, which include mopey British rock à la The Smiths, spiky guitars and greysky keyboards. Described as a "bicoastal solo project", the band apparently features Cohen working with different collaborators both here and in Vancouver. Backed by guit/bass/keyb/drums, she kept to the mic for this show, though wasn't a big banterer between songs, at one point commenting, "we're Lovers Love Haters... and that's about it."

Good performances all around — well rehearsed, but a bit stiff like a pair of shoes not yet fully broken in.¹ "Poison" featured a nice guitar line and was pretty enjoyable, as was "Sounds and Silences". Besides the six songs from their EP, they threw in a cover² for a concise set. The band has an enjoyable sound, and certainly shows promise. In a sense, they've arrived fully-formed, but one also gets the sense that so far they're mining deep within one vein and it will be interesting to see how things grow from here.

Listen to a track from this set here.

In a slightly surreal touch, a Beach Boys megamix played in the background as Disappears get ready to play. A pretty straightforward two-guitar set-up, no huge racks of pedals or anything like that. I look around while they're tuning and count about a dozen people in the room. Looks like word hasn't gotten around.

Myself, I was intrigued by what I'd read about the band — their debut album Lux was being released by the venerable Kranky label, even if it falls outside of that label's usual sound. I'd picked it up and had found their guitar rock right down my alley — lean but not austere and simplistic but not minimal. The musical attack brought to mind rigourous deadpan chugging of The Fall (though not at all similar in the vocal delivery). Or think of it, maybe, as the bastard offspring of "TV Eye" and "European Son" and, maybe, a skipping record. It's not for nothing that their listed influences include "repetition". There's definitely a Krautrock thing going on — seen both in their visuals on their album art to the fact they had some shows opening up for Michael Rother's Hallogallo 2010 project. Musically, it's well encapsulated in their album's title track.

Live, there was an extra layer of distortion on frontman Brian Case's vocals that's not there on the recordings.³ Besides material from Lux the band played a new one called "Guider", which was a bit faster than the other ones, and sported a fuzzy bassline. But largely the music was consistent loud, controlled aggression.

Case wasn't a big talker, and the songs mostly slid straight from one to the next, making for a fiercely efficient thirty-five minute set. Without much of a crowd to react back, my reaction was more cerebral than visceral, but I think if there were more bodies on the floor they'd be reacting to the music. Wrong place, wrong time, I guess — if these guys were on stage at The Silver Dollar on a Saturday night, they'd gain more than a few converts. Hopefully they'll make it back to these parts.⁴

A couple tracks from this set: check out one that appears on Lux here and one that doesn't here.

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¹ Although, to be sure, this kind of music is sort of stiff by its nature — you wouldn't expect them to get funky with it or anything.

² Which I couldn't identify — the chorus-y bit went something like "under the brutal moon / what could be done to her?" Anyone know it?

³ Case is also involved with 90 Day Men, as well as The Ponys, who I recall having seen opening for Spoon back in '07.

⁴ The band has a fair amount of music — two singles and a live album — that you can grab for free at their website, should you want to check them out.

Recording: Disappears

Artist: Disappears

Song: Marigold

Recorded at Sneaky Dee's, June 22, 2010.

Disappears - Marigold

My notes for this set can be found here.