Recording: Laura Swankey & Elisa Thorn

Artist: Laura Swankey & Elisa Thorn

Songs: [two excerpts]^*

Recorded at Wenona Lodge (Furniture Music: Birthday Bash), April 23, 2019.

Laura Swankey & Elisa Thorn - [excerpt 1]

Laura Swankey & Elisa Thorn - [excerpt 2]

With the crowded ruckus of some sort of big Leafs game in progress upstairs (maybe they made the playoffs this year?) there was a more modest celebration in Wenona's basement, with Ashley Urquhart and Alex Fournier (who have settled in quite nicely downstairs on the fourth Tuesday of every month) celebrating their series' birthday. Also worth celebrating was a visit from Vancouver-based harpist Elisa Thorn, here playing in a duo with her fellow Jazz Bras Dot Com-ist Laura Swankey. In honour of one of the craft beers on tap upstairs, this duo may now be named "Sour Dreampop", which serendipitously encapsulated some of their interactions, with Thorn mixing doodlebugging, tap harmonics and lush reverse delay alongside Swankey's similarly pedal-enabled vocal manipulations.

[Laura Swankey will be participating in some "Music and Movement Improvisations" with Alex Samaras' GREX at Array Space tomorrow night (Sunday, July 14th). Furniture Music will be back in the basement at Wenona on Tuesday, July 23rd, celebrating Triio's CD Release, along with a synth-y set from Alexei Orechin, Chris Pruden and Casey MQ's Dream Number.]

^* The second selection here veers into a song-like section. Anyone know if there's a title to this? Please leave a comment!

Recording: Jazz Bras Dot Com

Artist: Jazz Bras Dot Com

Song: [excerpt]

Recorded at Jam Factory (TONE Festival/The Music Gallery's Departures Series), June 19, 2018.

Jazz Bras Dot Com - [excerpt]

If it takes a festival invite or other similar situation to facilitate the logistics of bringing this pan-continental trio together, then a helluva lot more festivals need to get with the program, as this was fabulous stuff. Mixing Elisa Thorn's harp, Jessica Ackerely's guitar and Laura Swankey's treated vocals, this felt like an expansive conversation between three old friends, where deeper connections held together what might seem like nonlinear superficial riffing — three parallel lines meeting at infinity, sort of a musical equivalent of ye olde impossible trident.

[Laura Swankey, JBDC's local representative, will be celebrating an EP Release of her work for solo voice and electronics with a show at Burdock on Thursday, October 4th. The Departures Series will be returning on August 31st with a film screening and live quadraphonic performance from Suzanne Ciani, which is itself the first event of the Burn Down The Capital-curated Intersection Festival.]

Recording: Jazz Bras Dot Com

Artist: Jazz Bras Dot Com

Songs: [excerpt, in two parts]

Recorded at Array Space (Somewhere There presents), April 13, 2016.

Jazz Bras Dot Com - [excerpt, part 1]

Jazz Bras Dot Com - [excerpt, part 2]

Harp, guitar and voice is perhaps not an obvious choice of instrumentation for an improvising trio — and forming a working group with its members based in Vancouver, NYC and Toronto is perhaps equally audacious. Finding common ground while at a jazz workshop at the Banff Centre, these player quickly gelled and their joint recordings there have been released as their debut album. Fairly even handed, Elisa Thorn's harp tended to focus a bit more on textures and Jessica Ackerely's guitar on noisy diversions, with Laura Swankey ranging from integrative wordless vocals to percussive smacks. It must take some dedication to haul a full-sized harp around for small-scale, noisy improvised music shows, but my understanding is that this brief tour included some further studio time, so expect this intermittent collaboration to continue when the musicians can gather themselves together.

[Laura Swankey, the locally-based member of this group, will be performing at The Tranzac tonight (April 20th) alongside vocalist Christine Duncan and guitarist Patrick O'Reilly.]