Recording: Luge

Artist: Luge

Song: unknown^*

Recorded at The Tranzac's Southern Cross Lounge (TONE Presents), May 13, 2022.

Luge - unknown

A fairly joyous evening in the Southern Cross, with lots of friendly faces re-encountering each other at this one-off, pre-festival show being presented by TONE. (Sidenote: the TONE festival is returning, with shows mostly clustered next month, and it looks fabulous!) Closing out the night, Luge showed as much technical dexterity as the evening's other performers, but in the service of locked-in arrangements rather than free exploration. If anything, this crew sounded even more precise than I recalled, so some of the pandemic downtime must have been spent in the rehearsal space. That said, they found some room to unclench a bit on some of the new material, like this one that leads off with an uncharacteristically-relaxed groove before tighening up and heading into a gallop.

^* Does anyone know the title to this one? Please leave a comment!

Recording: Luge

Artist: Luge

Song: unknown^*

Recorded at The Garrison (Wavelength Winter Festival 18 – Night 2), February 17, 2018.

Luge - unknown

This year's Wavelength birthday celebration was more restrained than usual, sticking to one venue for three nights and having no extra daytime activities. That left the work to transforming the events to something more than just a "regular" night at a show to scene-setters like General Chaos and Roxanne Ignatius.

Night 2 was the "rock" night, with electronics giving ways to amps and drumkits. Performing during the Winter Olympics — undoubtedly the moment of widest cultural acknowledgement of the luge – this quartet sent their songs though a series of pitch-shifting hairpin turns and slippery sonic textures.

^* Does anyone know the title to this one? Please leave a comment!

[Luge and Lice II are opening for Chicago freak-popsters Wei Zhongle at Handlebar on Monday, April 23rd. The next Wavelength Festival is already on the distant horizon, with Camp Wavelength once more contained to the mainland and landing at Garrison Common on August 18th and 19th. Meanwhile, the next few monthly shows, co-productions (as well as a cool Toronto Post-Punk in the Early ‘80s Music Talk) are all announced.]

Recording: Luge

Artist: Luge

Song: Platinum Baby

Recorded at The Gladstone Hotel's Ballroom (Long Winter 6.3), January 5, 2018.

Luge - Platinum Baby

As the night's designated rock band in the ballroom, Luge obliged with some "Actual Rock 'n' Roll", complete with their usual amount of hyperkinetic shifts and surrealistic reverses.

[Luge will be playing the Wavelength Winter Festival (alongside Odonis Odonis, Freak Heat Waves, Tough Age and Kurt Marble) on Saturday February 17th. Long Winter will return on Saturday, February 24th at Workman Arts with music from KYLO, Ziibiwan ᓯᐱᐘᐣ, Casey MQ, Dre Ngozi, NOYFB and Macbeth II, plus the usual abundance of art experiences, PWYC and all-ages as always.]

Recording: Luge

Artist: Luge

Songs: Centrifugal Horse + B.E.N.A.D.I.L.M.A.N.

Recorded at The Baby G, March 15, 2017.

Luge - Centrifugal Horse

Luge - B.E.N.A.D.I.L.M.A.N.

This hyper-new-wave unit offered up buckets of melted pitches and fingertapping guitar as the backbone of their candy-kinetic tunes. Also: basslines like a sled ride down an icy hill and lyrics with plenty surrealistic food metaphors ("it's my hand made of quiche"). This is pop music.

[Luge will be playing at Smiling Buddha on Tuesday (April 18th) alongside LA's Jerkagram and Raphael Weinroth-Browne.]