Recording: Picastro

Artist: Picastro

Song: unknown^*

Recorded at Bar Orwell, October 16, 2023.

Picastro - unknown

Continuing a long-running tradition of constantly shape-shifting around frontperson Liz Hysen, Picastro showed up at this gig opening for Damon & Naomi in a totally different formation than I'd seen previously — while the last time I saw the group it was as a duo with double bassist Alex Fournier, here it was a trio with Tim Condon (guitar, SK-1) and Mike Mērnieks-Duffield (drums). The latter, unsurprisingly, added some quiet propulsion to things, but the core dirge-drift of the Picastro soundworld was definitely in evidence here. That said, this was a snappy set by Picastro standards, with several shorter songs and keeping things under a succinct half-hour.

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

Bumping into... Mike Duffield

Bumping Into... is a series of mini-chats with a variety of peeps that you might run into in some of our local music communities. (There's a bit of an intro and my thoughts behind the series here.)

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How are you? Where are you?

Overall, I'm doing fine. I'm still in Toronto, I've got a warm place to live, a supportive wife, eating well and have somehow fallen into enough work to squeeze by, which is amazing considering I lost all of my income once the pandemic started.

What have you been up to since March or so?

Musically, I've really spent a lot of time working on my craft. I put so much time and energy into the people I work with's ideas that I often don't nurture and develop my own. I've been trying to make a daily practice of trying to break through the physical and mental ceilings that have been nagging me since college and generally being able to be better at self-actualizing. Once I know what the hell I'm doing I'm going to write a drum exercise book from this experience.

I've also been saving up and strategizing how to release the new Beams album, which will be out in the spring. We worked with a dream team of people on the project and I can't wait for people to hear it. We were really struggling on how to release since we're essentially a live band and generally it's hard to contextualize us via internet. So right now in conjunction with the album, we're co-producing a concert film that's a celebration of physical spaces in Toronto (all covid precautions in place, of course) that's turning in to a real wild ride. We also have almost written an entirely new album that we hope to record once it's safe to do so.

Currently, Ben Oginz, Alex Gamble and I are in the last days of completing the Experts record. What was meant to be a well-recorded improv/cosmic rock album we started working on the day of the solar eclipse in 2017 has turned out the be a whole other beast. We've spent the last three years editing down over three hours of music into a 40 min record and have had people like Colin Fisher, Jesse Laderoute, John McEntire, Anh Phung and Neil Rankin make contributions. Also really excited for people to hear it because it has been one of my favourite things I've ever worked on and it's really opened up new worlds of creation.

Other than that, I've been trying to finish up turning our rehearsal space into a recording space and have been tracking drums for a variety of projects and just trying to create a comfortable workspace. It's something I've wanted to have my whole adult life and it's been a goal since we moved there in 2013. Just really happy I have the luxury of time to finally make it happen.

Have you found any new ways to do old things? How are you feeling about the shifts in how music is being made/shared/listened to?

I'm going back through old notes, exercises and approaches with the wisdom of age and realizing that I've been given all the information and instruction I could ever need. I just didn't really have the life experience upon the initial instruction to really grasp the full depth of everything. It's both humbling and inspiring and has kept me really thirsty and excited to basically spend time in states where I feel uncomfortable and inept.

I really miss experiencing art in physical spaces and the all the social stuff around it. There's no real replacement for that aspect. I really feed off other people's energies and it's beyond weird to just have all of that unavailable. That said, there have been a bunch thoroughly enjoyable livestreams I've watched. I've been able to catch all the stuff from artists in different cities that would normally be unable to experience and it's really nice. It's nice to see how all of these different communities are coping and finding ways to persevere.

Also, I've had a driving job which gives me a lot of time to listen and explore. For the first time algorithms have been my biggest source of discovery and it's really connected me back to being fourteen and being filled with glee of discovering new music.

Any works of art that have been a light for you in these times? Anything that's just been a good diversion?

Music:

• Hen Ogledd - Free Humans
• Richard Dawson - 2020
• Black Country, New Road - Science Fair
• Laurie Spiegel - Drums

TV/Movies:

• How to With John Wilson
• Lusty Crest (by Kate Skelton)
• The Last Black Man in San Francisco
• Mandy
• The Midnight Gospel

One of my favourite venues in Chicago, The Hideout has a variety show series called Cosmic Country. A bunch of the musicians and comedians who perform there have brought it online and it is absolutely fantastic. I hope they keep making them.

In research for the book I'm working on I found someone's master's thesis on my old teacher/mentor Jim Blackley's pedagogical approach. He kept bringing up that he made students read Zen in the Art of Archery by Eugen Herrigel, but certainly not me. So I got it from the library and it was super illuminating and has led to the path I'm currently on.

I also read Are We Still Rolling? By legendary recording engineer Phil Brown and now I just want to record music every day.

How are you feeling about 2021?

To be honest, I don't know and I'm not going to make any predictions. Either way, just going to improvise and try to exist as I'd like no matter what the world throws at me and hopefully do more good than harm.

Anything else we'd chat about if we bumped into each other?

I'd probably ask you what you were excited about so I could check it out. I definitely feel you have your ears closer to the ground locally than I do.

Recording: Dany Laj And The Looks

Artist: Dany Laj And The Looks

Songs: Annie + Small Town Miner

Recorded at The Horseshoe Tavern, September 6, 2019.

Dany Laj And The Looks - Annie

Dany Laj And The Looks - Small Town Miner

Celebrating their ace new platter Everything New is New Again, Dany Laj and Jeanette Dowling enlisted some local friends to present a special expanded lineup of their group. With Mike Duffield filling the rotating drummer's seat for a couple legs of this tour, it made sense to pull in his Beams partner Anna Mernieks to add some extra guitar, as well as her Ace of Wands bandmate Lee Rose on violin and keybs. That served to beef up the Rockpile/Rumour vibes in this set, giving Laj a fuller, more soulful palette for his articulate working class anthems (Laj's Kirkland Lake upbringing is directly referenced in the set-closing "Small Town Miner"). Filled with amiable swagger, the band blasted through a series of older tunes before presenting the new tracks with power-pop precision. Joyful and self-affirming, the whole thing was delivered with the sly grin of a road-warrior crew revelling in their craft.

Recording: Anna Mērnieks/Mike Duffield/Colin Fisher/Kristel Jax

Artist: Anna Mērnieks/Mike Duffield/Colin Fisher/Kristel Jax

Song: [edited excerpt]

Recorded at Dundas Video ("Track Could Bend #13"), April 5, 2016.

Anna Mērnieks/Mike Duffield/Colin Fisher/Kristel Jax - [edited excerpt]

To my great surprise and delight, Track Could Bend has survived and thrived for a full year. To celebrate, I invited everyone who played the series' first twelve months (more than seventy people!) back for a birthday party. In the end, the night consisted of twenty-seven musicians collaborating over eight short sets, most of which were spontaneous "bands from a hat", drawn by lot before the set started. Given the wide range of musical practices and backgrounds, it was quite exciting to see how much coherence and excellence resulted.

This musical collusion saw Colin Fisher (who, as in his appearance with Body Help at TCB#7, was playing guitar) and Mike Duffield (drummer double duty at TCB#3 in Someflowers of Hell and Demerised Elf Funk) look like they were ready for some serious action when Kristel Jax (who played TCB#3 as Brigitte Bardon't) launched things on another trajectory entirely by interjecting a looped radioblast of a pop song. Anna Mērnieks (the other half of Demerised Elf Funk) was on saxophone, and glided above the fray as everyone found their equilibrium — soon sounds were sliding past each other like fragments of half-heard radio stations as the needle slid down the dial.

[The next Track Could Bend will be at Dundas Video on Tuesday, May 3rd, featuring Kosher Dill Spears, Terms Of Venery (Mike Smith, solo electronics) and Glamour Nails (Lina Allemano + Justin Haynes).]

Recording: Someflowers of Hell

Artist: Someflowers of Hell

Song: Improvisation in A [first section]

Recorded at Dundas Video ("Track Could Bend #3"), June 2, 2015.

Someflowers of Hell - Improvisation in A [first section]

Listening to this fabulous krautrockish improvisation, one could hardly guess that it came from a unit beset with gear trouble. Rallying to play with the sounds they could salvage, this ad hoc ensemble of members and friends of Flowers of Hell seized the moment and turned in a very tasty performance, pushed to the next level by Mike Duffield's driving drums. Ian McPhedran (once of Ostrich Tuning; now of Bodies That Matter) was a steadying influence on drone guitar while Ben Sirois, whole violin was on the fritz, contributed by generating and processing feedback loops through his pedals while guest Avery Strok (of Lorde Awesome) added synth and theremin textures.

[Track Could Bend will return to Dundas Video on July 7th — more details coming soon!]

Recording: Demerised Elf Funk

Artist: Demerised Elf Funk

Song: [first piece]

Recorded at Dundas Video ("Track Could Bend #3"), June 2, 2015.

Demerised Elf Funk - [first piece]

Demerisation (from Latin, literally "to remove the sea") is the process of creating crystalline salt sculptures by allowing ocean water to evaporate. Elf funk is a musical genre that is often said to have peaked in 1968 — but as the recent resurgence of Hobbit Prog proves, there's new life to be found in every musical style. With the help of local drummer Eddie Muffilk, an Elf Funk aficionado, noted scientist Kari Sēnnamen has created musical patterns based on the salt sculptures she has discovered in her lab. Arranged for banjo and drums, the results are delightfully pleasing and full of unexpected moments of invention.

[Track Could Bend will return to Dundas Video on July 7th — more details coming soon!]