Monday Roundup #227

Community notes:

• The second Tranzac Town Hall will be taking place on Sunday (May 25th) in the Main Hall from 1 to 4 p.m. "Open to all members of the Tranzac community: old members, new members, lapsed members and never members, artists, audience and attendees. We have been examining options around charitable status for the organization and we want to share those with you and get your feedback. If you have additional ideas or topics you would like to discuss please use this form and submit by May 21st."

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Concert announcements:

Confluent Motion [Bill Gilliam/Kayla Milmine/Rob Clutton/Joe Sorbara] / The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2025-05-26 (Monday) [more info]

The Ryan Driver Sextet / The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2024-05-30 (Friday). [more info]

Sonomadic Improv (feat. Walter Gershon [talk] / Schoorl/Milmine Duo / Imaginary Lines Quartet [Jonathan Kay/Walter Gershon/Joe Sorbara/Brandon Davis] / Astrid Gnome [Kayla Milmine/Jonathan Kay/Mike Smith/Alex Fournier/Aaron Blewett]) / Annette Studios 2025-05-31 (Saturday). $pwyc. [FB event]

Bayê Bakûr (Northern Breeze) (feat. Shahriyar Jamshidi & Hezil) / Canadian Music Centre 2025-05-31 (Saturday). $25 (advance)/$30 (at the door). [FB event]

Uma Nota Culture and Lulaworld Festival present: Bruno Capinan's Pride Month Party (Concert & Drag Cabaret) (feat. Bruno Capinan) / Lula Lounge 2025-06-01 (Sunday). $30.58, under 18 with parent or legal guardian. [FB event]

Track Could Bend #105 (feat. William Davison/Phil Hamilton / Aliyah Aziz) / Wenona Lodge 2025-06-03 (Tuesday). $pwyc. [FB event]

Equinox and Solstice Residency (feat. Ghostlight) / The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2025-06-04 (Wednesday) [FB event]

Araz Salek [Peripheries of Nahavand album launch and birthday celebration] / The Tranzac (Main Hall) 2025-06-08 (Sunday – 6 p.m.) [FB event]

Hooveriii (The John Denver Airport Conspiracy) / Blood Brothers Brewing 2025-06-13 (Friday). $24.98, 19+. [FB event]

New Chance [A Rock Unsteady record release] (Bile Sister) / The Tranzac (Main Hall) 2025-06-14 (Saturday). $28.27. [more info/tickets]

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

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Shows this week:

Jim Lewis Quartet [Jim Lewis/Harley Card/Dan Fortin/Ethan Ardelli] / The Rex 2025-05-20 (Tuesday – 5:30 p.m.). $10. [more info]

Music Hosted by Karen Ng (feat. Brodie West [solo] / Karen Ng/Leslie Ting/Germaine Liu) / Wenona Lodge 2025-05-20 (Tuesday) [more info]

Cassiar Records presents (feat. Josh Cole’s Quartet + Strings [Lina Allemano/John Oswald/Aline Homzy/Nick Storring/Blake Howard/Josh Cole]) / The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2025-05-20 (Tuesday) [FB event]

May Residency (feat. Roy) / The Cameron House 2025-05-21 (Wednesday – 6 p.m.) [more info]

Doug Paisley / Monarch Tavern 2025-05-22 (Thursday). $34.37, 19+. [FB event]

Karen Ng presents (feat. Karen Ng/Patrick O'Reilly/%%30%30) / The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2025-05-22 (Thursday) [more info]

TONE presents (feat. Eric Chenaux Trio / Cici Arthur) / The Tranzac (Main Hall) 2025-05-23 (Friday). $28.27 adv / $30 door, all ages. [FB event]

Music & Poetry (feat. Silver Pools / Rhiannon Cobb / Bashar Lulu Jabbour / Man Meets Bear) / The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2024-05-23 (Friday)

Drone Day 2025 (feat. dreamSTATE / DRONE:KLUB:47) / Trinity St-Paul's Centre 2024-05-24 (Saturday – 2 p.m.). $free, all-ages, family-friendly. [FB event]

Blunt Object [Jay Hay/Ben Dietschi/Gordon Hyland/Jesse Malone/Teppei Kamei/Heather Saumer/Robin Jessome/Josh Bird/Tania Gill/Victor Batemen/Eric West] / The Rex 2025-05-24 (Saturday – 2 p.m.). $10/$15. [FB event]

Retrievals: New Music for Old Tech ["new works for violin and electronics by Tsz Long Yu and James Lowrie alongside Alvin Lucier's "Clocker". Expect 90s living room vibes, static, street lights indoors, an ice-fishing camera shaped like a fish, and very much more."] (feat. Arlan Vriens / Tim Roth) / Canadian Music Centre 2025-05-24 (Saturday). $free. [FB event]

More Noise Please Presents: An Evening of Relentless Noise (feat. Worth / Pain Appendix / Taskmaster / Jute / Toanche Dwelling) / The No No Room at The Dock Ellis 2025-05-24 (Saturday). $15/pwyc. [FB event]

Imaginary North presents: Ambient Afternoon/Drone Day Hangover (feat. Astrolope / dreamSTATE / Ely Lyonblum / Erica Whyte / Grace Scheele / Hymns57 / Kilometre Club / Kyle Gottschalk / Measure / Mia Moon / Michael Palumbo / Wakabuggie) / Standard Time 2025-05-25 (Sunday – 3 p.m.). $11.30. [more info/tickets]

Sympathetic String Band's Last Sundays Residency (feat. The Sympathetic String Band / Alex Lukashevsky / JOYSHAPE) / The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2025-05-25 (Sunday – early) [FB event]

Ben Mike & The Beatles [Ben Rositsan/Maxwell Stover/Zack Goldstein/Ray Goudy/Josh Sparks/Dylan Burrett/Ben Mike/Steven Noronha/Will Hunt/Sara May/Lauren Dillen/Aidan McConnell] (Carolina Lopez / Sweet Lips [debuting a new audio installation]) / The Tranzac (Main Hall) 2024-05-25 (Sunday). $20.00 (advance) / $25 (door). [more info]

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It happened this week...

• ...on May 23, 2019 at The Horseshoe Tavern.

Jon Langford & The Skull Orchard Welsh Male Chorus - Deep Sea Diver

• ...on May 24, 2019 at Array Space (Invocation Presents).

Nashville Minimalism Unit - May Two Four [excerpt]

[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: Nashville Minimalism Unit

Artist: Nashville Minimalism Unit

Song: [excerpt from first piece]

Recorded at Array Space, February 13, 2020.

Nashville Minimalism Unit - [excerpt from first piece]

The always-shifting NMU was a quintet on this night with guitarist Kurt Newman joined by Andrew Furlong on double bass and D. Alex Meeks on percussion, as well as recent confrère Noah Franche-Nolan on piano. In this initial zone, the piano/bass/drums fall into a different sort of Necks-ish minimalism, occasionally nudged along by Newman's guitar. After this, as the group headed into some variations on a lonesome waltz, things would hew a bit more towards the "Nashville" part of the equation.

[Noah Franche-Nolan will be the special guest tonight (March 11th) at The Tranzac alongside Madeleine Ertel, Reknee Harrett, Naomi McCarroll-Butler and Joe Sorbara — who have now settled upon Never Was as their group name.]

Recording: Nashville Minimalism Unit

Artist: Nashville Minimalism Unit

Song: Flinting

Recorded at The Tranzac's Southern Cross Lounge (Cosmic Country for Communists), February 6, 2019.

Nashville Minimalism Unit - Flinting

Expanding its numbers once again, Kurt Newman's Nashville Minimalism Unit stood seven deep this time 'round, with Newman on pedal steel joined by Kathleen Law (fiddle), Ryan Driver (synth), Mike Smith (bass), Brian Abbott (fretless microtonal guitar), Nick Fraser (drums) and Blake Howard (percussion). Law was drafted in from the stringband scene, but the remainder of the crew would more often be found at the city's free improvised gigs (and I'm sure it's no coincidence that there was a heavy overlap with Eucalyptus, a band Newman has been playing with for the past year now). But improvisation is a technique, not a genre, so there no reason it can't be applied to a country shuffle instead of jazz-ish skronk.

[Kurt Newman will be bringing some sounds to Ayal Senior's monthly residency in the Southern Cross Lounge this Sunday (April 14th), and he will also be opening things up for Invocation's presentation of Appalachian folk songstress Sarah Louise at Array Space on Friday, May 24th.]

Recording: Kurt Newman's Nashville Minimalism Unit

Artist: Kurt Newman's Nashville Minimalism Unit

Song: A Dime's Worth of Sunshine^*

Recorded at The Baby G (TONE Festival and Mechanical Forest Sound present), June 3, 2018.

Kurt Newman's Nashville Minimalism Unit - A Dime's Worth of Sunshine

It was a real honour to have a chance to co-present a show leading off the second incarnation of the wonderful TONE Festival. Even if there can be unexpected shifts in a lineup from planning to execution, I was very excited with the night that came together. I was also excited to bring this project from Kurt Newman to the Baby G's big stage + sound system — though I confess at first I assumed that I would get something like the feedback'n'molasses I'd seen previously. The fact that (minimalism be damned) this emerged as a trio was all the more exciting, with Mike Smith (bass) and Nick Fraser (drums) dropping in like a local version of the Wrecking Crew and executing some theoretically simple rhythms with grace and imaginative finesse. Newman had jokingly threatened some "Dukes of Hazzard car chase music" and from that seed of an idea in this piece, they'd speed things up into a chugging train rhythm and slow it down to a relaxed waltz (with some especially-beautiful lyrical playing from Newman) before hinting at possibilities for escape velocity in a closing piece that brought back a bit of that feedback I'd originally associated with this project as well as a guest turn from Karen Ng on sax.

^* Thanks to Kurt for passing along the title to this one!

Recording: Kurt Newman's Nashville Minimalism Unit

Artist: Kurt Newman's Nashville Minimalism Unit

Songs: [excerpt, in two parts]

Recorded at The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge), November 12, 2017.

Kurt Newman's Nashville Minimalism Unit - [excerpt, part 1]

Kurt Newman's Nashville Minimalism Unit - [excerpt, part 2]

This solo endeavour from Kurt Newman usually sees him playing pedal steel, but he was wielding his Gibson this time out, plus several pedals arrayed on a table in front of him. With his greasy licks dissolving into sludgy haze-drone, Ayal Senior (who had offered his own flavour of guitar minimalism in the prior set) was right on the money when he noted this was Metal Machine Music played as the blues.