Monday Roundup #156

Community notes:

• Long Winter has announced the opener of their 2024 season with a “Cozy Chats” edition of the series this Friday (January 12) at The Tranzac. No musical performers have been announced, but "audiences can expect a series of adventurous discussions and interactions touching on topics of cultural production, community, and sustainability, with an eye toward new models and possible futures." PWYC/$20 advance tickets available, all ages as always. (And note that the season will continue with events on February 23 and March 15.)

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Concert announcements:

Toronto Electronic Music Open Mic / Handlebar 2024-01-15 (Monday)

Music Hosted by Karen Ng (feat. Karen Ng/Ben Dwyer/Ted Crosby/Phil Melanson / Adrian Russouw) / Wenona Lodge 2024-01-16 (Tuesday)

FAWN Chamber Creative and Arraymusic present: Belladonna [A Co-Composition Opera In Concert, Process Discussion & Workshop Presentation] (feat. Teiya Kasahara/Hillary Jean Young/Rebecca Gray/Vanese Smith/Sara Constant/Morgan-Paige Melbourne/Yang Chen/Adam Scime) / Array Space 2024-01-18&19 (Thursday&Friday). $25 suggested donation. [more info]

Raphael Weinroth-Browne / Annette Studios 2024-01-25 (Thursday). $22.63. [FB event]

Exit Points 45 (feat. Doris Du/Behzad Danesh/Afraaz Mulji/Marlena Nova/James Hamilton Lowrie / Keisha Bell-Kovacs/Eye_Duh Kho/Gladys/Bill Gilliam/Michael Palumbo / Switchemups) / Array Space 2024-01-26 (Friday). $20. [FB event]

Holger Schoorl/Liz Lima/Scott Gabriel / The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2024-01-31 (Wednesday – early)

J. Moone/Hymns57/Brian Abbott/Michael Palumbo ["solo, duets, trios and as a quartet"] / The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2024-01-31 (Wednesday) [FB event]

Track Could Bend #88 (feat. Écureuil [Kayla Milmine/Liz Lima] / Garden of Magic) / Wenona Lodge 2024-02-06 (Tuesday). $pwyc. [FB event]

B.A. Johnston (Sons of Butcher / First Base) / The Baby G 2024-04-13 (Saturday). $14.48, 19+. [FB event]

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

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Shows this week:

Rob Clutton Trio [Rob Clutton/Karen Ng/Nick Fraser] / The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2024-01-08 (Monday). $pwyc. [more info]

Josh Cole presents (feat. a Josh Cole trio + 1 [John Oswald/Nick Storring/Blake Howard/Josh Cole]) / The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2024-01-09 (Tuesday) [FB event]

Never Was [Joe Sorbara/Brandon Davis/Adrian Russouw/Patrick O’Reilly/Madeleine Ertel] / The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2024-01-10 (Wednesday). $pwyc

Cosmic Country For Communists (feat. Kurt Newman Standards Trio [Kurt Newman/Blake Howard/Rob Clutton] / Nick Flanagan) / The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2024-01-11 (Thursday)

Audiopollination (feat. Kayla Milmine/Daria Morgacheva/Zoma / Max Donaldson/Nate Robertson/TBA / Zack Goldstein/Danny Alexander/Kalina Nedelcheva / The Memory of a Goldfish [Rod Campbell/ Mickle32/%%30%30]) / Array Space 2024-01-12 (Friday). $10 recommended. [FB event]

Class of 2024 (feat. Life In Vacuum / Dermabrasion / Slug / Silks) / Monarch Tavern 2024-01-12 (Friday). $17.50, 19+. [FB event]

Musica Universalis (feat. Blue Moss [Dave Nardi & Connor Bennett wsg Colin Fisher] / Pablo Jimenez [solo upright bass]) / The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2024-01-12 (Friday). $pwyc, suggested donation $10

today I have thought about carmine red ["composers take the concept of the graphic score as a starting point for works that explore colour, gesture, and light," feat. works by Esthir Lemi, R.E. Smith, and Camille Kiku Belair] (feat. Jana Luksts & Sara Constant) / 2104 Dundas Street West 2024-01-13 (Saturday). $pwyc. [FB event]

Michael Palumbo's Friends #1 (feat. Rudy Ray/Nirvana Sagar/Xina Gilani/aniqa dear/Yun Young Lee/None/Michael Palumbo) / The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2024-01-13 (Saturday). $pwyc

Ayal Senior & Friends (feat. Ayal Senior & Kurt Newman / Aaron Knight / Jaz Tsui / Nick Flanagan) / The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2024-01-14 (Sunday – 2:30 p.m.) [FB event]

John Millard’s Hope Street ["songs by John Millard with improvised accompaniment"] (feat. John Millard/Rob Clutton/Chris Pruden) / The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2024-01-14 (Sunday – 5 p.m.) [more info]

Spruce Needles [I Do Not Sing About Other People's Lives album release] (Surer Qaly / Kurt Newman / Meg Mackay) / Bar Orwell 2024-01-14 (Sunday). $15 with tape, PWYC otherwise. [FB event]

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In the mix:

• New ambient mix! Mostly gauzy-synthy sounds inspired by the insulating comfort of a thick layer of snow. Music by: Atmøsphäre & Sacred Seeds, zarr., Mike Lazarev, Phillip Wilkerson, Sachi Kobayashi, marine eyes, Jordan Christoff, Ivano Pecorini, Crystal Warmth, CARES, and Jóhann Jóhannsson with the ACME String Quartet.

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It happened this week...

• ...on January 13, 2016 at Katzman Contemporary (Channel no. 2: Reality).

Hexzuul [excerpt]

• ...on January 14, 2016 at Smiling Buddha (Casual Drones 14).

Nyles Miszczyk & Justin M Ladd - [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: Chandra

Artist: Chandra

Song: Stranger

Recorded at Lula Lounge, July 26, 2018.

Chandra - Stranger

Now well beyond the novelty stage, the Chandra band has become a wonderfully groovy new wave force to be reckoned with. Chandra Oppenheim, who originally recorded these songs as a pre-teen, now fronts a unit powered by an all-star force of local rockers — including Julie Reich and Vic Cheong (vox, melodica), Penny Clark (guit), Nyles Miszczyk (bass), Jesse Locke (drums) plus Kristina Koski (keyb). Looking a bit like a fashionable cult, the group took advantage of Lula's excellent sound system for a superb-sounding set. More of Oppenheim's old demos are being added to the setlist supplementing the material from the Transportation EP (which has, sadly, apparently disappeared from Bandcamp) so one can only hope that we'll get some "new" material soon.

Recording: Chandra

Artist: Chandra

Songs: Tish Le Dire + A Day Without Success

Recorded at The Garrison (Wavelength SEVENTEEN – Night 1), February 17, 2017.

Chandra - Tish Le Dire

Chandra - A Day Without Success

An action-packed leadoff to this year's Wavelength festival, with the first of a couple local all-star ensembles. Drawing from Bile Sister and friends in their orbit, Chandra's backing ensemble now features Julie Reich and Vic Cheong (vox), David Jones (keyb), Penny Clark (guit), Nyles Miszczyk (bass) and Jesse Locke (drums). Even playing first, they had a chance to play to a pretty full room, as the night featured discounted admission to RSVP-ers from an energy drink company (and, apparently, a long line down the block of folks hoping to get in).

With this occasional partnership stretching out over a few years now, the group were a firing on all their new wave cylinders behind Chandra Oppenheim — who herself also looked a bit more relaxed on stage, now and then dancing a little and allowing a faint smile that suggested an understanding between the self of her now and the teenaged one who had originally penned these songs. Besides featuring the songs from the reissued album, the group also tackled the unreleased "A Day Without Success", which is apparently an unreleased demo track from that era.

Recording: Nyles Miszczyk & Justin M Ladd

Artist: Nyles Miszczyk & Justin M Ladd

Song: [excerpt]

Recorded at Smiling Buddha (Casual Drones 14), January 14, 2016.

Nyles Miszczyk & Justin M Ladd - [excerpt]

Having outgrown the small-scale confines of its former home at Milk Glass, the Casual Drones music series has landed at Smiling Buddha. Shifting to the larger venue has come with a definite sense of scaling up, with the shows taking place between two stages upstairs and down and the visuals (always a big element of the series) getting amped up even further. The main floor saw most of the stage removed to make way for a large lighting rig that resembled a sort of post-apocalyptic tanning bed and gave Romar L. Johnson a huge range of luminosity to paint with. So, to the good, there's a definite sense of ambition here — and the full house that was on hand showed there's an audience for this kind of experimentation. To the bad, however, this night did manage to live up to the series' derisive nickname of "Casual Bromes", with seven sets (and, by my count, ten musicians) but no women on stage. (And, for my money, I'm not sure why a night with that many acts needed to wait 'til almost ten to get started.)

This pairing saw Miszczyk on laptop and modular synthesis and Ladd on keyb to take a trip down the autobahn that went from the efficient glide heard here (that couldn't even be derailed by a brief loss of sound on stage) to a discordant destination with the drum machine rhythms shifting into increasingly-heavy distortion that eventually pulled the whole thing apart. Sort of like racing down the Trans-Canada only to come up to a twisted and broken bridge.