Recording: Organballoon

Artist: Organballoon

Song: [first piece]

Recorded at Dundas Video (Track Could Bend #23), February 7, 2017.

Organballoon - [first piece]

This longstanding but intermittently-performing project from Justin Haynes and Ryan Driver is exactly what its name promises — the former on organ, the latter squeak-singing on balloons. On the surface it's a little goofy (and visually, even more so when Haynes doubles up on melodica), but in execution it's a strange kind of sacred music, finding the elevation in giving up on the sublime and giving the ridiculous a try.

[Track Could Bend is back on Tuesday (March 7th) with a fab lineup including Christine Bougie, Someone's Memory and act tbh. Remember that we'll be at our new location, The Steady Café, on the south side of Bloor at Havelock, just a short stroll from Dufferin subway!]

Recording: Organballoon

Artist: Organballoon

Song: [excerpt from first piece]

Recorded at Ratio, October 28, 2015.

Organballoon - [excerpt from first piece]

This longstanding, if infrequently performing, pairing between Justin Haynes and Ryan Driver plays "improvised spirituals for the majestic and the humble alike" and offers no more or less than its name. With Haynes on organ and Driver toot-blurting with a stretched balloon membrane, the music emerges like some manner of slightly-bent dirge. The squawky, almost kazoo-like like vocalisations emerge in Diver's falsetto range but distorted and muffled with a certain ornate ludicrousness.