Monday Roundup #14

In the absence of concert listings, my regular Monday dispatches have fallen off. After bringing some life to the blog with the "bumping into" series, I figure I should get back in the groove. I'm guessing that this will be a bit like what used to get shoved into the end of the post when I was doing listings — some bandcamp suggestions, nods to a few livestreams, and sundry community notes (email me if you have anything that needs broadcast in the latter category!). Plus maybe a look back through the MFS archives.

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Community notes:

• Some day we'll be able to be in close physical proximity with each other again. One thing we can do in this time of not-gathering-together is to keep thinking on how our events can be better, so a virtual panel on Thursday (April 22nd) from The Music Gallery is a great chance to reflect and listen. Entitled "Setting the Scene: The Curation of Safe Spaces & Accountability", the event is curated by Olivia Shortt, moderated by Kim Senklip-Harvey and features panelists Frances Koncan, Nikki Shaffeeullah, and Chaka V. Grier. Free stream on the MG's live page.

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Livestream nation:

• Some can't-miss West African-via-Montréal grooves coming up Saturday (April 24th), with a livestreamed show from Coup de Cœur — a new group of Senegalese and Malian curated by Batuki Music Society featuring Sadio Sissokho (kora, djembe and vocals), Assane Seck (electric guitar), Seydina Ndiaye (vocals), Diely Mori Tounkara (kora and guitar) and Carlo Birri (bass).

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It happened this week...

• ... on April 20, 2016 at The Tranzac's Southern Cross Lounge.

Christine Duncan/Patrick O'Reilly/Laura Swankey - [set 2 excerpt]

• ...on April 20, 2019 at Workman Arts.

Fiver - Sick Gladiola

[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.]

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Bandcamp corner:

• Anyone looking for some Deep Listening should check out this collection of improvised cello loop experiments from Anne Bourne, offering up some "calm ambience for you / raw drone wave patterns / sonics in the dimensions of the heart."

Recording: Plastic Babies

Artist: Plastic Babies

Song: [excerpt]

Recorded at Burdock Music Hall (Women From Space Festival – Night 4), March 11, 2019.

Plastic Babies - [excerpt]

The first Women From Space Festival saw four excellent concerts take place over the course of the International Women's Day weekend. Organized by Bea Labikova and Kayla Milmine, the festival felt like a really savvy gathering, always more than the sum of its parts and showcasing the depth of talent in the city's various creative music streams in a women-centred environment.

This trio of vocalists Laura Swankey and Christine Duncan and guitarist Patrick O'Reilly has now been graced with a band name, but that hasn't changed their freewheeling approach. Rather than a verse-chorus-verse-bridge-chorus kind of structure, their sets work more like a church service in a hymn-homily-hymn-benediction mode.

[Duncan will be bringing her Element Choir to an event dubbed "Sung Ra" (Saturday, May 18th at The Tranzac's Main Hall), where Ottawa's Rakestar Arkestra will be "giving new voice and many voices to the wondrous compositions of jazz giant Sun Ra".]

Recording: Laura Swankey & Friends

Artist: Laura Swankey & Friends - [first section, part 1]

Songs: [first section, in two parts]

Recorded at The Tranzac's Southern Cross Lounge (Music By & For Ken Aldcroft XXV), January 9, 2018.

Laura Swankey & Friends - [first section, part 1]

Laura Swankey & Friends - [first section, part 2]

What's in a name? The subsequent time I saw this trio, who have been playing together for a while now, they were called Plastic Babies. In any case, excellent work all around from Laura Swankey (vocals and pedals), Christine Duncan (voice and theremin) and Patrick O'Reilly (guitar and pedals). By mid-set, things would work up into the joyfully-frenzied sort of coffee break banter as personal opera that Duncan excels at, but here we find a more restrained soundfield calling itself into being, with some really tasty blips from Duncan's theremin chirping away in the mix.

Recording: Christine Duncan/Patrick O'Reilly/Laura Swankey

Artist: Christine Duncan/Patrick O'Reilly/Laura Swankey

Songs: [two excerpts]

Recorded at The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge), April 20, 2016.

Christine Duncan/Patrick O'Reilly/Laura Swankey - [set 1 excerpt]

Christine Duncan/Patrick O'Reilly/Laura Swankey - [set 2 excerpt]

Excellent work here from three fab improvisers. I'd seen Christine Duncan and Laura Swankey vocalizing together a couple months ago, so it was interesting to watch their chemistry continuing to develop. Meanwhile, Patrick O'Reilly added a wide range of sonic backgrounds on guitar, his pedals helping him to move from percussive krrchings to ambient textures.

There's an amazing bit of improvised beauty in the second piece — there's a couple minutes in the middle of this chunk that are at a lower level than is easy to listen to, but something really magical happens. Duncan starts into a meditation on choices, and riffs for a bit on the notion of "a bird in the hand", and then into a meditation on what's near to your hand right now, and what you could choose to do with it.

The others drop out, and Duncan continues in almost a whisper. Then there's a long pause, and she concludes (at around the 4:00 of this excerpt), "think about it" — and for a second it feels as if that's going to be it. But then, she re-gathers her thoughts and delivers a spontaneous secular sermon on choice and presence and it's just wonderful. And speaking of choices, listen how O'Reilly and Swankey come back in to shimmer around Duncan's words as they pull everything back into a giant crane shot/psychic hug to close it out.