Recording: Stranger Still

Artist: Stranger Still

Song: Days End [based on a poem by Alden Nowlan]

Recorded at The Sun Room, 918 Bathurst, April 13, 2025.

Stranger Still - Days End

With a new set of Alden Nowlan poems set to music ready to be taken into the studio, Pete Johnston and company worked through the arrangements over a couple sets in the properly-sunny Sun Room, evoking East Coast feelings of bone-weary dread, gossip about the neighbours, the weight of the Great War, and various sentiments encountered while walking down various roads.

You can check out some more from this set over on youtube:

Recording: Sweet Session

Artist: Sweet Session

Song: She Moved Through the Fair [traditional] + A Dog Barking at Night [from a poem by Alden Nowlan, arranged by Pete Johnston]

Recorded at The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge), October 8, 2023.

Sweet Session - She Moved Through the Fair

Sweet Session - A Dog Barking at Night

Originally slated as the debut of John Millard's new Hope Street trio, illness instead shifted things so that this set was performed by Rob Clutton and Randi Helmers' duo project. Having time to stretch out over two sets gave the pair time to reach past the musical settings of Shakespeare's sonnets that have been their main focus (although several were tackled here) to explore through some other jazzy and folky realms. A couple songs (including the first one presented here) reached back to the pair's 2004 duo album, while others glanced off Clutton's association with Drumheller and the pair's membership in Pete Johnston's Stanger Still project.

You can check out some more from this set over on youtube:

Recording: Stranger Still

Artist: Stranger Still

Song: Five Days in Hospital

Recorded at Wenona Lodge (Track Could Bend #72), October 4, 2022.

Stranger Still - Five Days in Hospital

Pete Johnston's project of setting Alden Nowlan's poems to music is heading towards its second album, meaning the bulk of this set was given over to new material. As with the pieces surveyed on their first album, the poems are sung by Mim Adams and Randi Helmers and situated musically by Johnston's guitar and Rob Clutton's double bass. One new wrinkle the group has adopted for live performance is to read the selections as poems before presenting them musically, which works well to get the nuances of the pathos, dark humour and occasional redemptive glimpses in the works.

You can check out some video documentation of this set of on TCB's youtube playlist:

[Track Could Bend will be back at Wenona on Tuesday, November 1st with a night of music presented by Splendid Industries.]

Recording: Stranger Still

Artist: Stranger Still

Songs: The Drunken Poet + Looking For Nancy [based on poems by Alden Nowlan]

Recorded at The Tranzac's Southern Cross Lounge (All-Set! Editions Double Release Celebration), April 27, 2019.

Stranger Still - The Drunken Poet

Stranger Still - Looking For Nancy

This dual release celebration ran with the double-up concept, putting both bands on stage simultaneously, each taking a couple songs at a time before flipping things over. This project from Pete Johnston saw him exploring the work of Alden Nowlan — a poet who, like Johnston, emerged from Hants County, Nova Scotia. The poems are constructed from ingredients close at hand (cold Canadian weather, gossip about the neighbours, another drunken night out) and were largely set to be sung by Mim Adams and Randi Helmers, backed by Rob Clutton's bass and Johnston's guitar. (The exception was the delightful "Looking For Nancy", transformed into a slightly quavery country tune and sung by Johnston himself.)

Recording: Cosmic Homeostasis X

Artist: Cosmic Homeostasis X

Songs: The Wire Shimmy [excerpt] + Buzzy Bandit Breakdown [excerpt]

Recorded at The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge), March 31, 2019.

Cosmic Homeostasis X - The Wire Shimmy [excerpt]

Cosmic Homeostasis X - Buzzy Bandit Breakdown [excerpt]

Another afternoon of electroacoustic ambient drift sounds, with a robust turnout that reached fifteen performers by the second set. But for all that, the performers showed admirably restraint, growing the soundfield without becoming too obtrusive and making for a rather-pleasant drifting sensation.

The afternoon's performers included:

• Ron Blake - guitar, kaoss pad
• Matt Wells - guitar
• Rob Cruickshank - electronics
• Randi Helmers - voice
• Aaron Dawson - crappy old synth
• Victor O - water-logged xylo, cello bow, random percussion
• Dame Cook - electronics, xylo
• Del Stephen - keyboard
• Marilyn Y - singing bowl, trio chime
• Paul Newman - tenor saxophone
• Mira Martin-Gray - electronics
• Phil Hamilton - guitar, monotribe
• Patrick O'Reilly - piano, namer-of-things
• Scott M2 - electronics
• Heraclitus Akimbo - tapes, pedals, sine wave, guitar

You can also check out the full sets over on bandcamp:

[Cosmic Homeostasis will be back in the Southern Cross on the afternoon of Sunday, June 30th!]

Recording: Sweet Session

Artist: Sweet Session

Song: Sonnet 116 [words by William Shakespeare]

Recorded at Ratio, October 28, 2015.

Sweet Session - Sonnet 116

This project sees bassist Rob Clutton showing off his banjo skills and performing alongside Randi Helmers, singing musical arrangements of Shakespeare's sonnets. The banjo stylings sometimes hint at Appalachian ballads, but can also become stirringly minimal settings for Helmers' vocals, such as on a presentation of the 29th sonnet that added only plucked string-drones. The set also included a re-interpretation of one of Clutton's own pieces for his Cluttertones group. Quietly stirring back-porch music — lean in and close your eyes.