Recording: Sook-Yin Lee

Artist: Sook-Yin Lee

Song: Narcolept, Falling

Recorded at 918 Bathurst (Women From Space Festival 2022 – Night 4), May 1, 2022.

Sook-Yin Lee - Narcolept, Falling

For the past three years, the Women From Space Festival has been an excellent encapsulation of its moment. Coming on the cusp of the First Big Lockdown, the 2020 Festival is remembered by many as the last event of the beforetimes, while last year's "hologram edition" was an elegant solution to the flatness of livestreams. And now, this year's Festival had to bear all the relief and angst of "returning to live" at this uncertain mid-point of the pandemic. Presented with joy and community spirit over four nights, the Festival was a chance to run into seldom-seen familiar faces and to hear a dizzying variety of sounds.

Closing out the festival, Sook-Yin Lee brought some of the songs from her final collaboration with Adam Litovitz, poems and wordbursts invoking the tonalties of stern folksongs and synthpunk rhythms, moving from dirge to dancefloor in the same uncertain path one moves from grief to something that is... not-grief.

Recording: Sook-Yin Lee & Adam Litovitz

Artist: Sook-Yin Lee & Adam Litovitz

Song: unknown^*

Recorded at Ratio (TONE Festival – Show #7), June 24, 2017.

Sook-Yin Lee & Adam Litovitz - unknown

Although the local "jazz" festival is anticipated in some quarters, it seemed that too often there was no home there for adventurous and experimental creators. Thus, out of necessity, the TONE Festival was born to give these touring musicians a chance to connect with local audiences and artists. A collaboration between Burn Down the Capital's Tad Michalak, Ron Gaskin (a.k.a. Rough Idea) and Karen Ng and Daniel Pencer, the goal was to create shows that were rewarding for players and listeners alike. Coming after their own funeral series, this was also the last concert at beloved local DIY venue Ratio.

Arrington De Dionyso did some soundtrack work for Sook-Yin Lee's recently-completed movie, so it made sense to have them together on this bill. Joined by Adam Litovitz on keyb and percussion, Lee's songs were semi-improvised (there were some stream-of-consciousness lyrics drawing from things she could see in the room) fragments based around delay pedal mini-loops. The pair were joined by dancer Ronnie Clarke for the set, settled on the floor in front of the musicians, drawing in their sounds and the darkness of the room.

[Brandon Caswell Douglas was also documenting the show with his video camera — check out his youtube playlist from the night.]

^* I'm not sure if this set contained song fragments or works-in-progress or things that might already have titles. Please leave a comment if you know!

Recording: JOOJ

Artist: JOOJ

Song: Crystalline

Recorded at The Great Hall's Black Box (Long Winter 4.5 – Night 2), March 18, 2016.

JOOJ - Crystalline

You can't fault Long Winter for being ambitious and for wanting to close out the season by cramming in as much music and art into the Great Hall as possible, but their plan to close the year out with a two-night stand didn't entirely pay off. Giving patrons the choice of two nights (and holding them at the end of Spring Break) seemed to especially cut into the younger crowd and both nights (especially Friday) lacked that "about to burst" feeling that makes LW unique. But even if the crowd was at less than maximum strength, there was no certainly no lack of music spread throughout the building.

In its recorded version, the monologue at this song's end is delivered by Soon-Yin Lee in a hushed whisper; on stage it comes out more like a fever monologue, pumped along by the heartbeat rhythm. Its minor/epic internal drama (vividly set on Vancouver's Lion's Gate Bridge) always leaves a bit of a tightness in my chest until its blood-pumping-in-your ears escape/resolution. Lee and Adam Litovitz played to a darkened basement, giving everyone in the audience their own safe space to sway or otherwise react to the music before ending by declaring winter's end.

Recording: JOOJ

Artist: JOOJ

Song: Jessica

Recorded at Smiling Buddha (Silent Shout Festival – Night 2), December 5, 2015.

JOOJ - Jessica

Although they'd stepped away from presenting live music, Silent Shout returned for a two-night celebration to mark their fifth anniversary. Taking over the Smiling Buddha for two nights gave the site's designer Roxanne Ignatius a chance to re-imagine the space, with a deconstructed disco ball twirling above clouds and webby fabric tendrils. Plus, downstairs there was a gallery of her consistently-excellent show posters, going right back to the series' beginning when it had to spell out its mandate of "EVIL DISCO / GLOOMY ELECTRO / DEATHLY SYNTHPOP". And though there was a retrospective element to the whole affair, the music was decisively forward-looking, including a couple bands making their debuts. The second night even upped the ante by adding lasers!

JOOJ might not have been a strictly populist choice to headline the festival's second night, but the selection served as a reminder that Silent Shout's vision of electronic music includes art drone experimentation as well as dancefloor action. Adam Litovitz and Sook-Yin Lee's musical project trades in uncomfortable surges and pulsing heartbeat rhythms, presented with a slightly-operatic stage presence. One got the sense that this might have been a little disorienting for some of the audience, but on the whole, it fit right into Silent Shout's soundworld.

Recording: JOOJ

Artist: JOOJ

Song: Ghost of Love

Recorded at Pia Bouman School for Ballet and Creative Movement (SummerWorks Music Series), August 7, 2015.

JOOJ - Ghost of Love

The SummerWorks Music series, evolving since its inception in 2008, feels to have really and truly settled into its identity both as another way for SummerWorks to celebrate its growing foregrounding of interdisciplinary art and as a unique feature of the city's live music scene. After a couple years of just stuffing some bands down in the basement to provide an après-play gathering space, 2010's Hidden Cameras spectacular (featuring a "dramatic retelling" their Origin: Orphan album) pointed the way forward — but it wasn't really until 2012 that the festival started to ramp up the practice of pairing musicians with artists from other disciplines to create unique, one-off events.

It was finally in 2013 that the "mature" music series fully emerged, with stand-out events from Maylee Todd, Snowblink, and The Bicycles. Since then, collaboration has moved to the centre. Last year saw the series' first visit to the Pia Bouman School at the edge of Parkdale, which became their home this year, giving the Series its own space (and a cool pop-up venue). Adam Bradley and the returning Andrew Pulsifer have played to the series' strengths with their musical curation, and all of the works this year felt like good additions to a series whose legacy includes the future memories of these one-of-a-kind shows.

Entitled What Happens to JOOJ in 24 Hours: According to Bojana & Alex, the series opener's stated methodology was "a concept that formally unbounds the notion of performance through a practice of duration" — artspeak for locking the performers in the theatre overnight, forcing them to stay awake and see what happens. Faced with a crowd and having to give a performance after twenty-three hours of tasks set by directors Bojana Stancic and Alex Wolfson, the most interesting effects upon Sook-Yin Lee and Adam Litovitz weren't so much musical (they pulled off their performances of the tunes from the debut album in fine style) as in their body language and reactions to what was going on around them. Not surprisingly, Lee bounced between punchy-tired and second-wind-manic as she spoke between songs, or prowled into the crowd with her wireless mic during them. After a few songs the fourth wall was broken altogether as Lee invited the crowd down from their seats to wander through the theatre as they pleased — people circulated and looked at the project's self-documentation that was taped on the walls while some of the band's friends settled into into their stage-side sleeping bags and nibbled on their snacks.

Recording: Jooj

Artist: Jooj

Song: Crushed^*

Recorded at Geary Lane ("Wavelength 627"), November 8, 2014.

Jooj - Crushed

This new-ish project sees Sook-Yin Lee and Adam Litovitz working together to explore the liminal space between intimacy and theatricality, a realm for experimental torch songs that exist somewhere between a Suicide gig and a Weimar cabaret. Expect more shows (and an album!) in the new year.

^* Thanks to Sook-Yin for passing the title to this one along.

Recording: LLVK

Artist: LLVK [Lee/Litovitz/Valdivia/Kamino]

Song: unknown^*

Recorded at Double Double Land ("Punchclock Showcase"), November 30, 2013.

LLVK - unknown

Full review to follow. Local screen printing collective Punchclock packed Double Double Land for a night of music and dancing. Sook-Yin Lee acted as ringmaster for this quartet (alongside keyboard player Adam Litovitz and percussionist Brandon Valdivia) with the selections having lots of room for improvised indeterminacy. Adding another wrinkle was the fact that dancer Benjamin Kamino is an equal member to the musicians, both following and shaping the sounds from the stage. Check them out at the next instalment of the Long Winter series.

^* Does anyone know the title to this one? Please leave a comment!