Recording: Charlie Murray

Artist: Charlie Murray

Song: [excerpt from first piece]

Recorded at The Tranzac's Southern Cross Lounge (Piano Party 8), January 25, 2017.

Charlie Murray - [excerpt from first piece]

A last-minute cancellation left a gap to be filled in the Piano Party lineup, but Randy Gagne was able to bring out a fellow Still Boy to keep things rolling. Murray turned out to be a dab hand at tickling the ivories, pulling up his hood and settling into the spontaneous minimalist groove heard here. That was followed by some other blueberry-related content (all the pieces, as it turned out, were directly connected to blueberries in some obscure manner) mixing up improvised Glenn Gould riffing with some funky excursions accompanying some of the drum machine's more absurd settings — even pulling on some brightly-coloured rubber gloves while playing couldn't derail the skilled musicality here. A rather delightful surprise, all things considered.

Recording: Still Boys

Artist: Still Boys

Song: [a song about juice]^*

Recorded at Pia Bouman School for Ballet and Creative Movement (SummerWorks Music Series: 2016 Spring Collection), August 14, 2015.

Still Boys - [a song about juice]

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 and Snowblink. 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.

The Music Series was capped off with a special appearance this this giant face (?) / alien boy band (?!) whose very manifestation still leaves more questions than answers. I have seen Still Boys a few times now, and as of yet, nothing about this polymorphously perverse experience feels normal. Sometime after the giant ear went around with a pillow asking to be blocked ("they call themselves musicians?" was its lament) and shotglasses of juice were handed out to the audience I mostly gave up trying to keep track of what was going on — "eye licking... invagination" were the last clear entries in my notes before being fully consumed. For the uninitiated, imagining what Funkadelic might have sounded like with ecstasy and sequencers instead of angel dust and guitars gives a vague hint of the musical vibe — but the whole experience of it is otherwise hard to relate. Keep an eye out for this to land again and plan to experience it for your own self.

^* I will update this descriptive placeholder title if I hear anything more formal.

Preview: SummerWorks 2015

SummerWorks Performance Festival

August 7-17, 2014

The SummerWorks Festival is increasingly becoming a music destination because there's nothing else like it. Continuing its focus on constructing cross-disciplinary one-off events (rather than just plain ol' gigs), there's a chance here for local musicians to work with artists from other media to create the sort of immersive experience that is hard to assemble on the usual DIY shoestring.

Each of the seven shows in the Music Series would be worth going to just on musical merit alone; but with the special enhancements on offer, they're not to be missed. The thing that makes these compelling is that the tantalizingly vague descriptions are signposts beckoning the audience to one-time only events. Here's what's going down in the Music Series, with a few live recordings from my own archives as a hint of what you might hear:

• What Happens to JOOJ in 24 Hours: According to Bojana & Alex: Sook-Yin Lee and Adam Litovitz are undertaking a site-specific and time-specific challenge, sequestering themselves in the theatre for an entire day with the show acting as culmination. How directors Bojana Stancic and Alex Wolfson will interpret that day to the audience is a mystery, but do expect some of JOOJ's Suicide-meets-Dietrich cabaret tunes. [Friday August 7th, 10 p.m. @ S--------- Studio Theatre]
  Listen! Jooj - Crushed
• To Cast a Stone: this sees solo electronic musician Jill Krasnicki (a.k.a. Animalia) attempting "to create a sacred and otherworldly space to weave her songs through a spell casting ritual." Once again, that description is evocatively vague, but given that the show is being presented over five timeslots throughout the evening instead of one big show, you should expect the ritual to be a close-up and intimate experience. [Saturday August 8th, 6:00 PM/7:30 PM/9:00 PM/10:30 PM/midnight @ S--------- Studio Theatre]
• What Fate Awaits Them?: I didn't make Most People's EP release a couple months back, but its mix of music and large-scale puppetry was described as a knockout. Add alien robot emissaries/entertainment units MATROX and this sounds like fantastic fun. [Sunday, August 9th, 10:00 PM @ S--------- Studio Theatre]
  Listen! Most People - Release
  Listen! MATROX - Thank You
• Melancholiac: The Music of Scott Walker: Adam Paolozza and Greg Oh combine to try and give shape to an artist whose singular career arc is rather difficult to conceptualize, never mind encapsulate. From teen idol to menacing avant-crooner, this is being billed as "part concert, part spectacle, part existential variety show", mixing "unique sonic and visual interpretations of Walker's music" and including some special guests. [Tuesday August 11th, 6:30 PM/9:30 PM @ S--------- Studio Theatre]
• all you can hold: musicians like longstanding electro-experimentalists lal operate on the sort of terrain that gets swept under the rug a bit in the music scene's continual fetishization of the new. But they've been audaciously pushing boundaries and recombining various pop strains for long enough to deserve a helluva lot of respect. This show sees them performing a full set of new music embellished by "dance, costumes, digital painting and projections", representing their vision of a musical queer/straight alliance and mix of cultures. [Wednesday, August 12th, 10:00 PM @ S--------- Studio Theatre]
• Heat Shuts Off Overnight: As Germaphobes, Paul Erlichman and Neil Rankin have been honing the sophisticated pop sounds they were previously pursuing as members of the now-defunct Gay. This show sees them bring a whole batch of new songs to a show that uses shadow puppets, stop motion, and projections for an exploration of quotidian banality and the digital consciousness. Expect a performance by ANAMAI somewhere in there as well. [Thursday, August 13th, 9:00 PM @ S--------- Studio Theatre]
  Listen! Germaphobes - Everybody Else
  Listen! ANAMAI - Lucia
• 2016 Spring Collection: The unexplainable grinning manifestation that is (are?) Still Boys has been something of a whispered secret for the past while, being shared like a ritual that gladdens the hearts of even the most jaded music fan. Now, with Sasha Van Bon Bon and Jesi the Elder on board, there will be even more to be digested. Possibly even the audience. Don't try to explain, don't try to understand. Just see this. [Friday, August 14th, 10:00 PM @ S--------- Studio Theatre]
  Listen! Still Boys - [popsong]

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Meanwhile, outside the Music Series, there's a lot more for music fans to investigate. Counting Sheep, the festival's "production-in-residence" deploys Balkan party-rockers Lemon Bucket Orkestra into the Maidan for an investigation of Ukraine's social revolution. Also, local music sensation (and visual artist) Lido Pimienta moves to the stage in Ayelen, a magical-realist tale of resistance to the exploitation of international mining companies.

There's also lots going on in the festival's wide-ranging Live Art stream. A lot of it's out of my field, but I can recommend the Listening Choir's Listening Songs, put together by Adam Kinner and the always-intriguing Christopher Willes. The practice of these dérivé-based jaunts is to "propose listening as an endangered practice worth reconsidering". Best of all, this little experiment is free (as long as you book a ticket in advance).

I also don't know a lot about the dance world, but the festival has ramped up their offerings on that side of things this year. The good news is that the Dance Series is curated by Amelia Ehrhardt (who chatted with me about dance before her SummerWorks offering last year), whose DIY spirit and enthusiasm for joyful experimentation parallels what I look for in exploring unfamiliar music. In that regard, the curious could have a go at any of the offerings in the Dance Series, but I would especially point people to Aimée Dawn Robinson's Ramble, which blends improvised and choreographed dance to music and live-mixed video. Currently based in Whitehorse, Robinson was a frequent collaborator with the city's creative musicians in her time in Toronto, and this one comes hotly-tipped from friends who know about these things.

The fine print: single-performance tickets are $15, and there are various pass options available. You can find all the ticket information here. Remember (especially for those music events!) that the festival runs on theatre time, so do not be fashionably late!

Six years/Six pack: Adam Bradley

MFS has turned six! My introductory thoughts on this landmark can be found here, but long story short: I asked some folks to pick some of their favourites to help me celebrate.

Today's list is from Adam Bradley, who is part of the Wavelength team (and master list compiler) and also keeps things runnin' at the Music Gallery.

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Man Made Hill - Wretched Seed

Nature - Heater

Still Boys - [popsong]

Zoo Owl - Twin Mirror

DIANA - Perpetual Surrender

Most People - Release

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You can always click on the tags below to look for more stuff from these artists. Has there been a half-dozen songs posted here that made an impact on you? If you'd like to get in on the action and make a list, feel free to send me an email: mechanicalforestsound@gmail.com.

Recording: Still Boys

Artist: Still Boys

Songs: [theme] + [backstory] + [popsong]^*

Recorded at The Music Gallery, November 22, 2014.

Still Boys - [theme]

Still Boys - [backstory]

Still Boys - [popsong]

In its mandate to act as the city's centre for creative music, props to the Music Gallery for remembering that it's not just the "highbrow" scenes that have a let's-push-things-forward ethos, and that there are plenty of folks who are experimenting with musical sound and form in the let's-call-it-pop field. MG production manager Adam Bradley is known to folks in that latter realm for his work as part of the Wavelength crew, and it was quite pleasing to see him get a chance to bring his sensibility to this "pop avant" showcase. Being part of a curated Music Gallery program not only allows for a chance to interface with a new audience, but also an opportunity to put on a slightly more elaborate show than usual to an attentive crowd.

Regarding this particular weird phenomena, here's what we know: on the stage is a giant, pyramidal face. It wakes up, giant eye opening, and after muttering, begins to sing to itself. Weird symbiotes emerge, including the creature's independently-wilful tongue, but also a dancing CN Tower. Is it an alien? Is it showing us its true form, or reflecting back to us a fractured version of our own humanity? Did it come to us out a desire to become a "boy band"? And when it invites the audience one by one to climb into its maw, is that meant as a purification ritual, or as a sort of focus group to absorb and digest our musical preferences? So much remains unclear, and further research is required.

^* I put these in as placeholders for where they fell within the set's narrative arc. Does anyone know the actual titles to these? Please leave a comment!

Recording: Rookie Lights

Artist: Rookie Lights^*

Song: O Canada

Recorded at The Garrison ("All Toronto's Parties"), November 22, 2013.

Rookie Lights - O Canada

Full review to follow. Toronto's DIY show promoters have generally been more mutual admirers than competitors, and now, this is the first flowering of a new commitment to work together. Wavelength, Weird Canada, Silent Shout, Feast in the East and Pleasence Records each picked an act for this joint show, which packed The Garrison with music and other diversions.

Befitting the momentousness of the event, the night started with the national anthem, sung in the contemporary style of slowing things down one thousand per cent.

^* This combo's name could, in fact, be Rookie Light or Rookie Lite — this is what I heard from the stage. I'm note sure this is a band per se, as one source tells me they were found outside The Garrison before the gig, practising their harmonies on the sidewalk. Leave a comment if you know the proper moniker!