Monday Roundup #39

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:

• Building on the theme and vibe of this year's X Avant shows (see below!), The Music Gallery has unveiled a new community-building initiative. "Following the theme for this year’s X Avant Festival, You In Mind, the Music Gallery is hosting a series of five events from November through March dedicated to artists whose projects or organizations are not supported by public funding or otherwise do not have the means to present in venues of our scale." Unleash your dreams for filling the space at 918 Bathurst with sounds and click here for more info.

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X Avant:

Taking tentative steps into appraising Where Things Stand, the first X Avant festival curated by Artistic Director Sanjeet Takhar is about renewal and reconnection, "to listen, process, and artistically empower the diverse communities in Toronto." These four nights offer limited, safely-distanced in-person seating as well as a Name-Your-Price livestream option. There's a lot to experience over four nights:

• X Avant XVI: Listen (Thursday) Music and spoken word co-presented with RISE Edutainment. Spoken Word Artists: Eyeda Sophia, Nathan Baya, Nasim, and Moël. Musical & Visual Producers: Nathan Smith and Vanese Smith.

• X Avant XVI: Reasoning (Friday) A free screening of a new documentary from Bonjay's Alanna Stuart, launching a new solo project. (Also streaming free on Thursday on the MG's Twitch channel.)

• X Avant XVI: Process (Saturday) An eight-hour drone, suitable for sonic washing. Featuring: Labyrinth (Araz Salek, Amely Zhou, Yang Chen), Bachelard, Colin Fisher, Short Bloom, Kat Estacio, Debashis Sinha, LordAUK & Zones, and Labyrinth (Naomi McCarroll-Butler, Pedram Khavarzamini, Scott Peterson).

• X Avant XVI: Embody (Sunday) A co-presentation with Native Women in the Arts, in celebration of Indigenous communities and the lessons they have to share. Featuring Oneida Nation group The Ukwehuwe Connection.

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In the mix:

• Speaking of drones, there's a new Drone Brunch mix posted — drift along with some sounds from YlangYlang, Badge Epoch, Nurse With Wound, Stenorette, Witxes, pä, Jakob Rehlinger, and zakè & marine eyes.

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It happened this week...

While X Avant is at the front of our minds, here's a couple sonic samples from the festival's first years at 918 Bathurst:

• ...on October 11, 2017 at 918 Bathurst (The Music Gallery's X AVANT XII – Night 1)

Man Forever - Twin Torches

• ...on October 19, 2019 at The Music Gallery (X AVANT XIV: Forward – Night 3).

Willi Williams and New Chance - Home

[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.]

Recording: Willi Williams and New Chance

Artist: Willi Williams and New Chance

Song: Home

Recorded at The Music Gallery (X AVANT XIV: Forward – Night 3), October 19, 2019.

Willi Williams and New Chance - Home

One of the main subtexts of this year's X Avant was the awareness that it would be the last programmed by the Music Gallery's Artistic Director David Dacks, who had recently announced his stepping-down from the position in a thoughtfully-choreographed transition. The Festival's theme of "Forward", considering what's coming next, was thus personal as well — and it gave the broader community a chance to consider the work Dacks has done in his tenure at the Gallery.

This show, for example, could be considered a signature Dacks move, bringing together several of his consistent interests: giving a larger platform to artists like Victoria Cheong, whose emergence has been facilitated by the MG in several ways; putting together an intergenerational soundclash, bringing different communities to the same show; and foregrounding the work of Black musicians in Toronto in the MG's context of "creative music" — all while taking the gamble that two artists who had never met before could click on a personal level to create a festival-headlining collaboration.

The whole thing paid off quite wonderfully, creating a platform for Williams' voice that did more than just pour Cheong's productions into a reggae template (although, to be sure, this is a terrain where she has already done some extensive mapping). The collaboration went both ways, so not only were there some rearrangements of Williams' older songs (and even a delightfully-unexpected cover of "This Magic Moment") but a tune called "Father" that matched the New Chance atmospheric/dancefloor "sound" with Williams' soulful vocals. In a perfect world, that would be the lead single on a collaborative album from Soul Jazz or some other label for curious heads — there were murmurings that this collaboration could continue beyond this show, so hopefully there's more to be heard from this pairing.