TWELVE: The Wavelength 12th Anniversary Festival
While it's all fresh in my mind, a few notes from this year's WL Fest. Longer, more comprehensive reviews will follow down the road a piece.
Last year's Wavelength festival had a transitional feel, just as WL itself did in shedding its old skin as a weekly series and trying on new formats like so many hats. But throughout 2011, Wavelength really gained strength, with new blood on the programming team and a willingness to try some new and interesting things. It's befitting, then, that this year's festival was more streamlined (down to four nights) and bold in its lineups, reaching out to some bigger names for the headliners while still mixing in a lot of newer, less-well-known acts. My recap of the first two nights can be found here.
Night 3 @ The Great Hall
Saturday, February 18, 2012. The Weather Station / Off The International Radar / Nat Baldwin / Sandro Perri / No Joy
Not too many bodies in the stately (if somewhat echo-y) Great Hall as Tamara Lindeman took the stage. Her Weather Station project might be best suited for listening to 'round a campfire under a starry sky, but it was a fine table-setter here. It was easier to fill the space now that she's being joined by friends to fill out the songs from All of It Was Mine. Ian Kehoe (of Marine Dreams) and Andrew Barker (her bandmate in Bruce Peninsula) added instrumental textures, while fellow BP'ers Misha Bower and Matt Cully came on for some backing vocals. You don't want to wish a small crowd on any artist, but I'm super-glad it was quiet enough in the hall to lean back and listen to this without interruption.
It's perhaps a little bit surprising that the longest-tenured band at the festival was arguably the one that I knew the least about, but I had never crossed paths before with Off The International Radar. Kudos to the WL crew for putting 'em on the bill though, as this was one of my favourite sets of the festival. Employing electronics and keyboards and filled out with bass and guitar, the first word to come to mind as a descriptive would be "planetarium". The slowburning textures might come off as anticlimactic to anyone waiting for the band to kick into a higher gear, but once I caught the rhythm I felt all my limbs getting heavy and a pleasant, zoned-out sensation come over me. And quite perfectly accompanied by General Chaos' swirling lights slowly shifting away behind the band.
Listen to a couple tracks from this set here.
I've never particularly cottoned to Dirty Projector's brand of decentred contemporary haze-pop, which might explain why I never checked out any of the solo material from DP bassist Nat Baldwin. But here, as he set up for a solo set accompanied only by double bass, I was a little intrigued — if only to see if he'd be able to hold the growing crowd's attention. Limiting himself almost entirely to short-stroke bow work, Baldwin still managed to create enough musical range to accompany his pure-pitched vocals. There were a few mildly aharmonic runs here and there, but his approach hewed closer to popcraft than avant garde-isms. But still not too surprising that the chatter from the back of the room started to pick up as the set moved along. Enjoyable regardless, and a nice little challenge to the audience to pay attention.
Listen to a track from this set here.
Since his album release shows back in November, there's been a little bit of buzz for Sandro Perri, and from the crowd's reaction, you might have guessed that he was the night's headliner. Which is kind of awesome to see for an experimental singer-songwriter backed by a band of all-star improvisers. Balancing woozy keyboard workouts with polyrhythmic accents, I liked it most when the band stretched things out and let it cook. Perri is taking this material on the road soon with some of these musicians who can really do it justice — there's gonna be a lot of acclaim echoed wherever he takes this stuff, but somehow I'm glad to see that this really is getting some hometown love before all that happens.
After that came the shoegazing treatment that Montréal's No Joy excel at. But whether it was their intense volume or the late hour, the full crowd was steadily melting away as they played. No matter, this probably sounded the best of any of the times I've seen 'em — and we were treated to a bunch of new material, building on the strengths of their Ghost Blonde album. As always, the band were rigourously uncommunicative while on stage, but I was glad to see 'em chatting and laughing at the merch table afterwards.
Listen to a track from this set here.
Night 4 @ The Garrison
Sunday, February 19, 2012. Most People / Motëm / Army Girls / Burning Love / PS I Love You
Capping it all off was a night back at WL's Dundas West spiritual homebase. There was a surprisingly vigourous crowd on hand soon after doors, and it just kept getting more and more packed. Certainly more on hand than I would have expected for bedroom popsters Most People. The bearded duo had a laptop on stage for backing tracks, but managed to keep things feeling live with guit, bass and a sundry assortment of drums laid out before them. That gave the songs enough momentum to keep things interesting, even if the overall vibe was more laid-back. Is "post-chillwave" a genre yet?
Amongst the changes in Motëm's stage setup was replacing the candles he had last time with battery-powered versions of same. Whether that was some sort of nod to the meta-artifice of his persona — or even if whether or not what he was doing was meant as ironic artifice — I cannot say. Otherwise, the Hamilton-based swkeee-hopper brought a totally different musical set to backdrop his enthusiastic stage routine. I thought the music was a little tastier, but on the whole, I'm unsure on the persona, and I really can't say that I "get" what the whole routine is about.
After that came the shift from the "pop" to the "loud" part of the night, making Army Girls the perfect transitional agent. Drummer Andy Smith and singer/guitarist Carmen Elle just celebrated two years of playing together, so it's no surprise that they're tinkering and finding new ways to keep the older material interesting. Even better, though, was a bunch of new tunes bound for the band's first full-length that showed no dropoff in quality. All of it was warmly received, and this was the closest I've felt to an audience demanding an encore from a mid-bill band in a while.
Listen to a track from this set here.
I sort of sidled a little further away from the centre of the room after that, as I was expecting some moshing action for local hardcore group Burning Love. And while a big pocket opened up in front of the stage as the band got started, the pit never really took off, just creating a large open area for two or three preening guys to shove and posture at each other while everyone else had to squeeze into a smaller space. Not my idea of fun. But I did like the roar coming from the stage, delivered with wide-legged rock stances from the guitarists and bass player. Chris Colohan, meanwhile, delivered the lyrics with a crouch and a growl, occasionally springing down to prowl around that open area on the floor in front of the stage. Because of the preferred vibe differential, I pretty much never go out of my way to see hardcore shows. But I do like seeing it done well, so this is one more case where I'm glad WL was throwing something like this into the mix.
Listen to a track from this set here.
Up to this point, WL stage manager Adham Ghanem had once again kept things running admirably on time. It was only a balky microphone connection before the last act that kept the festival from having a perfect record top to bottom. Still, this set's slightly delayed start was still more efficient than most any other rock show you could think of, and once PS I Love You got going, no one was kvetching about the wait. It was really satisfying to see the fruits of Paul Saulnier's successful labours in the form of a spiffy double-necked guitar that he played for most of the set. There was also the chance to broaden the group's sound by having old friend Tim Bruton (Matters/Forest City Lovers) on stage, playing keyboards and second guitar. The set was based upon some of the new songs coming out on the forthcoming Death Dreams album, though there were a few older audience-pleasers mixed in there as well. Firery soloing from Saulnier abounded, so there's no doubt that the new album is going to be filled with shreddy goodness. The night — and the festival — were capped off with John O'Regan (a.k.a Diamond Rings) coming out to sing on "Leftovers" and "Facelove" during the encore.
Listen to a track from this set here.
All told, an excellently curated and executed festival. The initially-announced "workshop & speaker series" didn't come together, but even without that it felt like an action-packed long weekend. Many thanks are due to Jonny, Ryan, Kevin, Duncan, Dorice, Adam and Adham — plus General Chaos and all the volunteers who kept things going smoothly. Details about the next few events are already starting to come out, and it looks like there's more exciting things afoot. Thirteen might be luckiest year of them all.
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