Recording: Toronto Improvisors Orchestra + The Element Choir

Artists: Toronto Improvisors Orchestra + The Element Choir

Songs: [excerpts from three improvisations]

Recorded at Array Space, March 19, 2017.

Toronto Improvisors Orchestra - [excerpt]

The Element Choir - [excerpt]

Toronto Improvisors Orchestra feat. The Element Choir - [excerpt]

A special night convened by the TIO to pay tribute to The Element Choir and its leader Christine Duncan. Both groups showed up in force — I counted sixteen or so musicians and about twice that many choristers, although there were a few people that were members of both. In the first half, each ensemble performed on its own, and then after the break the whole conglomeration performed together.

The key question for large improvising ensembles is how to keep everyone on the same page and to provide a shape that goes beyond heaping one thing on top of another, and both groups have found a solution in their own similar conducting systems. Eugene Martynec and Christine Duncan led their ensembles in the first half, but Duncan held court in the second, at first leaving one group to improvise while she led the other before (as heard here) attempting to guide the whole thing.

[You can watch Array's archived version of the event's livestream over on their vimeo page.]

Recording: Shelly/Jurgensen/Vetro

Artist: David Shelly/Arnd Jurgensen/Harrison Vetro

Song: [excerpt, in two parts]

Recorded at Array Space (Audiopollination #48.2), November 12, 2016.

Shelly/Jurgensen/Vetro - [excerpt, part 1]

Shelly/Jurgensen/Vetro - [excerpt, part 2]

Audiopollination's fourth anniversary was celebrated in typical fashion — that's to say with an eclectic mix of musicians playing together in ad hoc small combos. The highlight of the night, and one of the best improvised sets I've seen this year, this was a too-rare opportunity to see David Shelly in action inside. Often found busking throughout the city (under the project name Treeotica), Shelly plays a custom-designed amplified tree branch. The wide range of sounds here come from bowing, scratching and tapping the branch, and running the resulting sounds from a contact mic into some pedals. Later on, you can hear the chiming sounds of a music box being held against the branch. Meanwhile, Arnd Jurgensen (on guitar) and Harrison Vetro (on percussion) provide admirable musical support here, holding back and not overwhelming Shelly's beautifully-delicate sounds.

[There are two Audiopollination events left before the end of the year: a special event on Sunday (December 18th) featuring electro-acousticians Sound of the Mountain, and an improv session with cellist Rémy Bélanger de Beauport on December 22nd.]

Recording: sLAB

Artist: sLAB

Song: For Tony Conrad, Parts 1 + 2

Recorded at Array Space (Somewhere There's Second Sunday Series), April 10, 2016.

sLAB - For Tony Conrad [part 1]

sLAB - For Tony Conrad [part 2]

On what would surely be the last of April's cold and snowy nights, this quartet united in quadraphonic sound, setting up their amps in each corner of the room to spacialize their drones in tribute to the recently-departed Tony Conrad. Mike Daley, Michael Kaler, Dean Drouillard and Arnd Jurgensen used amp-tone and e-bows rather than copious pedal chains to generate their glacial sound structures. (They meet up regularly to do this, some results of which are posted over on their bandcamp.)

Recording: Michael Kaler and friends

Artist: Michael Kaler/Chris Wallace/Jamie Thompson / Michael Kaler/Jamie Thompson/Arnd Jurgensen / Michael Kaler/Enuma Flux/Aki Takahashi/Heidi Chan / Michael Kaler/Arnd Jurgensen/Enuma Flux/Aka Takahashi/Jamie Thompson/Heidi Chan

Songs: [excerpts from four improvised sets]

Recorded at Array Space ("Audiopollination #26"), January 13, 2015.

Michael Kaler, Chris Wallace, Jamie Thompson - [excerpt from first piece]

Michael Kaler, Jamie Thompson, Arnd Jurgensen - [second piece]

Michael Kaler, Enuma Flux, Aki Takahashi, Heidi Chan - [last section]

M. Kaler, A. Jurgensen, E. Flux, A. Takahashi, J. Thompson, H. Chan - [ending]

This night of "folky ethno-drone", saw four sets with a rotating series of musicians surrounding Michael Kaler, who played bouzouki and banjole. The guests included Chris Wallace (percussion) and Jamie Thompson (flute); Thompson and Arnd Jurgensen (marimachi); and Enuma Flux (percussion), Aki Takahashi (shamisen) and Heidi Chan (Chinese flutes) before bringing most of the above together for a big group finale. An interesting mix of sounds, mostly hewing towards gentle instrumental interplay and a particularly pleasing night overall.

[As always, you can revisit the whole of the night with the recordings over at Audiopollination's bandcamp page. The next Audiopollination night will be on Tuesday, February 10th and will feature the Element Choir.]

Recording: Arnd Jurgensen and Friends

Artist: Arnd Jurgensen and Friends

Songs: [set 1 excerpt] + [set 2 excerpt]

Recorded at The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge), November 12, 2014.

Arnd Jurgensen and Friends - [set 1 excerpt]

Arnd Jurgensen and Friends - [set 2 excerpt]

Guitarist Arnd Jurgensen had the booking for this early timeslot in the Southern Cross, though word was the set was going to be a group backing the mercurial Mary Margaret O'Hara. She didn't make the gig, but this was still a more-than-adequately-interesting combo to hang out and listen to, with Jurgensen joined by Aidan Closs (percussion, piano), Michael Herring (double bass), Bob Vespaziani (wavedrum), and the wonderful Jeff Burke (bassoon and theremin). What was originally going to be a duo followed by a larger group was combined into two sets of improvised music by the quintet, touching on a range of vibes, from the first set's abstract space blues heard in the first extract to the second set's spontaneous ballad heard in the second.

[You can check out Jurgensen, quite possibly with a different mix of collaborators, in his next Tranzac appearance, Wednesday January 15th in the early slot.]

Recording: Build to Suit

Artist: Build to Suit

Song: [excerpt from an improvisation]

Recorded at Array Space ("Somewhere There"), December 29, 2013.

Build to Suit - [excerpt from an improvisation]

Full review to follow. The line between "noise" and "improvisation" is wafer-thin and can sometimes be more or less the same thing pitched to different audiences. This unit, with Alan Bloor (violin), Jim Bailey (electronics/found objects), Bob Vespaziani (wave drum), Arnd Jurgensen (guitar), Matthew Poulakakis (guitar), and Guy Leblanc (trombone/noisemakers) produced a found-sound bricolage that could range from pleasingly abrasive to intriguingly textured with a good group dynamic that kept things sounding like an ensemble more than just six guys who all showed up to play at the same place. My sense is that these guys play gigs mostly in the free improv scene, but this would be right down the alley of a lot of noise/weird heads who don't go to that kind of show.