#mfs15 playlist: core

MFS has turned fifteen! My introductory thoughts on this landmark can be found here, but long story short: I asked some folks from the MFS community to help me celebrate by picking some selections from the archives, and possibly sharing some thoughts or stories.

Today's list is from core.

please accept this quiet drifting ode to the incomparable JOE STRUTT - citizen, writer, listener, maker, musician, fan, devotee and enthusiast, group drone organizer, promoter of improvised offshoots, and possibly the nicest most generous inclusive person in the whole modern tkaronto/toronto music scene. also, in the running for best name award.

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Scott M2-kat estacio-Heraclitus Akimbo - [excerpt]

Recorded at The Tranzac's Southern Cross Lounge (Cosmic Homeostasis & Audiopollination: Pre-NYE gathering + celebration), December 30, 2023.

a recent show by some local favourites that i missed but was delighted to listen to safely from home

Germaine Liu/Mira Martin-Gray/Karen Ng - [first piece, part 3]

Recorded at Wenona Lodge (Music Hosted by Karen Ng), September 17, 2019.

playful dynamic experimentations on full display

Cosmic Homeostasis - She Sells Moondust Down by The Sea of Tranquility [excerpt]

Recorded at The Tranzac's Southern Cross Lounge (Cosmic Homeostasis VIII), September 30, 2018.

shout out to the cosmic homeostasis crew, this afternoon was memorable for the guest appearance of my friends' kids, wolfgang and annika whose improvised vocal contributions can be heard in the mix xo

Abigail Trotsky/Chris Trotter/Mike Spears - [excerpt]

Recorded at Array Space (Audiopollination #53.1), April 8, 2017.

a rare and treasured collaboration with my longtime partner and our longtime friend xo

Brigitte Bardon't + SlowPitchSound - Sylvia Anne Virginia [forest noise scene redux] [excerpt]

Recorded at Double Double Land (NASA – Noise Against Sexual Assault), July 10, 2016.

with thanks for creating a soundtrack to safer spaces through solidarity and digital noise forests

thanks for everything,
corinne aka core aka abigail trotsky aka lane/louise

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You can always click on the tags below to look for more stuff from these artists. Has there been five or so 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.

Bumping into... Kristel Jax (Brigitte Bardon't)

Bumping Into... is a series of mini-chats with a variety of peeps that you might run into in some of our local music communities. (There's a bit of an intro and my thoughts behind the series here.)

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How are you? Where are you?

I'm sleepy. Currently in Parkdale with Lana Del Satan the mini pug, who misses everyone very much.

What have you been up to since March or so?

Since March I released an album entirely made with a Barbie keyboard and started a magazine with Tasman Richardson called Hum, about different drone sounds we find around the city. I've been doing livestreams for the Music Gallery through OBS which has been a huge adventure.

Have you found any new ways to do old things? How are you feeling about the shifts in how music is being made/shared/listened to?

I feel like I'm in the part of the shift where I don't know what things are shifting to. It's a little eerie.

Any works of art that have been a light for you in these times? Anything that's just been a good diversion?

I'm addicted to 90 Day Fiancé. Been bopping to a lot of Minimal Violence from Vancouver and trying to read Dune.

How are you feeling about 2021?

The Music Gallery actually put "2020" in one of my passwords and now it's just 2020 forever for me... good luck on the other side

Anything else we'd chat about if we bumped into each other?

A full rundown on Twin Peaks theories until you slowly backed away and remembered you had pressing matters with someone over there.

Recording: Xuan Ye + Brigitte Bardon't

Artist: Xuan Ye + Brigitte Bardon't

Song: [excerpt]

Recorded at Handlebar (Grandma's Secret Spices 3: A Night Of Experimental Music), August 28, 2019.

Xuan Ye + Brigitte Bardon't - [excerpt]

A rare joint set from these sonic explorers found them engaging their shared passion for expropriating and deconstructing pop culture detritus from different angles. The set played out as a tableau with two subjects, each twisting their radio dials and hearing voices in the æther — and then singing back to them. Not so much a folie à deux as a small act of act of digital defiance, claiming a spot in the sonic wasteland and making a stand.

Recording: Brigitte Bardon't

Artist: Brigitte Bardon't

Song: I Don't Wanna Hear It When You Bitch Shut Up You Make Me Sick You Stupid Whore + Sylvia Anne Virginia [excerpt]^*

Recorded at The Beguiling (Defend the 11 Fundraiser), February 2, 2019.

Brigitte Bardon't - I Don't Wanna Hear It When You Bitch Shut Up You Make Me Sick You Stupid Whore + Sylvia Anne Virginia [excerpt]

Comic shop The Beguiling organized this #DefendThe11 fundraiser for "members of the independent comics community... served with a defamation lawsuit because of concerns they raised about a fellow creator's alleged pattern of sexual misconduct", bringing together members of the overlapping comics and music scenes. Busy advocating for mental health and fighting against sexual violence, Kristel Jax took some time away from the festival circuit for this local appearance, creating a nest from which to create the evening's best-sounding set. Emotionally-intense stuff that is becoming more sharpened and direct with time, the audience stayed silent and gave space to the disembodied voices and anguished mutter/screams.

[Brigitte Bardon't has a track on the just-released, Così e Così-curated No Exist compilation — plus a haunting new video to go along with it.]

^* This title may require fine tuning, but I think this excerpt combines parts of these two pieces.

Recording: Heraclitus Akimbo & friends

Artist: Allison Cameron/Kristel Jax/Heraclitus Akimbo / Brian Abbott/Heidi Chan/Laura Swankey/Heraclitus Akimbo + Ambrose Pottie/Andrew Furlong/Karen Ng/Heraclitus Akimbo + Ryan Kinney/Paul Newman/Heraclitus Akimbo

Songs: [excerpts from four improvised mini-sets]

Recorded at Array Space (Audiopollination #53.2), April 25, 2017.

Allison Cameron/Kristel Jax/Heraclitus Akimbo - [excerpt]

Brian Abbott/Heidi Chan/Laura Swankey/Heraclitus Akimbo - [excerpt]

Ambrose Pottie/Andrew Furlong/Karen Ng/Heraclitus Akimbo - [excerpt]

Ryan Kinney/Paul Newman/Heraclitus Akimbo - [excerpt]

Fully aware of my own fungibility, I try not to go out of my way to score gigs for my alter ego Heraclitus Akimbo. This one was an exception. Inspired by Paul Newman, who always has a show on his birthday, I asked Audiopollination's Mike Lynn if he'd be interested in booking me on mine. In a blink, he had a full slate of peeps lined up, filling four twenty minute-ish mini-sets. The goal here was to have each half move continuously, with the musicians switching off seamlessly, and that worked out quite well. In fact, everything went off better than could be expected — but I guess that's what happens when you have so many A-1 talents on stage. Even if half of my stuff didn't work out as planned, there was enough going on to not leave a hole. Playing with others is an interesting experience on the heels of my (limited) career as a mostly-soloist, and it was rather interesting to see things take on their own shapes. The first half ended up being noisier than expected and the second a super-chill zone. Having tried it, I recommend that everyone should play a show on their birthday. Getting older is already the thing you're best at.

[Audiopollination is on hiatus until September, when its self-curation series will return. Heraclitus Akimbo has two shows coming up: a collaboration with Paul Newman on Sunday, June 4th as part of Ratio's "Decreation" series, and a solo set on Sunday, June 18th at Handlebar, with New Tendencies and Bachelard.]

[photo by Tom Beedham]

Recording: Brigitte Bardon't + SlowPitchSound

Artist: Brigitte Bardon't + SlowPitchSound

Song: Sylvia Anne Virginia [forest noise scene redux] [excerpt]

Recorded at Double Double Land (NASA – Noise Against Sexual Assault), July 10, 2016.

Brigitte Bardon't + SlowPitchSound - Sylvia Anne Virginia [forest noise scene redux] [excerpt]

Envisioned as "a night of noise, dark electronic, and doom rock in support of sexual assault survivors and in solidarity with Larkin Grimm", this event was programmed as a counter-gig to Swans' local appearance. It was also an attempt for DIY spaces to face up to the problems of taking responsibility for what happens within their walls and to begin a discussion of some "best practices" to create safer spaces.

Kristel Jax enlisted the assistance of turntablist Cheldon Paterson (a.k.a. SlowPitchSound) to add some extra noise to this piece. After building up their layers of sound-loops, both journeyed into the crowd — Jax providing some harrowing vocals while Paterson held a tape deck up to audience members' ears, adding a hyperspacialized sonic sheen.

Recording: Anna Mērnieks/Mike Duffield/Colin Fisher/Kristel Jax

Artist: Anna Mērnieks/Mike Duffield/Colin Fisher/Kristel Jax

Song: [edited excerpt]

Recorded at Dundas Video ("Track Could Bend #13"), April 5, 2016.

Anna Mērnieks/Mike Duffield/Colin Fisher/Kristel Jax - [edited excerpt]

To my great surprise and delight, Track Could Bend has survived and thrived for a full year. To celebrate, I invited everyone who played the series' first twelve months (more than seventy people!) back for a birthday party. In the end, the night consisted of twenty-seven musicians collaborating over eight short sets, most of which were spontaneous "bands from a hat", drawn by lot before the set started. Given the wide range of musical practices and backgrounds, it was quite exciting to see how much coherence and excellence resulted.

This musical collusion saw Colin Fisher (who, as in his appearance with Body Help at TCB#7, was playing guitar) and Mike Duffield (drummer double duty at TCB#3 in Someflowers of Hell and Demerised Elf Funk) look like they were ready for some serious action when Kristel Jax (who played TCB#3 as Brigitte Bardon't) launched things on another trajectory entirely by interjecting a looped radioblast of a pop song. Anna Mērnieks (the other half of Demerised Elf Funk) was on saxophone, and glided above the fray as everyone found their equilibrium — soon sounds were sliding past each other like fragments of half-heard radio stations as the needle slid down the dial.

[The next Track Could Bend will be at Dundas Video on Tuesday, May 3rd, featuring Kosher Dill Spears, Terms Of Venery (Mike Smith, solo electronics) and Glamour Nails (Lina Allemano + Justin Haynes).]

Recording: Brigitte Bardon't

Artist: Brigitte Bardon't

Song: Tightly But Briefly^*

Recorded at Katzman Contemporary (Channel no. 1: Vlog), January 12, 2016.

Brigitte Bardon't - Tightly But Briefly

This five-night series, curated by Brett Despotovich, is bringing Toronto's experimental music scenes into a gallery space — both to allow some considered listening and to enable a series of large-scale visual collaborations. (This first night drew inspiration from the seemingly-boundless wellspring of youtube videos.) Besides the well-chosen music, this will also be an introduction for many to a rather lovely space — gallery culture, which tends to stay one step ahead of gentrification in the search for affordable spaces, has now seeped up to Carleton Village. So this week, hop on the Symington bus and go check out some cool collaborations.

The most elaborately-conceptualized of the evening's performances, Kristel Jax found the ideal visual counterpoint to her intimately-murmured drone-pop. Projector pointed straight down onto her performance space on the floor in the middle of the room, she was painted by a series of confessional video diaries, their emotional talkbursts creeping into the corners of her soundscapes. The operatic intensity of these private moments corresponded to the vocals, which seem to be simultaneously lay-it-all-out confessional and (via echo and other sonic manipulations) murkily opaque — our private crises laid bare for all to see, but still the incomprehensible mumblings of an existential Other.

[Channel's run at Katzman Contemporary continues through Saturday, with cool musicians using the space to collaborate with the visualisations in different ways.]

^* Thanks to Kristel for passing along the title to this one.

Recording: Sound Séance Continuous Drone Ensemble

Artist: Sound Séance Continuous Drone Ensemble

Songs: [two excerpts from an improvisation]

Recorded at Geary Lane ("Sound Séance I": Day 2), June 14, 2015.

Sound Séance Continuous Drone Ensemble - [excerpt 1]

Sound Séance Continuous Drone Ensemble - [excerpt 2]

Kudos to Invocation TO's Jay Pollard for making the Sound Séance about more than just the trio of big, nightly concerts. Afternoon events are a lot harder to get people out for, but some of the festival's best moments came in the daytimes. Rainy weather caused Sunday's plans to be scaled back (with an upstairs patio party scrapped) but the monumental dronezone in the venue's main area was more than enough.

With an ad hoc ensemble that mixed together members of projects like Knurl, Lorde Awesome, Isles Day, Sexy Merlin and Brigitte Bardon't, this was conceptualized as a five-hour continuous drone. With players deciding when to drop in and out, it actually ended up being closer to three-and-a-quarter hours when everything was said and done (said and droned?), but that was still plenty of time to lay back and zone out for a wide-ranging sonic soak. (The full lineup, which shifted throughout the duration of the piece was: Kristel Jax, Avery Strok, James Beardmore, Steve Benesko, Marcus Beiner, Alan Bloor, William Davison and Sean Dunal.)

Bonus! Here's some footage I shot when I headed outside for some fresh air:

Recording: Brigitte Bardon't

Artist: Brigitte Bardon't

Song: [radio manipulations]

Recorded at Dundas Video ("Track Could Bend #3"), June 2, 2015.

Brigitte Bardon't - [radio manipulations]

This set from Kristel Jax's pop concrète solo persona was basically split down the middle. The first half, heard here, involved manipulations of live radio broadcasts, while the second extended the sonic murk into song territory with Jax sighing a delicate ballad over an indelicately noisy background — the really inventive fusion here was to witness her crooning like Lana Del Rey while aggressively pacing the floor like Pharmakon.

[Track Could Bend will return to Dundas Video on July 7th — more details coming soon!]