Recording: Allemano/Driver/Klager

Artist: Lina Allemano/Ryan Driver/Caleb Klager

Song: [two excerpts]

Recorded at Wenona Lodge (Track Could Bend #104), May 6, 2025.

Lina Allemano/Ryan Driver/Caleb Klager - [excerpt 1]

Lina Allemano/Ryan Driver/Caleb Klager - [excerpt 2]

Trumpeter Lina Allemano keeps busy leading multiple ensembles, both in Toronto and Berlin, but still takes time to explore new sounds and new contexts. This experiment in electroacoustic alchemy mixed in two different flavours of synthesis from Ryan Driver and Caleb Klager, who worked to provide sonic context in the realms of texture more than melody. Incredible stuff, and definitely hoping we get a chance to hear more of this.

You can check out some more from this set over on youtube:

[Track Could Bend is back at Wenona on Tuesday, June 3rd with EMF emanations from Aliyah Aziz and prepared guitar collisions from William Davison and Phil Hamilton.]

Recording: Caleb Klager

Artist: Caleb Klager

Song: [excerpt]

Recorded at Wenona Lodge (Track Could Bend #104), May 6, 2025.

Caleb Klager - [excerpt]

On-site to perform as part of Lina Allemano's trio, Klager was also a last-minute fill-in to open the night, presenting some solo sounds for modular synth.

You can check out some more from this set over on youtube:

[Track Could Bend is back at Wenona on Tuesday, June 3rd with EMF emanations from Aliyah Aziz and prepared guitar collisions from William Davison and Phil Hamilton.]

Recording: Adversarial Networks

Artist: Adversarial Networks

Song: [excerpt]

Recorded at Wenona Lodge (Track Could Bend #76), February 7, 2023.

Adversarial Networks - [excerpt]

I was eager to get a chance to hear this quartet, mostly because it involved some familiar faces making sound in a different way. Combining the talents of Caleb Klager (modular synthesizer/drum machines), Chris Pruden (keyed synthesizer), Luan Phung (electric guitar), and David Lipson (audio-reactive projections), this was no coffee-shop "jazz", instead heading down a dystopian highway into dark electronica, suggestive of wires and circuits slowly taking over their hosts, overpowering their senses, and inserting some malicious code.

You can check out some footage from this set over on youtube:

[Track Could Bend is back at Wenona on Tuesday, March 7th, with two amazing trios: international sensations Jasper Stadhouders/Lori Freedman/Allison Cameron, plus Marilyn Yogarajah's Tree-Oh with Steve Dillon (Lovewizard) + Lucas Finkeldey.]

Recording: The Search For Eternal Happiness Pt. 7

Artist: The Search For Eternal Happiness Pt. 7

Song: [excerpt]

Recorded at The Tranzac's Southern Cross Lounge (Music By Harry and Furlong Season 2 Spectacular!), September 25, 2019.

The Search For Eternal Happiness Pt. 7 - [excerpt]

This self-declared spectacle — which came complete with celebratory cupcakes — was an anniversary party for Andrew Furlong and Harry Vetro's Tranzac residency. As usual, each of them put together an ensemble to play a set. Vetro's shifting ensembles are regularly dubbed a part of his "Search For Eternal Happiness", and this large group brought together most of the players who came together at the series' first outing. This part of the search was less "composed" than some, but there was still the strong shared sense of a game plan, with the crew managing to hold onto a reasonably-layered structure and not just pile sounds on top of other sounds, raising up to a swell worthy of a birthday party.

The full ensemble was:

• Harrison Argatoff (sax)
• Madeleine Ertel (trumpet)
• Ben Frost (flugelhorn)
• Kaelin Murphy (bass trumpet)
• Patrick Smith (sax)
• Meghan Gilhespy (vocals)
• Nick Donovan (drums)
• Patrick O'Reilly (guit)
• Harry Bartlett (guit)
• Caleb Klager (double bass)
• Harrison Vetro (drums)

[Music By Harry and Furlong will continue at The Tranzac on Wednesday, November 27th, with sets from Harry Vetro's Drum Trio (Harry Vetro, Nick Donovan, and Miles Fuller) as well as a duo of Andrew Furlong and Kurt Newman.]

Recording: Queasy Weasel

Artist: Queasy Weasel

Songs: [excerpt from first piece, in two parts]

Recorded at Wenona Lodge (Furniture Music), May 28, 2019.

Queasy Weasel - [excerpt from first piece, part 1]

Queasy Weasel - [excerpt from first piece, part 2]

The results were perhaps a little weasely but not so queasy from this quartet composed of Bea Labikova (alto sax), Ashley Urquhart (piano), Caleb Klager (double bass) and Stefan Hegerat (percussion), mixing quiet interludes (including some tasty chime-y plucked piano wires) with clomping gallops.

[Furniture Music will be back in the basement at Wenona on Tuesday, August 27th.]

Recording: The Search For Eternal Happiness Pt. 2

Artist: The Search For Eternal Happiness Pt. 2

Song: Dog Pound [composer: Caleb Klager]

Recorded at The Tranzac's Southern Cross Lounge (Music By Harry and Furlong, S1E3), November 28, 2018.

The Search For Eternal Happiness Pt. 2 - Dog Pound

This "episode" of this new-ish Tranzac residency delivered exactly what its title promised: music curated and performed by Harry Vetro and Andrew Furlong. As a musical unit, Vetro's Search For Eternal Happiness seems to be as conceptual as the titular metaphysical pursuit, with different iterations bringing a rotating series of musicians to join him.

This set saw him on drums backing a sort of double trio that included Dan Pitt and Harry Bartlett on guitar plus Jill McKenna and Caleb Klager on double bass. It's possible that it's an expanded version of a trio containing Bartlett, Klager, and Vetro that recorded some tunes together — including the ode to the Alberta village heard here. Carefully-arranged countrypolitan twang, this was "jazz" as filtered through the influence of Bill Frisell, whose work was also tackled during the set.

[Music By Harry and Furlong continues at The Tranzac on Wednesday, January 23rd, with a new The Search For Eternal Happiness configuration (with Harry Vetro plus saxophonist Harrison Argatoff as well as dancers Alison Keery and Mateo Gilando) plus a duo set from Patrick Smith and Mike Gennaro.]