Monday Roundup #137

Community notes:

• There was a fair amount of community organizing to make sure proper concerns were being considered when City Hall amended the noise bylaw back in 2019. It looks like that process is continuing with an "Implementation Review", so if you have any ideas or concerns with how the noise bylaw works (say, in the interactions between music venues and the outside world), you can make your voice heard against NIMBYs and nofunniks. There are specific meetings on Amplified Sound ("for example, music from bars") virtually (on Wednesday, September 13th) and in-person (Thursday, September 21st at Metro Hall). More info on the city's website.

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Concert announcements:

Amrita [Anita Katakkar & Kayla Milmine] / Drom Taberna 2023-09-04 (Monday – 6 p.m.) [FB event]

Body Help [Colin Fisher/Josh Cole/Allison Au/Ian Wright] / The Rex 2023-09-07 (Thursday – 5:30 p.m.). $10. [more info]

Masahiro Takahashi [Humid Sun release show, with Blake Howard, Bram Gielen, Brodie West, Joseph Shabason, Michael Davidson, and Ryan Driver] (Omar Bongo) / The Tranzac (Main Hall) 2023-09-12 (Tuesday). $20. [FB event]

Boyscott (Heaven For Real) / The Garrison 2023-09-13 (Wednesday). $20.61, 19+. [FB event]

Body Help [Colin Fisher/Josh Cole/Allison Au/Ian Wright] / The Rex 2023-09-14 (Thursday – 5:30 p.m.). $10. [more info]

Body Help [Colin Fisher/Josh Cole/Allison Au/Ian Wright] / The Rex 2023-09-21 (Thursday – 5:30 p.m.). $10. [more info]

Body Help [Colin Fisher/Josh Cole/Allison Au/Ian Wright] / The Rex 2023-09-28 (Thursday – 5:30 p.m.). $10. [more info]

Splendid Industries' Math Faire (feat. JazzTobacco / Hoarse Opera) / The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2023-09-30 (Saturday). $pwyc. [FB event]

Project Nowhere presents (feat. Mother Tongues [Love in a Vicious Way record release party!] / Jane Inc. / Roach) / The Garrison 2023-10-05 (Thursday). $17.31, 19+. [FB event]

Project Nowhere x RANGE presents (feat. Gloin / Grim Streaker / Only God Forgives) / The Baby G 2023-10-05 (Thursday). $17.31, 19+. [FB event]

Project Nowhere presents (feat. Not A Band / Corpusse / TFA) / Bar Orwell 2023-10-05 (Thursday). $17.31, 19+. [FB event]

Project Nowhere presents (feat. Moon King / Zones / Vespre / Lee Paradise) / The Baby G 2023-10-06 (Friday). $17.31, 19+. [FB event]

Project Nowhere presents (feat. Weird Nightmare / Breeze / Sham Family) / The Garrison 2023-10-07 (Saturday). $17.31, 19+. [FB event]

Only God Forgives (Dave Hill / Nick Flanagan) / Monarch Tavern 2023-10-19 (Thursday). $17.31. [FB event]

Is your show missing from this list? Submit it via this form!

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Shows this week:

Utopia Ontario [Andrew Downing/Kevin Turcotte/Maggie Keogh/Justin Orok with guest Michael Davidson] / The Rex 2023-08-28 (Monday – 5:30 p.m.). [FB event]

No Octopus Dances [Allison Cameron/Stephen Parkinson/Germaine Liu/Mark Zurawinski] / The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2023-08-30 (Wednesday – early) [more info]

Jesse Levine (Dun Dun Man) / The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2023-08-30 (Wednesday). $pwyc. [more info]

Tania Gill Quartet [Tania Gill/Brodie West/Rob Clutton/Nick Fraser] / The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2023-09-01 (Friday – early) [FB event]

Intersection Festival, Day 1: "The Last Symphony" (feat. William Basinski / Kuuma) / St. Anne's Anglican Church 2023-09-01 (Friday). $39.02; $28.27 student/senior/arts worker. [FB event]

Madeleine Ertel Group [Madeleine Ertel/Michael Davidson/Dan Fortin/Evan Cartwright] / The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2023-09-01 (Friday). $pwyc. [more info]

Intersection Festival, Day 2: Marathon Concert and Marketplace (feat. Tiger Balme / Slowpitchsound / Christopher Tignor / Emmanuel Jacob Lacopo / Naomi McCarroll-Butler / Giui / Exit Points Ensemble) / Yonge-Dundas Square 2023-09-02 (Saturday – 2 p.m. to 10 p.m.). $free, outdoors, all ages, family-friendly. [FB event]

Tilman Lewis/Nilan Perera/Laura Swankey / The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2023-09-02 (Saturday – early!) [FB event]

Intersection Festival, Day 3.1 (feat. Christopher Tignor) / Sonic Boom Records 2023-09-03 (Sunday – 2 p.m.). $free, all-ages. [FB event]

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In the mix:

• New end-of-summer drone mix! Ambient and electronic sounds from Garth Knox, Aidan Baker + The Bow, Joao Alegria, Velvet Rope Crowd Control/Aaron Lumley, BABEL, Noah Klein, AirSculpture, Andrew Collins, Mínim, Matthew Fava, Cat Tyson Hughes and Roger Eno.

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Bandcamp corner:

• It's Bandcamp Friday again this week (September 1st)! Remember to support the musicians you dig. Here's a couple things on my list to grab:

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It happened this week...

• ...on September 3, 2011 at INTERsection (New Music Marathon 2011), Yonge-Dundas Square.

Continuum Contemporary Music - Musique pour L'ange [excerpt]

Contact - Evening Star

[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: Continuum Contemporary Music

Artist: Continuum Contemporary Music

Song: Red Ensign [excerpt]

Recorded at The Music Gallery ("30 More!"), March 8, 2015.

Continuum Contemporary Music - Red Ensign [excerpt]

Congratulations are due to local new music ensemble Continuum, celebrating their 30th anniversary at this concert. Befitting their mandate, it was a forward-looking affair, mixing pieces from Richard Ayres and Joe Cutler with young Turkish composer Mithatcan Öcal. But best of all, its centrepiece was works from Jason Doell and Anna Höstman, two celebrated "emerging" local composers.

From Höstman there was a re-working of her Lattice for violin and piano — a piece that was commissioned by Thin Edge Music Collective making a return to the stage in reworked form. Doell's piece was a première commissioned by Continuum, featuring delicate textures rubbing up against each other in slow bursts separated by pregnant pauses. It's a noteworthy accomplishment even if the composer has tried to distract from the work with his subversively pseudo-grandiose program notes — "these sounds aren't echoes and they certainly do not wave in the wind, not in one manner nor another." (It's also recommended to anyone who liked, say, Daniel Brandes' "Intimations of Melody" off the Bespoken tape. In fact, you can play both at once to quite pleasant effect.)

[N.B.: you can hear a much nicer recording of the piece over at Doell's soundcloud.]

Recording: Continuum, Array and Guests

Artist: Continuum's Ensemble with The Array Ensemble and Guests

Song: Babbitt [excerpt] (Composer: Michael Oesterle)

Recorded at The Music Gallery ("Gaudeamus: Reconstructed"), April 4, 2014.

Continuum, Array and Guests - Babbitt [excerpt]

Full review to follow. The second night of the mini-festival in celebration of The Netherlands' Gaudeamus Muziekweek contrasted the previous night's improvisations by presenting works by a few composers — Dutch and Canadian — who have been associated with Gaudeamus in the past. To realize this vision, Continuum's ensemble was joined by The Array Ensemble as well as guests Michiel van Dijk, Koen Kaptijn, Nora Mulder, Rob MacDonald and Bas Wiegers. This piece from Michael Oesterle, as well as those from Louis Andriessen, Yannis Kyriakides and eldritch priest brought out a satisfying variety of textures.

Recording: Continuum Contemporary Music

Artist: Continuum Contemporary Music [Aaron Schwebel + Stephanie Chua]

Songs: La Bernardina + Ile fantasies de Joskin [composer: Josquin des Prez] / Chromatic Fundamentals [composer: Peter Adriaansz]

Recorded at Toronto Reference Library (Elizabeth Beeton Auditorium), March 17, 2014.

Continuum Contemporary Music - La Bernardina + Ile fantasies de Joskin

Continuum Contemporary Music - Chromatic Fundamentals

Continuum used its slot in the "New Music 101" series to present a stripped-down performance of a contemporary piece as well as the "quintessentially Dutch" work of 16th century Netherlandish composer Josquin des Prez. Those acted as a bit of a backgrounder to their upcoming Gaudeamus concerts, which are on tap this week at The Music Gallery, and they come in two intriguing flavours: "Deconstructed" (which links visiting Dutch musicians with an all-star crew of local improvisers, including Nicole Rampersaud, Josh Cole, Rick Sacks and Allison Cameron) and "Reconstructed" (where Continuum's ensemble and The Array Ensemble join forces with the visiting guests to play some music by some award-winning composers at Gaudeamus' Muziekweek festival).

Preview/Contest: New Music Passport

New Music Passport

Sophisticated music at indie rock prices!

Listening to New Music can be a lot like going to art films. Sometimes the experience can be oblique, non-linear and not laid out to give you an easy resolution. Sometimes you walk out not completely sure if you liked what you saw. But then, you wake up the next morning and start seeing new connections, and you realize you have a new and wider context — and you start to realize that there was something there that will stick with you far longer than you expected.

Musically, it's easy to stay in our little niches, especially given that we live in a city where there's no shortage of gigs to check out. But there's all sorts of different music just waiting to be explored. Sometimes it seems daunting — especially when it's "highbrow" music, whose context can come off as stuffy and, frankly, a little expensive to dabble in.

The Toronto New Music Alliance, an umbrella organization for many of the city's boundary-pushing music presenters, is out to break the ice and expose their work to new audiences. Several of their members have grouped together to launch the New Music Passport. It's a pretty straightforward concept: with a $25 investment, you'll be sent your own wallet-sized passport, which you can present at shows by up to six organizations to get a deeply-discounted $5 admission.

I've done the math for you, and it's pretty appealing. To go to six shows, your all-in cost is $9.58 per gig — that's really a bargain, given the quality of these ensembles and venues involved. And what can you go to see?

• Array Music, pushing the boundaries of improvisation and composition, has recently been celebrating John Cage and just performed with Pauline Oliveros.
• Continuum Contemporary Music presents contemporary classical music but wide-ranging collaborations keep things open-ended: one of this season's performances will have an electronic boost from New Adventures in Sound Art.
• Esprit Orchestra, "Canada's only full-sized orchestra devoted exclusively to performing and promoting new orchestral music", performs larger-scaled works in the beautiful space of Koerner Hall — you won't get too many chances to see the likes of Claude Vivier's "Orion" for five bucks.
• New Music Concerts has been bringing Canadian composers to the world since 1971 — and bringing diverse sounds back in return. This season includes new Canadian compositions as well as a focus on Korean music.
• Spectrum is rooted in more of a chamber jazz aesthetic, but presents a wide variety of music, including the Kurt Weill-esque song-cycle Easterween and Caitlin Smith's recent opera When This War Ends.
• Toy Piano Composers might not be seen employing the instrument they're named for, but that playful moniker reflects a DIY attitude — their first concert this year was entitled "We Started a Band".

Plus, there's more! Buy a passport and you'll receive a free issue of Musicworks Magazine, which does an excellent job of demystifying all sorts of avant-garde sounds. (The current issue has a cover story on Tim Hecker by MFS fave Nick Storring.)

CONTEST

Personally, I think you should just go ahead and grab your own Passport, but to make things even more enticing, I've been provided with one to give away. That means you'll be able to go to up to six shows for $5 apiece — cheaper than beer!

To enter, shoot me an email to mechanicalforestsound@gmail.com, with "new music passport" in the title. I'll draw a winner on Friday, November 9th.

Recording: Continuum Contemporary Music

Artist: Continuum Contemporary Music

Song: Musique pour L'ange [excerpt] (composer: Alexandre Voustin)

Recorded at INTERsection (New Music Marathon 2011), Yonge-Dundas Square, September 3, 2011.

Continuum Contemporary Music - Musique pour L'ange [excerpt]

Review to follow.