Recording: Dirty Inputs

Artist: Dirty Inputs

Song: [first piece]

Recorded at Wenona Lodge (Track Could Bend #58), January 7, 2020.

Dirty Inputs - [first piece]

Aaron Dawson has been keeping busier lately with organizational work (including curating the monthly Nite Comfort series) than performing, so it was exciting to see him trying out some new moves and pushing a bit deeper into improvisation in this set. I was nodding to myself and thinking that this ambient piece was more or less in my sonic zone when he mentioned afterwards that it sampled an obscure musician named Heraclitus Akimbo who had played at his series once.

[Track Could Bend is back at Wenona tonight (February 4th), with sets from the Pete Johnston 4, Claire Yunjin Lee, and Tidal Pool.]

Recording: Cosmic Homeostasis

Artist: Cosmic Homeostasis

Songs: Giraffe in the Deep End of an Outdoor Swimming Pool on a Hot Summer Day [excerpt] + That's Water in Those Wine Glasses But Maybe You Don't Want to Drink From Them Now [edited excerpt, in two parts]

Recorded at The Tranzac's Southern Cross Lounge (Cosmic Homeostasis III), April 30, 2017.

Cosmic Homeostasis - Giraffe in the Deep End of an Outdoor Swimming Pool on a Hot Summer Day [excerpt]

Cosmic Homeostasis - That's Water in Those Wine Glasses But Maybe You Don't Want to Drink From Them Now [edited excerpt, part 1]

Cosmic Homeostasis - That's Water in Those Wine Glasses But Maybe You Don't Want to Drink From Them Now [edited excerpt, part 2]

There was a smaller cadre of Homeostasisists this time out, but still plenty of unrushed driftage following the dictates of the Cosmic Homeostasis Tactical Memo. The Primary Drifters here were Paul Newman (sax, Namer-of-Things), Rob Cruickshank (electronics) and Joe Strutt (keyb/loops). A couple audience members (Dirty Inputs' Aaron Dawson and Johan Seaton) were pressganged into the proceedings on phone apps and electroacoustic bricabrac, which you can hear more of in the second selection here, including some of Dawson's tinkling wine glass chimes, which inspired the piece's title.

[Cosmic Homeostasis will return. In the meantime, Joe Strutt (in the guise of Heraclitus Akimbo) will be joined by Paul Newman at one of Ratio's "Decreation" celebrations this Sunday night.]

Recording: Dirty Inputs

Artist: Dirty Inputs

Song: Dead Malls

Recorded at Array Space (Invocation Presents), July 7, 2016.

Dirty Inputs - Dead Malls

Once again showing off his visual penchant for elevating a show beyond the mundane, Aaron Dawson released his new album with some special effects. Performing behind an infinity mirror, he was clad in a cowl of black, sparkly veils (which one reliable source praised as a "Dr. Who villain-worthy" ensemble). Dawson played a suite-like continuous set focusing on the new album, with songs rising from ambient swells to thunderous post-apocalyptic landscapes, bouncing back and forth between the reflective layers.

Recording: Dirty Inputs

Artist: Dirty Inputs

Song: Goodbye Voyager

Recorded at Geary Lane ("Sound Séance I": Night 1), June 12, 2015.

Dirty Inputs - Goodbye Voyager

The culmination of Geary Lane's year-long journey, the inaugural version of this event overcame some bureaucratic hurdles to present a weekend-long showcase of a non-corporate alternative to the city's increasingly-crowded festival calendar. Tucked away in its little pocket on the other side of the tracks, Geary Lane does feel a little off the grid but works well as an conceptual island getaway for sonic adventurers. Partnered with Suoni Per Il Popolo, the "name" draws skewed a bit toward une certaine esthétique de Montréal but each night did include cool local sounds as well. On the vibe front, this first night showcased Geary as an excellent destination for avant-mellow, with the bulk of the crowd quietly lounging around in the room's various corners and crannies.

Aaron Dawson's synthscapes rely a bit more on headphone head-nodding than body movin' dynamics — closer to planetarium prog than rave romps. But with the warehouse-like space filling with smoke machine fog as patterns were projected on the giant net he was obscured behind, some of those distinctions were collapsed into a singularity, steaming away towards the Oort cloud at thirty-five thousand miles an hour.

Recording: Dirty Inputs

Artist: Dirty Inputs

Song: Downtown^*

Recorded at 8-11, July 18, 2014.

Dirty Inputs - Downtown

Full review to follow. You might walk down the streets every day, but there's a lot of hidden oases in the city, like a courtyard behind a row of Chinatown shops with a spreading mature tree providing a soft ceiling to let the fading sunlight trickle through. As Aaron Dawson (remembered for his work in Off The International Radar) sang this little paean to downtown discovery, a raccoon was beginning her evening rounds on the rooftops above, using those tree's branches as a bridge from one building to the next.

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