Recording: Sirois-Lynn-Stephen-someone's memory

Artist: Fae Sirois/Michael Lynn/Del Stephen/someone's memory

Song: [excerpt]

Recorded at The Steady Café (Track Could Bend #25), April 4, 2017.

Fae Sirois/Michael Lynn/Del Stephen/someone's memory - [excerpt]

Continuing the tradition started a year ago, Track Could Bend celebrated its second anniversary by inviting back all of the previous year's performers for a celebration. There ended up being nineteen players on this night, all of whom put their names in a hat to be drawn to create spontaneous ensembles for a series of quick sets. This electroacoustic jam-band sounded like it could have been a longstanding project and not a one-off deal. With all eyes in the room drawn in by someone's memory's careful treebrach manipulations, the other players created a floating atmosphere suitable for some heavy drifting.

[Track Could Bend #27 will be at The Steady on Tuesday, June 6th, with sets from Processor, Steve Sladkowski & Joe Sorbara and Diane Roblin & Katie Jensen.]

Recording: Electro-Acoustic Orchestra

Artist: Electro-Acoustic Orchestra

Song: [edited excerpt from first piece]

Recorded at The Tranzac's Southern Cross Lounge (416 Toronto Creative Improvisers Festival – Night 1), November 2, 2016.

Electro-Acoustic Orchestra - [edited excerpt from first piece]

This night of abstracted sounds lead off a rather satisfying edition of the long-running 416 Festival. Under the leadership of Doug Van Nort (conducting and mixing desk), the room-filling EAO is based out his DisPerSion Lab up at York University. It contains a mix of veteran players (such as Robert Appleton, Glen Hall, and Ted Philips) with a crew of emerging performers, mixing laptop-based electronics with a full range of acoustic instruments. Van Nort deployed a lot of gestural conducting, presumably shaping the way the performers interacted with each other, mixing a couple big swells with more subtle sonic fields. Pay attention at the end of this extract for the way the Hall's saxophone pulls itself into clearer focus from the general swirl of the ensemble. (There were a few faces here that were, as yet, strangers to me, but the ensemble was listed as: Chris Anderson-Lundy, Robert Appleton, David Bandi, Aaron Corbett, Marcello Fiorini, Glen Hall, Ian Macchiusi, Mackenzie Perrault, Liz Petzold, Ted Philips, Danny Sheahan, Fae Sirois and Lauren Wilson.)

Recording: Bears and Children

Artist: Bears and Children

Song: [excerpt from first piece]

Recorded at at Dundas Video (Track Could Bend #20), November 1, 2016.

Bears and Children - [excerpt from first piece]

Some very interesting side-roads here from this trio whose normal stock-in-trade is a rather dense and stylized "electronic glitterdoom". For this set they were in improvisation mode, shedding any semblance of song structure. With the focus almost entirely on sonic textures rather than harmonic/melodic elements, one could sense the influence here of Doug Van Nort — the group's members also play in his Electro-Acoustic Orchestra up at York and are associated with his DisPerSion Lab. (This shift was especially apparent for Fae Sirois, who was investigating the violin's skrunk-skreetch acoustic possibilities instead of playing through an extended pedal chain.)

[The next Track Could Bend will be taking place on Tuesday, December 6th with sets from No Parking (members of Protruders), Heather Saumer, plus Del Stephen & The Bedroom Refuge Holiday.]

Recording: Matt Miller/Ben Sirois/Leslie Predie/Minesh Mandoda

Artist: Matt Miller/Ben Sirois/Leslie Predie/Minesh Mandoda

Song: [excerpt]

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

Matt Miller/Ben Sirois/Leslie Predie/Minesh Mandoda - [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.

The first "band from a hat" set the bar high with an eerie and atmospheric horror-movie soundtrack. Leslie Predie (who performed at TCB#4) set the tone here with her wordless feral vocalizations, but rather than Doom Ticker's hunting sprint, this was more of a sedate lope thanks to the glide of Minesh Mandoda's guitar (part of Ghostlight at TCB#5) and Ben Sirois' violin (part of Someflowers of Hell at TCB#3). Matt Miller (who had performed as part of Rub Out The Word at TCB#9) completed the vibe with his realtime ipad manipulations, adding static bursts and other unsettling noises.

[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: Bears and Children

Artist: Bears and Children

Song: Still

Recorded at The Cavern Bar, August 23, 2015.

Bears and Children - Still

I'd heard from friends who had been that The Cavern Bar had an unusual vibe for a gig, and this first visit confirmed that. Off the usual music venue grid on Church Street, the basement room is as much a watering hole for patrons of the hostel above as a destination for music seekers, leading to some random interactions and moments of bands playing to as many blissfully indifferent patrons as folks there for the show. Leading off a night of experimental music and art rock, Bears and Children fared reasonably well with their pop-laced glitchprog. The songs hyperactively skipped from one sound to another, steered by a trio employing electronics, laptop, guitar and violin. (The latter was provided by Ben Sirois, who I recognized from his work both with The Flowers of Hell and as an improviser.) Things got a little too jumpy for me at some points, but the group sound somewhat more measured on their bandcamp releases.

Recording: Ben Sirois/Andy Yue/Alex Fournier

Artist: Ben Sirois/Andy Yue/Alex Fournier

Song: [edited excerpt from first piece]

Recorded at Array Space ("Audiopollination 32.2"), July 14, 2015.

Ben Sirois/Andy Yue/Alex Fournier - [edited excerpt from first piece]

This was the first night in this year's series of Audiopollination's "self-curation" project, where musicians are welcomed to sign up and improvise in a trio for a short set with... well, whoever else signs up. The format encourages wacky and counter-intuitive combinations, and a chance for musicians to experiment in directions they might not have otherwise explored. The series continues monthly until December.

Perhaps the most "standard" of the night's sets, this saw Sirois' virtuosic violin playing set against Yue's piano explorations and Fournier's extended techniques for double bass.

[As always, you can hear full recordings from the night over at Audiopollination's bandcamp. The self-curation project continues at Array on Tuesday, August 11th, and Audiopollination also has a couple other gigs coming up: this Thursday (July 30th) at The Tranzac, as well as on Sunday, August 30th, with Montréal visitors Geraldine Eguiluz and Stéphane Diamantakiou.]

Recording: Someflowers of Hell

Artist: Someflowers of Hell

Song: Improvisation in A [first section]

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

Someflowers of Hell - Improvisation in A [first section]

Listening to this fabulous krautrockish improvisation, one could hardly guess that it came from a unit beset with gear trouble. Rallying to play with the sounds they could salvage, this ad hoc ensemble of members and friends of Flowers of Hell seized the moment and turned in a very tasty performance, pushed to the next level by Mike Duffield's driving drums. Ian McPhedran (once of Ostrich Tuning; now of Bodies That Matter) was a steadying influence on drone guitar while Ben Sirois, whole violin was on the fritz, contributed by generating and processing feedback loops through his pedals while guest Avery Strok (of Lorde Awesome) added synth and theremin textures.

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

Recording: Ben Sirois + Avesta Nakhaei

Artist: Ben Sirois/Avesta Nakhaei

Song: [excerpt from an improvisation]

Recorded at Array Space ("Audiopollination 25.1"), December 9, 2014.

Ben Sirois + Avesta Nakhaei - [excerpt from an improvisation]

I'd encountered pianist Avesta Nakhaei just a few nights before in a casual large group excursion. Here, paired with violinist Ben Sirois, he was a bit more "formal" in his approach, and in the frequent points where they gelled this could have been easily taken for a fully composed duet.

[As always, you can check out a full recording of the night over at Audiopollination's bandcamp page. The next Audiopollination night is Tuesday, January 13th, and features Michael Kaler (bass, bouzouki and other stringed instruments) in a series of improvised duets and trios.]