Six years/Six pack: Matthew Fava

MFS has turned six! My introductory thoughts on this landmark can be found here, but long story short: I asked some folks to pick some of their favourites to help me celebrate.

Today's list is from Matthew Fava, who (like a lot of folks) spends times in a couple different musical milieux. It took me far longer than it should have for me to realize that the bearded fellow behind the information table at New Music events and the new space-kosmiche-boogie bassist who suddenly appeared in Moonwood were, indeed, the same guy. The musically curious sort who doesn't even need an instrument to be fascinated by a sound, his list ranges into even more diverse terrain.

---

I ran into Joe at the Music Gallery the other day and during our brief encounter I mentioned how much I had been enjoying the celebratory playlists that folks were posting on MFS. He encouraged me to submit one.

Joe has captured so many remarkable performances. It was difficult to narrow my selections down to 6 when I had more than that from bands/artists beginning with the letter 'a'. The fact that other contributors have selected a few favourites made the process easier. You can trace histories in the events that Joe documents on MFS: artistic, institutional, cultural, personal. These are all shows that I missed, but artists who I have seen in other settings.

Happy birthday Mechanical Forest Sound, and thank you Joe– you are a cultural treasure, and I adore your t-shirt collection.

Feuermusik - Doppelspiel

I just as easily could have dropped a Canaille track in here, but I will simply say that Jeremy Strachan is one of my favourite people, and I got obsessed with Feuermusik from the moment their recordings came across my desk at CHRY 105.5 FM (where I used to be music director). Jeremy (reeds) and Gus Weinkauf (percussion) created an expansive sound together, and I am happy that this recording exists. Gritty, sparse, and highly imaginative.

Richard Laviolette & The Oil Spills - Funeral Song

Richard is an incredible songwriter. This is a rowdy number from All of Your Raw Materials, an album released about 5 years ago, which was re-issued by You've Changed. I was lucky enough to go on an adventure with Richard during the tour for this album. I drove to Guelph to pick up Richard and Sarah Mangle – I got to know them through my partner at the time, she is close friends with them both and orchestrated this car trip. We took a meandering drive up to Owen Sound for Richard's hometown show in the local bookstore. Unfortunately, we were supposed to pick up the PA system from the local music shop but it was closed by the time we pulled into town. Band mates from Guelph hobbled together a PA before making their trip up to Owen Sound, and although things got under way a little later than expected, it was an amazing concert. We wrapped up the evening with a game of scrabble at Richard's parents' place and they fed us pie and let us crash on the living room floor.

During the concert at the bookstore I had a big grin on my face when they played this song, and I really love the version that Joe captures here from the Out of this Spark Anniversary Show. I bet Joe did a little head bobbing and cracked a wide smile somewhere in there.

Germaine Liu - [excerpt from third piece]

I first became aware of Germaine Liu through her collaboration with Kit Wilson-Yang, and have since been more attuned to her output as a soloist and collaborator. Germaine is a highly resourceful, methodical sound maker. I was so pleased that Joe posted this recording. I have heard Germaine perform two solo sets with (un)modified snare drum, and getting a chance to listen back, itemize all of the textures, and plot the development of her musical ideas is wonderful. You can hear more from Germaine in the recording that Jonathan selected for his playlist.

Eamon McGrath - Signals

It was always a blast going to the National Campus and Community Radio Association Conferences. In the midst of all of the workshops, panels, concerts, and conversations, a representative from each radio station would distribute CDs of their local bands by stuffing them into oversized envelopes labelled with the call letters of all the participating stations - it was like valentines day in elementary school, but way less awkward. Someone from CJSR in Edmonton put an Eamon McGrath recording with a handmade case in the CHRY envelope. After I listened to Eamon's music I sent an email out of the blue to let him know I liked it and it was getting spins in Toronto. We kept in touch. He sent me a massive collection of his recordings. He came to Toronto on tour, and eventually moved to this city. Around the time that he released his Young Canadians album he played an acoustic set on the Night Shift (CHRY 105.5 FM, hosted by Luca Capone). I was mixing that night, and Eamon played Signals. Hearing the lyrics performed live, sending them out into the ether, was a great experience. This version with the full band captures his energy perfectly.

One more tangent, my daughter met Joe at the Bloor Christie Folk Festival last year following Eamon's set. Unfortunately, my daughter caught site of a kite and ran off so our conversation was brief, but I like that she knows a music community has more working parts in it than the musicians on the stage.

junctQín keyboard collective - Sonic Toys in Transit [excerpt]

Stephanie Chua, Joe Ferretti, and Elaine Lau are the trio behind junctQín (pronounced 'junction'). I wish they had been my music teachers when I was 4. They are wonderful people, and the only time they really show how weird they are is when they are performing (at least that has been my experience), and it is always memorable. They have taken programming a piano concert into all kinds of directions, augmenting their musical arsenal with toy pianos, thumb pianos, squeeze toys, customized tables, 8-bit glitched out circuitry, motion-sensor hand dances, mattress inflators, and more. In this recording, Joe captures their performance during Nuit Blanche several years ago. As Joe points out, it is a lower quality field recording, but coupled with his description of the space and his experience it is a great listen.

I also want to mention that Joe's entry from that night includes a great description of the Canadian Music Centre where I am currently employed. It is really special to read his reminiscing and recounting. Whether appearing in short or long form, Joe's enthusiasm for, and observations about music and its context, are refreshing.

$100 - Not For Me

I have written too much. I tend to ramble. This is a beautiful (at times hilarious) recording of a great song from a fantastic band full of stellar musicians. I don’t think enough can be written about Simone Schmidt, the words she sings, and the stories she tells.

Also: audience participation!

---

You can always click on the tags below to look for more stuff from these artists. Has there been a half-dozen 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.

Sunday Playlist #3

Sunday Playlist #3: Something Else!!!!

Feuermusik - Doppelspiel

Buildings - unknown

Apostle of Hustle - Dark is What I Want

Alpha Yaya Diallo - Unknown

The Woodchoppers Association et Jah Youssouf - unknown

---

You can always click the tags below to see what I originally wrote about the shows these songs came from.

Recording: Feuermusik

Artist: Feuermusik

Song: Doppelspiel

Recorded at Centre of Gravity, November 21, 2009. Bite Your Tongue #2.

Feuermusik - Doppelspiel

My notes for this set can be found here.

Gig: Bite Your Tongue 2

Bite Your Tongue 2 (feat. Lucky Dragons, Corpusse, Nif-D, Feuermusik, Castlemusic)

Centre of Gravity. Saturday, November 21, 2009.

The furthest east I've been for a gig since... well, since the last Bite Yr Tongue. That lovely affair came with more headlining starpower. This time I was buying more out of trust for the organizers' curatorial skills. And headed to... a circus training school?

Indeed. The venue turned out to be a large, high-ceilinged room that gave the impression that it might have been a theatre once, long ago. A stage at the far end, with plenty open space in front and the floor sloping up a bit towards the back, where there was a sitting area across from the beer-dispensing bar. Circus equipment — unicycles, juggling balls, hula hoops — was stowed along the walls¹. A large plastic sculpture by Jon McCurley, looking like an enormous fruit roll-up, was suspended over the stage. I rolled in a bit before nine-thirty, a few people scattered loosely around, listening to a cool mix of tunes.

Without much in the way of introduction, Jennifer Castle (who operates under the bandonym Castlemusic) launched into her set, sitting casually at the lip of the stage and slowly building up a guitar groove before unfurling her admirable pipes. The smallish early crowd hunched forward some and largely sat down — some of us up front on the cold concrete floor — and generally listened attentively. Gorgeous stuff, as always — as if the McGarrigle sisters went down to the crossroads at midnight, guitars in hand, waiting for the devil to make that deal to be the best guitar player in the world, only to get bored and settle for some brown acid from a passing mendicant. Her last album ('08's You Can't Take Anyone) was a pretty lovely bit of work, and accompanied by a string of fine performances before pausing for some parental leave. It seems like Castle is returning to live duty, and is quite worth checking out. Here, she played the bulk of her set as one continuous piece, hypnotically weaving one song into the next for over twenty minutes before pausing to chat with the crowd. A couple songs were performed a capella, her voice filling up the big room nicely. Ended with a nice diptych, the no-joy-in-here "For My Friends" (it begins "for my friend there is no sunny days", and things go downhill from there) was countered by a closing cover of Janis Joplin's "Get It While You Can".

Listen to a part of this performance here.

Next up was Feuermusik, the longstanding duo of Gus Weinkauf (plastic buckets used as drums) and Jeremy Strachan on sax. I'd seen Strachan playing in a couple different contexts recently, but this was the unit that brought him most sharply into the public eye. The stripped-down format gives the music² a raw immediacy, like street-corner buskers that aren't going to mess around too much with abstraction until they've caught your attention with a tune. After an opening number (that included some jaunty Ayler riffs) the pair were joined by dancer Abbe Findley (visiting from Kansas City) — appropriately enough starting with the aptly-titled "Holding - Sway". Now, there's a whole lot that I don't know about "The Dance", so I'm hardly qualified to offer much in the way of insight, but it was interesting to see a different kind of improvisation tossed into the mix. During "Tyranny of Appearances", Findley definitely did seem to catch an idea, playing off the differences between the textures of the two players — moving more smoothly to the saxophone's flow while moving in a clockwork-like mechanical rhythm³ to the drumming. The pair closed out the set with a rousing run through the supremely catchy "Doppelspiel".

Listen to a track from this set here.

"It's okay to clap — and it's okay to dance," said Matt Smith (a.k.a Nifty and/or Nif-D) as he started his set. Some folks were milling around, some still sitting on the floor as he flicked the switch and starting stitching his loops together, bent over his laptop and case full of electronics. He let things build up for about five minutes before a big beat kicked in and suddenly the place was full of people dancing. After a few minutes the track ended and he started another, this one kicking right into dance mode — and holding the groove for about ten minutes. Rhythmically intense, there were vocals buried back in the mix, but they were very much just one more flavour until the drums loops fell out and he eased things back with a one-man chorus of voices building up until the beat kicked back in. Effective in a get-the-floor-moving kind of way — not the sort of thing that's suited for over-thinking. Not especially my thing, but I will say this: I have seen Smith play three or four times in different contexts at different kinds of shows, and he always does a good job of melding his sound to suit the crowd and the environment. So even if I wasn't totally moved, I can report it was a great success.

Listen to an excerpt from this performance here.

And then — oh my — Corpusse.⁴ The music, provided by an unspeaking accomplice standing behind a raised dais, kicked in — synthesizers and a drum machine, what we woulda called, back in my day, minimalist industrial. But under Corpusse's presence, it was pure metal. Metal... as irony-free performance art. Dressed in black, with tattooed arms, kabuki raccoon eyes, a feather boa and hair spiked a foot high above his forehead. And lyrics spat out in an angry demon voice: "Wake up Suzanne Sommers! Wake up Lindsey Buckingham! Wake up... Kevin Costner! It's time! It's time! It's time! It's time... to... die!" Most of his lyrics were equally quotable, the next one beginning: "I have a feeling... tonight.... will be HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRD!" This song turned out to be about panties.

Y'know how, in regards to some vaguely transgressive things, people will say, "I didn't think he'd go there, but he went there!" Well, Corpusse went there, drooled on it, keeled over, and started humping the air before crawling around the stage. Singing all the while. Which is to say that the show was a mind-blowing spectacle on several levels all at once. Lyrically, the closest kin that I can think of would be Steve Albini's deadpan investigations of some of the lower emotional urges, but at operatic pitch. And physically, Corpusse was one hundred per cent into it, meaning the whole thing was hilarious, absurd. And yet — dare I say it? — poignant. In our day-to-day world, to just get by, you gotta compromise a little bit on pretty much everything. This is one man not compromising.⁵ Kinda awesome, kinda alarming.

Sound alone doesn't do it full justice, but check out a track from this set here.

That was such a weirdly immersive experience that it seemed unlikely anything would top it. And I had no knowledge whatsoever of the night's final band, Lucky Dragons out of Los Angeles, who were soon busily setting up in the middle of the floor. Their equipment actually looked something like a campfire, with a ring of gear including a laptop, some other electronic gear, a pile of stones, and a bunch of... sticks wrapped in fabric? The crowd loosely gathered about the pair in a circle, those up front sitting on the floor as the music began. With Sarah Rara adding etherial vocal loops, it was a chill sort of beginning — blurred slo-mo projections creeping across the blank wall across from the bar. Luke Fischbeck added some percussion and played a recorder, controlling things on his laptop. That classic slow build, I thought to myself, I've seen bands do this before.

But soon, the band wasn't doing it. Fischbeck picked up a rock from the pile and held it over what I'd taken to be some sort of effect pedal. It turned out to be a proximity sensor, and as he moved the rock over it, it triggered a pleasing oscillating noise. He repeated the action a couple times, passing the rock over on different directions and getting different noises... and then passed the rock on to someone sitting in the front rank of the crowd. So they tentatively passed the rock over the sensor as Fischbeck indicated that the rocks were there for the crowd's use. So, soon there were plenty of blurbling noises. And a couple enterprising types started banging rocks together to accompany Rara on percussion. Then Fischbeck started handing out the stick-things, with cords that led back to a patchboard in the centre of everything. They were drumsticks, or transmitting drumsticks in some manner, and as the people they were handed to started tapping the floor with them, their rhythms were added to the mix. The band were crowdsourcing their musical inputs!

But then came the ne plus ultra. Fischbeck handed out another stick connected to the patchboard, but this one with a bare metal end that he indicated the crowdmember should wrap their fist around, while he did the same thing with another stick. Then, he touched their fist with his other hand, completing the circuit and setting off a noise. He handed out more of the leads and reached from one person to another, setting off "their" noises. If that made the audience members smile with delight, it was nothing compared to the moments of realization — and I saw some expressions that looked straight out of the first part of 2001 — when the people with the probes realized they could complete the circuits by touching each other.

Soon Fischbeck's interventions weren't required as the crowdmembers spontaneously experimented with different connections and circuit bridges, creating an ever-evolving soundscape. Meanwhile, there were more cymbals and percussion instruments being passed around to add to the rhythm as Fischbeck subtly guided the process, shaping the envelope on his laptop and adding different elements of the live performance into the mix. It was a half-hour performance, and it was rather incredible, that simple caveman pleasure of making music together being enough to make it into a transformative experience. I left feeling a warm glow and amazed by what I'd just seen — even if I didn't actually remember what the music sounded like afterwards.

Hear the ending part of this experience here.

All told, an excellent night. Again, a superb job by the crew behind this — not only smoothly executed, but obviously very well thought out. Like crate diggers finding cool, obscure tracks to present to the public, this lot are digging out new spaces and new situations and I feel richer for having attended. Bring on Bite Your Tongue #3!

---

¹ And it's a mark of credit that I didn't see any of the attendees try and play with any of the equipment close at hand. In fact, all things told, this was a rather good audience — attentive during a range of pretty diverse acts, there wasn't a single jabbering jerk that needed a good glaring at.

² Er, or should that be the musik?

³ Bringing to mind, say, shades of Hoffmann's Olympia.

⁴ Pronounced corpus.

⁵ Corpusse's philosphy, as outlined on his website, underlines this: "Stay true to yourself./ Do whatever you want./ Don't let anyone tell you what to do./ Where there's a will, there's a way./ Fuck the banking job./ This is what I'm going to do./ This is what has to support me./ It has to be done./ There is no alternative./ This is it. This is my life./ I'll die doing this."