Recording: Counterstasis Duo

Artist: Counterstasis Duo

Song: [improvisation for Ted] [edit]

Recorded at The Tranzac's Main Hall (Ted Phillips Memorial Concert), September 17, 2023.

Counterstasis Duo - [improvisation for Ted] [edit]

As families and communities do, kinfolk and friends gathered together to mark the loss of Ted Phillips. There was a chance to share memories while a whole bunch of the local musicians that Ted enjoyed played short solo or duo sets.

Playing without percussionist Joe Sorbara, Bill Gilliam (piano) and Glen Hall (electronics, reeds) took a more sombre and elegaic path, but with a few sonic pokes in the shoulder.

You can check out footage of all the music from the event's second half over on youtube:

Recording: Ecstatic Echidna

Artist: Ecstatic Echidna

Song: Lullaby for Echidnas

Recorded at The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge), August 16, 2023.

Ecstatic Echidna - Lullaby for Echidnas

Now with a second gig under their belt — as well as a formal group name — this trio may be evolving such that their most distinguishing feature is that they are being playful as much as they are playing.

Recording: Other Planes

Artist: Other Planes (Ensemble 1) [Glen Hall/Nilan Perera/Kieran Maraj] + Other Planes (Ensemble 2) [Rob Cruickshank/Brian Abbott/Mike Lynn] + Other Planes (Ensemble 1 + 2) [Nilan Perera/Kieran Maraj/Rob Cruickshank/Brian Abbott/Mike Lynn]

Song: [excerpts from three sets]

Recorded at Wenona Lodge (Track Could Bend #82), August 1, 2023.

Other Planes (Ensemble 1) - [excerpt]

Other Planes (Ensemble 2) - [excerpt]

Other Planes (Ensemble 1 + 2) - [excerpt]

This night at Track Could Bend gathered a whole bunch of musicians that the recently-departed Ted Phillips really enjoyed — my main goal for the night was to put together a show that he would have really wanted to come out for. But of course the other goal was for a community to come together and remember a sound-maker and listener who was both a performer and audience member at this series. A last-minute programming change meant that some extra Friends of Ted were invited along, splitting into two trios, followed by a joint effort. There were radio blasts, strange syntheses, guitar noodles and even an exploding bass bridge — I think Ted would have been delighted.

You can check out footage of the full sets over on youtube:

[There will be a larger-scale community remembrance forthcoming in September for Ted — keep your eyes peeled for more info soon. Meanwhile, Track Could Bend will be back at Wenona on Tuesday, September 5th with sets from Ancient Egypt and Body Hammer.]

Recording: Lima/Roblin/Hall

Artist: Lima/Roblin/Hall

Song: [1st piece, excerpt]

Recorded at Wenona Lodge (Track Could Bend #80), June 6, 2023.

Lima/Roblin/Hall - [1st piece, excerpt]

Possibly named Ecstatic Echidna, vocalist/clarinetist Liz Lima put this ensemble together, bringing along reed expert Glen Hall as well as keyboardist Diane Roblin, who brought out some spacey synth sounds to expand the musical settings.

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

[Track Could Bend is back at Wenona tonight (July 4th) with sets from Brian Ruryk and Del Stephen's Wurld Of Xo '42 Multivurse Melody Band.]

Bumping into... Glen Hall

Bumping Into... is a series of mini-chats with a variety of peeps that you might run into in some of our local music communities. (There's a bit of an intro and my thoughts behind the series here.)

---

How are you? Where are you?

My daughters, who are health workers, and I are fine. One daughter and I are in Brampton.

What have you been up to since March or so?

Practicing, sleeping, reading. I'm also working with Austrian violinist on a experimental project called "Quantum Violin". I'm also taking an online course in French.

Have you found any new ways to do old things? How are you feeling about the shifts in how music is being made/shared/listened to?

I've been doing some playing on Zoom. But it's kind of quirky and only partially satisfying.

Any works of art that have been a light for you in these times? Anything that's just been a good diversion?

Sarah Weaver's telematic performances. Vienna State Opera's broadcast of Olga Neuwirth's "Orlando". Cologne's orchestra Musikfabrik's and IRCAM Ensemble Inter Contemporain's broadcasts.

How are you feeling about 2021?

Hopeful. I've planned to attend IRCAM's Workshops in March.

Anything else we'd chat about if we bumped into each other?

The setup you're using for your recording.

Recording: Hall/Whitaker/Palumbo

Artist: Glen Hall/Curtis Whitaker/Michael Palumbo

Song: [second piece, edit]

Recorded at Hirut Restaurant (Exit Points #1), February 26, 2020.

Glen Hall/Curtis Whitaker/Michael Palumbo - [second piece, edit]

This new series is an initiative by the collaboratively-minded Michael Palumbo, bringing some electronic experimentation to the east end. It was also a bit of a social experiment and a step "out"-ward for host Hirut Restaurant, but, at least for this initial outing, a successful one, drawing a nice crowd. Palumbo, with his modular synth, participated in the first set, alongside Glen Hall (soprano sax + processing) and Curtis Whitaker (percussion). Random singalongs notwithstanding, there were some pleasing zones explored here.

[As with all things in these extraordinary times, upcoming shows are suspended in the exercise of social distancing. Keep an eye out on the series' FB page for news of its reappearance.]

Recording: Michael Palumbo & Glen Hall

Artist: Michael Palumbo & Glen Hall

Song: [edited excerpt]

Recorded at Wenona Lodge (Track Could Bend #54), September 3, 2019.

Michael Palumbo & Glen Hall - [edited excerpt]

A doubly-exciting offering here, not only for a chance at a first encounter with Michael Palumbo, a local sound artist who is interested in using his modular setup to explore space rather than fill it, but also to welcome back saxophonist and sound-shaper Glen Hall. The latter was doing some laptop sound manipulations of his own as well as feeling signal to Palumbo as they created a hazy zone that suggested half-remembered sounds.

[Track Could Bend is back at Wenona on Tuesday (November 5th) with sets from Naomi McCarroll-Butler & Patrick Smith, Sonja and Joe Sorbara's birthday combo featuring Andrew Furlong, Bea Labikova and Chris Pruden.]

Recording: Allison Cameron & Glen Hall

Artist: Allison Cameron & Glen Hall

Songs: [first piece] / [excerpt from second piece] / [fifth piece, with Joe Sorbara]

Recorded at The Tranzac's Southern Cross Lounge (Music by & for Ken Aldcroft VIII), August 9, 2017.

Allison Cameron & Glen Hall - [first piece]

Allison Cameron & Glen Hall - [excerpt from second piece]

Allison Cameron/Glen Hall/Joe Sorbara - [fifth piece]

Playing some improvisations inspired by Ken Aldcroft, this pair brought some different sounds, from the banjo and spiky sound manipulations on the first track here to the organ tones and sax on the second. To close the set, Joe Sorbara sat in on drums for a couple pieces, adding a taste of abstract groove, plus some meta-commentary near the top.

[Music By & For Ken Aldcroft will return to The Tranzac next week (September 13th).]

Recording: Gilliam-Hall-Sorbara

Artist: Bill Gilliam/Glen Hall/Joe Sorbara

Songs: [excerpts from two improvisations]

Recorded at Array Space, July 23, 2017.

Bill Gilliam/Glen Hall/Joe Sorbara - [excerpt from first piece]

Bill Gilliam/Glen Hall/Joe Sorbara - [excerpt from second piece]

This cozy Sunday night of "Over the Edge" improvisations was convened by Bill Gilliam to give five players each a couple chances to combine in different duos and trios. The night closed with this grouping, with Joe Sorbara's percussive negotiations holding the middle ground between Hall and Gilliam, each moving from more outside/manipulated sounds (the former's laptop processing, the latter's prepared piano percussion) to moments of acoustic clarity.

Recording: Allison Cameron & Glen Hall

Artist: Allison Cameron & Glen Hall

Song: [excerpt]

Recorded at Array Space, July 23, 2017.

Allison Cameron & Glen Hall - [excerpt]

This cozy Sunday night of "Over the Edge" improvisations was convened by Bill Gilliam to give five players each a couple chances to combine in different duos and trios. Between the bookending trios that started and ended the night, there were a pair of duo encounters, the first of which mixed Allison Cameron's acoustic instruments (flute, banjo) with Glen Hall's processed wind-sounds.

Recording: The Trouble With Billionaires

Artist: The Trouble With Billionaires

Song: Bonhoeffer^*

Recorded at The Tranzac's Southern Cross Lounge (416 Toronto Creative Improvisers Festival – Night 4), November 5, 2016.

The Trouble With Billionaires - Bonhoeffer

Under the nominal leadership of keyboardist David Story (who provided most of the compositions on this night), this jazz quintet sizzled with veteran savvy, pulling together the efforts of Glen Hall (woodwinds), Bruce Cassidy (EWI, flugelhorn), Terry Clarke (percussion) and Keiran Overs (double bass). Cassidy's work on the under-appreciated EWI was maybe my favourite thing here, especially on this track, where the it doesn't seem to be trying to approximate any existing acoustic instrument — the tonality could be described as MIDI-ish.

^* This song's title was called out before it was played, so this educated phonetic guess could be incorrect? Please leave a comment if you know it for sure!

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: Counterstasis

Artist: Counterstasis

Song: 11:30

Recorded at The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge), August 12, 2016.

Counterstasis - 11:30

En route to another gig, I only managed to do a brief stop in to say hello and check out the first chunk of the set from this combo of Bill Gilliam (piano, keyb), Joe Sorbara (perc) and Glen Hall (reeds, laptop). But I did manage to catch this engagingly goofy start to things, with a dude at the bar initiating a loud phone conversation just as the musicians were about to start. They picked up on his energy, tossing a couple overheard phrases back and forth as they got going — the opposite of stasis indeed.

Recording: EAR-CAM

Artist: EAR-CAM

Songs: [two excerpts]

Recorded at The Tranzac (Tiki Room), April 16, 2016.

EAR-CAM - [first set, excerpt 1]

EAR-CAM - [first set, excerpt 2]

Another in an intermittent series of reunions from this longstanding improvising force saw the group's numbers reduced with vocal soundmaker Nobuo Kubota absent. He did, however, make some virtual appearances via Glen Hall's cataRT sound manipulations, which also included some cut up Burroughs vocals. Embroidered by Tomasz Krakowiak's quietly-minimalist percussion, that left Hall and John Oswald's reed work to compete with Christine Duncan's vocal adventures. In the second set there was increased competition for the audience's eyeballs when the freeform music was accompanied by some equally abstract tap dancing.

Recording: Neil Rankin/{AN} eel/Michael Kaler/Glen Hall

Artist: Neil Rankin/{AN} eel/Michael Kaler/Glen Hall

Song: [excerpt from first piece]

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

Neil Rankin/{AN} eel/Michael Kaler/Glen Hall - [excerpt from first piece]

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.

This quartet fell right into an off-kilter groove, presenting a spontaneous no-wave prog-suite driven by grooves from bassist Michael Kaler (part of Alaniaris at TCB#6) and saxophonist Glen Hall (who had performed as part of Rub Out The Word at TCB#9). Neil Rankin (who had left a trail of Slime at TCB#5) crouched in front of the stage, using a radio and some pedals to add some sonic textures while Neal Retke (a.k.a {AN} Eel, featured pop stylist at TCB#10) tied everything together with his presence and vocal babblebursts.

[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: Rub Out The Word

Artist: The Penny Arcade Peep Show [text by William S. Burroughs] + Cut Up Stew

Songs:

Recorded at Dundas Video (Track Could Bend #9), December 1, 2015.

Rub Out The Word - The Penny Arcade Peep Show

Rub Out The Word - Cut Up Stew

When it made its debut, Glen Hall's Rub Out Out the Word project – conceptualized as a centenary tribute to William S. Burroughs — was a large-scale affair, with an eight-piece band and live-mixed visuals. This electroacoustic version stripped things down, with Hall on laptop and sax joined by Matt Miller (laptop + MIDI keyb) and Ted Phillips (cataRT synthesis) — plus the presence of Burroughs represented by Ron Gaskin's narration, facing the musicians as if subject to some sort of bureaucratic tribunal.

This gave a lot of different ways to cut up and reintegrate the source material, from the spoken word heard here in "Penny Arcade", to a immersive sound-trip to a Moroccan marketplace to the cut-up stew that shows the band's musical talents. (On the latter piece, Phillips' cataRT is responding in realtime to the other musicians by drawing from a collection of microsamples that include some Burroughs mutters as well as a few fragments of "East St. Louis Toodle-Oo" and some shortwave noises.)

[The next Track Could Bend will be at Dundas Video on Tuesday, January 5th — more info coming soon!]

Recording: 416 Festival Spoken Word Band

Artist: 416 Festival Spoken Word Band feat. Brent Peers / John Oughton / John Evans

Songs: unknown^* / Elegy for Larry Dubin / A Thanksgiving Prayer [composer: William S. Burroughs]

Recorded at The Tranzac's Southern Cross Lounge (416 Toronto Creative Improvisers Festival – Night 1), November 4, 2015.

Brent Peers + 416 Festival Spoken Word Band - [track 3]

John Oughton + 416 Festival Spoken Word Band - Elegy for Larry Dubin

John Evans + 416 Festival Spoken Word Band - A Thanksgiving Prayer

This year's edition of the 416 Toronto Creative Improvisers Festival lead off by tacking a form of collective improvisation it had never attempted before, with a house band (Bill Gilliam, Ambrose Pottie, Michael Lynn, Glen Hall) playing behind a series of poets and spoken word artists. They quickly picked up on the vibe of each piece, whether meditative or frightening (or anywhere in between), effortlessly complementing the speakers' words. Though the night's performers were a little unbalanced, there was definitely a lot of range in the speakers' techniques and tones.

^* Does anyone know the title to this one? Please leave a comment!

Recording: Zach Clark/Jonathan Adjemian/Glen Hall/Eugene Martynec

Artist: Zach Clark/Jonathan Adjemian/Glen Hall/Eugene Martynec

Songs: [an excerpt, in three parts]

Recorded at The Tranzac's Southern Cross Lounge ("troubleshooting~ v5"), September 2, 2015.

Zach Clark/Jonathan Adjemian/Glen Hall/Eugene Martynec - [excerpt, part 1]

Zach Clark/Jonathan Adjemian/Glen Hall/Eugene Martynec - [excerpt, part 2]

Zach Clark/Jonathan Adjemian/Glen Hall/Eugene Martynec - [excerpt, part 3]

As has become a troubleshooting custom, SuperCollider rider and past performer Zach Clark returned to curate this instalment of the series. In lieu of a full solo set, he lead off the night's final team effort on his own before the night's other performers joined in for a group improvisation. It turned out to have a tasty mix of textures and it's worth presenting a bit of a longer chunk here.

[The next troubleshooting night will be Wednesday, October 7th at The Tranzac.]

Recording: Glen Hall and Eugene Martynec

Artist: Glen Hall and Eugene Martynec

Song: [excerpt]

Recorded at The Tranzac's Southern Cross Lounge ("troubleshooting~ v5"), September 2, 2015.

Glen Hall and Eugene Martynec - [excerpt]

Leading off the this instalment of troubleshooting's monthly laptop-based improvisation night were two veterans of the local scene. Glen Hall is known as a wind player and writer/arranger besides being a laptop-based electroacousticist; Eugene Martynec (with a legendary background as a producer and session musician) is leader of the Toronto Improvisers Orchestra. Operating with idiosyncratic software — respectively, Kyma X and Midi Ax — the pair were in full control of their shifting soundfield. The first section (reproduced here) had hints of gamelan abstraction while second half saw some tasty patches turn Hall's sax into something like a gauzy EWI.

[The next troubleshooting night will be Wednesday, October 7th at The Tranzac.]

Recording: Snow/Dutton/Hall/Mazinani

Artist: Michael Snow/Paul Dutton/Glen Hall/Mani Mazinani

Song: [first piece]

Recorded at Array Space (Audiopollination #29.3), April 19, 2015.

Michael Snow/Paul Dutton/Glen Hall/Mani Mazinani - [first piece]

This night at Audiopollination saw the first full-on CCMC gig in nearly a year came after the band was first split in half to play with some guests. Michael Snow (piano) and Paul Dutton (vocalizations) were flanked by Glen Hall (sax/Kyma X) and Mani Mazinani (analog synth/turntable). The latter played his two instruments DJ style, cutting back and forth between them with a crossfader and adding a sublimated hint of boom-bap to the proceedings.

[As always, you can listen a recording of this whole show over at the Audiopollination bandcamp. The next Audiopollination is Tuesday, May 12th at Array and features KGB (Karen Ng, Germaine Liu and Bea Labikova) together and in various recombinations.]