Showing posts with label luan phung. Show all posts
Showing posts with label luan phung. Show all posts

Sunday, October 12, 2025

Recording: Lavender Town

Artist: Lavender Town

Song: Song of Storms [composer: Koji Kondo]

Recorded at Sankofa Square (Intersection 2025: Day 2: All Day Music Marathon, August 30, 2025.

Lavender Town - Song of Storms

Back from a year's hiatus, the Intersection Festival was once again bringing some unconventional sounds to the unsuspecting public. The now formally-retitled Sankofa Square sports a decolonized name, but a slightly more carceral vibe — surrounded by metal fencing and closed off by gates right up 'til showtime, there was less of a random just-wander-through sense of invitation than there used to be.

There was also a slightly different curatorial vibe in effect. In the absence of Burn Down the Capital's Tad Michalak, Andrew Noseworthy stepped up as the main programmer, giving the day a flavour that'd be familiar to those following people | places | records, the "DIY genre-fluid 'zero profit' artists-first" label he is involved with.

"Jazz" has a long tradition of using popular forms as the frameworks for more exploratory musics, so it makes perfect sense that this twenty-first century band might be more drawn to, say, video game themes than Broadway numbers. The pieces they tackled were imbued with top-shelf musicianship, which might have helped to get the attention of passers-by (especially Luan Phung's guitar solos), but it was that populist material that helped gather a crowd in front of the stage.

Saturday, February 25, 2023

Recording: Adversarial Networks

Artist: Adversarial Networks

Song: [excerpt]

Recorded at Wenona Lodge (Track Could Bend #76), February 7, 2023.

Adversarial Networks - [excerpt]

I was eager to get a chance to hear this quartet, mostly because it involved some familiar faces making sound in a different way. Combining the talents of Caleb Klager (modular synthesizer/drum machines), Chris Pruden (keyed synthesizer), Luan Phung (electric guitar), and David Lipson (audio-reactive projections), this was no coffee-shop "jazz", instead heading down a dystopian highway into dark electronica, suggestive of wires and circuits slowly taking over their hosts, overpowering their senses, and inserting some malicious code.

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

[Track Could Bend is back at Wenona on Tuesday, March 7th, with two amazing trios: international sensations Jasper Stadhouders/Lori Freedman/Allison Cameron, plus Marilyn Yogarajah's Tree-Oh with Steve Dillon (Lovewizard) + Lucas Finkeldey.]

Saturday, June 18, 2022

Recording: Phung/Anderson-Bowes/Wright

Artist: Luan Phung/Julian Anderson-Bowes/Ian Wright

Song: #4

Recorded at The Tranzac's Southern Cross Lounge (SynCirSundays), June 12, 2022.

Luan Phung/Julian Anderson-Bowes/Ian Wright - #4

With two guitar/bass/drum trios playing, this was a real chophouse of an evening. This fiery trio, lead by Luan Phung (and playing some of his compositions mixed in with an improvised exploration) was a precision operation — albeit one that wrangled its entertainment value by having its tightrope walkers untying knots while blindfolded. (Do not attempt this at home!)

You can also check out some video documentation from this set over on youtube:

Wednesday, April 25, 2018

Recording: Luan Phung Quintet

Artist: Luan Phung Quintet

Song: L.A. [composer: Luan Phung]

Recorded at The Tranzac's Main Hall (Somewhere There Creative Music Festival – Show 5), February 25, 2018.

Luan Phung Quintet - L.A.

Guitarist Luan Phung lead his quintet (Matthew Chalmers, drums; James Hill, piano; Chris Rennie, sax; and able fill-in Mark Godfrey on bass) through a series of knotty pieces — his shout-outs to Schoenberg and titular nod to Louis Andriessen in this piece give some hints of where he's coming from. But the nimble trickery within the pieces (to say nothing of the bell chimes and dinosaur jokes) showed that there's ample playfulness at hand as well.

Tuesday, December 19, 2017

Recording: Unknown Guitar Quartet

Artist: Unknown Guitar Quartet

Song: Drag [composer: Patrick O'Reilly]

Recorded at The Tranzac's Southern Cross Lounge (416 Toronto Creative Improvisers Festival – Night 2), November 11, 2017.

Unknown Guitar Quartet - Drag

The nimble 416 Festival — celebrating, as always, multiple streams of improvised and experimental music — folded itself down to two nights this year, of which I could only make it to the second. This night started with an outing from this recent collaborative effort that has appeared in a couple variations, though this time 'round it saw Brian Abbott, Patrick O'Reilly, Rob Grieve and Luan Phung sharing the stage, with each of the first three offering a composition. There was plenty microtonal pluck-drift, with each player offering their own pedalchain tone. Rob Grieve's "Plasmatic Populations" (which can be heard over at his soundcloud) hewed to a noisier aesthetic, Brian Abbott's added more guitar preparations (chopsticks, paperclips, fidget spinner) to a piece that sounded like a Raymond Scott 78 played at 33, while this offering, from Patrick O'Reilly, is spare enough in places that one could take it as the work of a single guitarist working with a loop pedal.

Saturday, March 25, 2017

Recording: The Thing Is

Artist: The Thing Is

Song: Easy

Recorded at The Tranzac's Main Hall (Somewhere There Creative Music Festival – Show 3), February 25, 2017.

The Thing Is - Easy

Tova Kardonne's big band was back in effect, with seven players offering sophisticated and lushly-arranged jazz pop settings for her songs. The set included excursions back to her Lanka Suite and beyond, all bursting with vibrant energy.

Tuesday, December 6, 2016

Recording: Mirapolis

Artist: Mirapolis

Songs: Raga + Louange à l'éternité de Jésus [composer: Olivier Messiaen]

Recorded at The Tranzac's Southern Cross Lounge ("416 Toronto Creative Improvisers Festival" – Night 3), November 4, 2016.

Mirapolis - Raga

Mirapolis - Louange à l'éternité de Jésus

The last time I saw this exploratory trio (Noah Sherman, drums; Luan Phung, guit; Chris Rennie, tenor sax) wasn't in a super-great listening context, so maybe it's not surprising that I heard increased musical depths in the more refined Southern Cross environs. And it's hard to say if it was my increased familiarity or the musicians' several months down the road, but they came across as more organic, and not so much just "playing the dots". They moved from polite and in sync to sudden outbursts — the originals were more rangy, but I'm glad they're still also including their meditative slice o' Messiaen in their set.

Wednesday, July 27, 2016

Recording: The Noah Sherman Quartet

Artist: The Noah Sherman Quartet

Song: Shadow Puppet Patrol [edit]

Recorded at The Emmet Ray (Somewhere There Presents), July 17, 2016.

The Noah Sherman Quartet - Shadow Puppet Patrol [edit]

This was the first chance I had to make it out for Somewhere There's casual monthly at The Emmet Ray. SWT collective member Noah Sherman brought out this grouping, with his percussion work enhanced by Emily Steinwall (sax), Luan Phung (guitar) and Peter Bull (5-string bass). Over two sets they tackled pieces from Sherman's songbook, a couple (including this one) from Bull plus pieces by John Zorn and The Thing.

Friday, September 4, 2015

Recording: Mirapolis

Artist: Mirapolis

Song: The Striga*

Recorded at The Cavern Bar, August 23, 2015.

Mirapolis - The Striga

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. As with openers Bears & Children, I was familiar with one-third of this young unit, having seen drummer Noah Sherman in action previously. Joined by Luan Phung (guit) and Chris Rennie (tenor sax) the group was pushing in a few different directions, sounding, at a couple points, like Tortoise attempting to tackle "A Love Supreme". That questing quality (which also lead to an intriguing cover of Olivier Messiaen's "Louange à l'éternité de Jésus") was the band's best asset, compensating for a few moments of lingering jazz-school precision fustiness.

* Thanks to Noah for passing along the title to this one!