Monday Roundup #192

Community notes:

• The next Frequency Freaks synth workshop will be held at Array Space on Saturday (September 21st). "As always, everyone is invited to perform regardless of their level of expertise. We are a safe and welcoming space ideal for first time performers. Bring your favourite instrument to play or present, or just come to enjoy the performances and the community."

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Concert announcements:

Lori Freedman [solo] (Trio Davidson Ng Freedman) / The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2024-09-24 (Tuesday) [more info]

Raphael Weinroth-Browne / Burdock Music Hall 2024-09-27 (Friday). $20. [FB event]

Continuum & Quatuor Bozzini [performing works by Martin Smolka, Cassandra Miller, Tanya Tagaq, Linda Catlin Smith, Laurence Crane] / St. George by the Grange Anglican Church 2024-09-27 (Friday). $20 (advance), $25 (door). [more info]

Ancient Egypt [Climb Every Mountain record release] / The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2024-09-29 (Sunday) [FB event]

Track Could Bend #96 (feat. Josh Cole + Mira Martin-Gray / Laura Swankey/Brittany Pitt/Dan Pitt) / Wenona Lodge 2024-10-01 (Tuesday). $pwyc. [FB event]

Mdou Moctar (The Messthetics & James Brandon Lewis) / The Concert Hall 2024-10-09 (Wednesday). $42.24, 19+. [FB event]

Quivers (Curtis Bowman / Triples) / Monarch Tavern 2024-10-11 (Friday). $22.70, 19+. [FB event]

BA Johnston (Wax Mannequin / Block Parent) / Bovine Sex Club 2024-10-25 (Friday). $17.31. [FB event]

Zoobombs (Pretty / Scooter Jay) / Monarch Tavern 2024-11-28 (Thursday). $18.50, 19+. [FB event]

Is your show missing from this list? Submit it via this form!

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Shows this week:

Mike Donovan (New Orthodox / The JDAC) / The Baby G 2024-09-16 (Monday). $23.57 advance, 19+. [FB event]

Ministry of Phonic Services presents: Back to School Field Trip 2024 – "the stadium" (feat. Brian Ruryk & %%30%30 / Louis Pino / Em Wright / Owen Kurtz) / "location details will be revealed day-of" 2024-09-19 (Thursday). $pwyc, outdoors. [more info]

Makam Nights (feat. Arjang Seyfizadeh) / The Tranzac (Living Room) 2024-09-19 (Thursday). $pwyc. [FB event]

Tilman Lewis/Nilan Perera/Laura Swankey / The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2024-09-20 (Friday – early). $pwyc. [FB event]

Safe Sounds Presents: Geary Art Crawl (feat. Animal Party / Forming / Gag) / Body Shop Studios 2024-09-21 (Saturday – 4 p.m.). $free. [FB event]

Art of Improv Salon Series (feat. Margaret Maria/Michael Palumbo/Bill Gilliam / Kye Marshall/Bill McBirnie/Eugene Martynec) / Kensington Sound 2024-09-22 (Sunday – 3 p.m.). $20/PWYC, BYOB. [FB event]

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It happened this week...

• ...on September 19, 2018 at The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge).

Matthew Pencer & Chris Willes - [excerpt from first piece]

• ... on September 21, 2018 at The Music Gallery @ 918 Bathurst.

The Brodie West Quintet - First Wave

[Do remember that you can click on the tags below to go back and find the original posts (and often, more stuff) from these artists.]

Recording: TRYAL

Artist: TRYAL

Songs: He Needs Me [composer: Harry Nilsson] + Road Game

Recorded at Burdock Music Hall, November 13, 2018.

TRYAL - He Needs Me

TRYAL - Road Game

In the between-albums phase, Alex Samaras and his TRYAL crew are still mixing faves from the Companion album (celebrating its anniversary at this show!) with newer pieces (such as "Sister Talk" and "Alouette") and delightful novelties like the lovely little tune from the Popeye soundtrack heard here. Starting the set with half the band seated on the stage floor, this had the feeling of a pyjama party — and there was a bit more sonic tweaking as well, with Matthew Pencer pushing things further into electronic abstraction with some textured laptop bleepbloops.

[Alex Samaras will be the featured performer (alongside Lara Dodds-Eden and Bram Gielen) at the next Riparian Acoustics-curated CMC Presents show, Thursday, January 17th at Chalmers House.]

Recording: Matthew Pencer & Chris Willes

Artist: Matthew Pencer & Chris Willes

Song: [excerpt from first piece]

Recorded at The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge), September 19, 2018.

Matthew Pencer & Chris Willes - [excerpt from first piece]

Dimming the lights and dragging a couple piano benches into a vee, this pair created a drowsy sonic playground. Willes treated his sax and harmonica with some lo-fi effects, creating tin can ringing artifacts while Pencer's skittering drum machine beats more shared the space than provided rhythmic support.

Recording: bedroom

Artist: bedroom

Songs: [two excerpts]

Recorded at The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge), December 8, 2015.

bedroom - [excerpt 1]

bedroom - [excerpt 2]

This improvised somnambulant ambient/electroacoustic project from Matthew Pencer (laptop), Michael Davidson (vibraphone) and Josh Cole (mono synth/laptop) remains fairly singular — atmospheric and relaxing but with occasional rough-edged sound-snags. A bit like drifting off to sleep and right into an occasionally disconcerting dream that bumps you just barely back into awakeness. I got my mics in close to Davidson's vibes for this one, and the recording is particularly immersive, so it's worth sharing a couple extended excerpts here. Plus, some visual abstractions!

[bedroom will be back in action on the second Tuesday of next month — that'd be January 12th — in the Southern Cross.]

Recording: bedroom superband

Artist: bedroom superband

Songs: [two excerpts]

Recorded at The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge), September 8, 2015

bedroom superband - [excerpt 1]

bedroom superband - [excerpt 2]

This avant-chillout project from Matthew Pencer (laptop), Michael Davidson (vibraphone) and Josh Cole (mono synth/laptop) is still making quiet noises in the dark, but this time out they had some help, with guests Daniel Pencer (saxophone), Isla Craig (vox) and Thom Gill (synth) justifying the immodest modifier to the band's name. Though a half-dozen deep, this was still quiet and un-busy music, layer upon layer of electronic whirring with little sax licks at the edges and Craig's wordless lullabying.

[bedroom (possibly in smaller numbers) will be back in action on the second Tuesday of next month — that'd be October 13 — in the Southern Cross.]

Recording: Love Thy Will Be Done

Artist: Love Thy Will Be Done

Song: I Am Enough For Myself [Sinéad O'Connor cover]

Recorded at Ratio, July 25, 2015.

Love Thy Will Be Done - I Am Enough For Myself

When he's weak, he's strong. Thom Gill has made a career of turning hipster taste-as-distinction on its ear — in embracing the least fashionable genres (lite rock, christian pop) and in demonstrating the strength of the songs despite their assumed limpidity. In that sense, it's business as usual for Gill, despite rebranding his solo THOMAS project as Love Thy Will Be Done. This set brought some old tunes and some new covers¹, along with a new rotation of support musicians. Stepping out from their bedroom, Josh Cole was on five-string bass and (as heard here) bass synth while Matthew Pencer (who has worked some abstract angles with Gill before) added laptop-based percussion that sounded like an 808 plug-in being run through some randomisation patches. That created a lot of space for Gill's gently-astonishing guitar heroics while he addressed the lyrics with both tenderness and a certain genial insouciance. There's a fresh EP of demos available online, and hopefully we'll get some more frequent chances to hear this group in action.

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¹ "The second song was called 'Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman' by Bryan Adams, which I think is one of the worst songs ever written. [audience laughs] But Toronto's own Ryan Driver tweaked the lyrics a bit for me, just one word: 'ostrich'. And it really revitalizes everything, really sets the clock back to zero."

Recording: bedroom

Artist: bedroom

Songs: [three excerpts]

Recorded at The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge), February 10, 2015.

bedroom - [excerpt 1]

bedroom - [excerpt 2]

bedroom - [excerpt 3]

Although this gig offered the possibility of a "make out corner" in the darkened Southern Cross, this bedroom was more equipped for drifting off into hazy dreamlands. A newish joint enterprise between Matthew Pencer (laptop), Michael Davidson (vibraphone) and Josh Cole (mono synth/laptop) dedicated to extended improvisatory mood-setting, this set Davidson's gently-cascading vibes against the subtle samples, clicks and hums from the two laptopists, occasionally shifting the soundfield with a hit of keyboard's "random" button. But even with those interventions, the mood was largely soothing and tranquil — this is the sort of band for whom it's probably not an insult to say their music may put you to sleep.

Recording: Girlfriends Encounter a Father Figure

Artist: Girlfriends Encounter a Father Figure

Song: [excerpt from an improvization]

Recorded at The Tranzac - Main Hall ("The Second Annual Somewhere There Creative Music Festival" - Show 2), February 22, 2014.

Girlfriends Encounter a Father Figure - [excerpt from an improvization]

Full review to follow. The somewhat unlikely name here is a testament to how this was envisioned as a sonic meetup between Thom Gill (who performs sometimes as Father Figure) and Matthew Pencer and Christopher Willes's Girlfriends project. That conceptual clarity was knocked askew a bit with Willes busy webcasting his Listening installation project — so his absence was countered not only by using his project's livestream as one element in the mix, but also by adding Philippe Melanson's knob-twiddling complications. The result was a shifting, oft-spare soundscape.