Artist: Omhouse
Songs: Aurock + No Words
Recorded at The Garrison (Wavelength Winter Festival 18 – Night 3), February 18, 2018.
This year's Wavelength birthday celebration was more restrained than usual, sticking to one venue for three nights and having no extra daytime activities. That left the work of transforming the events to something more than just a "regular" night at a show to scene-setters like General Chaos and Roxanne Ignatius. The festival's final night was the most musically eclectic, the acts connected by an exploratory thread.
Although still celebrating the release of their debut long-player, Steven Foster's Omhouse project has been at it for several years now. There's an aesthetic at work here — and one that's matured over the time the band's been active — where the songs don't feel like hooky l'il rockers so much as pieces from a rather "quirky" musical, filled with complicated chords and flute solos (the latter courtesy of keyboardist Anh Phung). Those signifiers might explain why the group is getting tagged with hyphenated prog labels, but on stage this is still a rock'n'roll band, laughing at itself with astonishment as it careens through the changes.
[Omhouse will be playing at Feast in the East's 7-year anniversary celebration (at Jam Factory on Saturday, May 5th) alongside Gary Wilson, Bernice and Cindy Lee. The next Wavelength Festival is already on the distant horizon, with Camp Wavelength once more contained to the mainland and landing at Garrison Common on August 18th and 19th. Meanwhile, the next few monthly shows, co-productions (as well as a cool Toronto Post-Punk in the Early '80s Music Talk) are all announced.]
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