Grace Potter, photo by Pamela Neal
By Will McGuirk
I took a stroll to the lake today, the water is high, the waves were loud, the lake seemed more like an ocean but I thought Yr Not The Ocean, the sun was low and there was the feeling of summer’s end. But it is not an end, it is a beginning, it is always a beginning.
Lydia Ainsworth - photo by Bryan Hyunh
Nothing says Canadian music family like Broken Social Scene, the thunderous hug of a band of BFFS, awesome in their own right individually and yet together still awesome. The TO crew have a new EP out, ‘Let’s Try The After - Vol 1,’ and they step up to open the Fam Jam open mic. Stay and listen to the rest of the voices, its quite the collection of folks and feelings, just like a family but remember its not a real family reunion until some one cries.
Happy Fam Jam with Tedeschi Trucks Band, Saxsyndrum, Adam Baldwin, Parting Gift, Pop Evil, Lydia Ainsworth and iskwē
By Will McGuirk
Always like an open mic, good place to gather, chill, meet, collaborate, hear new tunes, reconnect with the old, so we have a new feature on slowcity.ca - our open mic; tonight we welcome Aerialists, Tariq, Merival, Bob Sumner, Abigail Lapell to the mic, all airing new tracks.
Bob Sumner Feb 1, The Dakota Tavern, Toronto
Aerialists Feb 6, The Burdock, Toronto
Tariq
Merival Feb 7, The Burdock, Toronto
Abigail Lapell Feb 27 , The Burdock, Toronto
Photo by Kate Nutt
Pickering-raised, Nashville-based alt-country singer/songwriter, Lindi Ortega, will release, on Jan 25 2019, an instrumental version of ‘Liberty’, her widely acclaimed album inspired by the soundtracks of the spaghetti Western genre, which was released March 2018.
The first single from ‘Liberty: Piano Songbook’, “In The Clear” is now available. The track is cinematic and evocative, one can imagine Garth Hudson in the corner of a dusty saloon, slats of light on the keys. Ortega teamed up with Liberty producer Skylar Wilson and multi-instrumentalist Robbie Crowell for Piano Songbook. Its Crowell on piano on “In The Clear.”
Beginning February 5, Ortega will be touring dates in Canada with Terra Lightfoot and Begonia and on into the USA with special guests TBA.
Feb. 5 / Centre in the Square / Kitchener, ON
Feb. 6 / Algonquin Commons Theatre / Ottawa, ON
Feb. 7 / New Vision United Church / Hamilton, ON
Feb. 8 / London Music Hall / London, ON
Feb. 9 / Phoenix Concert Theatre / Toronto, ON
Feb. 16 / Hopkins Center for the Arts / Hopkins, MN
Mar. 15 / Neptune Theatre / Seattle, WA
Mar. 16 / Alberta Rose Theatre / Portland, OR
Mar. 17 / John G. She’d Institute for the Arts / Eugene, OR
Mar. 18 / Sofia Center for the Arts / Sacramento, CA
Mar. 19 / Freight & Salvage Coffee House / Berkeley, CA
Mar. 20 / HopMonk Tavern / Novato, CA
Apr. 26 - Sun., Apr. 29 / MerleFest 2019 / Wilkesboro, NC
Photo Credit : Lauren Spear
By Will McGuirk
With Daniel Romano change is the only constant. And he changes again on “Finally Free”, taking the basement tapes out into the sunshine. A couple of singles have been released already and Romano has dates inked in already, including Lee’s Palace in TO as well as shows in Waterloo, St. Catherines, and London ON.
Alt-country acts Corb Lund and Lindi Ortega are islands in the stream of music flooding the ear waves. Individually they create songs which stand alone and thrive alone. But no wo(man) is an island they say - we need connections and Lund and Lindi have connected in a way not seen since Ken ‘n Dolly looped arms and skipped their way up the charts in ‘83.
And don’t say that old track isn’t cool - The Cons and Feist say different
Two of the best sources for thoughtful modern music, publicist Killbeat Music and DJ, VJ and PJ Laurie Brown collaborated on a podcast earlier this year and they have done so again. Ponderbeat 2 includes Begonia, Folly and the Hunter, Great Lake Swimmers, Dan Mangan, Rae Spoon and others including a cover of the Cranberries, “Dreams’ by Liza Anne.
The enigmatic "Bobcaygeon" has been covered by spirited folk rockers Reuben and The Dark and is available now for purchase. Proceeds from the track will go to the Gord Downie And Chanie Wenjack Fund. (Listen hear -> )
“The Downie Wenjack Fund is important because of its focus on youth, its active education on Indigenous history, and the creation of connections with this land's rich Indigenous culture. I am compelled to be a part of this action, to be both a listener and a participant in these conversations, a student of these issues, and a proponent of progress,” Reuben Bullock says in a press release.
Reuben and the Dark recently released a new album, Arms of a Dream, on Arts & Crafts and is touring extensively across Canada with a dip south in to the States for a couple of dates.
Photo by Scott Ramsay
Photo by Laura Lewis
Its sunset Friday and these unobtrusive gentle remixes are just the thing; the English rose who is Lucy Rose alights on Feist, Carole King, and even the Celtic chanteuse Loreena McKennitt on her album "Something's Changing" and as good as that is this album of remixes on Arts & Crafts takes it higher, to a cloud of ten. Dig deep, find a book, put it down, dream, look up, dig.
SOMETHING’S CHANGING (REMIXES) TRACKLISTING
1. Intro (Chartreuse Remix)
2. Soak It Up (JAWS Remix)
3. Moirai (Liz Lawrence Remix)
4. Second Chance (Fryars Remix)
5. Is This Called Home (Anatole Remix)
6. All That Fear (Otzeki Remix)
7. Strangest of Ways (JM∆C Remix)
8. Love Song (Evan Klar Remix)
9. Soak It Up (Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly. Remix)
10. Strangest Of Ways (Marcus Hamblett Remix)
11. Second Chance (Intalekt Remix)
12. No Good At All (Tobie Tripp Remix)
Photo by Heather Pollack
By Will McGuirk
“Create a culture of fear and then begin to manipulate that fear to distract, divert, and divide. Unfortunately, the end result is that fear usually turns to hate and hate is a human emotion that is impossible to predict and control.” - Michael Timmins.
Its curious that a band who once were happy to have their audience fall asleep at shows now wants us all to wake the f**k up. Maybe its a new genre WokeFolk, but folk has always been woke I reckon.
The Cowboy have a new album coming out July 13 on their label, Latent. The record is titled "All That Reckoning".
By Will McGuirk
Brooklyn by way of Munich winds through a lot of territory as does the music of Haerts, the German duo, who play Sunday at Field Trip 2018. They have scored some serious streaming cred with a track on the Netflix show '13 Reasons Why'. "Your Love" rides a Bauhaus beat, Springsteen narrative and Paul Simon Graceland groove and a Stevie Nix chorus, yip anyway, their latest "New Compassion" bumps up against The Lumineers and Nancy Sinatra/ Lee Hazelwood so you tell me what genre they are but its sure is intriguing. They've signed to Arts & Crafts by the by.
Photo by Kate Nutt
By Will McGuirk
Alt-country singer/songwriter Lindi Ortega has released the video for the titular track for her upcoming three act concept album, "Liberty." In the press release Ortega says she wanted horses to be featured in the video as they represent freedom and strength to her.
Ortega won't be travelling by horse on her album tour, although I'm guessing she would dig that. Dates below the video.
04/05 - Ottawa, ON - The 27 Club
04/06 - Burnstown, ON - Neat Coffee Shop
04/07 - Kitchener, ON - Centre In The Square
04/09 - Toronto, ON - Mod Club Theatre
04/10 - London, ON - Aeolian Hall
04/11 - Hamilton, ON - Mills Hardware
04/12 - Kingston, ON - Queen’s Grad Club
Jonas Bonnetta
All This Here
Idea of North Recordings
By Will McGuirk
Somehow Jonas Bonnetta has captured the silence of a place like Fogo Island on his new album, “All This Here.”
There is an exhibit at the AGO of artist Yayoi Kusma, called 'Infinity Mirrors'. There are a lot of dots, there are a lot of dots in Kusama’s works. At the AGO visitors are given a sheet of dots and they can place them in a white furnished room, the idea being I guess that the colourful dots bring the space into relief.
But the dot is not the thing. The space between the dot is the thing, the space is where the art is.
There is a quote attributed to Miles Davis about it being the notes you don’t play that matter. It’s the space between the notes you play that matter.
Bonnetta’s album is about space and the silence of space. His music frames the silence of Fogo, gives its form, brings the emptiness into relief and it is there the majesty of this All This Here rests.
Although presented in several named songs, with intervals, the album should be listened to as a whole, in one sitting, to understand how sonically erudite it is.
The music is a poetic explanation of how Fogo is. There are no words spoken or sung and yet the story of island life unfolds. One hears there the long slow creak of wooden boats nuzzling each other in the harbour as they rise and fall on the tide, there the low burr of the fog horn, in there the swipe of a lighthouse beam passing, like a slap, felt more than heard; the barely there moan of a bagpipe, the slight squeaking of a fiddle and with it a feeling of familiarity, with a people never met, with the sense of lives lived, a history, invisible companions at ease with the come-from-away, on here sharing this place, this afterthought of Newfoundland.
And yet none of those sounds exist on this record. This is not a recording of the sounds of Fogo; waves, gulls, winds. This is not the dots. One simply cannot express silence with sounds but one can with feeling and this is what Mika Rosen does on violin, Anne Mueller does on cello and Bonetta tasks himself with on piano, and on synthesizer. Somehow they create a place that is not seen or heard or even touched but it is experienced.
'All This Here' began as the soundtrack to a documentary of the island and the unique architecture built there by Todd Saunders. The soundtrack was the groundwork for this record and if one closes one’s eyes while listening one gets too, the sense, at times of architecture looming in the darkness. One hears their stillness.
While Bonetta, Rosen and Mueller construct the sounds on the album there are intervals of recordings, of cars, of footsteps, but beyond these real sounds there is little of the human on the album. Bonnetta manages to be an invisible observer of Fogo Island throughout the 16 tracks but he chooses to reveal himself on the final one, “Fogo (Evening)”. On this track Bonnetta adds rhythm, a beat, an order to the pace of Fogo. Here he shows his hand and places himself on the island, if only to wave us off.
Once I visited the Aran Islands off the west coast of Ireland. I am Irish, Dublin and in my late 20s I went out to the island of Inis Mor and as soon as I set foot on the rock, for it is just that, a 300 foot above sea level high rock in the Atlantic, the only soil is the compost of thousands of years of seaweed dragged in from the icy waters, as soon as the ferry from Galway docked and I stepped out and on to the land it was as if a flurry of souls, uncountable numbers, surged from the stone and through me and wrapped me and I have never felt so much at home in a place as I did on that rock. It spoke to my genes, sang to the deepest part of me and I awoke and knew myself.
I suspect this rock on the other side of the Atlantic may have given Bonnetta a similar experience. There is an expertise in his sonic storytelling which only comes from living it. He knows this place, knows it deeply and channels all of it through these tracks.
Photo by Colin Medley