Music 2009
Patrick the Bunny
Artist Biography
Born in London, Patrick got his start playing in punk bands and moving into more ethereal genres of rock/new wave based experimentation after listening to bands like My Bloody Valentine, Cocteau Twins and Slowdive. He released several records under the name Florentine Cruise in the late 90s.
He began producing minimal techno and house music in 2000 and began DJ’ing in 2001 as an experiment in mixing different genres of music together in a club / party atmosphere. The Bunny’s style is completely un-predictable and can even include impromptu mixes of Jazz, Experimental and Ambient music.
Miz Korona
http://www.myspace.com/1mizkorona
Rum Runners Lounge: Thursday, 9:30pm – 2am
Artist Biography
Name every female rapper you know, now name all the good ones now, name all the ones who can hold their own with the fellas and write their own rhymes there is only one! Miz Korona. Chances are you caught Miz Korona in the critically acclaimed Curtis Hanson movie 8 Mile- appearing in a pivotal speaking part alongside legendary rap artist Eminem and Xzibit. Miz Korona made an appearance along side 1 of the worlds top selling artist Eminem in the film 8 Mile. Miz Korona plays the role of Vanessa in the scene outside of the factory (Lunch Truck) trading insults wit another hip hop giant Xzibit. Early years Miz Korona began rapping at the Her first free-style rap was created on a bus ride to school. Free-styling was her breakfast, lunch and dinner before she realized how much she enjoyed it. Soon after hearing Run DMC for the first time, Miz Korona wrote her first hip hop song about school. Since her early days she has continued to polish her skills as an inventive lyricist with a riveting stage performance. Miz Koronas debut recording in 1994, was a song titled Psychodelic collaboration with Slum Lowa. Her reputation grew after notable performances at a variety of underground hip-hop clubs throughout Detroit, including seminal rap showdowns at Detroits famed St. Andrews Hall. She has appeared on-stage and in the studio with numerous artist including Indigenous Tribe, whose single Flight 313 helped land a contract with Reflex Records in the United Kingdom. Miz Koronas work is featured on various albums available both domestically and internationally. Korona has also been profiled in New Yorks Village Voice, garnered mention in Rolling Stone, featured in a cover stories in the Detroit News,Metro Times, Real Detroit,Venus Magazine the Detroit Free Press and a host of other articles. This year as well as last, she took top honors as Female Artist of the year in the Detroit Music Awards.
Invincible
http://www.emergencemusic.net/invincible
Rum Runners Lounge: Thursday, 9:30pm – 2am
Artist Biography
It is truly rare to find an artist like Invincible. Her spitfire wordplay has gotten her acclaim from Hip Hop fans all across the world, while her active involvement in progressive social change has taken her music beyond entertainment, and towards actualizing the change she wishes to see. Repping Detroit, MI, many are already familiar with her work with Waajeed and the Platinum Pied Pipers, Finale, the all-female ANOMOLIES crew, Black Star, and many others. Dubbed by XXL Magazine as “every A&Rs worst nightmare” for rejecting major label deals and general industry politrix, Invincible started her own record label, EMERGENCE, self-releasing her long-awaited full length LP, ShapeShifters, June, 2008.
Invincible’s versatility shines through on ShapeShifters over production by Waajeed, Black Milk, Lab Techs, House Shoes, and more. She is part of a community on the frontline of innovating the future of music, including featured guests Tiombe Lockhart, Finale, Wordsworth, Indeed, and Buff1. Every track stands alone in style, subject matter and concept. Together, the tracks form a cohesive unit that covers issues related to self and community transformation such as: the journey of a struggling artist, J Dilla and Proof’s legacies, media monopoly, love/hate relationships, gentrification, faith, and beyond. Invincible’s visual lyricism is interwoven with heavy hitting musical backdrops, creating a compelling cinematic sound-scape.
Elfin Saddle
Rogers Main Stage: Saturday, 4:15pm – 5pm
Artist Biography
Elfin Saddle is the evolved musical project of scavenger artists Emi Honda and Jordan McKenzie. Prompted by their need to downsize an accumulation of musical instruments and objects in their migration to Montreal from Victoria, BC, Elfin Saddle focuses on the creative use of a compact array of acoustic instruments, including prepared accordion, banjo, and guitars, musical saw, and ad-hoc percussion setups. Having collaborated for years on various visual art and sound projects, Elfin Saddle is a fresh culmination of the ideas and ideals shared by both artists.
Emi, originally from southern Japan, moved to Vancouver Island in the late 90’s and was immediately fascinated with the lush landscape and local flora. She began gardening and building visually complex, mechanical assemblage sculptures, which she began to exhibit in local galleries. Jordan, who was also living on the island and working a similar vein in art school, happened upon one of these sculptures. Recognizing the eerily similar themes in each other’s work and sharing an affinity for the natural landscape, the two quickly became friends, triggering an extended wave of collaborations.
Sound Stories, a musical project of Jordan’s at the time that incorporated homemade sound machines, prepared records, storytelling, and a revolving cast of friends, was eventually joined by Emi. The two also began playing frequently as a duo and made several recordings that were released on Westhome, Jordan’s own small imprint. They also began to collaborate on unique multi-sensory art installations, comprised of old motors, timers, organs, plants, and other found junk, carefully composed to create bizarre landscapes and dream-like atmospheres and to execute loops of movement and sound. Their series of exhibitions with fellow Victoria artist Scott Evans, received considerable attention.
Since arriving in Montreal in 2006, Elfin Saddle has been steadily gaining audience and acclaim for their original and emotive live performances. Having released Gigantic Mother/Wounded Child on Kill Devil Hills Records in early 2008, they are proud to be releasing their follow-up, Ringing For The Begin Again, on Constellation. A recent addition to their recordings and live performances is Nathan Gage (Shapes and Sizes, owner of Phonopolis record store in Montreal), rounding out their sound with thick drones and subtle bursts on double-bass and tuba. Emi and Jordan are currently working on an extensive stop-motion/time-lapse film, featuring the growth of plants and the animation of a large collection of scavenged objects.
Stop Die Resuscitate
http://www.myspace.com/stopdieresuscitate
Call The Office: Friday, 11:15pm – 2:00am
Riderless
Call The Office: Friday, 11:15pm – 2:00am
Artist Biography
(a touch before 2000 into 2001)
- gatherings and playing at the old forest city gallery, home of the nihilist spasm band
- fractured big-band get-togethers with no “agenda” or “idea”
- name lifted from a william s. burroughs rant (popping up in other reads as well)
(2002 and ongoing)
- solidified our live and recorderly lineup
- kinghaxi records is established as guerrilla micro label
- recorded seven albums independently (our folk art) with andy magoffin at his house of miracles
- collaborated and improvised twice with the master vocalist damo suzuki
- duotone records helps release the kinghaxi catalogue in japan
- our label co-operatively stretches out to include cailen dye (oblq), figure and ground, fujita scale, and talugung
- worldly and home-made instruments are collected for recording
touring finds us a new canada
- a northern chorus, absent sound, akron/family, as the poets affirm, below the sea, bloemfontein, domakesaythink, don caballero, explosionsinthesky, from fiction, holy fuck, mahogany frog, no birds, people for audio, polmo polpo, sing that yell that spell, what seas what shores, all sell more merch than us at shows
- we befriend liverpools’ loka (ninja tune) and embark on an 8 day mini tour throughout south western ontario and quebec
- friend in life and sound, wil byrick leaves the group
Colorlist
Call The Office: Friday, 11:15pm – 2:00am
Artists Biography
Colorlist is a saxophone/drums duo that uses live sampling and modern digital instruments to extend the harmonic and textural possibilities of their improvisations. The band strives to maintain organic sound and form, and to create a cohesive sound often abandoned in improvised music.
Charles Gorczynski: saxophones, harmonium, monome
Charles Rumback: drums, synth, electronics
Photo Credit: Jacob Hand
UWO Percussion Ensemble & The Collaborative Piano Ensemble
Rogers Main Stage: Saturday, 1pm – 2pm
Performance Information
The ensembles will be performing works by seminal ‘minimalist’ composer Steve Reich. the works to be performed are Six Pianos, two parts of Drumming, and Nagoya Marimbas
Kaki King
http://www.myspace.com/kakiking
Rogers Main Stage: Friday, 8pm – 9pm
Artist Biography
“When Kaki King went into the studio in upstate New York to record the tracks for her fourth album, Dreaming Of Revenge, her producer, Malcolm Burn, had one condition: “He said, ‘If someone can’t be sawing a log in half and whistling along to the song, I don’t want it on the record,’” King recalls with a laugh. And so the bar was set. Burn’s mandate was just the push King needed to make her most accessible CD yet. “Even though half the tracks are instrumentals, I feel like I’m writing pop songs,” she says. “We really concentrated on the melodies. Everything I write tends to be dense and chordal, but this time the idea was to layer the challenging guitar work under very simple, beautiful melodies. I really wanted them to be memorable.”
That strict attention to song craft is a logical step for King, whose previous album, 2006’s …Until We Felt Red propelled this dazzling young guitar player and composer, known to instrumental music fans for her finger-picking, fret-slapping, and percussive thumping style, into previously uncharted indie-rock territory. Produced by post-rock kingpin John McEntire (Tortoise, Sea and Cake), Red was filled with lush, ambient soundscapes that “sound like the abstract, dreamy, and hypnotic end of alternative rock,” as the New York Times noted in its review.”
excerpt from myspace.com/kakiking
Polar Bear
http://www.polarbearmusic.com/
Rogers Main Stage: Saturday, 6pm – 7pm
Artist Biograpy
Seb Rochford (drums)
Pete Wareham (tenor saxophone)
Mark Lockheart (tenor saxophone)
Tom Herbert (double bass)
Leafcutter John (mandolin and electronics)
Polar Bear are London based avant jazz quintet. Led from the back, by Seb Rochford ,they are part of long great jazz tradition of drummer led bands stretching back through Art Blakey and Chick Webb. Seb is well known as drummer in the Hendrix inspired jazzers Acoustic Ladyland. He has played and recorded with a remarkably diverse range of people including Joanna McGregor, Adele, Brian Eno, David Byrne, Patti Smith and Yoko Ono. He also drummed in an early incarnation of Pete Doherty’s Babyshambles playing on their first single. This wide range of collaborators is matched by the breadth of his musical taste that includes not only the jazz giants but also other artists such as grime artists Skepta,Devlin, Durrty Goodz,dubstep geniuses Burial and Kode 9 and awe inspiring singer Kaushiki Chakrabarty
Their new eponymous album is their first since 2005’s Mercury nominated Held On The Tips Of Fingers, which also got a place in Jazzwise “100 Jazz Albums that changed the World” and The Guardian’s “1000 albums you must hear before you die”
Sometimes described as post-jazz, linking them to the post rock of Sigur Ros, Talk Talk and Radiohead. Their sound appeals as much to jazz traditionalists as to people who don’t normally do jazz like hip-hop and indie rock fans. Celebrity admirers include Vic Reeves,Portishead and the Mighty Boosh, The Boosh, a combination prog jazz fanatic Julian Barratt and the glam punk kid and Jagger fan Noel Fielding, have personally selected Polar Bear to star in the Mighty Boosh festival in Kent in July 2008.
In Polar Bear you can hear echoes of the whole of the jazz tradition from the fusion of Bitches Brew-era Miles to Free Jazz of Coltrane and Albert Ayler. From the Hard and Be-Bop of the 40s and 50s to the frenetic ensemble playing of early jazz. But alongside the American tradition, there is also something that suggests the English pastoral sensibility of Neil Ardley, Kenny Wheeler, John Surman, Keith Tippett . There are also elements in the Polar Bear sound that suggests they have gone beyond jazz and have been listening to avant garde classical composers like, Stockhausen and Steve Reich, the punk funk of Pil and Rip Rig and Panic, laptop glitch of Fennesz and the quirky Anglo-French prog of Gong. . While you can hear elements of all these types of music, Polar Bear transcends these genres to make a form of British jazz that is uniquely their own and reflects UK music and life in the twenty first century.
Jonathan Coe
Call The Office: Saturday, 10pm – 2am
Artist Biography
Having DJ’d since the early 1990s, Jonathan Coe’s taste in music has been influenced and inspired by broad and diverse experiences. Not one to dwell on the past and cling to nostalgia, Coe is always looking for the newest and next thing, but is mindful of the rich and long history of underground dance music. His time living in Berlin in 2008 gave him a fresh perspective on the newest trends and directions of underground house and techno music. Coe showcases his latest discoveries on his weekly radio program on 94.9 CHRW every Friday from 1:30 – 3:30pm, EST (www.chrwradio.com).
Coe made his mark in London playing at venues like the Shot/Base, Lush, DV8, the Bacchus Lounge and the Alex P. Keaton, and has worked closely alongside Andycapp, Rod Skimmins, Jeremy Glenn and Patrick the Bunny organizing and promoting events. Coe has shared billings and promoted notable parties featuring, among others, John Acquaviva, Kenny Glasgow, dj Heather, Kevin Yost, Richie Hawtin, Trevor Walker, Roger Sanchez, Jason Palma, Andrew Allsgood, Paul E. Lopes, Noah Pred, Kristian Beyer (Ame) and Mr. Scruff.
Underground music is closely tied with his “real job” as a motion graphics designer and Flash website developer, counting Definitive Recordings, Minus, John Acquaviva and Richie Hawtin among his clients.
Makeshift
Call The Office: Saturday, 10pm – 2am
Artist Biography
MAKESHIFT is a purveyor of all things dance, be it house, techno, trance, hip-hop, electro (the original or new version), funk, soul, rock (yes, rock too), disco, electronic or acoustic.
MAKESHIFT therefore attempts to make great dance music that gives it’s props to the influences that have shaped that music.
NOMO
Rogers Main Stage: Saturday, 10pm – 11pm
Artist Biography
Ghost Rock is the new album from the Michigan-based collective NOMO. The album, produced by Warn Defever, sheds light on the way forward for a band that has been forging its own vital sound. This is not the Afrobeat of Fela, nor the revivalist funk of a forgotten decade. This record owes as much to Can, Eno, and MIA as it does Kuti, Francis Bebey, and Funkadelic. On Ghost Rock, NOMO arrives in a new place. There?s no loss of steam as they incorporate new influences, instead NOMO breaks through with a matured and developed sound that is fully its own.
“World music, jazz, electronica, Afrobeat” I hope that we don’t get marginalized by any of these terms. We are an American band, and in our hearts I think we’re more of a rock band than anything else, but we do love so many different types of music,” says band leader Elliot Bergman. “We have a set of musicians, and we are trying to organize our sounds in a way that represents ourselves. We’re not trying to make a record that sounds like it was recorded in the 70’s and we’re not trying to make anybody think that this was recorded in Nigeria. We’re not trying to fool anybody, and especially not ourselves! This is our music. It is full of life, full of emotion. It?s funky, danceable, weird, heavy, exuberant, angry, joyous and raucous,” he adds.
The band’s perpetual grooves are deeper than ever. The horns are set ablaze and analog synths beam an electrified energy into the music. The homemade percussion arsenal is ramped up a notch, and the electric sawblade gamelan brings gong-like overtones into the tangled vine of synthetic and organic strands. The band taps into its full orchestral potential: the arrangements are filled with timbral variety, as the bubbling textures of the percussion meld with the soaring sounds of the horn section. Bergman describes how NOMO evolved to incorporate the wild looped sounds that can be heard throughout the album (nowhere more noticeably than on the screaming electric tone at the top of the introductory track “Brainwave”), “We toured non-stop for a while, and on down time, I would spend every night in my basement recording hours of loops and synth textures. I was fascinated with early Morton Subotnick records, the percussive parts, and when I ran out of records to buy, I just started making my own Subotnick-like loops. I didn’t want the end product to sound like early synth music, but I loved the textures and gong-like tones of Silver Apples, Wild Bull, 4 Butterflies, etc,” he says. “Most of the loops were created with the instruments that I’ve been making, and have amazing variety, perhaps due to my inconsistency as an instrument manufacturer. Some sound amazingly bassy and others have a chime-like ethereal tone. Eno talks about generative music, and creating a system that produces music with little interference. I like that idea, and every night I would try to create as many loops as possible on these instruments without editing. Then I would go back a few weeks later and listen to these bubbling textures that can be heard in so many different ways. Trying to get the band to learn them always sparked heated arguments about where “the one” is!”
Bruce Penisula
http://www.myspace.com/brucepeninsula
Rogers Main Stage: Friday, 5pm – 5:45pm
Artist Biography
Dreamt up by Misha Bower and Matt Cully in the summer of 2006, Bruce Peninsula has slowly mutated, elaborating on the Alan Lomax archives that initially inspired them and taking a new turn every time a new member or instrument is added to the mix. Since their second show, Bruce Peninsula has ballooned out to include a large cast of hoot-and-hollerers. The band mutates often but the last couple of years has seen contributions from Neil Haverty, Andrew Barker, Steve McKay, Leon Taheny, Kari Peddle, Daniela Geshundheit, Katie Stelmanis, Caseey Mecija, Maya Postepski, Isla Craig and Doc Dunn (the latter two no longer perform with BP but are honourary members for life).
The instrumental elements have expanded into new terrain (unlike most folk bands, prog isn’t a dirty word for this band), but Bruce Peninsula’s focus is devoted to the singing, first and foremost. Singing from the gut, singing with gusto, singing the way we were made to sing…
The early, simple call-and-responses have given way to more elaborate harmonies and compositions over time, but the teachings of those timeless old recordings from the American south remain in tact. There is no denying the power and conviction of old spiritual singers like Vera Ward Hall or Washington Phillips. And while each member of the band may have their own take on the powers that be, the words those legends sang (and, more importantly, the way they sang them) have forever converted Bruce Peninsula into devotees of the church of song.
The surge of experimental music in Toronto has been equally important for Bruce Peninsula, bestowing upon them a wide-eyed, anything-goes mentality. Purists may argue that the blues or folk tradition can’t be properly expressed without an old steel string and a slide, but this band has never been too concerned with trying to crack open closed minds.
And so, a march of metalophone, lap-steel, zithers, and bells. Of drums and sticks and any other oddities of interesting and pleasing tone. Voices blaring all the while.
Bruce Peninsula have spent the last year travelling through churches and slums to make A Mountain Is A Mouth, their forthcoming debut LP. They also dropped a 7″ somewhere along the way. in the hands of engineer Leon Taheny (ohbijou, Final Fantasy, Germans), these recordings have turned into tiny mountains and the band is ecstatic that soon it will be let out into the world.
Akron/Family
Artist Biography
Akron/Family is a folk-influenced experimental rock band that formed in 2002, and is currently based in New York.
Though each member of the band — Miles Seaton, Seth Olinsky, Dana Janssen and formerly Ryan Vanderhoof can be relegated to loosely defined roles (drummer, guitarist, bassist, vocalist), all of them in fact play several instruments and sing, as evidenced by their shows and recorded material. When playing live, the band makes prominent use of improvisation and vocal harmonies. On their self-titled debut record, field recordings of a creaking chair, thunderclaps and the white noise of a television find their way alongside psychedelic and electronic elements, guitars and a glockenspiel.
In addition to their solo debut in 2005, the band played behind Michael Gira on his Angels of Light project as well as splitting a full length CD with Angels of Light.
In 2006, the band released an EP, “Meek Warrior,” a collaboration with master drummer/hero Hamid Drake which contained both more traditional folk music and a pair of throbbing electric guitar monsters in “The Rider (Dolphin Song)” and the epic “Blessing Force,” which ends with an exploration into free jazz.
Sometime between the completion of [2007 release] Love Is Simple and Akron/Family’s 2007 U.S. tour, Vanderhoof left Akron/Family to live in a Buddhist Dharma center in the Midwest.
The band has also released several tour EPs featuring demos and other recordings.
from Last.fm
Final Fantasy
http://www.finalfantasyeternal.com
Rogers Main Stage: Saturday, 8pm – 9pm
Artist Biography
Owen Pallett is a violinist, pianist, singer, and lyric writer going under the moniker of Final Fantasy – referencing “The games [which] are ridiculously overwrought and convoluted emotionally,” which he believes his music shares a similarity with. With two solo albums under his belt, Has A Good Home, and He Poos Clouds (a tentative concept album based around the spells within Dungeons and Dragons), he has established himself as an interesting and varied songwriter. He also co-wrote the string arrangements on both Arcade Fire albums, subsequently raising his profile among the indie crowd. His live performance also displays his adept skill at creating intelligent compositions, showcasing his talent for the creation and layering of textures. Live, he uses a sampler controlled by foot pedals in order to loop layers over layers, replicating the broad and ambitious strokes of his albums.
A Horse and His Boy
Rogers Main Stage: Friday, 3:30pm – 4:15pm
Artist Biography
Through the course of a year A Horse & His Boy (AHAHB) has evolved from a solo project to a five piece. At one time involving only samplers, the band has progressed into an impetuous presentation of heavy guitar, melodic basslines, and battling synths, with elaborate drum beats working through the chaos to hold the sound together. Fronted by two vocalists, one soft and harmonic, yet fierce at times inspired by a metal background, the other harsh and shameless with aggressive delivery, their contrasting tones work together to create a sound uniquely their own. Songs often reflect on recurring dreams and the past. While maintaining their originallity, the group is equally influenced by post-punk, pop, jazz, and experimental genres.
