Archive for July, 2010
David Mitchell
In a remote corner of the Royal Ontario Museum stands a three-foot wooden carving of an unnamed Shinto goddess from the 11th or 12th century. Her arms are folded in her elegant gown, her eyes hooded, her half-smile enigmatic. The idols beside her are larger, more extravagantly carved. Nonetheless, she draws you in.
Staff Benda Bilili
It’s an oppressively muggy afternoon in Montreal, and the members of Staff Benda Bilili are gathered behind Club Soda for a pre-concert photo shoot. Across the road are two low-rent strip clubs; nearby, apparently, is a crack house; and security moves in as a belligerent, bleary-eyed street couple make a beeline for the band’s small catering table. Not the most salubrious of surroundings, but the musicians have seen worse — much, much worse.
Montreal Jazz Festival 2010
Parsing the State of the Genre The Montreal Jazz Festival has promoted some dubious headliners this year — Steve Miller Band and The Moody Blues, take a bow — but not all is lost. Those curious about the state of jazz and improvised music could still catch an impressive cross-section of progressive-minded acts. Culled by [...]
John Zorn: Masada Marathon in Montreal
Masada Marathon in Montreal Reviewed Four and a half hours of any one composer’s music in an evening is excessive — but no one does excess like John Zorn. The downtown Manhattan saxophonist, composer, label owner (of Tzadik) and promoter (at the not-for-profit space The Stone) is releasing no fewer than 12 albums of his [...]
Eternia & MoSS
Most of Canada’s best-known rappers have become successful by bucking hip-hop conventions. Drake tempers his hip-hop braggadocio with introspection; K’Naan puts American gangsta rap in stark perspective with his tales of Somalian violence, and k-os is as likely to collaborate with an orchestra as with a DJ. But the Ottawa-born Eternia is taking on the deepest-rooted conventions of them all.
