Sonic Youth guitar slinger Lee Ranaldo is joined by Leah Singer headlining this year's Project Nowhere on Friday night.
Project Nowhere (October 3-5)
Wavelength is excited to be a part of the second year of Project Nowhere, a community-led event featuring underground legends, modern vanguards and exciting up-and-coming talent from Toronto and beyond. Different venues in Toronto’s west end will be taking part in this multi-dimensional music experience, hosting artist showcases over the 3-day festival.
This year, Wavelength will be co-presenting two nights of exciting programming at St. Anne’s Parish and Lower Hall. Night 1 will feature an immersive sound and visual performance by Leah Singer + Lee Ranaldo (Sonic Youth) presenting Contre Jour, Hamilton shoegazers Zoon, and experimental trio Yoo Doo Right. Night 2 will feature Slim Twig mastermind Max Turnbull’s side project Badge Époque Ensemble, along with fuzzed-out guitar rocker Sam Jr. and baroque psychedelic outfit The Royal Family. Visuals both nights by The Oscillitarium. Read an interview with Lee Ranaldo & Leah Singer right hereand check out a Contre Jour performance in Spain from 2022 along with Lee's guided tour of his gear below.
Project Nowhere & Wavelength: Night 1
Friday (October 4) @ St. Anne’s Parish Hall (651 Dufferin St)
10:30 – Leah Singer + Lee Ranaldo (Sonic Youth) presenting Contre Jour
9:30 – Zoon
8:30 – Yoo Doo Right
Doors 8pm
Tickets: $38.13 advance (including taxes and fees) available from DICE.FM right here.
Project Nowhere & Wavelength: Night 2
Saturday (October 5) @ St. Anne’s Parish Hall (651 Dufferin St)
10:30 – Badge Époque Ensemble
9:30 – Sam Jr.
8:30 – The Royal Family
Doors 8pm
Tickets: $26.49 advance (including taxes and fees) available from DICE.FM right here.
Check out "All Same 2 Each, Each Same 2 All" off the Badge Époque Ensemble's new album, Clouds Of Joy out September 9th.
Here's the scoop...
Toronto's Badge Époque Ensemble just shared "All Same 2 Each, Each Same 2 All", the final advance track to be lifted from their highly anticipated new album, Clouds of Joy which is set for release via Telephone Explosion Records on September 9 marking the label's 100th release. Featuring three vocal-led compositions, three instrumentals and three choral arrangements, this new album presents the Ensemble’s most ambitious, mature and engaging material to date. Clouds of Joy represents a shift from the group’s previous sonic excursions – the worlds of vintage soundtrack grooves and early electric jazz – into a more era-ambiguous, complex and all-encompassing approach to arrangement and production.
The album-closing track, "All Same 2 Each, Each Same 2 All" features a baroque AM-radio style vocal arrangement, melding multi-dimensional harmonies with flurries of gentle saxophone and off-kilter percussion. It's another fine example of the Badge Époque Ensemble's ability to weave tremendous vocal performances and choral arrangements into a dense tapestry of sound, with "All Same 2 Each, Each Same 2 All" acting as a breezy curtain-call on Clouds of Joy. Have a listen below. Pre-order Clouds Of Joy via Telephone Explosion right here.
Jay Anderson & Ian Blurton's horn-enhanced UWUW debut is out Oct. 21. Check out the lead off track "Scattered Ashes" below.
Here's the scoop...
UWUW (pronounced you-you) have just announced the release of their debut, self-titled LP with their lead single Scattered Ashes. With some of Toronto’s most experienced and revered musicians making this project possible, it’s no wonder why the sonic presence of this project demands your attention and doesn’t let you go. The impressive cast of players includes Jason Haberman of Dan Mangan and Yeahsun, Jay Anderson of Badge Époque Ensemble, Biblical and Lammping, and Ian Blurton of Ian Blurton’s Future Now, Change of Heart, and C’mon. Giving the songs a voice are two of Toronto’s most distinctive songwriters: Chris A. Cummings aka Marker Starling, adding his distinct, easy-glide, story-telling charm to Box Office Poison, and Scattered Ashes, and Drew Smith (Bunny, The Bicycles), providing his trademark, 60s harmony pop and lyrical prowess to Staircase and Landlord. UWUW's self-titled debut album – with enjoyably oblique sleeve art courtesy of Nick Sewell! – is slated for release by We Are Busy Bodies on October 21st. Pre-order it via Bandcamp right here. Fans of Euroboys, T2, and Manfred Mann Chapter Three will be enamoured with these exceptionally crafted and exciting compositions.
The lead single 'Scattered Ashes' (listen below) breathes soul and rock, while blurring sounds and influences which call to mind James Brown’s horn section and the compositional layers of experimental Beach Boys recordings. In response to the meaning behind his lyrics, singer Marker Starling says, “I attempted to shoehorn every stray apocalyptic thought I had circa Summer of 2021 into the song, including readings from the screenplay of Jean-Luc Godard's Alphaville (1965). The world is ending, or perhaps, as Sun Ra believed, we're already past the end of the world. You might end up dying for a cause, or even "just because." Who knows what tomorrow may bring, and like The Zombies, being forever Hung Up on a Dream—in this case, a lost vision of a kind of hippie or punk utopia—is the only way to live your life, the only way to maintain a healing state of mind”.
UWUW came into being when Jay Anderson and Ian Blurton came together through a run of shows, backing mutual friend and singer/songwriter, Kate Boothman as her drummer, and guitarist, respectively. Anderson suggested bringing in Jason Haberman, a talented bassist, who Anderson had seen play with Toronto indie-folk band, The Wooden Sky. Realizing they didn’t want an instrumental record, they layered on bright horns and smooth vocals, lifting the songs from instrumental jams, to the undefinable yet distinctive sound that is, UWUW. Saxophonist, Jay Hey, was brought in to provide horn arrangements, along with Tom Richardson on trombone and Patrick McGroarty on trumpet, all three contributing on every song. The result is a blissfully cool album with music that will appeal to all listeners, from record store snobs, garage rock slobs, and even psych-pop heartthrobs!
UWUW - S/T
1. Scattered Ashes
2. Staircase To The End Of The Night
3. Landlord
4. Box Office Poison
Credits
Jason Haberman - bass, keyboards
Jay Anderson - drums, percussion
Ian Blurton - guitar, keyboards, vocals, engineering, mixing
Chris Cummings - vocals on 'Scattered Ashes' and 'Box Office Poison'
Drew Smith - vocals on 'Staircase To The End Of The Night' and 'Landlord'
Check out "Zodiac" off the forthcoming Badge Époque Ensemble's Clouds of Joy album out September 9th.
Here's the scoop...
The Badge Époque Ensemble return to Telephone Explosion Records for the label's 100th release with a new album, Clouds of Joy which is set for release on September 9 – they're today sharing the news alongside the first single, "Zodiac" which features vocals from James Baley. Featuring three vocal-led compositions, three instrumentals and three choral arrangements, this new album presents the Ensemble’s most ambitious, mature and engaging material to date. Clouds of Joy represents a shift from the group’s previous sonic excursions – the worlds of vintage soundtrack grooves and early electric jazz which found critical acclaim at Pitchfork, The Wire, Uncut, Paste, Stereogum, Brooklyn Vegan, etc – into a more era-ambiguous, complex and all-encompassing approach to arrangement and production.
Familiar Badge Époque Ensemble motifs are present through this album’s nine tracks: extended sections of dusty drum & conga breaks, swirling saxophone and flute flourishes, fleet-fingered guitar excursions, hazy Rhodes chords and lashing clavinet stabs, but where Clouds of Joy excels is in its ability to weave tremendous vocal performances and choral arrangements into its dense tapestry of sound. This first single, "Zodiac" which features James Baley’s ecstatic, Stevie Wonder-esque lead vocal performance could light up the midnight sky, turning a nearly eight-minute jazz-funk instrumental odyssey into a sure-shot dancefloor hit. Watch the video below.
Undergoing a major shift of consciousness upon learning that he was expecting twins, BÉE leader Maximilian ‘Twig’ Turnbull found the spark to initiate the album within his reflections upon the nature of human joy. This shift in mindset also helped shape the record from an operational standpoint: Turnbull stepped away from his fixture on keys, leaving all of the musical performance on this record to his cast of collaborators. With Max assuming a more “directorial” approach to production and arrangement à la Barry White, David Axelrod, or Fagen & Becker, this album finds the Badge Époque Ensemble in its most collaborative mode to date. Vocalists Dorothea Paas, James Baley and guitarist Chris Bezant all have co-writing credits here with Bezant contributing significantly to three compositions, including the album’s title track. The album was mixed collaboratively as well, as another joint effort between Turnbull, Steve Chahley and Tony Price, a trio who have teamed up behind the mixing desk for all previous BÉE albums, as well as U.S. Girls’ Heavy Light LP and records from other members of Toronto's bubbling scene including the likes of Jane Inc, Young Guv (Chahley and Tony Price) and many more.
For the most part, the Ensemble on this record is made up of names familiar to anyone following the Badge cosmology: drummer Jay Anderson, bassist Gio Rosati, flautist Alia O’Brien, saxophonist Karen Ng, percussionist Ed Squires and guitarist Chris Bezant, with the new addition of young jazz pianist Edwin de Goeij, a perfect surrogate for Turnbull’s ideas on keys. (This in-demand collection of musicians represents a scattering of key cogs from a clutch of other premium Canadian exports; The Weather Station, Andy Shauf, U.S. Girls & Marker Starling). Clouds’ emphasis on the sound of the human voice finds its perfect outlet in vocal arrangements by labelmate Dorothea Paas and a return from lead vocalist James Baley. Their contributions are complimented by a choir composed of session vocalists, (including singers from Bernice and Bonjay) who come together to provide a series of show-stopping harmonic acrobatics.
Clouds of Joy marks the group’s third proper full length of five total releases for the Telephone Explosion imprint in only four years. It represents the Ensemble’s most fully realized presentation of a founding vision to create music as human, organic and alive as it is synthesized, produced and designed; music that transcends the notion of linear time, pulling in influences and ideas from the past and taking them far into the future.
You can pre-order the Clouds of Joy album via Bandcamp right here. Check out the video for "Zodiac" followed by the track listing below.
"Just Space For Light" (feat. Jennifer Castle) is off Badge Époque Ensemble's forthcoming Self Help LP out Nov. 20th. Get it here.
Here's the scoop....
Recorded live in the months before lockdown, Badge Époque Ensemble's new Self Help album on Telephone Explosion Records is an exploratory record that dances across time and genre, guided by fidgety miniatures and jazz inflected collage. While constructed from the inspiration of soul, funk and film music, BÉE mediate those influences having first digested them through the productions of Madlib and the RZA. Throughout, the band pool together their instrumental chops, moving from fluid and serpentine R&B to meditative, minimalistic piano, evoking a contrast of virtuosity and self-surrender.
BÉE – Self Help
A sticker on the sleeve tells us Self Help “combines jazz-funk and mysticism,” a signpost to where its musical and spiritual concerns align. The jazz-funk component translates to arresting hooks in sideways song forms: echoes of Gainsbourg spooled through Azymuth-style Brazilian jazz and punctuated by the whip and snap of Steely Dan. “The Sound Where My Head Was”, the instrumental centrepiece, exemplifies present-wave jazz but also ancient sounds, giving off the mothballed air of a Hiroshi Yoshimura record in a library-music archive.
Self Help’s mysticism emerges in broad and specific ways, denoting not only a search beyond cliché and intellect but also an inquiry into the beat, the spirit, the one will. This isn’t new territory for them: Turnbull – the artist formerly known as Slim Twig, who writes and performs with U.S. Girls and various other Toronto concerns – named the group’s Nature, Man & Woman EP after the Alan Watts book. Building these songs from his drafts over three weekends at Toronto’s Palace Sound studio, the ensemble was free to tap out of the city and into some other place, taking up residence in a collective mind maze.
The album produces, in equal measure, familiar surprises and the surprisingly familiar. Intoxicated jazz riffs swerve left at phantom intersections. Rhythms cut loose and tie you in knots. But wired into each song is a sense of gentle accumulation, making every featherlight flourish weigh a ton.
The soul shimmer of “Unity (It’s Up to You)” lets the players pool their R&B chops into something fluid and serpentine while, on guest vocals, the musical performance artist James Baley issues urgent declaratives: “Water must pool, as a rule, before tasted/Or else the water is wasted.” The words throughout the record complement the ensemble music while riffing on the precarious nature of unity itself. Then, closer “Extinct Commune” finds Turnbull deserted at the piano, playing phrases of meditative minimalism taking after the composer Joanna Brouk. For all the record’s reach, it is these contrasting quiet moments that bring Self Help’s communal spirit into focus.
A note on personnel: Badge Époque Ensemble now has a seventh member in Karen Ng, the saxophonist and sometime collaborator of Do Make Say Think, Feist, and others. In BÉE, Ng joins Chris Bezant and Giosuè Rosati, her bandmates in the Andy Shauf live band, as well as U.S. Girls co-conspirators Turnbull and Ed Squires, and other Torontonian cross-pollinators listed below. Guest vocalists across Self Help include Meg Remy, who sings with Dorothea Paas on the opener, James Baley, and Toronto singer-songwriter Jennifer Castle on the remarkable “Just Space for Light”. – Jazz Monroe
Badge Époque Ensemble is: Jay Anderson: Drum Kit / Chris Bezant: Guitar / Karen Ng: Saxophone / Alia O’Brien: Flute / Ed Squires: Conga, percussion / Giosuè Rosati: Bass / Maximilian ‘Twig’ Turnbull: Fender Rhodes, clavinet, synthesizers.
"Unity (It's Up To You)" is off the Badge Époque Ensemble's forthcoming album, Self Help out Nov 20 on Telephone Explosion.
Here's the scoop...
Self Help is an exploratory record that dances across time and genre, guided by fidgety miniatures and jazz inflected collage. While constructed from the inspiration of soul, funk and film music, BÉE mediate those influences having first digested them through the productions of Madlib & the RZA. Throughout, the band pool together their instrumental chops, moving from fluid and serpentine R&B to meditative, minimalistic piano, evoking a contrast of virtuosity and self-surrender.
Self Help is out November 20. pre-order a copy directly from Telephone Explosion right here. Watch Alex Kingsmill's entertaining animated clip for "Unity (It's Up To You)" feat. James Baley below.
"Zealous Child" is off the forthcoming Nature, Man and Woman 12" EP from Toronto's mighty Badge Époque Ensemble.
Here's the scoop...
It’s been a few short months since Badge Époque Ensemble released their self titled debut, an ambiguous collection of woozy, narcotized funk. And yet already we have Nature, Man & Woman - a simmering new platter containing 3 songs, producing 26 minutes of dank flute-oriented atmosphere due December 6th from Toronto's forward looking Telephone Explosion label. Get it right here.
The disco-sleeved 12” EP provides a revealing glimpse of a musically omnivorous approach. On Badge Theme we find the group upping the ante of the sound of their debut, unspooling 14 minutes of sensual Ike Hayes indebted oomph, sure to thrill future generations of loop diggers (cut live off the floor no less!).
The A side contains 2 songs, which seem to hint at diverging future directions this eclectic combo might take moving forward. Opener “Zealous Child” comes as something of a sequel to the debut LP’s sole vocal featuring track “Undressed In Solitude”. This go round BÉE have teamed up with Toronto singer Dorothea Paas to ruminate on notions of spiritual wisdom overtop a progressive and climactically bombastic homebrew. Title track “Nature, Man & Woman” closes out the side with 6 ominous minutes of mysterious provenance. Somewhere between a live performance and a collaged tapestry, the group make more explicit than ever before their affinity for beat-centric loop music. Sounding like Lonnie Liston Smith gone trip-hop for a broadcast prohibited episode of Law & Order, BÉE posit themselves here as amongst the moodiest of contemporary instrumental collectives. Little wonder that library music enthusiasts around the world have made emphatic note of the Ensemble.
The group will be returning to the studio, refining new arrangements in 2020. Until then we have a generous and unusual second serving to help us puzzle over what sounds Badge Époque Ensemble may investigate next. See them live with André Ethier at Lula Lounge on December 12.
BADGE ÉPOQUE ENSEMBLE:
Jay Anderson - Drums & Percussion
Chris Bezant - Guitar, Electric Sitar
Alia O’Brien - Flute Ed Squires - Congas, Percussion
Giosue Rosati - Bass
Maximillian “Twig” Turnbull - Clavinet, Rhodes
