I honestly don’t know how it came to be that I was following Carl Didur, or rather, signed up for his Bandcamp page, but one day I received a notification that he had a new album out. I don’t even regularly check out new releases from accounts I knowingly follow, but nonetheless I found myself giving his new album, Carl’s Dream, a listen and was enraptured by it.
I don’t know anything about him and there’s little to find out there on the Internet, other than that he hails from Toronto…and someone I know also knows one of the guest guitarists on the album (?!). That’s it. However, Carl’s Dream is a lush, warm and textured, largely wordless album that has an elemental simplicity to it, not unlike early Brian Eno. Fans of Atlas Sound/Bradford Cox will also like this, along with those who might be looking for a more grounded Boards of Canada sound.
(apologies for the spelling mistake on Carl Didur’s name when this was first published!)
Earlier this year, when I received a notification that the band Slift was playing at Lee’s Palace in October, I immediately bought tickets. I had happened upon their music on a random afternoon, sitting in The Embassy, a music-forward community bar in Kensington Market. It’s a place where the staff play whatever music they like, who are also–crucially–young and have good taste.* I asked the bartender what band he was playing, because it was this wall of psych-rock with virtuosic flourishes of metal and prog. He told me the name of the band, who were from Toulouse, and went to pains to focus on the album in question, the one we were listening to. The album, from 2021, was called Levitation Sessions. According to its Bandcamp page it was recorded “inside the ultra-high voltage electron microscope at the National Institute of Applied Sciences’ CEMES Laboratory in Toulouse.” It’s one 70 minute live-off-the-floor set, based on their studio album, Ummon.
So I bought the album and really adored it; how skilled the playing was and how their sound didn’t seem to veer into the sort of unintentional self-parody that can accompany metal and prog (let alone psych-rock). Every form of music has its tropes, the things that make it necessarily stereotypical, even if the “music” is chaos. And their tone! My god, this album bled tone. To be able to pull something like this off, and do it in such a serious and committed way, was something I admired. I didn’t want ironic detachment or self-knowing winks to the audience. That said, it’s a very specific type of music, and largely because of its bombastic intensity doesn’t exactly make for, um, ¿stable? music to play in the background or on my walks to work.
Here’s the thing: no matter that after a dedicated month I ended up only listening to them intermittently, I was desperate to know what they were like live. I wanted to see/hear/absorb them in-person and how they performed, curious how they could replicate their blistering recorded sound. Obvs, when I received the notification it was a no-brainer.
Months passed (aka the summer), and as the date of the concert approached, especially as I was coming off a hard week at the office, I found myself equivocating. The show was on a Sunday night after all. I was facing a brutal week ahead of me as I prepared–mentally and emotionally–not only for an upcoming four-hour Case Based Assessment I was randomly chosen to complete for the College of Registered Psychotherapists, but also for my upcoming hand surgery 😬 in just over a week. When the Sunday arrived, I received an update from the ticket vendor informing me that, due to issues at the border, the bands (the opener was Meatbodies) would be going on an hour later than scheduled. This meant that, optimistically, Slift weren’t going to take the stage until sometime after 10pm.
As exhausted as I felt, I was determined to go. I took an inventory of the least number of things I needed to bring with me (phone, ID, keys, etc.), because I wanted to be able to shove it all in my pockets. If you’re thinking that this was a preventative step for potential pickpockets, you’d be wrong…
(Side story: around two-and-a-half years ago, when the neglect of human-to-human contact became felt in my bones, along with other necessary disappointments and indignities–among them feeling robbed I didn’t have the opportunity to have a blow-out with friends on my 50th–one of the things I told myself I would do when things Got Better would be to get into a mosh pit. Somewhere. Sometime. Was it a declaration? I don’t know, but wishing for a mosh pit certainly kept my focus afloat sometimes.)
In any case, I proceeded to plan my outfit: old jeans with holes, basic black T-shirt, and a hoodie which would keep me warm outside but could be tied around my waste when it got hot during the concert.
It’s easy to misremember the interior dimensions of Lee’s Palace. It’s a medium-sized venue that can seem cavernous if you’re at the back, leaning against the bar (this was me during Meatbodies) or conversely more intimate down in the pit near the stage. There isn’t a bad sightline at Lee’s. When the opener thanked the audience and started packing their gear, I went against traffic and secured a spot at the back of the pit, knowing that the turnover wouldn’t be that long. Even as the three members of Slift proceeded to set-up their equipment on stage I still wasn’t sure what I was expecting, whether it would be Worth It, and another part of me was reminding me that it was a work night .
From the start it was clear they were there to deliver the goods: a full-on sonic assault, beginning with Ummon, from the self-titled album. It was clear why Slift is a headliner; guitarist, drummer and bass player performing as an organic entity, whose intense focus on rendering each song as passionately as they could was balanced by the fact that they seemed to be plugged-in as a band. No formulaic crowd chatter, no shout-outs except for a single note of thanks to the audience. Gradually, in front of me like a brewing storm, between those pressed against the stage and those of us at the back, I could see a mosh pit forming. Kids bopping…then kids bopping into each other…then kids pushing…and then the bopping kids crowd starts growing. THERE ARE PEOPLE MY AGE IN THE PIT! I make my way to the perimeter, and take on the role of pushing moshers back into the mass of bodies to prevent them from colliding into those at the back who only want to watch the show (please see this handy page for mosh context). It was while they were playing Citadel on a Satellite that I got so close to the whorl of bodies in the centre that I ended up being thrust into the chaos. I can’t tell you the last time I’ve been in a mosh pit (I crowd surfed in my thirties, I remember that), but I wasn’t prepared for it…which I think is the whole point. It wasn’t like I was doing this because I felt immune to danger. Strange hands pushing me about from different angles, me crashing into other moshers; at one point I was pushed backwards, hard, and almost lost my balance but someone was there to push me back in. You can’t control this. You can’t prevent this. You can’t analyze this. You can’t think this. And as soon as I was part of it, I stepped back and returned to guarding the perimeter, soaking in the music and the adrenaline (and yes, the sweat).
Slift probably played for the better part of an hour-and-a-half, maintaining their concentration throughout. My fifty-something body felt like it had been transported to my twenties, only the irony was that my body was in better shape (hello, gym) to be able to keep going for the entire set. When the house lights went up and we began to mill out of Lee’s, I felt lighter. The heaviness I’d been feeling was abated. I felt less scared of adult things. I was also proud that I stuck to my resolution and let myself lose control and fall into the pit.
* If you ever wonder where I find music, this is a great tip (cafés are good, too)
I honestly don’t know much about this band, but I heard this track playing in a local bar and I was really taken with it. I’m an aficionado of guitar instrumentals, and I looooove what the lead guitarist does with his fills. It’s very delicate and quite beautiful, even if the track carries the markers of its era (60s).
This came out a couple of years ago and it seems to be seeping into the playlists of places I frequent. It’s got a great vibe: atmospheric and haunting, yet sexy and dance-able.
So, yeah, typing in that title felt a little awkward, so let me unpack this. The artist in question (The Lord) is Greg Anderson, who’s better known for his monstrous doom metal outfit sunn O))). This is a solo project that takes inspiration from the works of film composer Bernard Herrmann. You might not be familiar with sunn 0))), but you’ve probably heard Herrmann’s scores for Taxi Driver, North by Northwest and Citizen Kane. Thus the title of the album “Worship,” as Anderson takes inspiration from Herrmann’s work. The piece I’ve shared is from a theme taken from the soundtrack to Psycho.
Not for all ears, yes, but I love the intensity of it!
I’d like to think these two songs came into being independently. And technically I can tell you that they did. A Devil in the Woods (The Gun Club) in the US, and Lucifer Over Lancashire (The Fall) in the UK, the latter circa 1986(?), the former in 1982. The thing is, they sound tremendously similar, and I can’t help think whether Mark E. Smith et co might have found inspiration in The Gun Club track. But wouldn’t it be incredible if they were hashed out in isolation from one another? There’s really no downside to this discussion because for music fans they’re both post-punk crackers.
Enjoy!
(note: I typically prefer sharing Bandcamp links as it’s more generous to its artists, but these two tracks are not available there.)
I had the occasion to see Jon McKiel earlier this summer at The Baby G. He’s a solid songwriter and musician. This album in particular is a little more muscular whereas the follow-up (his latest) is a little more tuneful. Currently touring the U.K., which is great to see.
This is a wonderful track from a band I overheard while doing some revising at Voodoo Child, a café near work. I love these moments of serendipity, where I hear something that simply sounds “new” yet checks certain boxes (motorik, electronic, Stereolab-ish).
Hi all — I’m slowly getting back into the swing of providing regular updates here, but I should be honest with you that I’ve been battling exhaustion and burnout over the past couple of months. It’s not pretty: in-between forgetting a lot of things, tackling overdue quotidian tasks comes with frustration and resentment. My energy and focus have been more or less on my day job, with good reason. I was also somewhat ironically prolific over the Xmas break, having done a complete read-through of Book Three for revision notes, as well as putting together a very personal essay which ties the story together of my murdered uncle’s stolen guitar.
So yes, “productive”, but I’m paying for it currently, along with the dividends of the not-so-good things from 2022 (ie my mother was hospitalized for several months).
I’m going to leave you with a wonderful song from Jenny Hval that I have been trying not to mainline every moment I can, owing to the fact that the piece has a strong emotional impact on me. Perhaps it’s the reflective and speculative nature of the (gorgeous) lyrics. In any case, I hope to see you soon.