Saturday, December 13, 2008

Thursday, November 13, 2008

Deerhunter @ Lee's Palace



Deerhunter
at Lee's Palace in Toronto, Nov. 12, 2008

handheld camera, ambient sound + lighting, some shyness

sorry about the sound, as the side of the stage was rather loud and my microphone couldn't help itself from being overdriven

P + C = Deerhunter, qzh, Throwaway Digital

Friday, October 31, 2008

New Harbours Music Series 2008 "Trailer"


New Harbours Music Series Trailer from Quintin Hewlett on Vimeo.


A summation of the musical performances featured at the Spring 2008 New Harbours Music Series.

Performers include Orphx, Polmo Polpo, Michael Snow + Matthew Boughner, Slither.

handheld camera, ambient sound + lighting


P + C = Orphx, Polmo Polpo, Michael Snow, Matthew Boughner, Slither, qzh, Throwaway Digital (2008)

A nicer version of this video is available from Vimeo.

Saturday, September 20, 2008

Holy Fuck @ Pepperjacks



Holy Fuck @ Pepperjack's Cafe, 19.09.08

handheld camera, ambient lighting + sound, beer

P + C = Holy Fuck, qzh, Throwaway Digital (2008)

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Janek Schaefer - Extended Play



Janek Schaefer
Extended Play
[2008, L-NE]

There really is no way to avoid or reproduce the “presence” of an art piece. A great deal of aesthetic experiences in the post-formalist artworld investigate the ontology of subjectivity, frequently by grounding the viewer of the art piece in a self-reflexive and participatory creative gesture which feeds back into the piece in question. In terms of audio, the space in which a musical work is installed is usually of principal importance to the meaning of the piece.

L-NE is an offshoot of Taylor Deupree’s 12k label which has been mandated with documenting audio installation work. In 2007, British composer Janek Schaefer exhibited Extended Play at the Huddersfield Art Gallery. The piece reflects upon the wartime experiences of Schaefer’s Polish mother. Schaefer sampled some phrases from a patriotic Polish folk song that was broadcast by the BBC to Polish resistance fighters in order to relay intelligence information on the day that Schaefer’s mother was born. Schaefer, along with Michael Jennings, then arranged this material into a ten-minute chamber piece for violin, cello, and piano. Each instrument was separately pressed onto a 7" record. The vinyl was then played on three motion-activated turntables that would interrupt the recording every time a viewer passed by them, thus invoking randomised intersubjective elements into the piece.

Of course, in order to release a linear audio version in a home-listening format, much of the original’s thematic content had to be removed. Schaefer has offered a more textured and ostensibly minimalist investigation of the original sources than the installation would have allowed. For the first three tracks, he focusses on a single instrument each. Throughout the album, but with these pieces in particular, Schaefer allows ample space for the microscopic textures of the old recordings to be defined. The sounds of the turntables are laid on top of the original, so along with a cello one can hear dust and crackle on the surface of the vinyl, a declination as the power is cut, as well as the jarring sound of the needle as it retracks within a groove.

The phrases are simple and the tones are drawn out to emphasize the texture of strings being played. ‘Accoustic Ensemble’ comes closest to capturing the intentions of the original installation. Schaefer has crafted the piece by using the original recordings played back at a variety of speeds. There is a certain emotional vibrancy to the piece, perhaps due to the density of instrumentation, but more likely due to the subtle overtones of elation – usually carried by the violin – located above the melancholy which encircles the listener through the rest of the album. Like much of Schaefer’s previous work, this is music of muted beauty and complex pleasures.

MP3: Janek Schaefer - Vinyl Cello Duo

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Larry Di Ianni and QZH talk Liberally for 90 minutes

Quintin Zachary Hewlett: First of all, I want to thank you for meeting with me. I wasn’t sure that you would want to afford my questions after our email exchange. Let’s just leave the past where it is – I am not going to bring up Red Hill or any other bugbears. Let’s just get to the Green Shift plan. I like it, and I have to say that for the first time in my life I’m considering voting Liberal.

Larry Di Ianni: Thank you. Hopefully you will like what I have to say. Well, at any rate I’ve come to appreciate the plan. When it was first being talked about, I thought Oh Gosh, how confusing is this? People are going to be totally confused by it. All of the stuff that you hear, that this is not the time, the economy’s bad, energy prices are going up. In fact, this is the answer. This is not the problem. It really is the answer, so I’m quite enthused about it.

QZH: Is that the primary problem that the Liberal Party is faced with? Essentially a PR campaign about this plan?

LDI: Well, I don’t know if it’s a public relations campaign, although PR is always part of politics. Or, at least getting the message out, which is how most politicians would put it rather than public relations. But certainly informing people and dealing with some of the myths. The Conservatives after seeing the plan have ridiculed it. I was sort of offended, personally, by their reaction.

QZH: I’d like to focus on the latter part – we’ll deal with that shift in a second. I think there’s two aspects of it which are important. One of which you just mentioned: the shift in taxation, and I’d like to get to specifics about that. But just before that I’d like to deal with something that’s perhaps on the minds of Hamiltonians more so than those from other large municipalities. Shift of course invokes cars, invokes transportation. There’s a mall in Oakville, one of the larger ones, and there advertising campaign is “Shift into High Gear”, and they have luxury items on display. Of course, you have to drive out to the mall, there’s no real transit to get there otherwise and it’s not near any residential areas. I’m wondering specifically for Hamilton, which is very much predicated on the highway model and has been for a long time – you just have to look at King and Main streets, and from an infrastructure point of view the rapid transfer of people using individual [automobiles] is the ideological framework for this city’s development. I’m wondering very specifically about the Infrastructure Surplus commitments in the Green Shift, how can Hamiltonians very specifically and Canadians in general come to understand that this fund is not necessarily going to go to highway development but instead to mass transit, which is so required for Hamilton.

LDI: Let me refer to this simple and useful book...

QZH: It’s well-produced. I read it.

LDI: Have you read Dune?

QZH: The Frank Herbert series? Yeah. Actually, when I was about six, I went to see the bad David Lynch version of it in the theatre. Disappointing.

LDI: The novel was better.

QZH: Well, [oil] is definitely our spice, and there’s no easy way to get off of it. Considering that costs are going up almost exponentially, and they’re not going to go down. A good indicator for this can be seen in the tarsands, because while most of the tarsands is deemed “industrially-recoverable”, it’s only deemed recoverable when oil reaches a certain price point.

LDI: When I was a kid, we were talking about the tarsands. This is generations ago. We’ve got oil galore, it’s just too expensive to retrieve it. Once the price reaches a certain level, it will be economic and we’ll have oil coming out of our you-know-whats. We’re at that point now, and the fact that we can make it an economic reality means that things have gotten to an exorbitant level. And then, we weren’t thinking of the environmental impact.

QZH: We’re still not really thinking about the environmental impact.

LDI: Yes we are! The Green Shift certainly thinks about that. [laughs]

QZH: Well, again I hope that it is legitimate. I do believe in Dion, however.

LDI: A decent man. I got to know him last year. I don’t know him well, but we’ve been at many functions together and we’ve had a few chats. He’s chalk full of integrity, very bright, thinks well on his feet. He answered some tough questions at a function a week or so ago about with humour and good solid information. But he’s not a sound-bite type of guy.

QZH: That’s the problem with having knowledge and integrity: you don’t fit the media.

LDI: That’s something that you either have or you don’t perhaps. But I’m hoping that people can see beyond that. That there’s a man with substance here. And there’s strength; he’s not a weak man. I read a biography on him he’s an interesting individual because of his background. How he grew up, the influence of his father, how his own thoughts were gelling as things were developing in Canada. Nationalism was flourishing in Quebec City where he grew up. And he took some principled stands in very much a Captain Canada way. He told separatists that they were not going to break up the country on a whim; there were rules for such things and [Dion] implemented those. He was reviled by the separatists in Quebec because of that, because he made it difficult and you couldn’t fudge things any longer. I quite like him, and I hope that Canadians give him a chance. I hope that they see the integrity in him and the passion. When I was mayor, I went to a sustainable cities conference in Montreal. It was great, and they had environmentalists from all over the world, it wasn’t just Canadian folks.

QZH: Who flew in on their jets...

LDI: Well yes, they had to get there and they were from all over the place. But they’re sincere people.

QZH: Yes.

Complete transcription available here.

here's the audio for the conversation:

Larry and QZH

Monday, July 07, 2008

Fat Tuesday Masquerade



Nudes by Melanie Gillis and Ward Shipman
Mask Art by Laura Hollick, Ryan Price, Michelle Purchase
and countless local mask-making newbies
Fire Spinning by Hot Carl


You can find information about this facet of this month's James North Art Crawl by clicking here.

Monday, June 30, 2008

Slither @ New Harbours Music Series 1.3




Slither plays Christ's Church Cathedral as part of New Harbours Music Series 1.3, June 13, 2008

handheld camera, ambient sound + lighting

P + C = Slither, qzh, Throwaway Digital, 2008

Saturday, June 14, 2008

The Urban Moorings Project



Hamilton’s art community has a vibrant history of engaging with public installations. When dislocated from the antiseptic confines of the art gallery, art becomes more fluid and more of a subjective and discursive enterprise. The Urban Moorings Project is a group installation on the wetlands of Cootes Paradise. Artists Susan Detwiler, Noel Harding and David Acheson, Steve Mazza, and Tor Lukasik-Foss have created floating sculptures and gardens which are intended to question the nature of human industry and ecological preservation. Curator Nora Hutchinson describes the project as “travelling canvas, one that is ever changing…sun on calm waters extends and mirrors perfectly the sculptures and their reflections on the bay. Morning fog, dusk, and the terrible beauty of Hamilton’s factory plumes of smoke and fire play a part in this ineffable landscape. Culled into the visual frame of floating homes, there is the call of birds, the hush of wings and the sound of water lapping…”

Asked why Cootes Paradise was chosen, Hutchinson responds that when one is at Cootes, a “quiet beauty is experienced”. Hutchinson researched the history of the area, and decided that the artists would dialogue with a historical community of floating homes that was situated on the shores of Cootes prior to the 1950s. “Dubbed ‘Shacktown’ by the locals, the houses were built by workers so that they could live near their industrial workplaces. Their homes were mostly made with materials at hand – tin, tar, wood, brick. They built their homes on the water in order to easily respond to the pressures of urban development. When forced to move, they simply floated their homes upstream to a new location on the Bay. The second dialogue between the artworks and the location of Cootes Paradise, concerns the restoration efforts of the RBG to clean up the water and landscape of Cootes and to re-introduce native plants and fish. Responding to both historical and ecological issues, the artists' sculptures will be made mostly with pre -purposed materials and with a focus of using symbols for cleaning the water, to creating islands, and to address the post-industrial landscape.”

For the site, Tor Lukasik-Foss has created what he terms Viking Soliloquy Chair. Made from re-claimed oak, cedar, and mixed media, the chair transforms a sinking Viking ship into a piece of floating stage furniture useful for all manners of monologues and songs. Susan Detwiler will install a shelter frame in order to grow edible plants from household cleaning tools such as brooms, swiffers, and mops. In their piece entitled Romance Park for Endangered Turtles, Noel Harding and David Acheson have created a series of turtle basking platforms. Along with Water aeration and wetland plantings, the piece intends a theatrical stage upon which the terms of environmental engagement are to be interrogated.

For Steve Mazza, industry in Hamilton is examined as a fossil of the past which considers “what it means to live in an industrial city, in an industrial province, in a country that doesn’t seem to want to be industrial anymore”. His sculptural piece playfully engages with the notion that industrial endeavour is outdated and remains extent largely as an urban-scale museum somewhat invisible to the city’s hopes for future development and the dreams of individual citizens for a ‘perfect community’. Mazza’s industry is hermetically sealed in a greenhouse structure which suggests the need to remain conscious of the city’s past, which informs the present in both architectural and environmental terms.

Irene Loughlin of Hamilton Artists Inc expects that the public will respond in a positive manner to the installations. “This exhibition of sculptural art works is non-traditional in that it takes place outside of the gallery. A person might suddenly come across the artworks while strolling down a pathway in a walk at Princess Point. The strategy of placing art in a public place highlights the fact that art is part of our daily life and that art is a valuable part of our daily experience. The artworks respond to the elements, are reflected in the waters of Princess Point, and are affected by the wind... The installation becomes alive, pointing to the rich history of this historic site.”

Urban Moorings opens Saturday, June 21 at 1 pm at Princess Point in Cootes Paradise and will remain in place until August 5. An artist panel discussion follows at 6 pm June 26 at the McMaster Museum of Art. A film about endangered wetlands in Finn Slough, British Columbia will then be screened at Hamilton Artists Inc July 11 at 7 pm. Finally, a panel discussion between the artists involved in the project and the RGB will take place at the RGB auditorium on July 13 at 2 pm.

Hamilton Artists Inc presents URBAN MOORINGS
June 21 - August 5
Coots Paradise

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Sois jeune et tais toi (photographs)


Digital Maggies, 2008


Hunter and hunted, 2008 (Graeme Weir)


I am Error, 2008


A Winner Is You, 2008


Demolition Special, 2008 (Graeme Weir)

Sunday, June 08, 2008

New Harbours Music Series 1.3 -- Slither + Fossils



New Harbours Music Series 1.3
Slither + Fossils
June 13, 9:00 PM
Christ’s Church Cathedral
262 James street North
Free Admission


The noisier and more experimental end of jazz has always been a troubling beast to many listeners. Throughout the history of the genre, musicians have been simultaneously playing within traditional structures and emphatically breaking past them in search of new musical horizons. Free jazz attained a popular zenith in the late sixties with reed players such as John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman, and the genre was able to proliferate commercially despite the demands which it placed on listeners. Over the next two decades however, jazz was concretized in the public imagination as a genre of rigid formalism associated with easy-listening radio stations. Experimental jazz quickly relegated itself to the Japanese, European, and North American underground, where it remained a fertile though somewhat marginalised scene.

Michigan duo Slither are among the newer generation of musicians who work within the amorphously-conceived genre of free jazz (which is at this point more appropriately termed “free improvisation”). Clarinetist Heath Moerland and saxophonist Chris Pottinger have been performing torrid live shows for the past few years. Described as “Today’s jazz for today’s playboys” by Thurston Moore, Slither perform a combination of reeds and electronics that serves well to reinvigorate free improvisation fans and other aesthetes of the nearly-impossible. The cacophony which they create certainly falls within the noise camp, and a great deal of spectral beauty can be discerned as the horn instruments wash themselves of the sonic detritus. Indeed, the last time Slither performed in Hamilton, an amplified dish rack proved itself a worthy addition to the performance.



Local noise practitioners Fossils will also be performing at New Harbours. A trio centred upon the weekly improvisation sessions at band member David Payne’s downtown apartment, Fossils have been internationally championed as being among Canada’s elite experimental acts. Tape manipulation, no-input mixer feedback, prepared guitars, and an arsenal of electronics conjure a dissonant and distopic aesthetic of tortured landscapes and strained human relations. Much as the DJ scene of the 1990s revived interest in the vinyl culture of the previous generation of music listeners, the tape culture represented by Fossils signals to children of the 80s and 90s that their long-forgotten cassettes can still find a use despite the wear of neglect, magnetic drift, and oxidation.

Slither and Fossils play the final concert in the spring 2008 New Harbours Music Series at Christ’s Church Cathedral this Friday at 9 PM.

Wednesday, June 04, 2008

untitled (June 3, 2008)

laying, face fragile,
in thought i am marginal to her story,
while everyting else pours into her, being

so, with grace
and upturned intentions, she is smiling
sideways, gravity marks time for us

as i, hold, still
and soft as death or a sidewalk
when life enters and exits without fanfare

until a warmth comes
closer. submersed and paralytic,
in vain do i sit beside her so

june 3, 2008

Sunday, June 01, 2008

Sois jeune et tais toi



featuring DJs Gary Buttrum and Carla Coma,
as well as mixes from special guests

dance and silent auction
Loose Canon Gallery
Friday June 6
9pm

pay what you can
$5 suggested

all money from door, beer, and auction will
be donated for cancer research at Princess
Margaret Hospital

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Michael Snow + Matthew Boughner @ New Harbours



Snow + Boughner in an improvised performance inside Christ's Church Cathedral on May 11, 2008. This concert was second in the New Harbours Music Series.

handheld camera, ambient sound + lighting

P + C = Michael Snow, Matthew Boughner, qzh, Throwaway Digital (2008)

Thursday, May 22, 2008

an open letter to Hamilton Police Services

As a language instructor who has worked at Mohawk and Columbia International colleges as well as McMaster University, I am deeply concerned with Mark Nimigan’s suggestion in last Wednesday’s Hamilton Spectator that Hamilton Police Services begin focussing on “clean[ing] up” the downtown core by arresting individuals who swear in public. If police are to be used as agents of the cultural hygiene policies of a few motivated bureaucrats, then an extremely dangerous precedent will have been set.

I wish to argue with Mr. Nimigan that Hamilton Police Services does not have the authority to arbitrate what use of language constitutes “vile” and “filthy”. Police forces are not semioticians, anthropologists, or linguists, and the public should not expect them to be trained in these fields. Not a single word can in and of itself be deemed either vile, filthy, or harmful to the public. The discursive contexts in which words can be deemed as harmful to the public interest are already covered by Canada’s Hate Speech laws. Any other curtailing of public speech treads on the rights of individuals to free speech as protected under the Charter of Rights.

When viewed in terms of his support for a project of cultural hygiene, Mr. Nimigan’s suggestion that entrepreneurs don’t want to “come downtown and open a restaurant or specialty shop given the atmosphere down there” is laughable at best. Mr. Nimigan’s suggestion that “taxpayers” and “little old ladies” are the victims of individuals whom the author views as undesirable for the core stinks of the elitist and fascist rhetoric which characterised the eugenics policies undertaken by authoritarian regimes throughout the 20th century. Mr. Nimigan, I wish to emphatically state to you that Hamilton’s poor national reputation will not find a solution in the forced removal of certain individuals from the city’s public sphere.

Two issues serve to keep many entrepreneurs from the core: blight and taxation. I wish to suggest that Hamilton Police Services be used to enforce property standards in the downtown core so that buildings are properly maintained as they are legally mandated by existing property by-laws. The collapse of the Balfour Building, which has seriously effected the operation and financial status of entrepreneurs on King William street such as Thai Memory, is the principal witness to the need for police enforcement of property standards. Furthermore, a redeployment of public health resources to aid in the core’s instances of drug abuse and mental health issues would be of benefit to the area’s atmosphere.

Entrepreneurs in the downtown core pay a higher proportion of municipal taxes as compared to suburban areas. It is largely for this reason that entrepreneurs chose to locate themselves along Hamilton’s expanding periphery rather than be contained within what should be a high-density downtown business area. As the periphery expands, Hamilton taxpayers in the core must bear the financial burden for the expansion of infrastructure – sewers, water, roads – that fuels suburban growth. The departure of stores from Jackson Square and the Eaton’s Centre have a great deal to do with this fact. Large department stores prefer suburban locations because they get free additions to their development plans.

Policies of cultural hygiene are misguided at best and more often signal a grossly-unjust disregard of the rights of individuals. Mr. Nimigan, if you wish to see the city face court challenges under sections 2b, 2c, and 24 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, then by all means please move forward with your plans to act as arbiter of cultural hygiene for the city of Hamilton.

Sunday, May 18, 2008

Thai Memory fundraiser @ Pepperjacks Café



Once known for its fantastic Victorian, Edwardian, and modern architecture, downtown Hamilton has been garnering some media attention south of the border for the degree to which city council has allowed its heritage to decay. The architectural legacy of the city of Hamilton was built with steel money. Now it seems that the decline of the industry parallelled city council’s conscious decision to feign blindness and neglect to enforce the property standards legislation already in place to protect older structures. The collapse of the Tivoli in the summer of 2004 marked the beginning of public awareness of this issue. More recently, the collapse and controversial demolition of the Balfour Building on the Lister Block suggests that the city endeavours to maintain its unstated policy of “Demolition by Neglect”.

One notable consequence of the Balfour’s tragic end is the economic plight of local businesses along King William. Where the city falters, small business people and grassroots community organizations have attempted to restore the downtown to its former glory. It is shameful that the city has repeatedly stressed the need for private enterprise to restore downtown and then allowed positive economic developments in the core to flounder as a result of council’s own inability to demonstrate the leadership necessitated by their legal mandate. After having a successful first year of operations, the Thai Memory restaurant, located adjacent to the Balfour site, has had to close as the demolition process slowly continues. The restaurant’s owners Toon and Pat Satasuk have worked very hard to ensure a top-flight dining experience. Now their efforts are stalled as the city finally begins to get its act together on this matter.

Positive communities do not neglect their member citizens. As such, Pepperjacks Café, also located on King William, is hosting a benefit concert on Friday evening to raise money to assist the Satasuks through this financially difficult transition. Performers include the very capable Sarah Good and Terra Lightfoot, Annie Shaw, legend-in-the-scene Mark Raymond, and the always-amusing Matt Jelly. DJ sets from Jeremy Greenspan of the Junior Boys and scene-stealer Gary Buttrum will keep your ass moving well into the evening hours.

Pepperjacks Café
Friday, May 23: 9 PM
38 King William Street

Monday, May 12, 2008

30 / 30 -- Thirty Years of Hamilton Artists Inc





This video was initially six metres wide by two and a half metres tall, and had separately-edited intertitles. The audio was initially presented in a three-channel discreet mono format with stereo music accompaniment.

Without prejudice toward the previous fifty, I am fond of the last twelve minutes of the video.

Now 30 / 30 can be watched in a crappy online version, taken from a DVD source that I made a year and a half ago. The text remains readable on lower-resolution monitors, but is a bit small for 1680 or 1920. Frankly, some sacrifices need to be made to ensure a large distribution with a minimal cost. Perhaps I will format this for a 60 by 90 pixel cellphone to make the film eminently portable and completely unwatchable. Then I would surely feel as though the video had "made it".

Notes from the DVD:

30 / 30
a video by Quintin Hewlett, done in 2006

30 / 30 is an impressionistic celebration of art as it is practised in the city of Hamilton, Ontario. The impetus for this video project was to document the 30th anniversary of Hamilton Artists Inc., which is one of the oldest and most influential artist-run centres in Canada.

Diverging memories, artist feuds, technical issues – the loss of the audio masters to the digital ether, a continuously degrading camera – and reluctant or reclusive participants served to obscure an easy description of the Inc.

A polyphonous dialogue emerged from the ruined attempt at linear narrative. It was decided that any representation of the Inc. would not be authentic if it did not attempt to contain the various agreements, innuendos, discord, observations, myths, and political positioning between the members of the Inc.’s democracy.

An interview between two artists of the Inc.’s “second generation” in the 1990s is the structural locus for 30 / 30. This interview was itself structured upon the board game Trouble, which was chosen to serve as an aesthetic distillation of the interview process as well as a gag intended for Inc. insiders, for whom the two players represent the “troubling” of the Inc. The filmmaker chose to himself participate by the rules of the game being played, typically in the form of camera movement and thematic juxtaposition between events in the game and images juxtaposed in the other video field.

The video ends with two gestures of disruption, one material and the other symbolic. Alternately, they are optimistic and pessimistic toward the future success of Hamilton Artists Inc. The filmmaker intended this ambivalence to avoid the principle difficulty inherent to any “career retrospective”, namely that the summation of past glories suggests a decidedly inglorious future.

The video here presented was initially formatted for a large-screen and wide-stereo-image presentation at the Hamilton Artist Inc. gallery for December 2005 and May 2006. Fonts and graphics were resized for better display on conventional televisions, and the audio has been reduced from one stereo background music source and three discreet mono interview sources to one stereo image. Headphone monitoring is highly recommended.

Thursday, May 08, 2008

Woodhands @ Pepperjack's Café



Woodhands at Pepperjack's Café, May 3, 2008

handheld camera, ambient sound and lighting, beer

P + C = Woodhands, qzh, Throwaway Digital, 2008

Tuesday, May 06, 2008

T H & B closing performances



a brief document of the closing performances of T H & B, May 3, 2008

performers, in order of appearance:

Tor Lukasik-Foss
Lesley Loksi Chan
Reinhard Reitzenstein & Gayle Young
Dave Hind

handheld camera, ambient sound and lighting

P + C = qzh, Throwaway Digital, 2008

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Stars of the Lid @ The Music Gallery



Stars of the Lid played a great set at The Music Gallery in Toronto on Monday April 28, 2008.


stationary camera, ambient sound and lighting, ~ 1.5 minutes missing from final piece

P + C = Stars of the Lid, qzh, Throwaway Digital, 2008

Thursday, April 24, 2008

Gas High




As another week passes in 2008, we read daily reports about the rising costs of gasoline in this country. Motorists scream in alarm as gas prices continually reach new highs: greater than $1.20 per litre in Ontario; greater than $1.35 per litre in Québec. Rural commuters complain that they require nearly a quarter tank of gasoline just to reach the nearest gas station; some of them question the futility of remaining employed when faced with the economic reality of paying more to commute to work than they actually earn at their job. Every month of the year 2008 has seen a significant rise in the oil futures market, which as of April 23 has priced the May crude oil inventory at nearly $120 per barrel. That might not sound like much until you consider that only 10 years ago the price reached an all-time low of $11.

Over the course of the 20th century, we got so used to cheaply-produced, easy-to-access oil that we put it into everything. The biggest user of oil is of course transportation. We must not only consider personal vehicle use, which in and of itself is vital to a modern high-tech economy. Nearly half of all transportation in North America is freight. In order to stock local stores with all of the consumer products which we take for granted, oil is a cost input. Many of these products are currently shipped by trucks, which constitute the least-efficient mode of freighting goods to stores. As the price of oil rises, naturally the cost of everything that we buy – from chewing gum to plasma televisions – will increase as well.

On a more fundamental level than transportation, the world is bearing witness to the most dangerous reality of our present era. Food prices are escalating drastically as food producers must index their prices to account for the rising costs of their fuel and oil-based fertilizer inputs. Canadians may currently enjoy consuming tropical fruits in the dead of winter, but that luxury will not be so readily available to working families as the cost of a can of peaches approaches $5. While many understand that food prices invariably rise with inflation, citizens of western countries will not peacefully tolerate an exponential rise in the cost of such a basic provision as food, the cost of which will marginalise them as equally as the west has marginalised so-called developing nations over the past century.

Look around your house and you will locate innumerable products and services which would not exist in a mass-market context without a readily-available supply of cheap oil: plastic products, fertilizers, medicines, cosmetics, clothing, building materials, household chemical agents, home heating, and electricity (in some areas of North America). It is unlikely that modern industrial civilization will be able to continue to produce the cheap plastic items which currently populate our lives and our landfills. The economically marginalised of the future will enjoy short, brutal lives digging through landfills in search of the plastics of the 20th century, from which oil will be reconstituted and utilized by those wealthy enough to isolate themselves in a transplanted 20th century lifestyle of oil dependence. I hate to simplify reality and push a metaphor too far, but oil is and always was a dinosaur whose extinction was prolonged by human genius.

Y2K was an expression of the millennial angst inherent in a transition between centuries; it shared a tradition with medieval anxieties from a thousand years ago. Collectively we breathed a sign of relief as the computers continued to function and the planes did not fall out of the sky. Then we all moved on with our lives to enjoy the new millennium. Peak oil will fulfil these dormant anxieties and prove to be the long tomorrow which will obliterate everything that modern civilization has come to appreciate as “the good life”. In the pages of View and elsewhere, myself and others have repeatedly stressed both the nature and the importance of this concept, and I will not repeat myself here except with the following provision: without accounting for future growth in oil use and potential arctic deposits, there exists slightly less than 30 years of conventional oil reserves on the entire planet. Most people reading this article will be alive thirty years from now.

Don’t worry, you might say; in Canada, we have a few trillion barrels of oil, which will fulfill the oil needs of the planet for at least the next century. While I will presently ignore the fact that one hundred years is not much time when placed along the scale of human history and that such mathematics merely postpones the inevitable for a few generations, a more important fact must be considered. Canada’s tarsand oil deposits represent the dying vanities of modern industry. They are an environmental nightmare second only to China’s legion of coal plants. More importantly, they are the most expensive source of oil currently known. Much of the tarsands cannot be economically developed at even today’s high price of oil. These deposits will become financially feasible as oil approaches $200 per barrel and nuclear reactors, needed to evaporate the water necessary for oil extraction, start to become commonplace in the prairies. Ask yourself if you will truly enjoy a world in which the only way to produce enough oil to meet the “needs” of the world is to price it beyond the reach of the vast majority of the Earth’s inhabitants. This is the paradox which will terminally damn the world’s poor and middle classes.

Industrial civilization will transition from bathing in oil to rationing its use to those projects deemed most vital. Enlightened leadership will currently require the proper investment of oil as we enjoy the peak of world production – building massive-scale renewable energy plants and mass-transportation networks; reserving enough oil for the medical requirements of the next century; and perhaps most importantly, rationing enough oil for the production and distribution of affordable food supplies. Only then will the economic and social hardships of the transition from the era of plentiful oil to that of marginal reserves be minimized.

Citizens of democratic countries must demand action now and not when the pumps run dry. Resource scarcity leads to panic, which in turn leads to massive social unrest and violence, which in turn leads to civil and international warfare and ultimately to fascism. With a degree of willpower, sacrifice, and Obama-esque positivism (“Yes we can! Yes we can!”), then modern civilization will prove stronger as a result of the transition from a society of waste and excess to one of mutual and exponential socio-economic benefit. It is however my greatest fear that the true lessons learned over the 20th century – namely greed, vanity, and avarice – will ultimately lead to indifference toward the plight of those left out of the oil loop. Of course, the Pentagon in the U.S. has its own mathematics concerning the issue, namely the use of nuclear weaponry to dissallow foreign oil use by foreign populations. Darfur, Haiti, and Iraq are the opening wounds in a process which may prove to scar us all. Welcome to the 21st century.

Friday, April 18, 2008

Cursed @ Cashbah



Video from the Cursed show at Casbah on March 28, 2008. There is also one song from Taken at the end of the video. Sorry Taken fans, I am not among you.

My apologies Goodfellow; I tried to brave the crowd for good shots, but after enjoying a boot to my newly-unbroken hand I decided to retreat to a safe elevation. Forgive the first few minutes of blank / chaotic screens, as at that point I was getting my ass kicked in by the crowd.

handheld camera, ambient lighting, soundboard audio + ambient sound, ass-kicking

Soundboard audio courtesy of Donny Cooper.

P + C = Cursed, qzh, Throwaway Digital, 2008

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Orphx @ New Harbours Music Series



Orphx @ New Harbours Music Sries 1.1, April 11, 2008

handheld camera, ambient sound + lighting

P + C = Orphx, qzh, Throwaway Digital (2008)

Polmo Polpo @ New Harbours



Christ's Church Cathedral, April 11, 2008

handheld camera, ambient sound + lighting

P + C = Sandro Perri, qzh, Throwaway Digital (2008)

Monday, April 14, 2008

i woke up this morning as the ex-mayor was stealing my mail



I woke up this morning, made some tea, ate my breakfast and opened my front door to see that the ex-mayor of Hamilton Larry Di Ianni was rifling through my mail. We exchanged pleasantries, and he forced a campaign handbill upon me. He asked me the manner in which i employ myself, and after mentioning that i had taught for Mohawk and McMaster, he tried to bond with me by discussing his past as a teacher of high-school english. We laughed and talked about student life. Despite the fact that in his hand ex-Mayor of Hamilton Larry Di Ianni was holding several of my financial statements along with a notification of an unsolicited offer for a pre-approved mortgage and credit card and a flyer suggesting that now is the season for me to get my roof fixed, the day had started off pleasantly enough. I noticed that the letter at the top of the pile which he was holding was a phone bill.

When I asked Larry Di Ianni about specific policies in which i am interested -- high-speed rail from Windsor to Quebec City, light rail for the cities; all using Hamilton steel and jobs from the province's shrinking automotive sector -- he brushed me off and referred to the bullet points on his campaign poster. I was indeed impressed, as it did clearly and emphatically state that "He can do more! He will do more!"

I then asked him to clarify his environmental policies, with specific regard to the transportation needs of working Ontarians. He reminded me that he built the Red Hill Creek Expressway. I reminded him that i had met a few very personable individuals who sat in trees seeking to block construction of another highway through part of Hamilton. I further reminded him that it was a rather undemocratic idea for him to have used city lawyers to make the protestors financially liable for the security measures required to "contain" them. I then reminded him that one Matt Jelly had invited him to a public debate over the issue, and that he had refused to participate.

At this point, Larry Di Ianni put my mail back into my mailbox.

He told me that while we might disagree on traffic concerns, that his record for obtaining provincial funding for municipal social services and job creation speaks for itself, and proves that he will be a force for change if he is elected federally. After all, he can and will do more.

I quickly realized that ex-Mayor of Hamilton Larry Di Ianni was campaigning without a platform, and would only listen to those points which might already agree with Liberal policy. I mentioned the concern that i had for the inherent problems of integrating an economy based on resource extraction and speculative trading (with particular emphasis on energy futures) with the real-world environmental depreciation of many of the biological processes which are fundamental to the continuation of modern civilization as we have come to enjoy it. Food prices are getting as out-of-control as our nation's oil inventory.

Larry Di Ianni then expressed the Liberal party's desire to invest in "green technology", such as biofuels. He elequently explained his enthusiasm for this emerging industry. I agreed, but wondered how we could rationalize the fact that biofuel trades land intended for food with land intended for energy development, and that the poor and working families will naturally suffer as a result of exponentially-rising food and fuel costs. I also said that my grandfather had been a wheat farmer in Alberta, and wondered whether growing a field of plants to make enough biofuel to allow the combine and other harvesting equipment to harvest the field of plants intended for biofuel was a winning strategy in the race to sustainability.

Larry Di Ianni mentioned that he himself was about to be a grandfather. He noted the importance of family life, then bid me a good morning after saying that i was remarkably well informed for a young man who introduced himself as a friend of Matt Jelly. "You should work for my campaign!" he stated enthusiastically. I told him that I would come to his thing if he would come to mine, and I began to relay information about the May 9th New Harbours performance with Michael Snow. He said that he was always interested in the arts, but could not attend. Using his Blackberry, Larry Di Ianni quite eloquently confirmed to me that he had two stag parties to attend that evening. Then, after reminding me of a pleasant Red Hill Creek Expressway drive which he and Matt Jelly experienced, ex-Mayor Larry Di Ianni left me to my porch and tea.

Which got me to thinking.

Larry Di Ianni, I will take you up on this offer. I will work hard to get the youth voters onside with the Liberal party. I will smile for grandmothers everywhere, and dance like a monkey in a suit for the continuing benefit of the federal Liberal party. The federal Liberals were an effective and socially-minded governing party forty years ago, and perhaps some prodding from the youthfully militant will aid to rid the Liberals of their more dogmatically conservative impulses. Red is not normally my choice for political colours, but I would love the chance to help bring some real issues to public debate.

Of course, this would mean that I would have to work for a self-described "Man for All Reasons".

If anyone wishes to contact ex-Mayor, federal Liberal candidate, and enfant-terrible Larry Di Ianni, he can be reached at the following email address. Feel free to speak as liberally as possible when congratulating the ex-Mayor for his contributions to life in the city of Hamilton.

ldiianni@cogeco.ca

-----

Mr. Hewlett,

Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us. As you may know, Mr. Di Ianni was selected by your local Liberal riding association to represent the Liberal Party in the next election. As such, he enjoys the full support of the Leader and the Liberal Party of Canada.

Having said that, I have shared your comments with Mr. Di Ianni in the hopes that he can address your concerns personally.

Regards,

Daniel Lauzon

Directeur adjoint des communications / Deputy Director of Communications

Parti libéral du Canada / Liberal Party of Canada

-----

Quintin,

Imagine my shock at reading your letter, as well as the slanderous blog fabrication of the conversation we had on the front porch of your home.

Upon checking our records, my canvassing partner, who was standing just below the steps of your porch, recorded you as ‘possibly supportive’ after what I described to him as a friendly conversation. In fact, based on our exchange, I did ask you to volunteer during the election. I certainly would not have done that had I sensed your lack of support. So, I can only assume that your behaviour was duplicitous: pretending civility, while harbouring mischief. I have already asked my friend to alter our records, so we won’t bother you again.

I suppose when you told me that you were Matt Jelly’s friend, you were trying to give me a message. Because I have had very civil conversations with Mr. Jelly in our last encounters, I didn’t until now understand your true intent. I have no problems with people not supporting me. I do have problems with outright lies and fabrications. Your blog contains many of these untruths that reflect neither my statements to you or the tenor of our conversation.

You are correct on one count. My pamphlet is not a platform; it is a candidate card intended to introduce myself as a Liberal candidate for Hamilton East Stoney Creek to constituents. You will note that the card contains the following: My Experience; my community Involvement; my personal biography; some of my accomplishments in politics; and a testimonial assessment, from the local newspaper, on my abilities in office.

Nowhere does it include the Liberal Platform and the reason is simple. There is no election yet and the platform has not yet been released. At the doors, I do talk about the general themes that have attracted me to be a member of the Liberal Party and its candidate in this riding. These themes are: Infrastructure support for cities, Poverty Reduction, Manufacturing assistance, and Environmental Sustainability. Mr. Dion has talked about each of these over the past months, and details will be released at the appropriate time. Each of these is important to Hamilton and will be well-received when details are released.

Contrary to your exaggeration in the blog essay, I do recall your mention of rail transportation being important to you. I mentioned my support for this as well, and I have actually written about the need to improve in this area. Why you would mis-represent our conversation is mind-boggling.

What disappointed me most in your entry, however, is your slanderous lie about me taking your mail. How dare you? I know you stated in your letter to M. Dion that you had the intention of being ‘avec humour’, I see nothing humorous about accusing someone of such an intrusive act. I ask you out of decency to retract that allegation.

Common sense will tell everyone that I am knocking on doors to solicit support, not to pry into people’s private mail. The accusation is bizarre. My canvasser friend was flabbergasted when I told him about this allegation of yours, as was I.

In fact, as irony will have it, I have crossed paths with the local postman on more than one occasion as I knocked on doors in the neighbourhood and he and I joked about being on the same route.

Similarly, I have met with a good deal of support in your whole area, with people agreeing to take lawn signs during the campaign supporting my candidacy. I won’t reveal the number of signs to protect my campaign’s strategic position, but even on your street, I met with considerable success. I am sure that each of these residents can be called upon to summarize the content of our positive exchange, if need be.

In summary, Quentin, I have no problems with your support of someone else at election time. I do have problems with duplicity, exaggeration and mischief-making.

Larry Di Ianni, HESC Candidate

-----

Mr. Di Ianni,

In relation to the article which I posted on my blog, despite the funny title the heart of the matter is of course the number of political issues which I raised with you.

The matter of you "stealing my mail" was intended as humour, and was not intended to slander your reputation any further than what you yourself have done while Mayor of the city of Hamilton. I am fully aware that you had my mail in your hand with my phone bill on top simply because you were placing a campaign handbill into my mailbox.

Poetic exaggeration is key to satire.

After the strong-arm tactics which were used by yourself and your administration to push the Red Hill Creek Expressway into existence, I feel that you made yourself into a caricature worthy of some derision. With this in mind, I wrote that you "stole my mail". If I could draw a picture then you would have a big nose and funny facial features, but sadly I cannot do so. I hope you understand that no individual who read this post actually thought that you were stealing my mail for any devious purpose, and in conversation with them I did make it clear that you were just scattering handbills around the neighbourhood. My readers, as such, were more concerned with the fact that you did not have any adequate responses to the issues that I raised with you.

You suggest that since I disagreed with your statements, and yet was wholly civil during our conversation, that I acted in some way in a duplicitous manner. Well my mother ultimately taught me well: I believe that all humans deserve to be treated in a civil manner. You are a personable and generally friendly person, Mr. Di Ianni, and I do not wish to slander you as a person. Perhaps one day soon we could play chess together: as people. But you have to understand that politicians are not simply individuals. In their public function, the individual humanity of a public figure is abstracted into a more hybridized entity which shares an ontological space with creative enterprises -- the fiction of celebrity, if you will. It is with this "hybrid" that I dialogued when I wrote the piece on my blog. Words are words, Mr. Di Ianni. You have yours, and I have mine; we occupy the space in between our respective language. In transubstantive terms, neither of us is fully represented or constituted as individuals by them.

In my youth I was certainly more militant, and would likely have removed you from my porch with a litany of curses. Now that I have aged and grown a few beards, I have come to understand that change in civil society must come through peaceful and productive discourse. Of course, for this discourse to be productive, both parties in conversation must actually hear and understand what each other is saying.

It is with this last point that I believe my satirical article to have found its mark. Namely, you weren't listening to what I was saying, except for when it already agreed with aspects of your campaign. In your response you mention that we agreed when I raised the topic of light and high-speed rail to your attention. A clarification to your "agreement" is necessary. I must counter that I raised this particular issue at three different times during our brief chat, as for years I have been of the opinion that rail is the solution to Hamilton's highway problem. The first time I mentioned it, you started talking about your production as Mayor of Hamilton.

After the second time, when I explained the benefits to the Ontario manufacturing sector that such a project would entail, you mentioned that the Liberal party is the sole party which supports "Manufacturing Assistance". In my blog I mentioned that the only times in our conversation during which you seemed to be listening to the points that I was making occurred when my thoughts strayed into territory covered by the Liberal political platform. While I understand that the official platform is as yet unreleased by the Liberal party, you must agree that a certain political trajectory is quite readily visible to anyone who pays attention to federal politics.

The city of Hamilton is populated with a very high number of working-class families who will not be able to afford the oil required to transport themselves as gas prices continue to rise as oil supplies continue to fall (perhaps as a federally-appointed Liberal, you will come to see that oil production worldwide stagnated a few years ago and is now in decline). Perhaps if I had used the current buzzword LRT to describe my position on rail then you would have remembered the issue that I tried to have you remember. Rail development surely would have helped back in 2003, when Red Hill was peaking as an issue and Stelco was bottoming out. Plus, by taking on such a project Hamilton would have proved itself two years ahead of Al Gore's cinematic popularization of environmental issues.

Perhaps your confusion around the civility of my behaviour and the hostility of my actual statements to the ideologies which you represent is due to the fact that many of my opinions are frequently heard coming from the revolutionary left. Those who are forced closer to the margins of society -- including the protesters on whom you unleashed city lawyers to "recoup" the security costs of their containment -- do indeed make their ideas known in what can to more conservative eyes be described as "crazy". While I do believe that at times more vehement acts of political dissent are necessary, those times are only validated by larger social crises. I myself wish to take a more academic approach. It is with a certain perverse hope that, in the not-too-distant future, a legal team will be able to demonstrate your own financial liability in the matter, as the environmental costs of this development will be itemized as financial losses to the residents of the city of Hamilton.

Your support in the liberal party is assured; I can understand why you have been chosen as a candidate for Hamilton East as your success is a virtual inevitability. Right now the Liberals need some winners, and such is the life of party politics: pick the winners before the ideologies. For at least a few years, you will likely collect cheques as an MPP.

By the way Mr Di Ianni, I checked my own records, which due to my "single" status does not rely on a partner of canvases but rather my own memory. There was no canvassing partner present at the base of my stairs. You may indeed have been walking in the neighbourhood with one, but this person was not present during our conversation. Then again, I sat on my porch drinking tea for the next fifteen minutes and didn't see anyone catch up with you down my street. I assume that for the sake of expediency (not something for which the Liberals are known, by the way) your canvassing partner was busy canvassing a different street.

Perhaps we could test each other's memory: roughly three-and-a-half minutes into our conversation, there was a loud cheering sound in the neighbourhood. Pointing to a truck three doors down from me, I made a joke: "I trust that was from the school, and not the construction guys after having moved something heavy." You laughed then proffered your own joke. We laughed together. Mr. Di Ianni, having canvassed those houses, you had just come from that direction and your joke corrected my statement. They were not construction guys at all. Do you remember your own statement, which correctly described the work and the workers? I certainly do, and perhaps your response will authenticate which person's ability to remember allows a more "truthful" version of events that spring morning.

It may come to pass that I am wrong about your potential as MPP. Perhaps by then you will have come to understand such concepts as "sustainable development", "peak oil", and "suburban sprawl". Until then, your legacy remains tied to the Red Hill Creek Expressway which, while of short-term economic benefit to some people, will be a grey stain on the landscape of Hamilton for decades to come.

If such is mischief-making, then I stand properly accused.

q x

-----

Thank you for your reply. I am familiar with satire, Quintin, and still don’t find your headline humourous or satirical. Obviously neither did some of your friends who had to call to ask if I was really stealing mail. You sort of prove my point. At some appropriate moment, perhaps we can talk in detail about each of your assertions about the road, my motives and my legacy in the city, as well as the protesters and the role of the city in resolving that issue. It would require some time to do that.

I do appreciate civility and always return the courtesy. You are obviously a bright, educated young man and would be deserving of some time.

However, you have reached conclusions based on your own biases, not the record. And that can be the subject of our discussion. The only concern I would have is that you might again publish an exaggeration, or fabrication or satirical version of the conversation without giving me the opportunity to rebut on your blog. Perhaps we can invite some listeners to hear the conversation, just to keep it on the record. I say this without any implied formality…I would want it to be very informal.

A second point, I am running Federally, not provincially (so MP, not MPP). I hope to win based on a record of service, but ultimately, our voters will decide; and I’m ready for their decision and will respect it.

As for my canvassing friend. He is only there to keep records, so he doesn’t do other streets. I am going to every door myself in this pre-writ period and he was there, rest assured.

I will alter my approach, however, and bring him to the doors with me from now on.

Again, I appreciate your response and ask again that you alter your offensive headline on your blog, or at least make it obvious that you are taking ‘poetic’ liberties.

Thank you.

Larry Di Ianni, HESC Candidate

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Dr. Atif Kubursi - Is Economics Relevant?

A lecture from Dr. Atif Kubursi should prove to be a good travelling companion. I too like to commute with music, but sometimes talk is more productive.

Is Economics Relevant?

Thursday, March 20, 2008

new harbours music series 1 - Polmo Polpo / Orphx



now with myspace goodness:

www.myspace.com/newharbours

NEW HARBOURS ANNOUNCES SPRING CONCERTS IN HAMILTON, MICHAEL SNOW AMONG PERFORMERS

The New Harbours Music Series Demonstrates Significant Cultural Influence For The Newly Revitalized City Of Hamilton

HAMILTON, ON – Music fans in Hamilton have long been organizing events for contemporary music. Musical performances in warehouses, stores, basements, and vacant buildings have been significant happenings for those in contact with the musical underground. Now, a series of spring concerts will bring experimental music to the industrial city of Hamilton, Ontario in a more official capacity.

The New Harbours Music Series intends to showcase regional, national, and international artists and performers who engage in experimental musical practises. Presented by the Hamilton Artists Inc. and coordinated by a volunteer committee of local music fans and musicians, the series is dedicated to supporting a wide variety of experimental music.

The concerts will be part of the monthly James Street Art Crawls, and will feature performances from the internationally-renowned multi-disciplinary artist Michael Snow (Officer of the Order of Canada and a recipient of the first Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts), Polmo Polpo, and Slither, with local artists Orphx, Fossils, and Matthew Boughner.

“With the participation of Michael Snow, who ranks among the most significant and well-known artists in Canada, the New Harbours Music Series intends to bring attention to Hamilton’s art community,” says Quintin Hewlett, who is a member of the New Harbours organizing committee. “The James North art district is a jewel largely hidden to residents of Hamilton, who frequently look to Toronto for their culture. That city, great as it is, serves as a black hole sucking in everything from the surrounding cities. Meanwhile, I know people who have come to Hamilton from Europe and the southern U.S. to see shows here that they would not be able to see otherwise. People need to be made aware of what is occurring in their neighbourhood. Local artists like Orphx and Matthew Boughner have an international following. With New Harbours, we intend for Hamilton to experience its own event horizon.”

This series will occur April 11, May 9, and June 13, 2008 inside Christ's Church cathedral, which is located at 252 James Street North. In addition to the wonderful acoustic properties of the building, the cathedral was chosen as the inaugural venue for the music series as it is one of the most significant architectural and historical landmarks in Hamilton.

Furthermore, the downtown location of the cathedral allows this music series to be included in the James North Art Crawl, which is a monthly event currently gathering a national reputation for the increasingly influential output of the community which it fosters. The continued development of the art community in the James Street North gallery district is a prime indication of the rising economic and cultural influence of the revitalized city of Hamilton.

Culture needs to metastasize. we're already planning series for the fall of 2008, as well as spring 2009. New Harbours Music Series will continue to be an integral part of the cultural output of Southern Ontario.

April 11: Polmo Polpo + Orphx
www.cstrecords.com/bands_polmopolpo.html
www.myspace.com/orphx

May 9: Michael Snow + Matthew Boughner
www.actuellecd.com/bio.e/snow_mi.html
http://www.myspace.com/brownbirdcanread

June 13: Slither + Fossils
http://www.tastysoil.com/
www.myspace.com/fossilstrio

###

If you would like more information about New Harbours Music Series or the James Street North gallery district, please contact Ian Jarvis (ian@hamiltonartistsinc.on.ca) or Quintin Hewlett (quintin.hewlett@gmail.com)

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Stars of the Lid -- And Their Refinement of the Decline


Stars of the Lid
And Their Refinement of the Decline
[Kranky, 2007]

The music of Stars of the Lid – Texas-based duo Brian McBride and Adam Wiltzie – can at worst be described as contemplative. Listening to a Stars of the Lid record is not unlike listening to Eno’s early ambient period or the chamber pieces of Arvo Pärt. While the instrumentation is quite varied and the atmospheric dronescapes frequently invoke the aesthetics of cinema, this is not music seeking cathartic release or narrative direction.

This is music that evolves rather slowly over long durations. One is intended to bathe in the textures and drone of each sound and engage in what can paradoxically be described as “situational transcendence”. Each sound is allowed space to be examined in detail. Naturally, the relative tranquillity of the affair can tend to provoke in listeners a degree of lethargy or rumination if one wishes to allow it.

Unlike a great deal of contemporary music of this sort, Stars of the Lid does not rely on generative compositional processes or purely electronic sound sources. For much of the album, live instrumentation is used not solely in opposition to the relative silence of the electronic drones, but to examine the manner in which the timbre of each instrument can serve to define an acoustic space. For example, album opener “Dungtitled (In A Major)” allows a complex harmonic interplay to develop between flugelhorn, cello, and violin as each instrument introduces a static tone which quickly decays into the electronic background, while the two-part piece “Articulate Silences” is notable for the use of a chamber orchestra.

The band started issuing albums in the mid-nineties, and in recent years have learned to be rather judicious in their release schedule. And Their Refinement of the Decline is the duo’s first album since 2001's monumental Tired Sounds of Stars of the Lid. Fans of ironically-titled tracks will appreciate the allusions to the drug-induced states experienced by typical fanboys of ambient music. This nomenclature, here continued from previous albums, explains this album’s title.

While it does not achieve the brilliance of Tired Sounds, this new album demonstrates that McBride and Wiltzie are continuing to perfect their craft as they explore the inner depths of sound spaces. And Their Refinement of the Decline is an impressive release and well worth the acquisition. Stars of the Lid – accompanied by a string section and a 16mm film projectionist – will be playing at The Music Gallery in Toronto on April 28. Christopher Willits and Ken Reaume will also perform.

MP3: Stars of the Lid - The Daughters of Quiet Minds

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Justice Yeldham @ Casbah Lounge




Australian performer Lucas Abela might offend many before his music properly introduces itself. The sight of a human face contorted by a transparent sheet of glass is enough of a grade-school-shenanigan turn-off that a listener must be sufficiently disciplined to endure the performance. The noises which are produced by Abela's instrument of choice for his Justice Yeldham project are indeed varied and sufficiently detailed that repeated listens are quite engaging.

Simultaneously, however, one cannot deny the immediacy of the performance, as Justice Yeldham is a highly visceral and surprising display for the uninitiated. As demonstrated in the video above, quite a few members of the audience were caught off guard by the show. Indeed, an interesting audience dynamic was on display at the Casbah, as on the main stage next door Broken Social Scene member Jason Collette was entertaining a large crowd of university-themed indie music fans. Those who found themselves witness to the destruction of Abela's instrument were necessarily shocked out of their faux-vintage Sevens.