See you around

I've been a combination of busy and sick over the last couple of weeks, so the shows and the posting have been a little sparser than usual, but despite a stomach bug of indeterminate origin I still managed to make it over to Hintonburg a couple of Saturdays ago for an album release show by Area Resident at the Record Centre. I spent many years working in the same office at the Ottawa Sun office as head resident Doug Hempstead, but this was the first time I've managed to catch him live on stage. But first, the rest of the band: Kristy, Paul and John (also of The Flaps, and others).



Doug hits!



Bass action with Kristy!



More guitar with Paul and John!



Extra Kristy and Paul!



Doug sings!



John sings a bit!



All good fun.

Signal to noise

Summer is headed into its final stretch, and that means festival season is winding down - but at least it's going out with a bang instead of a whimper, with some pretty sharp lineups at of CityFolk and last week's Arboretum. I caught a couple of nights at the Rolf Klausener-curated fest, starting with an evening at St. Alban's, featuring Montreal's Organ Mood, Ottawa's Flying Horses and headlined by Julianna Barwick. St. Alban's was perfect for these acts (sometimes too perfect, when its acoustics made every pin drop behind me audible during the quiet parts). Organ Mood were the first group up. The duo combine music, some instruments of their own design, a lot of audience participation and some overhead projectors. Unfortunately they were also positioned just behind me, where the lighting was so dire the chances of a decent photograph were zero. That said, we'll start things off with Laurie Brown, whose show The Signal co-presented the night.



Overhead action with Mathieu Jacques!



This is what was appearing on the silver screen.



A very grainy Christophe Lamarche-Ledoux provides the music.



An audience member uses one of the band-designed instruments to add some rhythm. Another audience member used a modified doppler to project the sound of her heartbeat, which was pretty cool.



Next up, Flying Horses provided some instrumental sounds while grainy black-and-white images that (I'm guessing) showed off Iceland's stark landscapes played overhead. Raphael Weinroth-Brown on cello and JF Beauchamp on trumpet.



Jade Bergeron winds things up.



Organ action!



The whole lot take their bows.



Julianna Barwick tied the night up in a bow with some lovely looped sounds.



As you can see, I didn't take all that many photos ....