Haters Pass

Chef A is in fine form this week. Typically all swagger and cool, a new menu and staff changes have got him open and sweating a bit more. We bond as (wo)men do in kitchens, over nostalgia for the music of our youth, and sing our way through the hairier parts of our shift on the line. He's got a sense for plating I'd like to learn from, squinting and leaning in closely over fingerling potatoes, fish and asparagus, as he stacks and layers the levels of flavours.
> >
> After a week, there is still no word on Jenyon Middleton's murderer. The SIU is involved, and yet even this makes it seem as though police are entitled to at least a week's paid leave before being held responsible, vis Forcillo, for heavy gunplay. Do they watch over us or stand above? Is the timing of Yatim's justice, this latest potential incident of systematic violence, and the weekend's Caribana celebration an elaborate conceit of control being played out behind well-paid doors? Its an especially difficult summer to be sure where paranoia lies.

> Family spins in a circle around me. The faces are different, as sometimes happens in dreams, but the names are clear: Jessica, Rachel, Katie, Irene, Leah, Rebecca, Maya. Friends appear in their many guises: Peter, Patrick, Meg, Maggie, Chris, Steve, Mary. I watch some of them come to harm, I feel the danger of their closeness and crave comfort as the walls of Shelmerdine come down in the wind.

> > Jessica and I speak of the traumatic healing potentials within the African diaspora. I weep and summon Pharaoh, talk sweetly to your double next door. She opens her patio bar to me at all hours and sunbathes in the nude. To the east of the city, the brother's compound rings with the sounds of song in a sweaty basement. Soundtracks of a different kind of hero. Tales of amorous strife and archeology.
>
> > > A new song flows out of me in the ludic cyphers of a birthday celebration. For a moment I fear the fertile flow may impinge on my blogging, but you assure me that there is plenty of work to be done, speaking truth to power and calling out bullshit in the personal sphere. So here I go again.
> > >
> > > Ghosts have a habit of being stubborn. I've been at odds with the Greek mythology of late, they being the source of such authoritative, colonial dogma in the musico-philosophy spheres of my study. Their brand of apparitions, called shades, seem useful now. When Hercules visited the underworld, he saw friends, lovers, former battlemates and foes 'below', found them  shadows of themselves, bored, bland, bleached out, carping inevitably over the same problems they experienced immediately before death, with no hope, perhaps no desire of resolution, still just a concept, jaded and guarded, detached from the world in a one-sided, Socratic prison shaped unerringly like the inside of their own heads.

> > > I walk the streets and suffer through city transit memorising my new tune. I question who I'm singing for or to, whether this serves a shadow purpose, whether this is a beginning or the end. I see my elbows, realise I'm as skinny as Peter. My body is certainly stronger than my head. I am frustrated and resolute, still seeking a place where I can truly mourn, let down my guard and face life freshly enough to be a part of the greater battle. Every shade that died at sea wants to believe their captain escaped from Circe, Scylla, Charbidis. Even the pigs. Especially them.
>
> Your friend from the theatre is out walking the streets as I return home one night, taking a moment away from conflict with his lady and weighing the responsibilities, pressures and frustrations of his company's public position. The man at the record shop has his own troubles, frustrations and anger to live with.
>
 I will love you always.  I will also turn my back on the shadows, straighten my shoulders, and walk out of the underworld. Ungrounded, I seek an elaborate end. Like Orpheus, I long to sing songs so deliciously that (wo)men will tear the flesh from my bones. I am yet willing to believe that there exists a more colourful, tasteful, powerful and meaningful world outside of the space between my own ears, that land of dreams where you are all waiting to repeat the things you've always said. I turn to see you, I thought you were right behind me almost every step of the way, instead, you keep vanishing beneath the surface of the water, taken by white furies and losing your head, building a life in the land of the dead.

A funky mood on Roncesvalles

Ondmzmgmt@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Jul 25, 2016 10:20 A 30 year old man named
> > > >> >
> Jenyon Middleton
>
> was killed by gunfire in the early hours of Sunday at a complex in our old neighborhood,  at the corner of Roncesvalles and Howard park.
> Police would not confirm by days end whether the victim was armed at the time of the shooting, or even if police had fired any shots.

> An unidentified 25 yo woman was also taken to st Mike's, with a serious but non life threatening gunshot wound to her leg. The funk bands are heavy with thunderous summer mood down here. Around the backyard firepit, and beneath the strings of lights, the word revolution is spoken casually, with a dry, matter of fact, tone of serious acceptance.
>
> The band at the Local on Sunday was Tumako and they played quite solidly, anchored in tight time and riding a baritone sax/ electric guitar frontline over laid back frisky tempos. Some over-effected soloing towards the end. But great, well integrated sound and hella chops. I would have danced, but for all the things that me and Kate had to say. Same thing Wynton Marsalis is saying to Cornel West; Restoring Hope. An essential trope. Knowing people in your neighborhood. Not commuting. A Lighthouse for the arts, podcast go! Not an industry of trends and fashions, taste makers and schools of culture. The people who do the work in the places where things hahapn, till we parted ways, I wending went, at one am I ran into Adam Plant coming out of Gate 403. Beautiful people were with him of course. Because of him I met Sappho herself, she the one mother of all spondees, poetess with raven tress, she herself did manifest, told me a man had taken all her money to go out drinking. We shared a cigarette and I should have bought her breakfast, only asked if she'd be ok tonight. she looked so beautiful, tough. I held her for a moment. I looked over my shoulder all the way down Roncie, I had to post a missed connection to try and confirm if this had really happened, and in what sense. Two emails in response to my post, offering robotic pleasures.
> > > > Everyone's got a threshold. There's a limit to that threshold. > > so this is what it feels like to reach the end of your rope. Or maybe time slipped, and thelth progress we we thought was made was even the wool itself. Maybe the consequence of worldwide communication is a world consciousness, one that will naturally and out of a desire to do healing, confront the madness and pain that manifests itself as injustice, repression, and strife
> > >
> > > > Ah, here we are back at the table. It's that shame I'm trying to cure. It's the place where one of your floppy haired boys caught a touch of my anger: she witnessed, spoke out, and was perfectly prepared to keep you safe. Through trust and respect find friendship strong, the portrait mural of Phil Lynott awaited me at the back of the room. Imagine the progression, anticipate the healing conception. I have no greater purpose. Privileged children may pout over their freedom of choice and their lifestyle decisions, but ultimately the time will come when the middle class finds themselves pinched to pandemic proportions, and the end of an unsustainable lifestyle will loom large, with all of its dreams and promises spent, holding up a lie while promises were rent and fear became the constant undercurrent of life and of acceptable social behaviour. It's normal to be afraid of the police, my family taught me one thanksgiving when I described mistreatment by the 14 division before and  while being held in the drunk tank. Dont stand out, don't attract negative attention. But assume for a minute that this fear is also the fear of our oppressors, that the yoke can only be pulled as tight as they know the need in their own necks, generations spanning centuries of privilege held over their heads like the hat of a doll, fly away! Land. There is much sense and magic here. Considerer that the ruling class may in fact be more mentally unstable and unhealthy than the lower classes whom they stigmatise in just such light: Paranoia is closing ranks and rationing info when shots are fired and lives are lost. Fear is putting guns against knives and toy trucks, the end is nigh those shots fired into Yatim's form downed on the 505.

> O, may I say: what in the world is happening? I know that we're scared and  angry, and I believe we're all right to be so. Robbed enough of life's pleasures by pain and disappointment,  let's live a little while. But where? And how? If I bring tape with me everyday, I could hang sigils in the subway. I desire to upset the tropes of advertising and replace it with the honest celebration of human beauty's truth, through a song I learned in part from you. My Dad didn't have many funk records but he rocked the Jam proper. Costellograms, then, my most Irish mode of making tongues. Call me Samozart, still weaving etudes out of Motown and Bop in the bar downstairs, with 300$ graffiti on the wall, in the old suburb at the heart of this awl, music good TVs bad. I should have gone out to the patio, but I have a persistent habit of embarrassing overtures. I have friends with couches and rooms for rent. I began my singing career performing King of the Road to charm young Caucasian wo(men). I am stabilising myself and preparing for the DMZ.
>
>

Happy birthday Mark Hundevad!

 At midnight on Saturday all of the bars on Yonge are still open, including the one I am in. The moon is full, the tide is high, texts a friend, they inquiring whether I am still collapsing in on myself or interested in seeking out some special moments in the clubs downtown. When I feel the pain of loss, I tend to clamp it down, wearing either incapacitated  sorrow and nihilism, or raging panicked spite. Who is this guy? I walk around an historical site beside the lake, looking for a new apartment and finding only cool breezes and new faces to make up to. I write a blues song about domestic violence and I enjoy the company of a lovely bank teller as she takes time to process my paycheck. I tell myself everyday that there will be a place and a time to let the full sense of loss and insecurity roll through my body. I remind myself to appreciate the rising tides of sensuality, the quickening pulse of justice and rage. I play these parts on stage, sing grunge tunes about my personal pain. I counsel established composers on interpersonal complications. I long to solve this greatest riddle, to live and balance, to lighten my load and be leaned on hard by a lively lover. What better motivation than the love of one's life, what clearer goal than to mend what's been rent?

> Controlled Damage is gearing up for their sets tonight and I catch my breath; from the dizzying sights of late night commerce along the neighborhood stretch. It's been a couple years. There are so many new bars, restaurants, and even more  beautiful people vying to have a good time on their own terms than there were when this intersection first blew up. The street was closed off or something, the incline more fully appreciable, angling into its diverse parks, dancing down the railways, into the gorges, foraging for both sustenance and meaning, supplementing style for memory's substances, calling out for one more round and have-a-good-time. I need some dancing now, and this real-life jazz band is nothing but jams. It's actually closer to Marks brother Jim(on flute and sax)'s bday, but who's counting? Fifty is nifty, and Mark is a powerhouse in a loose blue tie and mustard yellow shirt, on both vibraphone and kit drums, keeping dozens of dedicated drinkers and dancers rapt for hours.  Jim's son Sam can't stop playing through the set breaks on the congas and vibes, blowing off his own steam between supporting the affair on drum kit and synth bass. I need to smoke. Give thanks to all corners. Sam keeps dancing and shaking some kind of tiny percussive frying pan while ladies enjoy the undulating, unending grooves of a classic playlist. In a place where the only rule is civilised behaviour. The guitarist is about to tell me his  definition of the good times here  when the bday boy interrupts to offer instructions on the cowbell parts for the next set...
The downbeat is more important....
The key is f sharp....
Atlantis....

Even my counselor says the world is undergoing healing from intergenerational violence and trauma. Underneath the thin veneer of civil society is the scientific proof of genetic damage. If you want to know why people don't sing to each other like birds anymore, what's really going through our hearts and minds and guts and good- bits are the deep-held tremors of everything-is-not-alright, of us-or- them, and of there-is- not-enough. In this day and age, where do all the songs go? Instead of  serenading Yonge Street, I text my cousin, freshly fallen into a breakup. I set my course west, another buried lead. Oh garden of leafs. You're a grocer's, now. O beautiful women of College and Carlton, you're as open as you can be. I sense your fields, read your t-shirts, doff my hat, chat with co-workers, counsel and am counseled by the many manifestations of the after-life. I read on a crosstown train. The pulsing tempo of my heart resists all of the six million influences around me. I wish to see beyond. I long for nothing but work, home,  and friendship. I am travelling  with nineteen other pilgrims. I  have pushed you and struck your face. I have destroyed wooden objects and laid siege to doors. I am sorry, and I am the sadness of our family's loss. All the other joy stays lit. Nothing is diminished in this new world I propose. Like an air-conditioned room when the roar of cooled cold ceases, I  suggest only that there will be  more room for love and songs, more room for us all, both cheated by destruction. I see no contradiction, insincerity, or malice in you. I see only precious trust and needs. I know you'd do the same for me.

A week of urban augury

> > Welcome back to the land of the dead, where all of the peoples of the world mingle in hellish heat, where skaters and skunks stalk their turf, where slaves to capital wear low-cut shirts, where the smells of garbage, perfume, and fried foods waft across the thoroughfares. I asked for death, and they brought me here.
> >
> > My mother and my sister brought me back across the landscape, prone as a prince in a pile of my worldly possessions. Little here had changed: Eyes closed, one can see every road and route and rut, every shop, bus stop and gastro-pub. In this place, every mind is abuzz of the six million hive.
> >
> > On Monday, I went into the underworld to have my paperwork sorted. Beneath the train tracks my name was written in graffiti, but this does not constitute valid ID. Some roundabout and garbage words from a wo(man) behind the counter, and we fled back to daylight's oppression, changed parking spots three times, and called it a day.
> >
> > On Tuesday, I had a job interview. For an  overripe empire, the urban centres certainly boast many employment opportunities. I will perform the task I learned in a previous incarnation, forty four hours a week. I will trade my free time for capital, I will surrender to the cycle and the sickle. I will feed the dead and the dying.
> >
> > Wednesday is open mic night. Troubled troubadours and fledgling bands offer dirges, dancing. The hood rejoices the spirits of hip hop and rock n roll as they spin about a boxcar-sized room where I lose myself innumerable times, unnumbered ways, I try to remember the person I was, the songs I once wrote. By the end of the night, energy is spiraling wildly. Survival was once a roach in the morning. Success was awkward beauty and after parties. Who was I? What was I  wandering in search of?
> >
> > Thursday is a day for the new gods and the old flames. When craiglist, tinder and bumble don't work to put you in touch with another tormented soul, conjure up the spectre of past lives and loves. You might not recognize them but they remember you, from the story of a dream of a past life, a simpler space-time measured only by proximity and palpitation, a reminder of the newness of all experience, especially love, even in the realm of the damned and the lost.
> >
> > Friday is when the free wo(men) play, five days of work commemorated and undone over the following forty eight hours of ingestion, rejection, triumph and titilation. Try to lose yourself in a river of desire, floating by tunnels downtown, by bus along the buried riverbeds, by starlight in backlanes and border towns, till morning washes all in a gentle, breaching glow. Till the holy days come to the land of the dead, days of worship, commerce, free trade and family. A time to revisit what we have, and to remember what we've lost.
> >
> > Saturday is the saddest day. I found myself a place to stay. My dying drive had gone, away and left me with the willingness to continue living a half-life, a walking death, a stoic, strained act clowned to keep the living at bay. But the mask slipped and cracked on Saturday , sat still too long and lo pain caught up, of dying and living, alone in a room  surrounded by the sounds of life, love's cord severed, crush, brush, and crash,  communication's breakdown. Too many unanswerable, incalculable questions, thee weight washes me to sleep.
> >
> > Sunday is actually the worst. Rest. Park talks and tired walks. Try to go shopping, if you have the strength. Save it: you can have your cake and eat it via text and message, shades of the past life will haunt you on this day. Once, twice, thrice you will push the troubled thrush of a wo(man) away. for naught. Distraught, she wants to join you in the ways wars always end, to put you in her place, trade face for tragicomic masks, tear her flesh and breathe in ash. Plead calmly for as long as you can, she is beyond the influence of your command. Tenderness is only a bitter memory, bosom torn and the hearth we lost. What cost will be yet be hung overhead? Pain and heartbreak are weather patterns, pieces of life's puzzle scattered in the early morning calls for help, resonating off walls, through halls, shrieking inconsolable purgatorial cries of loss and lies. Apologize! And then, maybe, some long awaited dawn to a long overdue all nighter of healing and recovery, we will meet again. Until then, look for me skirting and flirting, putting score to torch and pen. Working for a living, just enough for the city. You are my home, she said. My home now is the land of the dead.

A week of urban augury

> > Welcome back to the land of the dead, where all of the peoples of the world mingle in hellish heat, where skaters and skunks stalk their turf, where slaves to capital wear low-cut shirts, where the smells of garbage, perfume, and fried foods waft across the thoroughfares. I asked for death, and they brought me here.
> >
> > My mother and my sister brought me back across the landscape, prone as a prince in a small pile of my worldly possessions. Little here had changed: Eyes closed, one can see every road and route and rut, every shop, bus stop and gastro-pub. In this place, every mind is abuzz of the six million hive.
> >
> > On Monday, I went into the underworld to have my paperwork sorted. Beneath the train tracks my name was written in graffiti, but this does not constitute valid ID. Some roundabout and garbage words from a wo(man) behind the counter, and we fled back to daylight's oppression, changed parking spots three times, and called it a day.
> >
> > On Tuesday, I had a job interview. For an  overripe empire, the urban centres certainly boast many employment opportunities. I will perform the task I learned in a previous incarnation, forty four hours a week. I will trade my free time for capital, I will surrender to the cycle and the sickle. I will feed the dead and the dying.
> >
> > Wednesday is open mic night. Troubled troubadours and fledgling bands offer dirges, dancing. The hood rejoices the spirits of hip hop and rock n roll as they spin about a boxcar-sized room where I lose myself innumerable times, unnumbered ways, I try to remember the person I was, the songs I once wrote. By the end of the night, energy is spiraling wildly. Survival was once a roach in the morning. Success was awkward beauty and after parties. Who was I? What was I  wandering in search of?
> >
> > Thursday is a day for the new gods and the old flames. When craiglist, tinder and bumble don't work to put you in touch with another tormented soul, conjure up the spectre of past lives and loves. You might not recognize them but they remember you, from the story of a dream of a past life, a simpler space-time measured only by proximity and palpitation, a reminder of the newness of all experience, especially love, even in the realm of the damned and the lost.
> >
> > Friday is when the free wo(men) play, five days of work commemorated and undone over the following forty eight hours of ingestion, rejection, triumph and titilation. Try to lose yourself in a river of desire, floating by tunnels downtown, by bus along the buried riverbeds, by starlight in backlanes and border towns, till morning washes all in a gentle, breaching glow. Till the holy days come to the land of the dead, days of worship, commerce, free trade and family. A time to revisit what we have, and to remember what we've lost.
> >
> > Saturday is the saddest day. I found myself a place to stay. My dying drive had gone, away and left me with the willingness to continue living a half-life, a walking death, a stoic, strained act clowned to keep the living at bay. But the mask slipped and cracked on Saturday , sat still too long and lo pain caught up, of dying and living, alone in a room  surrounded by the sounds of life, love's cord severed, crush, brush, and crash,  communication's breakdown. Too many unanswerable, incalculable questions, thee weight washes me to sleep.
> >
> > Sunday is actually the worst. Rest. Park talks and tired walks. Try to go shopping, if you have the strength. Save it: you can have your cake and eat it via text and message, shades of the past life will haunt you on this day. Once, twice, thrice you will push the troubled thrush of a wo(man) away. for naught. Distraught, she wants to join you in the ways wars always end, to put you in her place, trade face for tragicomic masks, tear her flesh and breathe in ash. Plead calmly for as long as you can, she is beyond the influence of your command. Tenderness is only a bitter memory, bosom torn and the hearth we lost. What cost will be yet be hung overheard? Pain and heartbreak are weather patterns, pieces of life's puzzle scattered in the early morning calls for help, resonating off walls, through halls, shrieking inconsolable purgatorial cries of loss and lies. Apologize! And then, maybe, some long awaited dawn to a long overdue all nighter of healing and recovery, we will meet again. Until then, look for me skirting and flirting, putting score to torch and pen. Working for a living, just enough for the city. Finding a home, she said. My home now is the land of the dead.

Torch songs for the Apocalypse

> >
> > These are hard times across the globe, and I don't want to imply that entertainment in the face of chaos is more important than anything else. While I do lavish verbiage on enterprising musicians, perhaps it's time to be honest in my assessment of their potential and opportunities.
> Not to be bleak.
>
> A young man named Nick Luck has just released an ep online, a collection of songs under the aegis of Aldous, entitled Wake. This boy just out of music school is talented, handsome, and likeable. His music is competent, polished, and eminently listenable. But to be honest, what does that mean?
> Not to seem bitter.
>
> My youthful days of daring and dreams brought me to Toronto with a belly full of tunes and a sense of entitlement to a piece of the action. The venues may change names, and the scene revolves, but the game remains the same, fueled by bar sales and fresh ambition.
>
> If Nick is sharp and level-headed, there may be great opportunities here for him. If he is smart and keeps moving, there is a great highway of gigs and paydays stretching from Saanich to St John's. Almost anything can be done.
>
> And I love these beats. I love the shiny grit of the mixes, the cantilevered ostinati of his vocal acrobatics, the yearning gothy gloom and industrial crunch of it all. But 80 people were killed in France yesterday. A sniper who killed only cops was murdered without trial via robot. Who's talking Turkey? The fear of our protectors has become a siege perilous, black blood live streamed on Facebook.
>
> I don't want music this good to be promoted only as an escapism from the frightening realities of the world today, from the sinking realization of centuries of patriarchy and pain. I choose to hope. That young musicians grow up to understand that they do not nees labels, agents, or lawyers to say or sing the things they feel, that cultural employment becomes more than a subsidized half-measure.
>
> Why isn't making art like a normal job, and why do the dreamers cling? Dig back into any one of our histories and the frustrating mystery yields. A singer's job is to tell the truth, the news, the tales of old, and the hopes for tomorrow. If Aldous can stand for the responsibility that the mystic power of his musical prowess entails, he could help salvage such a situation. I hope I hope I hope I hope. After the Wake, we wept, slept, woke.

Listen to A Wake (EP) by Aldous

https://soundcloud.com/nick-luck-3/sets/a-wake-ep

Hugecup release @ the Piston July 14

A merciful breeze is blowing across the upstairs patio of the Central, and the dark eyed beauties of the many nations of Toronto promenade amongst the blaring horns and waving flags of another meaningless national victory.

I am ordering a steam whistle and waiting for Patrick Power to perform his opening set here tonight. First I spot Uggy (always on point) and then I hear Pat starting up a spooky ghost-folk rendition of 'she moves through the air.' But i more eagerly awaiting the conversation we are about to have on the subject of Valued Customer's new album HugeCup, to be released on July 12th into an over saturated and indifferent marketplace. Please forgive my pessimistic tone. Summer in the city can take a grim toll on mood. 

It's been a few years since the inception of the group, and I have been following the talented lads  downtown gigs and lakeshore sessions, one official album (kalpa), a brilliant collection of b sides (byugecup, 2015), and to this month's release of the illuminated, resonant hugecup itself. Patrick tells me that these two recent releases were written at Bathurst and Quenn, over a month long session or ritual in which 30 tracks were tested and tried. Downtown lifestyles, bohemian bravado, and a healthy smirking transcendence are the energetic auras of these works. 

We chose 8 tracks for Byugecup, and 8 for Hugecup, to re-record for the releases, Patrick tells me while I interrupt him to name drop as many celebrities as I can.

 On Byugecup, he continues, we presented them as they were, crazy and spontaneous. I interrupt him again to describe hugecup, having still only heard it once or twice.

Uggy and me stroll through the korean business district to the Pour Boy. Pat joins us after taking his gear  home. The boys order a pitcher and I  prompt them to say witty things about their upcoming release, their extant discography, and hot cyphers arouand town.

Look at hugecup as a more polished version of what these schooled mages are channeling. While not as discursive in its form as Byugecup, (which should be relished in a similar setting as Return to the 36 chambers)  this music is often in itself discursive:

 by turns funky and jazzy, slamming and soaring. Trumpeter Dave Baldry and drummer Mark Ballyk keep the guitarists tied to reality, as the valued customers weave avant garde ballardry, shimmering reflections on love, space-time, passive aggressive behaviours , and the true feeling of fly.

Track seven, Electron cloud, grinds the hardest basslines on the album. A touch of beats and studio savvy is also worked into their live sets, and their gear is cursed. Let them who steal it suffer. Bullies boils.

 in a single track, several genres, or  rather sounds are in effect simultaneously presented, a well synthesized take on all kinds of music history; slack-rap musings one minute, tripping screams of ego death over a heavy trap beat that transitions smoothly into jazz trumpet and proggy guitar solos the next. welcome to the future. Or is it the past? either way, scared weak,, boring shit is gonna lose. Life is interesting. So is this album.

 like a medieval tapestry of drifting sound, anchored to a funk rhythm section, hear the joyful 'yer bud world',

 #track5 And see what is woven of masterful riffage and boldly beautiful, dreamy and streamy song.

Culottes, track two, is a typically dreamy pat power composition... until Uggy and mark amp it up and shards of boomboxes and lasers begin to join in the stomp:

Culottes:

im trapped up everyday in a fractal laid flat back on a mattress
steady sippin coconut cashews and cactus
the beat went tacet

my mind meditatin like a metronome between the melody I'm makin and the madness 
modulatin many moods just to set a tone no cell phones in a meadowfull of microphone misfit
munchin many edibles
lil miss caught a whiff of this citrus piff in her headphones I got her lifted like a cheerleader isssss
it so wrong if I take you home for the night? 
you're lookin just fine and I'm kinda alright I guess

The boys have been paying attention to the mechanics and form of both jazz and hip hop. This is not the middling funk of old new wave. What is it?

Awesome tapes, track six, begins in a drumless jazz rap arrangement, which allows for the outward spirals of Uggy s many incantations to crescendo effectively.

 The layers and loops of electronic soundscapes colour much of their orchestrations, and this music is often rather perplexing. 

It's encouraging that Zappa's children are also in this case Bird's children. Out of Ottawa, this is the brainy, ballsy tantrum of the 21st century's academy. 

Don't sleep on this Thursday at the Piston with boom-bapper Delorean Clarke, hardcore act STRESSER, and Other Families, 7$, 12$ with CD.