The Music Gallery is a significant part of Toronto’s cultural history. For 20 years, the centre has been both a haven for and advocate of experimental artists of all sounds and styles. After 15 years of relative transience, the gallery found a semi-permanent home at the church of St. George the Martyr on John Street, just off Queen West. This years’ X-Avant, a four-day celebration of cerebral and experimental music, is the culmination and celebration of these developments.
“Our season has never started with much fanfare,” says Jonny Bunce, the centre’s co-artistic director and publicist. “We thought, there are new artistic directors, there’s a new mission statement-we wanted to do something to say, ‘Hey, we’re back!'”
The great mishmash kicks off today with New York City-based artist Joe McPhee, a multi-instrumentalist with over 50 years of experience in improvisational jazz. Joining him on the bill is Toronto’s Deep Dark United who are part of the Blocks Recording Club (Final Fantasy, Creeping Nobodies, Ninja High School) that act as free jazz’s ambassador to the local indie rock scene.
Also, a multimedia demonstration titled SLIP will be unveiled on Wednesday night. The event-which takes place at Harrison Steam Baths, across the street from the church will mix singing, dancing, drumming, and swimming. It may also contain nudity, so start lining up now.
“We wanted to do something that was a little different, like an electronic music-oriented night, sort of inspired by Mutek,” Bunce says of the Festival’s electronic contingent. To this end, the Music Gallery collaborated with web-based journal Vague Terrain to present Berlin’s Jan Jelinek at the Drake Hotel this Saturday night.
The festival’s easiest sell is likely to be a performance by Om, on Friday night. This duo of Dead Meadow disciples rose from the ashes of the much-loved stoner metal band Sleep, and have won wide-spread critical acclaim from all the usual tastemakers.
However, the name that’s getting the most buzz in advance of X-Avant is legendary minimalist composer and experimental pioneer Tony Conrad, who is responsible for naming The Velvet Underground (among many other things).
Over the years, Conrad (a musician, filmmaker and one-time mathematician) has played with great innovators like John Cale, Faust, and he has regularly appeared in the footnotes of just about every avant-garde scholar since the late ’60s.
Surprisingly, for Bunce, booking Conrad-a celebrity, to say the least-was as simple as sending an e-mail. Conrad jumped at the opportunity after playing the Music Gallery a few years back. “I think it was just a matter of us putting the effort in to say, ‘Hey, we’re still here, we want you to come here and play,'” Bunce notes.
X-Avant serves to reassert the Music Gallery’s presence to its longtime friends, make an introduction to newcomers, and provide a point of contact between audiences who might not have much in common. Whether you’re a Wire-subscribing avant-garde devotee or just a curious bystander, you’re bound to find something of interest here.
