The very first in-person sliver of our 2021 Something Else! Festival Series at the Bay is a warm salute to one of Southern Ontario’s most valued and beloved composer-improvisers, trumpet players, and bandleaders, LINA ALLEMANO … a well-deserved send-off just before her annual pilgrimage to Berlin.
We will get to hear two of Lina’s marvellous bands. LINA ALLEMANO 4 for their second time in Hamilton, TITANIUM RIOT’s exciting inaugural performance here, and one of ROB CLUTTON-led, long-running, brilliant projects, CLUTTERTONES for their third visit here!
Cello-banjo duo of ANDREW DOWNING & TIM POSGATE, we’re very happy to hear for the first time. A one time Hamilton resident, BRODIE WEST solo sets have not been heard in 6-7 years here! Representing Hamilton always with generous panache and appropriate fire, glassEYElashes never disappoint. They will be a welcome edition to this love-in!
Performance Schedule:
12:00 —> Cluttertones
12:40 —> Brodie West Solo
13:00 —> Lina Allemano's Titanium Riot
14:00 —> Andrew Downing & Tim Posgate
15:00 —> G l a s s E Y E l a s h e s
16:00 —> Lina Allemano Four
Suggested donation $25 at the door…
or in advance via Eventbrite
[OUR ADMISSION POLICY: NO ONE WILL BE REFUSED ENTRY FOR LACK OF FUNDS]
LINA ALLEMANO FOUR
(Photo by Geert Vandepoele)
LINA ALLEMANO trumpet BRODIE WEST alto saxophone ANDREW DOWNING bass NICK FRASER drums
Hailed as one of Canada’s leading avant-garde / free-jazz bands, LINA ALLEMANO FOUR is known internationally for their inventiveness, playfulness, and synergy as they deftly blur the line between composition and improvisation. This exciting Toronto band has been touring extensively for the past 10+ years all across Europe, USA and Canada. Their music has been described as abstract melodicism, combining lush colours with dense free-flowing rhythmic textures.
linaallemano.com/lina-allemano-four
TITANIUM RIOT
LINA ALLEMANO trumpet RYAN DRIVER analog synth ROB CLUTTON electric bass NICK FRASER drums
Lina Allemano's TITANIUM RIOT is "imaginative... surreal... oddly compelling" [Wholenote Magazine].
Lina's Toronto-based TITANIUM RIOT is an accidentallypsychedelic improvising powerhouse with a unique electric-acoustic aesthetic, combining an unusual instrumentation of acoustic trumpet (with acoustic sound-manipulation), analog synth, electric bass, and drums. Called "uncompromisingly explorative" by Europe's experimental music journal Tokafi, the band creates episodic soundscapes and electrically-charged improvisational adventures that unfold with an inviting and organic ebb and flow. TITANIUM RIOT's evolutionary history has its roots in two of Lina's earlier experimental groups: "N" (founded 2005) which gradually fused together with the short-lived Titanium Trio (2010-2012) to form the current quartet incarnation in early 2013.
linaallemano.com/titanium-riot
CLUTTERTONES
LINA ALLEMANO trumpet ROB CLUTTON bass, composition RYAN DRIVER human voice, analogue synth, piano TIM POSGATE banjo, guitar
Bassist Rob Clutton has been a generous and inspiring contributor to Toronto creative music for decades. CLUTTERTONES is a chamber jazz quartet that exquisitely synthesizes his diverse interests – song, long-form composition, lyricism, extended improvisation, extreme textures, and more – through his seasoned bandmates. Cluttertones music reveals itself slowly, making countless subtle, mysterious insinuations in place of bold declarations. Disarmingly gorgeous melodies emerge from the fog of thorny group playing, often evoking the simplicity of folk music.
The group has been playing together for nearly a decade, and each of the members have long associations with the others in various projects. This music plays at the edges between known/unknown, concrete/abstract, solo/group, expression/process. Drawing from a broad range of experience—which includes jazz, European classical music, electronica, improvisation, folk, singer-songwriter, experimental—the Cluttertones play what some have called “otherworldly chamber music.”
RobClutton.com
GLASSEYELASHES
While a healthy number of song-based projects have successfully merged the wayward and soulful, Hamiltonian pop surrealists glassEYElashes make an utterly distinct contribution to the lineage. Grounded by the longtime musical partnership of SARAH GOOD (guitar, voice) and ANNIE SHAW (keyboards, voice) the duo more recently expanded to welcome the ubiquitous BECKY KATZ (percussion, vocals). Each member is voraciously prolific, contributing to a number of the city's recent most adventurous and peculiar musical acts and community initiatives including Earth, Wind, and Choir, Freaky Boos, Strangewaves, Sourpussy, and Pucumber Sasssquash Family Band, while gathering Hamilton Arts Awards, and appearing at local institutions such as Supercrawl and the HPO's What Next? Festival. glassEYElashes' music gleefully and irreverently mashes together the ramshackle rock of early Red Krayola or the Raincoats' The Odyshape, with the agile ethereality of artists such as Jane Siberry and Mary Margaret O'Hara.
glasseyelashes.bandcamp.com/music
ANDREW DOWNING & TIM POSGATE
More than a decade ago these two artists started playing duets together. Being neighbours made it easy and fun to get together in their backyards and play their instruments while sharing their favourite songs and beverages. Both musicians have gone on to make numerous recordings on bass, cello, banjo and guitar and continue to play eclectic music that is informed by jazz, folk and world music. ANDREW DOWNING’s most recent project is called Otterville and TIM POSGATE is part of an acoustic roots collective called So Long Seven. He also performs with Ronley Teper’s Lipliners, Cluttertones and Collette Savard and the Savants.
BRODIE WEST
Alto saxophonist BRODIE WEST of Eucalyptus, Ways, The Brodie West Quintet, The Ex and Getatchew Mekuria, The Lina Allemano 4, and The Ryan Driver Sextet. West studied composition in Amsterdam with Misha Mengelberg.
This event was made possible with kind support from Canada Council for the Arts, Canadian Heritage, & the City of Hamilton.