Tuesday, October 31, 2017

Uprooted: Major New Work From Minor Empire




Over the past six years, since their first album, 
Second Nature, won awards and accolades 
from a fascinated Canadian and international audience, 
the hands and hearts of Ozgu Ozman and Ozan Boz 
have been dedicated to fashioning a new transmission 
from the musical world they share as Minor Empire. 
 
And so, a new suite of songs, Uprooted, arrives this month, 
and it is a progression into new territories of elegant melody 
drifting over crackling dramatic landscapes of electronic 
pulsation. At the vanguard of Turkish-based music here in Canada, the duo has developed 
a unique mutualism that melds charismatic singing with the dark crystalline architecture 
of contemporary electro-funk. Uprooted launched on iTunes on October 26.
 To Listen And Buy Go Here
Throughout the record, modified vibrations emanate from Ozan’s guitar and intensely programmed sonic stylings, creating icy spatial realms, and periodically startling effects. These sounds inter-react with the unwinding incandescence of Ozgu’s vocal intaglios and the exotic acoustic tones of Patrick Graham’s taiko, bata, davul, darbuka, bendir and cymbals. Toronto’s Michael Occhipinti brings solar winds and shady breezes to his guitar imaginings and the sobbing bass of Chris Gartner underpins Ozgu’s sensual laments with an urgent organic intensity.

As the shamanic focus of the band, vocalist / lyricist Ozgu Ozman again reaches across the geography of her homeland, selecting techniques of expression from the vast vocabularies of the Balkan, Black Sea and other variegated Turkish cultures, and intuiting those which will translate traditional tropes into the vivid colours and desperate anguish of today’s nation. All are wound into a perfume of trills, glissandi and flights of improvisation that guide the listener along her sensually hypnotic harmonic pathways.
 
 
The prelude, Dinya / The World, comes shimmering in from a distance with Ozgu conjuring the rebirth of the world from her desire for just “a glimpse of your smile”. Its rich texture sets the tone for the theme of spiritual / romantic renewal that underpins the whole album. Echoes web the electric spaces framing the title track Yurtsuz / Uprooted. Rhythm cascades create arcs and arches for the wandering narrator to escape through into new worlds. 
The lyric describes the pilgrimage of a liberated spirit into the perilous new territory of freedom.

“In the nooks of this foreign world
I fooled myself with this dream of a life”
~ Yurtsuz
 
 

Central to the mood of the record is the theme of the disturbance of tranquility. 
The unnatural effect of being uprooted, this particular distress of the heart is the focus 
of the traditional songs that follow. In İki Keklik / Two Partridges, the dilemma of a 
passion which searches for an eternal beyond is mirrored in the patient heartbeat of the 
rhythm, while the melody explores blue-tinted questions of security and sincerity.
 And in Ağ Elime Mor Kınalar Yaktılar / They Put Henna in My Young Hands,
 the innocence of love is cut off by the hierarchies of tradition. 
Chambers of reverberating guitar, odd meters and quizzical electronic effects distort 
the simplicity of the melancholy narrator, and attempt to subvert her resolution, 
until, after a meditative acoustic kanun passage, she rallies with a hope for a better 
chance at fulfillment. 
 
Bahar / Spring, with a brief prelude of galvanized guitar drone entitled Seeds, brings a tidal 
rush of optimism at the midpoint of the album’s arc, which travels a path through stages of 
longing, questing for love, peace, and reunion. At each new bridge, Ozgu’s melody floats, 
restless but steadfastly expanding, over the turbulence of the relentless orchestration that 
surges and swirls beneath. Then the light of the sun, in Güneş Türküsü / Sun’s Song 
irradiates the listener with the rays of a sixties rock ballad. A slippery instrumental passage 
takes chromatic risks but ultimately delivers the vocalist to a new height of confidence.
 
 
The imperial tone of the intro to Green Handkerchief and reversion to a melodic minor key 
reprises the inevitable interference pattern that returns again to supplant the growth that 
the singer has been nurturing with complications. 
İstanbul’dan Üsküdar’a Yol Gider / Road From Istanbul to Uskudar begins the pilgrimage 
through a harsh landscape of fragmented emotions that wander from horror to helplessness 
as the world becomes too real and still more confusing to the spirit. A tone of lamentation 
then overcomes our troubadour as she casts her thoughts homeward over alternately 
sparkling and apocalyptic guitar in Selanik Türküsü / Song of Thessaloniki  and towards 
an attempt to balance resistance with an acceptance of destiny in the languid lyrics of 
Uyuttum Atları / I Put Horses to Sleep: 
 
“I gave the world my dreams
and they wanted to take my life.”


At the end of this cycle, there is only one destination left, as 
Tutam Yar Elinden / Wish I Could Hold Your Hand, 
resolves in the intuited peace that welcomes her beyond the confines of memory and 
earthly strife. Her voice fades into the ascending guitar and rises on waves of clattering
 drums into a new space, with, hopefully, roses and peace and a decisive final clarity.
 
Uprooted  takes the listener on a voyage of imagination. Always fearlessly rising, 
Minor Empire provides lush musical scenery and never succumbs to the perils of disaster and despair and doubt which plague those who remain rooted in the temporal plane, but persist towards another world that holds the promise of true soul nourishment, and a new home for hungry roots.

Minor Empire CD Launch At Hugh`s Room Live, Wednesday, 6 December 
$25 Advance / $30 At The Door 8:30 p.m.

Saturday, October 28, 2017

Playlist For Show Of 27 October

Commissioner of Selection: Paul Corby 

(Brought to you by School & Cross-Bones, Global Warnings and Hot Toxics ) 

Guests Lizzy Hoyt, Joe Bowden, Lily Frost and Chris Wallace 

5-7 p.m. Fridays online http://www.radioregent.com/ and at tunein.com .  
Canadians in Asterisk’d RED. 

Photo by Joe Bowden

5:00 High Fiddle-Lady

* Over The Moon ~ You Didn't Even Know ~ Moondancer NEW DISK

* Lizzy Hoyt ~ Relentless / Interview /Medley: Jenny’s Welcome To Charlie / The New Custom House / Kylebrack Rambler (live) / White Feather (live) ~ New Lady On The Prairie 
~@ The Local Sunday 5 p.m.




5:20 Drum Antic Style

Courtney Barnett ~ Aqua Profunda! ~ Sometimes I Sit And Think And Sometimes I Just Sit ~ @ Massey Hall Tuesday 31 October 

* Joe Bowden ~ At Peace / Interview / Memories Of Cuba ~ Thank You For Listening NEW DISK ~ CD Release @ Canterbury Music Company Sunday 1-3 p.m.

5:40 Scare City


* CATL ~ Save Myself ~ This Shakin' House ~ @ The Dakota Sunday 

Danny Elfman ~ This Is Hallowe'en ~The Nightmare Before Christmas Sdtrk

James Cotton ~ Black Night ~ Harp Attack

* Turkwaz ~ Black Train Took My Beloved Away ~ Nazar ~ @ Lula Lounge Sunday

* Lily Frost ~ 747 / Interview ~ New Single ~ @ Lula Lounge Tuesday for Big City Social Hallowe'en Edition

6:15 Elucidated Hallucinations

Nneenna Freelon ~ Better Than Anything ~ Soulcall

* Chris Wallace's Many Names ~ Visitation / Interview / The Preston Changeling ~ Somewhere Sacred NEW DISK







Antoine "Fats" Domino (February 26, 1928 – October 24, 2017) ~ Boll Weevil / So Long ~ They Call Me The Fat Man : The Legendary Imperial Recordings

* The Band ~ Fats Domino's I'm Ready ~ Moondog Matinee 

Janet Jackson ~ Together Again (Jimmy Jam Deep Remix) ~ @ ACC Thursday 2 November                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          Fats Domino by Pablo Lobato
















Friday, October 27, 2017

A Fiddle Favourite and Two Drummers To Drive

Make room in your early evening for singer-songwriter, fiddler, harpist, stepdancer, and Prairie Lady 
Lizzy Hoyt ,
who is passing through Toronto (with an Orbital stopover) on her way to a show at The Local @ 5 p.m. on Sunday with Ivan Rosenberg.

And then time stands ajar for two of Toronto`s finest sculptors of tempo. Drummer Joe Bowden who will be premiering his new disk, Thanks For Listening at  Canterbury Studio this Sunday from 1:00PM - 3:00PM, will be visiting us at 5:40 to share his thoughts and tunes.

 The soft release show, a live recording, will feature Joe Bowden on drums, Pat Labarbera on saxophone, Michael Shand on piano and Rich Brown on bass with special performances by Emile d’Eon. If you can’t make it person, be sure to tune in to the live stream on Facebook.

Chris Wallace is another drummer who has been busy recording with his side called Chris Wallace's Many Names, featuring Adrean Farrugia, Jeff King and Daniel Fortin lately. His Somewhere Sacred disk dropped at The Rex yesterday evening and is a strong statement of percussive intent. He will be linking into the Orbital flow at 6:30.

Saturday, October 21, 2017

Playlist For Show Of 20 October


Commissioner of Selection: Paul Corby 


(Brought to you by Lights, Candy, Ecstasy!) 

Guests: Valeria Matzner, Eliana Cuevas, Monica Chapman & Alison Young

5-7 p.m. Fridays online http://www.radioregent.com/ and at tunein.com .  
Canadians in Asterisk’d RED. 

5:00 Rays & Beams / Aiming Straight At Heaven

* The Tragically Hip ~ Fireworks ~ Phantom Power

* Valeria Matzner ~ Contemporaneo ~ Anima @ Lula Lounge Monday 23 October

* Eliana Cuevas ~ Alegria / Te Encontrare / Seri Libre ~ Golpes Y Flores NEW DISK ~ CD Release @ Lula Lounge Monday 23 October 

5:30 Total Rock-All

Wanda Jackson ~ Thunder On The Mountain ~ The Party Ain't Over ~ @ Cadillac Lounge tonight and Saturday

* Terra Lightfoot ~ Hold You ~ New Mistakes NEW DISK @ Massey Hall 8 December

Ruth Brown ~ Can't Get Excited ~ R+B= Ruth Brown

* Lynn Miles ~ Deep September Blue ~ Winter ~ @ Burdock Saturday

5:45 Tributes & Tributaries

Dizzy Gillespie The Giant (October 21, 1917 – January 6, 1993) ~ Fiesta Mojo ~ Jazz In Paris (Gitanes 1973)

* Monica Chapman ~ Put A Shine On Your Shoes / Goldfinger / Interview / Baby It's Cold Outside feat. Mark Kelso / Small World ~ Small World ~ @ Homesmith Bar 25 November

6:15 Finger Trails

Paco De Lucia ~ Compadres ~ Zyryab ~ The Paco de Lucia Project @ Koerner Hall Saturday

* Beppe Gambetta ~ Jamin-a ~ Short Stories NEW DISK

Empire Bakuba ~ Nagia Naye ~ Poto Malili Kinshasa Moto! Moto! Moto!

6:30 Vitalitarian

* Alison Young ~ So Here We Are / Interview / After ~ So Here We Are NEW DISK @ Jazz Bistro Friday & Saturday 

Rocker's Revenge feat. Donnie Calvin ~ Walking On Sunshine 12" ~ Magnum Opus 
HAPPY DIWALI




Friday, October 20, 2017

Elegant Jazz Energies Emanating in Orbit Today

At 5:30 today, deep space saxophone vibrations will be emanating from Alison Young's new disk,                                  So Here We Are,                                  as she joins us in Orbit for a preview of her two-night pre-release expedition at the Jazz Bistro this weekend.


And at 6:00, a call from Guelph song sculptress 
Monica Chapman, whose Small World disk re-imagines classic cinematic moments of romance, intrigue and regret. She will be talking about her future plans and upcoming shows.

Saturday, October 14, 2017

Playlist For Show Of 13 October


Commissioner of Selection: Paul Corby 

(Brought to you by Melodious Funk, A Copious Wunk, & The Loveliest Drunk  

Guests: Kat Goldman, Andrew McAnsh of Collective Order, Justin Gray and Sina Bathaie

5-7 p.m. Fridays online http://www.radioregent.com/ and at tunein.com .  
Canadians in Asterisk’d RED. 

5:00 Statute Of Invitations

* Zaki Ibrahim ~ Grow ~ Sho (Iqra In Orange - The EP)

* Chris Ronald ~ Get Back In The Game ~ Fragments NEW DISK ~ @ The Local Tuesday 17

5:15 Melodikat 


* Kat Goldman ~ Release Me / Don't Know Where I'm Bound / Interview / Take It Down The Line (live) / Baby, I Understand (live) ~ The Workingman's Blues NEW DISK ~ CD Release @ Hugh's Room Sunday 5 November

5:30 Overproof Spirits

* Geoff Berner ~ Drunk All Day ~ Whiskey Rabbi ~ @ Burdock Saturday


* Cris Cuddy ~ Drink Up And Be Somebody ~ Time Bomb Baby NEW DISK

Tom Paxton ~ Daily News / Ramblin' Boy ~ Bleecker & MacDougall (Elektra 1984)~ @ Toronto Centre For The Arts Saturday 

5:45 Hivemusic Honey

* Collective Order ~ Laniakea / Interview with Andrew McAnsh / A Meditation ~ Vol. 2 NEW DISK ~ CD release @ The Gladstone Hotel Tuesday 17 October 

6:15 Indus Tree


* Justin Gray & Synthesis ~ Migration / Interview with Justin Gray / New Horizons ~ New Horizons NEW DISK ~ CD Release @ Lula Lounge Wednesday 18 October

6:30 Bright Corners

* Sina Bathaie ~ Interview / In The Sky ~ Ray Of Hope NEW DISK ~ CD Release tonight @ The Lyric Theatre in the Toronto Centre For The Arts

T.S. Monk ~ Little Rootie Tootie by Thelonious Monk (October 10, 1917 – February 17, 1982) ~ Monk On Monk

* Whitney Rose ~ Can't Stop Shakin' ~ Rule 62 NEW DISK @ The Horseshoe Wednesday 18 October

6:45 Weltanschauung and Dance


Miles Davis ~ Orange ~ Aura / Toronto Music Listings ~ Miles Electric Band @ Koerner Hall Saturday

* Zeynep Ozbilen ~ Los Bilbilicos Cantan ~ Zest ~ @ Hugh's Room Live Sunday










Friday, October 13, 2017

Casual Collusions In Today's Orbiterium


Kat Goldman will be in Orbit today to sing chat and play at 5:15 on the eve of her pre CD release show at the Tranzac with serene guitar sensei Bob Cohen

p.s. If you go, maybe stick around for 
BUCHBINDER, OCCHIPINTI,  JURECKA & RICHARDS TONIGHT, OCTOBER 13, 10 PM No cover/PWYC!


Trumpet transubstantiator Andrew McAnsh will drop up at 6:00 to predict the plot points for next Tuesday, October 17, 2017, when The Gladstone Hotel Presents:
Collective Order Vol. 2 + Rebecca MacIntosh (Art Exhibit)
Doors 7:00pm
Tickets $15


Tix Available NOW!
https://www.collectiveorderjazz.com/live


Sina Bathaie, who is a composer and Santur player based in Toronto known for his unique style and hypnotic performance will be calling in at 6:30. He is performing work from his new CD, Ray Of Hope tonight Friday, October 13, 8:30 p.m. at the Lyric Theatre, Toronto Centre For The Arts,5040 Yonge Street, M2N 6R8 starting at 8:30 p.m.

 Performing with him is his full ensemble, consisting of Nima Ahmadieh: Guitar; Oriana Barbato: Bass Guitar; Beth Silver: cello; Erika Nielsen: Cello; Siavash Sadr Mahdavi: Percussion; Randolf Jimenez: Drum and Sina on Santur.