This is the major piece I wrote at my time spent at the residency this winter in Florida. It had been awhile since I wrote a score but it felt good to think of music in a visual sense again - this year has been all rock n roll!
This piece is for three instruments but has the potential to include more. I wrote this piece for the performers that were available at the residency; Nomi Epstein played the piano and Laura Cetillia played the Cello. I tip my hat to them for playing the music beautifully. The music itself is very dreamy and atmospheric. Cells 2.0 is a continuation of the cells series. Cells 1.0 was the first piece I wrote when I got accepted to the composition program at Dalhousie and it tries to focus on the dualities of improvisation and composition - trying to unite the two. The name Cells comes for the idea of using simple musical 'cells' as the basis for your improvisation.
I included the piano page of the score so you can get idea of what it looks like. I really enjoy making graphic scores and have more fun making them then writing the actual music sometimes!
Much thanks to David Berhman for helping me with the piece, and Holland Hopson and Matt Sargent for helping record and setup the show.
What a crazy week last week was. Lantern had three gigs including one that was a collaboritive set with Dirty Beaches in Brooklyn.
In addition to all that, we released a new tape on Night People - which can be purchased on their website, still waiting on artist copies - had an interview (a chopped and screwed interview, if you catch my drift) with Vice Magazine , and had a familiy from Louisiana tell me they were huge fans of mine and recorded themselves singing an Omon Ra II song.
Fortunately most of all this was recorded to video so let's start with the Lantern footage from the SOLD OUT first Unitarian show in Philadelphia. We played in the small side chapel, which was a beautiful space with a beautiful crowd - and the whole place seemed appropriate for a rock n' roll sermon. Dirty Beaches definitely excercised some demons.
This video is half our song "Get Out My Mind" and then all of "I Don't Know" both of which appear on our latest Night People release.
The footage was taken by Brent Wingen.
The following footage, also from the same show, is of Dirty Beaches and shows a new direction. Darker with even more of a hip hop influences. Combining the hysterical delivery of Screamin' Jay Hawkins with Alex's own dark, twisted, narritive. Track is called "Black Silk Stalkings"
This next video is of the Torres boys from Louisiana. Their father got in touch with me asking about lyrics to some Omon Ra II songs. He told me he sang Omon Ra II with his kids on the way to school. I couldn't really believe that some family actually listened to Omon Ra II on the way to school, but still I wrote them out the lyrics and explanations and the father replied.
“I really appreciate the lyrics and love the stories surrounding them. And yes my 4 kids (two boys two girls) are big music fans and love noisy rock and roll. I take requests from them on the way to school, this morning the girls wanted Alice Cooper, my youngest son requested Beck and my oldest one wanted to listen to “Those Egyptian Dudes, Omon Ra” (For a ten year-old he thinks he is a regular comedian). I’ll try to sneak a quick recording of them singing and send it to you.”
Well lo and behold the video surfaced. This was the most humbling, grateful things, to have experienced in my brief career - To have kids love your music. This generation is going to have some cool kids! This came at the right time because I was getting a little shell shocked from all the negative comments we recieved from our Vice article. Advice: Never read the comments. Here is the video!
The next stream of footage is from the Dirty Beaches/Lantern collab set in NYC on Friday the 13th! The show took place at Glasslands in Brooklyn. About a month ago Alex approached me about Lantern backing him up for this gig. We conversed a lot through email about the sound we wanted to go for but it was very much in the ether before we got together to see what it would sound like. Fortunately between the Philly and NYC shows we had a day off. We managed to get in a quick rehearsal Wednesday night and another in Friday afternoon in Bushwick. All the riffs we had we written in seconds and the show was a very vesceral experience. The way the songs went was not a typical verse chorus relationship - although that was definitely an archetype for the works. We used those ideas as platforms but let our physical reactions dictate the dynamics. We tried to keep things short - to avoid meandering 20 minute jams and we tried to give each other a lot of space even though we were playing rawkous free-proto punk. We played the four songs we wrote together and then the last, arguably best song, was completely improvised.
After the last song I broke all my strings. The crowd demanded more, so Alex gave me his guitar. While I was tuning the guitar, all of a sudden Emily and Sophie started rocking out. I was tuning up the B string and it had this spooky sound going up to the B It had this gothic western sound and I remember thinkings 'this is very Alex'. So I made that my riff and then Alex jumps into the audience. I thought the crowd might have been angry that Alex wasn't doing his regular gig but from my experience the sold out crowd seemed to love it. Unfortunately the last song from out set, the improvised 'encore', appears to not have surfaced, but there is a wonderful recording of the first songs. It makes a great bootleg. Who wants to put this out??
If that last song turns up, please let us know!
Alex is an extremely hard working musician and I am glad to see his hardwork is paying off. Before and after the show Alex conducted countless interviews, not to mention after we ran out of songs, the crowd still demanded more, so he went back out and performed a solo Dirty Beaches set, despite being extremely exhausted.
Alright I hope you enjoy the videos. Expect a Dirty Beaches/Lantern collab set again in the near future. And yah? Who wants to put out that bootleg???
New is a bit of a misnomer as the recording takes place before Lantern was a band and I (Zach) was still playing with ideas. Never-the-less....
The recording was done by Andy March (who plays drums on the track, mixed and produced it, and put it out) and Christian Simmons (Play Guitar) in Christian's studio in Montreal - The Silver Door. The group really isn't reflective of the current Lantern line up but an ad hoc group formed in my last weeks in Montreal while I was still conceiving Lantern as a project. It interestingly feature's Alex Zhang Hungtai on bass AKA Dirty Beaches. This is a cassette single. The first track is a blistering metallic psych-rocker. The lyrics and much of the music is improvised. I just told the guys to play as hard and as fast as you can and then a little more and I'll come in with the riff. It features some of my most crazy guitar playing you'll ever hear. The second is a cover of an old Willie Dixon blues Standard, "Love To You" largely inspired by the stones version. The recordings were done to tape live through an 8 track. They sound great. Video below by Robert Drisdelle. The tape is being released on Craft Singles.
Also visit our merch page here. You can grab our previous release if you haven't already, only three copies left!
Lantern, the brainchild of Zachary Fairbrother (guitarist of the late great OMON RA II ) have just dropped the amazing tape "Deliver Me From Nowhere..." for your ear holes to digest. Its a romp through protopunk blues that will leave you howling at the moon like a woodland maniac.
The opener "Crude Vessels of Sound" is a mind melting tour de force of power guitar pyrotechnics. It builds slowly over a serene Midwestern plain, then doused with gasoline, set on fire, and scorched to cinders, leaving only charred remains to bake in a harsh desert sun. Reminds me of Neil Young's solos for the "Dead Man"soundtrack mixed with a little early Ash Ra Temple or perhaps Guru Guru and a heavy dose of FUZZ. I'll be listening to this monster when the super volcano explodes in Yosemite. Check out the justifiably, virtuous music video shot and edited in part by Alex Hungtai of Dirty Beaches and Jackie Lachance.
"Feeln' Like I Might End Up Dead" is straight up death row blues, with Zachary murmuring over gentle guitar lines about strange dreams. "Come On Rip Let's Take A Trip" is harmonica laced, Native American drumming, reverb drenched, Appalachian backwoods snake handling, coal miners music. Seriously folks, that harmonica sound is religious magic to warn all non-believers to get their shit together before the second coming. "Screemin' Dream" is a Bo Diddley party stomper complete with twangy drum smacks/handclaps and chunky guitar riffs. Get down and grungy to the Hasil Adkins cover of "I'm Happy" recorded in the back of some scuzzy West Virginia redneck bar at 2AM. The closer "In The Night Alone" starts off as a stripped down 50's slow dance, then drops off into Lynchian nightmare territory of doom laden keyboards, complete with rain sound effects. I feel like I should be walking back to my apartment to find my own dead rotting body on my bed ala'"Mulholland Drive". Dig this tape hard ya'll. I think you'll be hearing a lot from Mr. Fairbrother in the future and I'm looking forward to see where he's gonna take us next.
Weird Canada Won the CBC Radio3's search light contest for best Canadian Music Website!!!!
Congratulations to Aaron, Jesse, Marie, Jenni, and all the contributors. You all work so hard to make the site great - And a HUGE thank you to everybody that kept voting, it was not all for nothing.
I hope they offer Aaron a radio show, I think that would be a great decision on the part of CBC.
I wish we could all be together to celebrate - perhaps there will mini celebrations across the land whether it is dancing in your room or out with friends.
So I contribute to a blog called Weird Canada - most of you probably are familiar with that site as I check my stats and a lot of my traffic is directed from there. CBC's radio 3 as had a competition this month to find out what is Canada's best music website. Starting from the bottom 100 or so or whatever we have made it to the final stage of the vote - the top 10.
We feel that if Weird Canada wins this will be a small cultural victory for Canada. We will have toppled many mainstream industry blogs and will have stricken a wake up call to the CBC that underground music is important to Canadians. That Weird Canada is a strong force for new music in Canada. Many artists that have been featured in Weird Canada in the last year haveseen their music travel far and wide. While I know all these band's work so hard promoting their music and honing their craft - no doubt has Weird Canada's effort helped their cause.
Artists like D'eon, Grimes, and Dirty Beaches - to name a few have all been covered early in their careers on Weird Canada. These artists music has been released on foreign labels and since been covered in major media outlets and blogs like Pitchfork, Vice, MTV, BBC - even D'eon appearing on Thom Yorke's playlist - but have seldom received support or radio play from the CBC. We feel that we cover the best of Canadian music at Weird Canada and we are always trying to expand our scope. Now I live in the United States and I hear my friend's talk about bands like Gobble Gobble, Make Out Video Tape, and Long Long Long - all of which have been covered early in their starts on Weird Canada. I wondered if they would have known about them if their wasn't a Weird Canada.
Here are some inspiring words from Weird Canada founder Aaron Levin sure to get your DIY blood flowing - and please vote for Weird Canada HERE
-Z
From Weird Canada
CBC Radio 3 is running a pyramidal voting scheme, vetting Weird Canada through a triumvirate of keystrokes, sinusoids, and opinionated minds. A conspiracy of this calibre must be met with deep suspicion and deliberate candor. They pit us against each other – our fellow publishers. They split our fans – those beautiful beings. They place the unbearable suffering of expectation on all who speak their name. Ye wyld typists vie for the last shard of national recognition.
Our radio Narsil has us deep in the trenches, spending weeks at your foot begging for another integer. In the heat of the mud no ideal will last. All succumb to it. Thick. Greasy. Swelling with the rainbows of fallen candidates. In the beginning we shouted “No! This voting scheme shall not stand! Free it all! Let the streets run wild with the multitude of our opinions!” But now, as the blue skies turn black, I face you filled with the adrenaline of conviction. We believe. We want to win. We write these very words to justify our victory grip.
Thanks to your support, the absurd notion that Weird Canada may win has become a reality. We have blown away all the flagpoles and are staring blankly into the void. The Top 10. Why is this important? Why does this matter? Win or not, Weird Canada will remain an exploratory experience for the brazenly adventurous. We will always focus on our northernly kin and enthuse, physically scan, and hyperbolize all the wonderful manifestations of creative potential this country has to offer. Our daily operation will continue, delightedly, into the unheralded cassette oblivion.
However, the Canadian psyche is shifting. Winning this contest may push it further into our camp. The middle ground of indie music is disappearing. The plates are grooving under due pressure from self-recorded geniuses and the industry cannot will not handle it. So we’ve come to you, our people from coast-to-coast, to ask for your vote. A vote along the streams of time. A vote for the only entity proudly bearing the emerging flag of a new northern identity. An identity not born in the offices of minor-majors, but one bursting with the charged, chromatic life festering within tape dubbers, cd burners, pressing plants, and photocopy machines.
Zach lives in Philadelphia, with is wife Christina and their dog, Snowflake. He plays in a band called Ghösh.
He is originally from Nova Scotia.
Email me at zacharyfairbrother@gmail.com
