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It was on the very last day of the Vector: Game + Art Convergence conference in Toronto, ON, during the final panel, that a member of the audience asked the four speakers and moderators what they thought about the equation of games with art. The panel’s topic was “The Politics of Appropriation in Game Art,” and was moderated by Felan Parker, with participants Chris Burke and Tamara Yadao (also members of foci+loci, who explore the space and time within video games through experimental musical and visual performances), Martin Zeilinger, and Alex Myers. The panel itself was engaging, as all members on it straddle the line between academics and experimental artists in a variety of ways, but there was something about this question that took everyone aback. After answering, in incredible details, many fine, detail-oriented inquiries about everything from the legal ramifications of appropriating game material from AAA releases to make art to the nitty-gritty of each participants style and interests, the question of “are games art?” was still a challenge.

Tamara Yadao, Alex Myers and Felan Parker.

After batting the question around for a moment, the panelists settled on the idea that to ask if games are art is not a particularly useful questions, because it assumes the answer will ether be yes or no. Tamara Yadao likened it to asking if air was breathable. “The answer is yes – some of it.” It’s not that “are games art?” is a stupid question, but a multiple question, one that must be posited constantly in every context that games appear. It is a question with no absolute answer, but a whole glorious, glitchy ocean of grey area.

In fact, it is this question, and it’s essentially unanswerable nature, that the entire Vector Game + Art Convergence was based around. The Conference, which took place from February 21^st to 24^th at various venues throughout the city (including the Bento Miso co-working space, InterAccess and Propeller fine art galleries, and Videofag cinema and performance space), didn’t attempt to answer this question simply or bluntly, but rather presented a variety of ways in which the confluence of games and art could possibly take place.

There were many ways in which the conference achieved this goal. All of the panels discussed games and gaming culture in a way that presented games as cultural artifacts warranting serious critique. The panelists themselves were all specialists, whether they were artists or not, who treated games as art, either consistently or occasionally, in their own work. Games were featured art games as installations, many of them presented games in gallery spaces, and therefore were contextualized as playable works of art. There were also many examples of ways in which games could be manipulated into becoming art or hijacked to be art, especially during the evening performances by artists like Toca Loca (who performed their Halo Ballet), Foci + Loci (who created an immersive sound space using Little Big Planet) Angela Washko and others. The exhibitions also featured art that was inspired by or somehow created within games, everything from the stunning piece of textile art “The Glitch Scarf” to a book of war stories all lifted from experiences in first person shooters. There were also several screenings throughout the festivals of art films based on games and films that treated games as art, such as Stranger Comes To Town” Identity and the Avatar, and the Suerpcade! event, which featured a collection of commercials, shorts and other video/gaming ephemera presented as art.

The glitch scarf

Perhaps most successful of all was the way that Vector presented participants with the opportunity not only to explore intellectually the ways in which games could be art, but also to experience games as art my playing them, and making them. All of the exhibited games throughout the festival were playable, implicating the viewer and making them an active participant in the process. Also, there were a number of workshops and jams that allowed participants to make their own (potentially art) games as well or make their own art out of games. Chip.jam (led by Jeff Alynak, Roger Bongers and Pete O’hearn) taught participants to use game technologies to make music, noise art and sound; glitch-jam allowed participants to create glitch-based art via video game consoles; and micro-Twine.jam, led by Damian Sommer, led participants through the process of making their own interactive narrative using the Twine engine. The Twine jam workshop was particularly exciting for me, as it was an easy and hands-on way to learn some of the best and most basic tools within the software, while simultaneously being presented with a structured opportunity to write a game. For writers who are interested in learning to write for games, Twine is an incredibly powerful tool, and showing how it could be used within the context of exploring games as art was extremely useful.

Vector: Game + Art Convergence is a gaming conference full of promise. In a city like Toronto, bursting at the seams with indie developers, gaming groups, start-ups and game artists, having a conference like this specifically devoted to exploring the way games can be art is both valuable and needed. After an incredibly successful inaugural conference brimming with intelligently-selected and fascinating programming, it will be very interesting to see how Vector continues to evolve in the coming years.

Almost every single day all month, I’ll be posting a new blog post, book review or meditation on writing and writing life. Come visit!

There isn’t a great deal of aggressive music that profoundly disturbs the listener in a primitive, primal way, an aspect that causes the hair on the back of the neck to stand up and something deep in the pit of the gut to feel cold and sour. Dragged Into Sunlight are one of the few bands capable of producing music that feels genuinely dangerous. Their last full-length, Hatred for Mankind, was a lovely atrocity, but dwelt a little too much on the theatricality of evil, incorporating many sound bites and samples into the work, making it feel at once a bit slick and cluttered. Widowmaker has pushed beyond the manicured surface of foulness into a rotten heart. The three-song album is best consumed as a single monumental track, one that follows the basic three-act structure of any narrative. The first track is all build-up, gathering tension, at once mincing and predatory, the awful and delicate approach of something huge, reeking of blood and tipped with talons. When the torrent of violence comes with the beginning of the second track, the savagery is almost a relief. Dragged into Sunlight combine the bleakest atmospheres of black metal, which hit the back of the throat like oily smoke, with the rich, textured despair of fine doom and the physical, sadistic ferocity of death metal. It’s not often to encounter music this conceptually sophisticated and well executed that also, in its most secret depths, simply hates you.
(Prosthetic)

While terms like genre-defining are thrown around a bit to easily in a great deal of music criticism, there can be no question that, from the very outset, Neurosis have created their own place in heavy music, with the relentless, immense force of a glacier carving its way across the landscape, rearranging the face of continents in the process. Honor Found In Decay is the tenth full-length studio album from Neurosis, and the fifth handled by engineer Steve Albini. Honor Found In Decay is defined by a much quieter energy than in their previous output, a type of brooding restraint that gives the album a sense of gravity and maturity. However, the strengths of Neurosis remain intact, with their impossible, pondering weight and vast, looping song structures still in place. It’s simply that the gears in this massive grinding machine are better oiled, the process of winnowing the listener down to the finest grind smoother than before. “My Heart For Deliverance” finds unexpected moments of vulnerability and softness, while “Raise The Dawn” manages to make the rocking hopelessness of a funeral dirge somehow freeing and uplifting. While the execution has become more precise, more considered, the gigantic, swooping structures of the songs remain as thick and muscular as the Midgard Serpent, undulating around and encircling the world.
(Neurot)

Red Horse, the latest from San Francisco, California’s Early Graves, is a phoenix of an album. On August 2nd 2010, shortly after releasing their second album Goner, founding vocalist Mahk Daniels was killed in a van accident while Early Graves with on tour with Funeral Pyre.

In the wake of that accident, Early Graves reconstructed the band, adding Funeral Pyre vocalist and good friend John Strachan to the lineup and coming back with Red Horse. The result is a ferocious, angry, incredibly powerful and unexpectedly positive album that’s as devastating as it is life-affirming.

While there are elements of thrash, crust, hardcore and even a whiff of brimstone and death metal throughout the record, it is far more productive to think of Early Graves as simply their own interpretation of a heavy metal band. From all the genres they draw techniques from, for Red Horse they have chosen to unite the elements that bring the most ferocious vitality, the most surging energy to the record.

The speed is less about showing off than it is about conveying a sense of breathlessness, a headlong rush against whatever ghost is pursuing. This is an album designed to be listened to at full volume, demanding your complete time and attention.

John Strachan puts in an extraordinary vocal performance as well. As much as his voice conveys power and solidity, manifesting as a profoundly physical, almost tactile force in the mix, it is the elements of vulnerability that he adds to his performance that makes it something special. Some of this is the production as well, the choice to capture and amplify the very human and broken sounding qualities in his voice, the ragged edges, the gargles and rasps, that make his sound at once more fierce and more damaged. There is also a rawness and an echoing quality that makes the sound at once more chaotic and lonelier.

The opening track “Skinwalker” is all about the slow build and burn, that then explodes into a warbling spiral of viciousness. The title track has a thunderous, galloping pace and an merciless noisiness that makes the listener feel as though they are rushing forward uncontrollably, gripping the mane of a nightmare.

Unexpectedly, it was album closer “Quietus” that stole the show for me, beginning as a rancid, acerbic number, spitting bile and defiance, but slowly resolving into a more resigned, mournful instrumental outro.

While a lot of metal uses a dragging pace and ponderous, lugubrious weight to deal with themes of loss, Early Graves rush into it full speed ahead. The sorrow captured here is not captured in the image of a mastodon drowning in tar, but a stallion racing across a lake of fire.

(released October 30, 2012 on No Sleep Records)

Silverthorn is the tenth studio album from Tampa, Florida-based symphonic power metal band Kamelot. The record comes after a period of change, including some significant changes in their lineup and even uncertainly about the band’s future.

In September 2010, very shortly after the release of Poetry for the Poisoned, singer Roy Khan, who had been with the band since 1998, fell seriously ill. Kamelot postponed one major tour and made other performances with guests vocalists. Finally, in April of 2011 Khan announced he would be leaving the band, and Kamelot began to search for a replacement.

In June of 2012, the replacement was announced, and Tommy Karevik (Seventh Wonder) joined the band as the new permanent vocalist. Silverthorn is the Kamelot‘s return after this significant shake-up and Karevik’s debut.

Happily, Karevik’s performance on the album is excellent. His voice has excellent tone and a supple, flexible texture, and over the course of the album he is able to demonstrate his impressive range. In the earlier tracks, in particular “Sacrimony,” it almost feels as though he is holding back, attempting to conform his style to Khan’s familiar range instead of making the music his own. However, in later tracks he gains confidence, especially with the soaring and ambitious “Tom.”

It is going to be interesting to see how Karevik’s addition plays into the evolution of Kamleot. On Silverthorn, it very much comes across as him very respectfully and even tentatively taking on the mantle of the vocalist he is replacing, stepping into the role but not shaking anything up. Once he becomes more comfortable in the role and makes it his own, I expect good things.

Overall, Silverthorn continues on the path laid out by their last record Poetry for the Poisoned. Kamelot have been steadily moving away from the structures of power metal where they originated (though elements still remain, especially in their narrative tendencies). On Silverthorn more than ever, they are also moving away from prog elements into something that is much more straightforwardly gothic, symphonic metal.

It is this drama and darkness that characterizes Silverthorn, all crushed velvet curtains and silver goblets holding red wine so deep it might be blood. The production echoes this, instilling the clear yet far away quality of church bells clanging through fog.

If anything, Silverthorn suffers from coming from a transitional space between the previous incarnation of the band and the new. As the new lineup adjusts, gains confidence and makes further strides forward into whatever their future may bring, I expect their next effort will trade this tentative and delicate exploration of familiar territory for something bolder.

(released October 30, 2012 on SPV Records)

Von // Satanic Blood
Rating: 3.5/5.0 — Same name, new spirit
Label: Von Records
Websites: myspace.com  |  facebook.com
Release Dates: Out worldwide: 10.31.2012

Based in the ironically sunny and cheerful locale of San Francisco, California, Von have been referred to as the very first black metal band in the United States. Formed in 1987, their first demos, Satanic (1990) andSatanic Blood (recorded 1991, released 1992) were significantly influential on the development of the Second Wave of Black Metal. After recording a third demo, Blood Angel(which was never released), Vondisbanded in 1992.

Unlike many black metal bands in the late 80s and very early 90s, however, Von were no flash in the infernal pan. The spirit of the band remained restless. New material gradually appeared over the years: the Satanic Blood Angel compilation appeared in 2003 (and was re-released on vinyl in 2009), which included the never before released Blood Angel demo tracks; bootlegs would occasionally surface, including a split with Dark Funeral called Devil Pigs; and in 2010, an EP version of the Satanic Blooddemo was released with entirely re-recorded and remixed tracks. The band officially reformed in 2010 to play a one-off show at Armageddon Fest in London, but by then the restless spirit of Von had fully returned. The band began recording new material and now, in 2012, they’re finally releasing their long-awaited debut full-length, also, maddeningly for archivists, called Satanic Blood [Not very original are they? - Steel Druhm].

Satanic Blood is a lot like stepping into a time machine. The production is fractured and raw, guilelessly rough and honest. The songs are minimalist to the point of being

simplistic. Each track is based around a few primary chords. The riffs are delivered at a blistering pace and the drumming takes the form of unrelenting blast beats. The vocals are distorted to the point of being inhuman, and are generally delivered as short, guttural shouts. Sometimes the short barks are strung together and become a kind of unholy chant or mantra, giving tracks like “Goat Christ” a slightly more ritualistic feel. This is primitive black metal at its most basic, the very kernel of the genre; you can almost imagine it being performed by twisted homunculi. 

Satanic Blood is particularly fascinating from an academic standpoint as a time capsule back to the nascent origins of the black metal genre in North America. While Von have twenty five years of musical history between their first demos and the release of this full-length, they have tried, and succeeded, to remain true to the original essence of their sound. As black metal has evolved into a rich, varied, hybridized and often experimental genre, a journey into the liminal space where it began it a terrific listen.

And yet, Satanic Blood existing as a full-length, easily accessible product does carry a wistful sense of regret with it as well. The original Vondemos were something that collectors could spend years searching for; for years and years, so few people had even heard of, and the few tapes that existed were rarified items, whispered of with reverence. Having an readily accessible, brand-new recording with an official release takes some of that magic away. Which, of course, is absolute bullshit, because this is the goddamn future and information and media have changes irrevocably, but I’d be lying if I said it didn’t make me a little mournful. 

For collectors and students of the genre, Von‘s Satanic Blood is a fascinating glimpse into the past and the long-overdue change for a formative band to finally issue a definitive release. The world, however, has assed Von by in the mean time, and as such it is also an album doomed to be haunted by its own ghosts.

Perfect Youth: The Birth of Canadian Punk
By Sam Sutherland
ECW Press
366 pp; $22.95

It’s easy to think of the Canadian music scene as something quite neat and tidy, lousy with soulful neo-folk and bright, ebullient indie-rock. Every once in a while, we’ll manufacture a pop superstar for good measure, a fresh-faced teen with a warbling voice just dying to be fixated on by millions. It’s an extension of our perceived national identity as a polite and sensible people, so it follows that our music will likewise be polite and sensible, full of genuine yet restrained emotions and classic narratives. Perfect Youth: The Birth of Canadian Punk throws fistfuls of dirt in the face of these expectations, preferring to concern itself with the bloody, the puke-soaked and the revolutionary.

This book follows on the heels of two other ECW Press releases, part of the press’s efforts to build a library documenting the rise of punk in Canada. Perfect Youth joinsTreat Me Like Dirt: An Oral History of Punk in Toronto and Beyond, 1977-1981 by Liz Worth (originally published by Bongo Beat in 2010 and acquired by ECW in 2011) and Don Pyle’s photographic memoir, Trouble in the Camera Club, a collection of the musician and producer’s photographs, flyers and ticket stubs from the rise of the punk scene in Toronto from 1976 to 1980. Perfect Youth definitely exists in a world where both of those preceding works exist — both are cited as source material and Liz Worth also appears in the acknowledgements. But what sets Perfect Youth apart from either is its scope; Sutherland reaches far beyond the explosive yet contained walled garden of the Toronto scene and instead looks at the rise of punk in Canada on a truly national level.

While Perfect Youth has hooks and anchors in the expected locations — from the burgeoning Queen West strip to the urban corrosion of downtown Vancouver — some of the most exciting research and writing focuses on far more unexpected settings. When Sutherland looks under the rocks in communities generally considered quaint to find a wriggling colony of punk history beneath, it’s a thrilling discovery for both reader and author. Stories of the frigid violence of the Edmonton punk scene and the defiant determination of bands like the Robins (“Moncton’s first gigging punk band”) are standouts.

Perfect Youth doesn’t rely solely on Canada’s vast and varied geography as an organizational system. There are sections dedicated to formative acts and musical movements. Two of the strongest chapters are “Something You Can’t Tell Your Mother,” which examines the crucial role of women in Canadian punk, with a particular focus on The Curse (who were the first all-female band in North America and a vital part of punk’s first wave) and the B-Girls, as well as “Hot Property,” which looks at the development of Northern queercore in Toronto, Calgary and Victoria through the stories of groups like the Dishes, the Diodes and the Pointed Sticks.

There’s a vast amount of original material here, both in the form of rare or lost interviews presented or excerpted for the first time and conversations Sutherland sought out with promoters, musicians and producers from the genre’s beginnings. The challenge of setting up these interviews often guides the narrative, especially in terms of how eccentric or difficult some of the interview subjects proved to be. Whether it’s the gentle reluctance of Murray Ball (former vocalist for the Dishes), who must be coaxed into talking, convinced his band were actually important, before agreeing to let Sutherland turn on the tape recorder, or Sutherland’s dogged pursuit of Ken Chinn of SNFU — who doesn’t have a phone but can sporadically be reached at his favourite bar in early afternoons for a few minutes, if you’re lucky — it’s the challenge of getting these interviews, let alone convincing the subjects to speak with any length, detail or authenticity, that fills his book with tension.

They also instill the text with a sense of the fragility of Canadian punk history. Without texts like Perfect Youth to capture scraps of the now three-decades-old and decrepit musical history, these stories are in just as much danger of erosion and destruction as all the show posters and gig tickets no one thought to carefully store in acid-free environments.

Sutherland began working on Perfect Youth straight out of high school; an early version of the text formed his final project when he was graduating from Ryerson University. Every word comes across with a kind of joy that belies the rigorous journalism of the text, and there’s no doubt this book is the product of relentless obsession. This eliminates any sense of cool detachment between researcher and subject, and in many ways, Sutherland and his all-consuming passion for his subject matter becomes its own character within the text itself. This excitement counters moments of myopia, his enthusiasm making the more detail-heavy passages palatable for the casual reader and fellow music geeks as well.

Sutherland says that, in researching Perfect Youth, he discovered Canadian punk wasn’t a sound “defined by its unifying sonic characteristics, but a shared understanding of our isolation.” Divided by geography, both from each other and the rest of the world, Canadian punk bands often faced the sense of screaming into the void, slaving away on their own. In this book, however, Sutherland has brought the movement together with a clarity and intimacy never achieved before, and for its moments of guilelessness and raw delight, reveals the value of a scene that self-deprecates as often as it’s been dismissed.

Based in Massachusetts, American purveyors of violence Hivesmasher unite the cold sophistication of technical death metal with the blood-soaked intensity of grindcore. While both of these influences privilege all that is fast, complex and brutally difficult, with their second full-length Gutter Choir, Hivesmasher are reaching towards something less fettered and more anguished.

I hesitate to say sloppy, which would imply a lack of care or consideration. No, rather Hivesmasher appreciate the value of surgically precise gashes as well as the randomness inherent in the ballistic pattern of blood spatter. In the palette of violence, Hivesmasher are equal parts Picasso and Pollock.

There is a buzzing, insectoid quality that infuses all 17 grotesque, spewing tracks of Gutter Choir. There is something broken in their structure, like a beehive whose geometry has become demented. The songs often fracture apart or curl around themselves unexpectedly, either folding or expanding out in a way that reminds me of part fractal mathematics and part explosion.

Hivesmasher also take the time to work with different kinds of structures and song lengths, preventing the intensity from ever becoming monotonous. Tracks like “Ugly Cat” and “Shooting At Apparitions” are short, vicious pieces clocking in around half a minute, and hit the listener like opening the door of a blast furnace. Others, like “-Damaged (p)Inc” take fully five minutes to build and thrash and writhe, taking the time to blossom into their full brooding or destructive shape.

Aaron Heinold’s vocal performance is unrelentingly intense but also varied, incorporating both deeper death growls and high-pitched shrieks. While the pace and ferocity of the record never changes, what makes Gutter Choir so successful is all the variations in tone and texture, the different strategies used to get to the same level of fierceness.

Like any good torturer they know when to swap instruments. There is even a hint of some rarely used keyboards here and there, a tactic they could stand to deploy even a little more often.

Rarely does a piece of grindcore manage to both maintain the requisite level of energy and violence without ever descending into repetition or making the listener dull to the violence. Equally rarely does technical death metal manage to perform at a sufficient level of sophistication without sacrificing emotional authenticity and the abandon of genuine violence. With Gutter Choir, Hivesmasher accomplish all of this.

(released October 22, 2012 on Black Market Activities)

Apocryphon is the fourth full-length album from Austin, Texas-based metal band The Sword. They have been characterized as having elements of stoner and doom metal in their sound, though they borrow neither the glacial pace of lugubrious mood from these genres.

Instead, it is more productive to think of them as a product of some of metal’s earliest and most defining bands, like Black Sabbath and Slayer. While their retro-tinged, classic metal sound and propensity to use a combination of Norse mythology and fantasy literature and source material for their lyrics has attracted a lot of attention since their debut in 2006, with Apocryphon The Sword have hit their stride.

While stoner metal implies (at least to me) something more down tempo and psychedelic in flavour to what The Sword play, Apocryphon borrows heavily from the genre’s billowing riff structures and thick, ooozing sound.

The riffs are also incredibly hook-laden and catchy, making this record and easy listen that can be enjoyed just as well as a distant background soundtrack or an intense and focused listening experience. There’s also just a little bit of a darkened atmosphere that adds just a bit of spine-tingling ominousness.

The vocal performance on the record is a highlight. The lyrics are insistent enough to be genuinely interesting while remaining easy and engaging to sing along to. The songs also have a catchy structure centred on powerful choruses that make the stirring, at times anthemic vocals even more of a central focus.

But while Apocryphon is certainly a sing-along record with solid vocals, that is not to diminish the contribution of the groovy, cleverly deployed drum assault and the smart, searing guitars. The production is also spot-on, accentuating the fat, fuzzy ruffing with just that perfect bit of smudge without declaring its presence or being too heavy-handed.

The more that The Sword fully embrace their quest for epicness, the more successful Apocryphon becomes. While grooving, exploratory pieces like “Seven Sisters” are enjoyable, it is the deep, fist-pumping stadium numbers like “Hawks and Serpents” where this record really shines. With this release, The Sword are finally unsheathed.

(released October 22, 2012 on Razor & Tie)

This seven-inch release from sludgy metal experimenters Æges includes a remastered version of “Southern Comfort,” which appeared on their most recent full-length, The Bridge, but is primarily a vehicle for previously unreleased single “Stars.” Both tracks feature the weighty, almost ponderous guitars and gravelly melodic structures that defined their most recent release, every now and again brightened by the inclusion of a more muscular, definitive hard rock riff or even the dappling brightness of a pop hook. “Stars” maintains the desert-like hardcore aesthetic the band favour working within, with its sun-fried, cracking textures and dry, desperate vocal performance. However, there’s something a bit more crawling and insidious about this track, reminding the listener that, in the desert, when it is cooler at night, both the predators and scorpions finally come out to feed.
(Mylene Sheath)

Baltimore, MD’s Darsombra, who dub themselves “transcendental rock,” consider themselves an audio-visual project, with the shifting, dream-like imagery of Ann Everton working in conjunction with Brian Daniloski’s music. Therefore, merely listening to the three vast, swirling tracks that form Climax Community feels like only receiving half of their message, as the visual element that’s such a keystone to their live performance is absent. What remains, however, is a vibrant, verdant, hallucinatory sonic experience that’s as much about the internal journey as it is inner ecology. Two concepts define the album: balance and friction. While every aspect of the record is perfectly weighted against everything else, giving it a pervasive sense of serenity that mirrors that of a pristine natural environment, that doesn’t mean there aren’t spikes of activity or moments of distress. The larger movements of the songs rub against each other with tectonic weight, while subtler elements attack, defeat and consume. Strange and lovely, Climax Community speaks in the language of animal instinct.
(Exile on Mainstream)

Reviewing a Dethklok album is a tricky proposition. On one hand, this is ostensibly a joke. The band are in fact a group of animated cartoon characters and band members, which are the principals in Adult Swim cartoon Metalocalypse, which is about a death metal band that become the most popular musical act in the world. It could be an afterthought, an auxiliary to the show and nothing more, and with song titles like “I Ejaculate Fire” it would be easy to dismiss it out of turn. However, this would ignore the fact that Metalocalypse mastermind Brendon Small is incredibly musically talented and that the production and recording of the album (co-produced by Ulrich Wild, with art by Antonia Canobbio) is intelligent, professional and entirely serious. The result is a record that mocks itself relentlessly, poking fun at everything from the genre to the music business as a whole, as on “Crush The Industry.” It’s a smart and self-aware kind of humour that succeeds brilliantly because the music is also absolutely solid. The relentless double-kick can’t help but energize the listener, and the infectiously catchy and melodic riffing recalls the best and most theatrical of Cradle of Filth or Children of Bodom. While fans of the show will certainly get extra layers of inference out of Dethalbum III, the most amazing thing about it is, all on its own, it stands as a hilarious and skilful example of the genre.
(Williams Street)

This release is a bittersweet one. Black Curtain is challenging and corrosive, a twisting, acid-spitting creation that makes listening something more akin to the act of snake handling. It’s also the last full-length release Hydra Head will put out before it no longer issues new releases, confining activity to its extensive and varied back catalogue. Jodis embody a great deal of what made Hydra Head such an excellent label, one dedicated to putting out difficult music at its best. The band bring together a stunning conglomeration of talent, in James Plotkin (Khanate, OLD), Aaron Turner (Isis, Old Man Gloom, Mamiffer) and Tim Wyskida (Khanate, Blind Idiot God). Sparer than much of Turner’s other work, Black Curtain deals in the currency of scarcity, laying gauzy, aching clean singing over cymbal crashes and urgent but subdued guitars that seem to emanate from very far away. There’s inevitability to this record, a sense of deep and irretrievable loss that permeates every note and breath, soaking in inexorably through the expert use of repetition. “Awful Feast” is particularly fine, retaining more fight than some of the other tracks, combining the peace of a chant or mantra with sheer revulsion. This is a shivering, teeth-bared, cold and scaly album that seeps mourning.
(Hydra Head)

A progressive metal quintet from Poitiers, France, Klone join a heavy metal community that’s alive with experimentation. Their fourth full-length, The Dreamer’s Hideaway, was produced by Franck Hueso (known for his work with Hacride and Deathspell Omega) and this record fits into that coterie of records extremely well. Their sound lays elements of early grunge and jazz fusion on a solid progressive metal armature, sounding something like Porcupine Tree with some Nirvana scuffing it up, with even a slightly more mechanical industrial influence adding some engine oil and shuddering gears to the mix. “Rocket Smoke” and “Into the Void” are standout tracks for their scope and ambition, their willingness to become stratospheric as well as atmospheric. Vast and hungry, with The Dreamer’s Hideaway, Klone have given themselves a huge field to wander in and do their best to fill that space, beginning with a foundation of deep, progressive grooves and building up to intricate spires of airy experimentation.
(Klonosphere)

Geographically, experimental drone unit Mamiffer and blackened shoegaze explorers Pyramids hail from profoundly different environments: Mamiffer are based in cloud-cloaked and verdant Seattle, while Pyramids come from the scorching asphalt heat of Denton, TX. While both bring very different attitudes and approaches to this split, the final product is incredibly revealing about their aesthetic concerns in the way it reveals crucial points of intersection. Both are obsessed with texture and obfuscation, working heavily with grit and haze, the squawk and feedback of electronics and the organic, thunderous rumble of bass. Both are also fascinated by the transcendent moments noise can reveal, the melody in the static. This is revealed variously in the sustained, circular structures of “Sophia” or the spindly, cacophonous rattling of “This One is For Everyone.” While their respective contributions to this split are true to their disparate styles, the mutual interest in illumination makes the final product much closer to an act of veiled and complicated collaboration.
(Hydra Head)

As metal becomes increasingly hybridized, with more sub-genres and novel combinations springing up all of the time, discovering something genuinely new becomes increasingly rare. Still, every once in a while something comes along that sounds like nothing else, but itself, and that is certainly the case with experimental Montreal duo Menace Ruine. Their fourth full-length, Alight In Ashes, is their most ambitious to date, employing much cleaner and more sophisticated production than any of their previous efforts. The band’s two members (S. de la Moth and Geneviève) have assembled a sound that they can genuinely claim as their own out of a relatively few key parts: muted percussion, complex and droning guitars, and at the forefront of every composition, Geneviève’s insistent, haunting voice. The layered production is unlike anything I’ve heard before, with some elements, like the vocals, set in stark relief, while other elements are heavily veiled, as though seen through smoke, as a barbed riff or aching trill of a cello will drift in only to be obscured. They certainly brush against other influences. “Salamandra,” for instance, has an eerily psychedelic quality, with hints of folk, occult rock, shoegaze and even a touch of black metal staining the edges of the sound. Menace Ruine certainly don’t exist in a vacuum, but though moments of comparison to Nadja or Bloody Panda may come up, in terms of a certain technique or moment, their sound and compositions are entirely their own: fresh, surprising challenging and distressingly beautiful.
(Profound Lore)

“The first image that greets you when you walk into the gallery space given over to “Frida & Diego: Passion, Politics and Painting”, an exhibition soon to open at the Art Gallery of Ontario, is a portrait of the pair of artists together. Blown up to life size, Diego Rivera stands proudly, a massive figure, hand resting on his belly, with an amused expression on his face. Frida Kahlo leans into him, both her hands folded around him, her lips quirked up in the slightest smile.

The exhibition, which opens to the public on October 20, is unique for both its beauty and its intimacy. Rather than having separate rooms or exhibitions for Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, guest curator Dot Tuer has chosen to dovetail the two artists’ work. She groups together pieces with similar themes, or ones that were created during the same time period. The artworks are often accompanied by clusters of intimate photographs, both composed and candid, that illustrate Kahlo and Rivera’s married life together.

Also central to the exhibition are the passionate and deeply held political convictions that defined both arists. Kahlo and Rivera were active communists, and their work was deeply influenced by the Spanish, Russian, and Mexican revolutions. From Kahlo’s affair with Leon Trotsky to Rivera’s intense murals celebrating worker’s rights, their politics take centre stage in their artistic output.”

“Now in its 33rd year, the International Festival of Authors (IFOA) brings together an astounding collection of writers. This year, it will feature 190 participants in more than 70 events over the course of 11 days. It starts on Thursday.

If you’re planning to attend IFOA, we definitely recommend that you check out the full festival schedule. All of the events this year are being held in various rooms at either the York Quay Centre (235 Queens Quay West) or the Fleck Dance Theatre, on the third floor of the Queens Quay Terminal (207 Queens Quay West).”

“Friday’s rally in Christie Pits was held in response to three more sexual assaults that were reported in the area over the Thanksgiving weekend. Two of the assaults took place near Montrose Avenue and College Street [PDF], and a third attack happened at Bloor and Grace Streets [PDF]. In all three assaults, women were approached from behind and attacked while walking down residential streets at night.

Officers have increased their patrols in the area, but residents have criticized the Toronto Police Services for a lack of transparency about the circumstances of the attacks as well as their plans for catching the culprit. It is believed that the same assailant who committed the Thanksgiving attacks may have been responsible for many more incidents that occurred in the neighbourhood throughout the summer.”