Off the Wall

Off the Wall

Exploring the sexually specific in fan-made subcultures of cartoons, anime, video games, and even airplanes, Maya Ben David’s video and performance work calls upon simulations of the real in interpretations of fiction and depictions of anthropomorphism in pop culture. On March 18 and 19 Long Winter will show her Air Conditioner Monologues, commissioned as a part of Trinity Square Video’s first annual Summer Student Residency. We talked about cosplay, Poképorn, questions of sentience, and the art in embodying and dissecting nostalgia.

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7" Survey: Pet Sun

7" Survey: Pet Sun

Pet Sun’s music relishes, values, and evokes garage rock’s social origins: hazy, beer-splattered suburban spaces that are at once detached from and connected to both the domestic and the public. So it seems appropriate that, in advance of their performance at Long Winter tonight (Feb. 19) and the release of their track “Wish It Was” on this month’s split cassette with Pavilion, the Hamilton four-piece answered our seven-inch survey collectively over beers from a cottage this past weekend.

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7" Survey: Pavilion

7" Survey: Pavilion

Shortly after releasing a demo tape as Mercury Girls this past April, Grace Scott, Julie MacKinnon, Jonah Falco and Mike Grdosic rebranded under the name Pavilion. Specializing in gloomy, dramatic post-punk, they’ve kept busy since, and in March they’ll release another cassette, Vexation of Spirit. In the meantime, you can catch them at Long Winter tomorrow night, where Scott says the band may incorporate “performance elements” eluding to a project the group’s been working on since November, and in an appropriate departure from our regular seven-inch series we’ll also have a cassette featuring their track “Pale Shades of Green” and another from Pet Sun available free at the door (despite the format change, we had Scott fill out our monthly seven-inch survey anyway).

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7" Survey: Pantayo

7" Survey: Pantayo

As diasporic Filipina-Canadians, Pantayo’s seven members pursue traditional kulintang (gong-chime music from the Philipinnes) as a means of (re-)accessing their culture and building community. In advance of their performance at Long Winter this Saturday (Jan. 16) and the release of their track “Binalig Bahala Na” on this month’s split with Indoor Voices, Pantayo collectively answered our seven-inch survey to explain their approach to the traditional form and discuss their experiences as diasporic people living in Toronto.

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7" Survey: Indoor Voices

7" Survey: Indoor Voices

After Junetile called it quits and stopped making their sonic chicken soup dream pop in 2004, singer-guitarist Jonathan Relph couldn’t stop making music. Bedroom sketches quickly grew into more, and eventually, Relph formed Indoor Voices together with Owen Davies, Ryan Gassi and Kate Rogers. Markedly more propulsive, Indoor Voices steps further into the poppier end of shoegaze territory, their songs all blanketed with swirly guitar washes. Grab a copy of our January seven-inch this Saturday (Jan. 16) for as-of-yet unreleased Indoor Voices track “Indifferentiator” and another from Pantayo, and check out our seven-inch survey with Jonathan Relph below to get caught up to speed.

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CONFRONTING 'TRAD(E)ITIONS'

CONFRONTING 'TRAD(E)ITIONS'

Videofag, Kensington Market’s beloved storefront cinema and performance space is set to close following this year’s series of exhibitions. Before the PWYC venue closes its doors for good, Toronto-based Colombian artist Lido Pimienta will take up residence, unveiling her first solo art show, running this Thursday (Jan. 14) through Jan. 24. The self-professed “powerhouse” hasn’t stopped performing, producing and creating since releasing her debut LP Color in 2010. She’s set to release her newest album La Papessa later this year, but would scoff at the notion of sticking with just one medium. Her new art exhibition TRAD(E)ITIONS, dives deep into the origins of exotic foliage. It will feature ten original paintings and subsequent trading cards describing the genesis of exotic insects, plants and fruits. 

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7" Survey: New Chance

7" Survey: New Chance

As one of the owners leading Toronto’s Healing Power Records, Victoria Cheong has been responsible for releasing some of the most charmed and magnetic sounds the city has yielded since 2008. Creating music as New Chance, Cheong personally contributed to HPR’s orbit of compelling meditative atmospheres with the release of Ear Rationelle in March, and hasn’t stopped since, producing further work in collaboration with Dancemakers and Public Recordings before the year ended. In advance of New Chance’s inclusion on our December split with Nailbiter, we had Cheong fill out our seven-inch survey to help us catch up.

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