Weights & Measures
With my self-imposed publication deadline for this newsletter looming large, I was feeling a little resigned that I wouldn’t have much to say this time around. The last dispatch went in twenty different directions at once and covered a lot ground – perhaps too much – but a busy week and consequently, very little time for editorial coordination left me with a bit of a dry slate. But you know what, I think that’s alright. We’re adjusting. And while I’ll admit that my mission statement for the newsletter is ambitious, I believe in the strength of the concept, and simply need to respect the limits of our bandwidth as creative folks and allow the project the time to arrive where we want it to be.
So that means no playlists or personal essays from contributors this week. I’m just going to tell you a bit about the core STANDARDS crew, and give you a bit of insight as to how we came to do what we do. I also have a few music recommendations at the bottom of this e-mail for good measure. Thanks for your patience.
Oh, and the newsletter has a name now. Weights & Measures. It’s a bit of an homage to the defunct (and hugely nderrated) Ottawa instrumental math rock band, as well as something that 100% occured to me while googling synonyms for standards like an idiot. I like it though, and I think it works. Check out the obnoxious as hell pauses in this classic while you’re here:
A FEW THINGS ABOUT STANDARDS
First, I should mention that last week we published our second Field Sessions full performance on Youtube, featuring local noise rock purveyors danes.
I wanted to publish the danes video second on our channel after Clara Sanchez’s, because I feel like together they make a great case for the breadth and range of our project – both in terms of the styles of music we’re interested in covering, and the visual treatments we’re keen to explore. I love how the stark lighting we set up for this video truly pops in black and white, and it was sick messing around with camera movement in parts to get that wild, kinetic feeling.
It should be said that danes are good pals, and Phillip Moore – who plays bass in the band – is an integral part of the STANDARDS team, though his energies were clearly directed elsewhere when filming and recording this session. Phil, a musician and set carpenter by trade, is our all-rounder when it comes to producing Field Sessions videos, contributing to both audio engineering and camera operation as needed.
As for our audio production more broadly? Arman Paxad – visual artist, musician and web designer – does an awesome job taking care of our engineering and mixing needs, not to mention building and maintaining our very slick website.
On the video front, I – JM Lacombe – am responsible for the cinematography, the bulk of camera operation and the editing. Being primarily a photographer and writer, STANDARDS is my first foray into videography. I also play in a post-hardcore band with Arman, which is how we met and started collaborating in the first place.
Together, Phil, Arman and I form the current core of STANDARDS. The project started with us wondering whether or not we could pull off producing high-quality performance videos (not unlike the stuff we’d watch coming out of KEXP, Audiotree or NPR’s Tiny Desk) for local acts, on a shoestring budget and with limited technical know-how. Once we realized that between the three of us, we had all the equipment and sheer will necessary, we rented a local community venue, invited some artists and gave it a shot. This was around the end of 2022. I think we’re pretty proud of how far we’ve come in such short time.
Hope this little primer on our tiny crew didn’t feel like filling dead air. I simply realized we had done little in the way of formal introductions so far.
MUSIC RECOMMENDATIONS
Julie Byrne is back with her first album in 6 years, The Greater Wings, and it’s absolutely transcendent. I was a huge fan of her 2017 release Not Even Happiness, and this new one expands on Byrne’s stately finger-picked guitar compositions with slightly more out-there production flourishes – cascading synth arpeggios, airy pockets of chamber folk orchestration, cavernous piano - that wrap around her tremendous voice with an otherworldly grace. One of the year’s best, no doubt.
Last newsletter I shouted out Québécois oi rippers Béton Armé, whose riotous new EP Second Souffle I can’t get enough of. A few weeks ago, that band played a split release show at Foufs with another recent favourite, Puffer, whose self-titled EP absolutely rips. While less explicitly indebted to oi and street punk (though some of that DNA does shine through on “Sister Marie”,) Puffer play gruff hardcore punk that doesn’t shy away from a good rock n’ roll hook. The EP's production does a great job highlighting all these nasty, corrosive riffs while still embracing some of the spirit of lo-fi filth. It’s a trick not unlike what Poison Ruin pulled off on their last LP.
Masakatsu Takagi’s Marginalia compillations have been such a balm for me recently. The Kyoto-based pianist and videographer has been putting out a steady stream of improvised, one-take piano “lullabies” that he records in his home studio, capturing the ambience of the moment – a rainstorm, trees rustling in the wind, faint voices coming in from outside the frame – and compiling them in a series of comprehensive releases. I’ve welcomed these compositions into my daily life – sipping morning coffee in bed, or reading at dusk with Burnabarian crows flying overhead, or while having a nice meal with my partner – and they always heighten the moment, a stratification or superimposition of ambience and meaning that often feels quite magical.
And that it’s for now. Thanks for reading and see you next time.