PipeDown! Presents: RubēHill wsg Deanna Petcoff & Mount Mural
June 30, 8:00 PM – 11:00 PM
Doors at 7:30 PM
Event at 8:00 PM
Tickets $10 at the door
Read MoreRubēHill
What Alex Stavropoulos-Laurie ultimately set out to attain when he embarked upon his upcoming project was to seize the freedom to write and produce music on terms dictated by no one but himself.
He’s calling this solo act of defiance RubēHill (pronounced Ru-bee-hill), a name taken from the main character of Flannery O’Connor’s short story “A Stroke of Good Fortune”. There was something in the internal and contemplative nature of O’Connor’s prose and the title character’s continuous fixation on anxieties that resonated deeply with him.
Explorations of human behaviour and the darker nature of the mind were concepts Alex sought to infuse into to his own songs.
Upon an initial listen of RubēHill’s second single, titled Apartment, you get the sense that he’s tapped into a special class of alternative music. By alternative I don’t mean the genre as a whole— more-so in the innovative divergence from the norm that he’s taken in the song’s unconventional structure and bold changes in tempo.
His lyrics carry a sense of entrapment with an unfulfilled need to break free:
“If I leave this room it means I’ve made it out of a tar pit / roll me up in a carpet / please, someone get me out of this apartment…”
Alex bellows out in the sinister and epic outro.
There’s an overtone of ambiguity in his words that leaves you longing for an album of songs just like it, or at the very least another verse of Apartment.
Among the luminaries for Alex’s desire to create something different are Frank Ocean’s “Blond”, A Tribe Called Quest’s “We Got It From Here… Thank You For Your Service” and the Gorillaz “Demon Days” , records he says are:
“all stunning examples of creative freedom in the world of contemporary music”.
The eclectic blend of genres within each of these records helped define the genesis of RubēHill, but it isn’t just the sonic eccentricities that have inspired the project; he also sees great value in the collaborative approach that these artists have adhered to-the process of a range of artists from different backgrounds working towards a greater common goal.
It’s a philosophy that Alex continues to implement in his inner circle of Toronto-based friends: a group of tightly-knit and exceedingly talented musicians seeking to nourish the collective approach.
Alex speaks in earnest of the faith he has in the intelligence of his audience and rejects the notion that people will only be interested if the music adheres to certain set of rules and limitations.
If the versatility of “Apartment” is any indication of what lies ahead, Rubēhill has seemingly given birth to a rare form of being: a sound that’s singularly his own.
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Deanna Petcoff
The word that jumps to mind when hearing Deanna Petcoff’s music for the first time is “yearning”.
Although yearning is a verb, not an adjective, it is the closest thing that can describe the hold her music takes on the listener.
The warmth and texture of her sweeping vocals intertwined with the almost playful blueness of her lyrics fills the listener with a sense of intense longing, and reveals to us a worldview that is full of pain at the loss of love, and full of hope for something more beautiful.
Petcoff grew up worshipping the music of David Bowie, Joan Jett, Lou Reed, and Patti Smith. These musicians, among many others, inspired her to first pick up a guitar and start to play.
This fire grew and was fostered by the women at Girl’s Rock Camp Toronto, which she first attended in 2011. It was there she began her musical career, being paired with many mentors and starting her first band, Pins & Needles, a four-piece based in Toronto.
She continued to play with them for 5 years across Canada, and co-wrote two albums with the group.
For Petcoff, this band spanned her high school years and was a chance to grow, play, and experiment, finding her voice among others in the city.
In January 2018, Pins & Needles disbanded, leading to the beginning of Petcoff’s solo career, and the creation of her first single.
The track, Terribly True, starts softly, almost as if Petcoff is telling us about her day, through a simple hook and sunny guitar. Right when we are pulled in by the story (a woman in love, puzzled by her own mind), the unexpected happens:
the heavy hit of the crash bursts into the melancholy cry of Petcoff’s melody.
Petcoff doesn’t shy away from the heartbreak that inspired this record. Her lyrics are about her own tumultuous relationships and those of the people closest to her. Petcoff’s lyrical prowess comes not from the stories she tells, but from the characters she creates.
Women who are “the manifestation of trust issues”, or are “hardwired to feel like [they’re] boring,” and men who want to be superstars, firefighters, but seem to not hold on long enough to love her.
While the sorrow of these people, caught in this endless yearning, can seem almost tragic, Petcoff manages to do it all with a sense of refreshing self-awareness:
a beachy guitar, a chugging tempo, and a sly smile.
Weaving these characters into the juxtaposing musical tones tells the stories of broken people frantically searching for hope again.
This is what makes Petcoff’s music, as well as her performances, so compelling.
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Mount Mural
With introspection and creative transmutation being the group’s modus operandi, Mount Mural takes the time to look within themselves to better evoke each individual member’s complex amalgam of idiosyncrasies- elements paramount to the manifesting of their inner workings and fantastic dreams into soundscapes.
Mount Mural’s musical space (first started in a small, northern Ontario cottage home) is created by far cries of distant acoustic guitar reverb with embellishing delays, tastefully laced together over intricate, nonpareil drumming styles.
The atmosphere created by Mount Mural subsumes the listener, drawing them out of physical reality for an entrancing ride through sound.
Within the small Ontario cottage walls, in it’s final stages of production- the band’s newest song, titled“There is a Better Place” will be wrapped up and released June 2018.
Silence Presents: Audio Book with Charles Spearin & Tamara Williamson
Doors at 7:30 PM
Event at 8:00 PM
Tickets $20 at Eventbrite
Read MoreCharles Spearin
BIO
Charles Spearin is a multi-instrumentalist who has been an active and influential member of Canada’s independent music community since the mid 1990’s. He is primarily known as a founding member of the instrumental post-rock ensemble Do Make Say Think and an original member of the indie-rock collective Broken Social Scene. Spearin’s most recent work – his first solo album – innocently titled “The Happiness Project” centers around recorded conversations with his downtown neighbours and plays with the cadence of their voices as though they were songs.
The inspiration behind this new project comes partly from his love of music and fascination with sound and partly from his experience and education in Buddhism. Charles was raised with a blind, Buddhist father and, before the birth of his own two children and subsequent familial responsibilities, dedicated much of his time to studying Buddhist philosophy and practicing meditation (including annual retreats in meditation centers, monasteries and solitary cabin-retreats).
Buddhist practice puts emphasis on analyzing the nature of one’s own awareness and experience through study, contemplation and meditation, and often includes long periods of silence and reflection. Returning home to ordinary life and ordinary conversation after extended periods of quiet is what brought Spearin’s attention to what would be the focus of this new album: The natural, unselfconscious, music of speech. By replicating the rising and falling of the recorded voices on different instruments Spearin, in true Buddhist form, attempts to illuminate some of the beauty of ordinary life.
Spearin has performed snippets of his new project while on tour with Broken Social Scene and Do Make Say Think and is now preparing a live version the Happiness Project for a few select performances this spring.
Tamara Williamson
BIO
Tamara Williamson has been a mainstay in the Toronto music scene since the early 90’s. She released 3 albums with her band Mrs. Torrance on the major label BMG. Mrs. Torrance toured extensively in Canada opening for such acts as Oasis, The Beautiful South, Talk Talk, and Jewel. They toured with bands such as The Crash Test Dummies, The Pursuit of Happiness, The Waltons, The Rheostatics, Hayden and King Cobb Steelie. Mrs. Torrance were pushed to radio with their single “Porn” and were on Much Music rotation.
In 2000 Mrs. Torrance disbanded and Tamara started a solo career. Her music is ethereal and sensitive. Using many effects and layers she was one of the first artists to start live looping and was known for her experimentation using both vocal effects and looping. Tamara was featured in The New Music Show in 2000 and her first independent single went into rotation on MUCH Music. Her first recording “Nightmare on Queen Street” was very well received and Tamara played at many folk festivals such as Hillside, The Regina Folk Festival, and NXNE. She also went down the West Coast touring with Bob Wiseman and Matt Nathensen.
In 2003 Tamara was voted fourth best concert of the year by NOW magazine ahead of Green Day, and behind Bjork.
Tamara is the only voice until this year to be recorded on a Do Make Say Think album. She also fronted the trip hop band Microbunny, which won the CBC new band search in 2002.
In 2006 Tamara signed to a French label and toured France extensively as part of “Le Femme S’en Mêlent” tour. She played alongside Feist and Shannon Wright. She was interviewed and recorded live to French National Radio. She also played shows in Spain and Italy.
From 2007 until 2016 Tamara has released four albums and toured in Canada and France. In 2015 Tamara started focusing on playing smaller more intimate festivals and venues such as house concerts.
Tamara was recently featured in the Globe and Mail Broadsheet, an end of year collection of songs written about 2014. Tamara’s song “The Next One” is about women coming forward to speak out about their experiences of sexual harassment and violence and was recorded with the band Absolutely Free. This song was released on a compilation put out by the label Arts and Crafts. Her latest album “Sister Mother Daughter Wife” pays homage to women survivors from around the world.
Tamara is a member of the Canadian Alternative Cover band AVRO, and recently started a ukelele duo project, CROW, with the amazing songwriter Patty Ewaschuk.
Tamara lives in Uxbridge with her son Angus where she has a business creating music for dressage horses. She also paints and has recently commissioned her paintings to The True North Records/Gallery.
Testimonials
“In Toronto in the late 1990’s there was an intelligent, unassuming, earnest musical force that cut right to my heart. Tamara Williamson was no small influence on me and I am thrilled and relieved that she’s making music again.”
– Charles Spearin, Broken Social Scene.
“Someone who can take a room and transpose it onto another plane, a voice without restrictions.”
– Martin Tielli (Rheostatics)
“I’ve admired Tamara for years; she cut a certain path of determination for me by having musical conviction long before I understood those stakes for myself.” – Feist Charles Spearin
Silence Presents: Sick Boss w/Lisen Rylander Löve
June 18, 2018
Come see Don Sawchuk, Dan Pharoah and Brock Holborn each playing their own tunes and covers as well! 3 acts for $15! Come on by and let music fill the silence of the night!
