Born A Poet

On my way to a show at The Music Gallery, I stopped by Manpuku for some Japanese udon. Unlike the typical leisurely week-end lunch, Friday night found the place packed with students from the nearby OCAD University. It has been a couple of decades since I started my first year, so it was with bemusement that I watched them. It must have been early onset dementia, because I thought I saw some old faces in that crowd.

Tonight promised pop music that was different from the mainstream or even the typical indie fare. The performers delivered interesting songs, filled with wonderful harmonies. I have only seen Alex Lukashevsky doing Motown covers with The Big Sound. His trio (with Felicity Williams, Daniela Gesundheit) don't play that sort of rhythmic pop, though their cover of Leadbelly's Take This Hammer had toes tapping. They sang almost choral or classical melodic lines over Alex's skittish guitar in odd time signatures. Best was when they didn't even bother with lyrics and it became pure vocalizing: both silly and enchanting.

AroarA is the married duo of Ariel Engle and Andrew Whiteman (Broken Social Scene). They have set to music words, phrases, and fragments from In The Pines, a book by poet Alice Notley in their debut album of the same name. This gave their pop unusual and evocative content. More pop musicians should consider mining poetry's rich vein, a common occurrence in other musical traditions. But the music was also sonically varied and layered. It was more muscular than when I saw them open for Martha Wainwright (or on their album.) The songs got even bigger and more powerful when they were joined at the end by Leslie Feist and Daniela. A great night of compositional music.