ROBERT DIACK - Lost Villages
EPK
Robert Diack: Drums; Patrick O’Reilly: Guitar and Pedals; Jacob Thompson: Piano; Brandon Davis: Bass
Recorded at Revolution Studios
This collection of eight tracks runs for a little under 40 minutes, but within this short timeframe Diack and his band conjure a wide range of emotions meditating on the subject of loss: from grief to sadness to anger to nostalgia and hope. The pieces were composed in Toronto and in Southern Ontario. It is the second location that gives the collection its title and the over-arching theme. The press release explains that ‘The Lost Villages were a collection of nine communities and townships in Southern Ontario. The people therein were forcibly removed to make way for the St. Laurence Seaway, a 1950’s project which linked Southern Ontario to the Atlantic Ocean by a collection of waterways. The houses are submerged underwater, as the places where there once was human community there are now lakes.’ This sense of loss is reflected in the titles of the pieces, such as ‘Displace’, ‘Bittered’ or ‘Reliquary’, and the sense of optimism in titles like ‘Idyll’ or ‘Placed’.
Thompson’s gentle piano playing merges with the fuzz and sustain of O’Reilly’s guitar to bounce between elements that have a vaguely Country twang and a much harder rock edge. This works within frameworks which gradually build to crescendos and suddenly drop in volume and emotional intensity. Diack is a drummer and his pieces demonstrate a delight in rhythm and repetition. He cites post-rock bands, such as Canada’s Godspeed You Black Emperor!, as inspiration. If you’re not familiar with post-rock as a concept…imagine that Philip Glass has written a rock song, and then (in the case of Diack’s group) asked a jazz band to play it. As this description suggests, this is music that has its feet in many fields of contemporary, experimental music. But what Diack’s compositions, and the band's playing, does so well is to create a unique and very special sound of their own. You can certainly get a sense of the ‘quiet-loud’ aesthetic of Post-Rock and the ways in which simple tunes are repeated insistently and with small shifts in tonal centre of the music. There is also a fascination with the merging of produced and accidental sounds, where tape hiss or other noises at recording are left in the mix, or with sounds taken could be taken from old vinyl or radio static. For example, the opening track, ‘Displace’, features tracks which are electronically manipulated so that they begin backwards and then, over the course of the tune, are mixed with the same elements played forwards. This gives a layering effect that is a little disorienting but also very effective as the music builds and then suddenly stops. Each piece runs from a couple of minutes to up to 8 minutes, but each has its own inner logic and dynamic that makes it last exactly the right amount of time. The whole CD is a joy to listen to and you can imagine these tunes being taken up and used in all manner on Indie cinema or hip TV shows.
Reviewed by Chris Baber
EPK
Robert Diack: Drums; Patrick O’Reilly: Guitar and Pedals; Jacob Thompson: Piano; Brandon Davis: Bass
Recorded at Revolution Studios
This collection of eight tracks runs for a little under 40 minutes, but within this short timeframe Diack and his band conjure a wide range of emotions meditating on the subject of loss: from grief to sadness to anger to nostalgia and hope. The pieces were composed in Toronto and in Southern Ontario. It is the second location that gives the collection its title and the over-arching theme. The press release explains that ‘The Lost Villages were a collection of nine communities and townships in Southern Ontario. The people therein were forcibly removed to make way for the St. Laurence Seaway, a 1950’s project which linked Southern Ontario to the Atlantic Ocean by a collection of waterways. The houses are submerged underwater, as the places where there once was human community there are now lakes.’ This sense of loss is reflected in the titles of the pieces, such as ‘Displace’, ‘Bittered’ or ‘Reliquary’, and the sense of optimism in titles like ‘Idyll’ or ‘Placed’.
Thompson’s gentle piano playing merges with the fuzz and sustain of O’Reilly’s guitar to bounce between elements that have a vaguely Country twang and a much harder rock edge. This works within frameworks which gradually build to crescendos and suddenly drop in volume and emotional intensity. Diack is a drummer and his pieces demonstrate a delight in rhythm and repetition. He cites post-rock bands, such as Canada’s Godspeed You Black Emperor!, as inspiration. If you’re not familiar with post-rock as a concept…imagine that Philip Glass has written a rock song, and then (in the case of Diack’s group) asked a jazz band to play it. As this description suggests, this is music that has its feet in many fields of contemporary, experimental music. But what Diack’s compositions, and the band's playing, does so well is to create a unique and very special sound of their own. You can certainly get a sense of the ‘quiet-loud’ aesthetic of Post-Rock and the ways in which simple tunes are repeated insistently and with small shifts in tonal centre of the music. There is also a fascination with the merging of produced and accidental sounds, where tape hiss or other noises at recording are left in the mix, or with sounds taken could be taken from old vinyl or radio static. For example, the opening track, ‘Displace’, features tracks which are electronically manipulated so that they begin backwards and then, over the course of the tune, are mixed with the same elements played forwards. This gives a layering effect that is a little disorienting but also very effective as the music builds and then suddenly stops. Each piece runs from a couple of minutes to up to 8 minutes, but each has its own inner logic and dynamic that makes it last exactly the right amount of time. The whole CD is a joy to listen to and you can imagine these tunes being taken up and used in all manner on Indie cinema or hip TV shows.
Reviewed by Chris Baber
