Today (Friday, March 2), the Music Gallery kicks off an exciting expansion of its programming mandate with the release of six archival recordings for streaming and purchase.
Recordings by Merganzer, New Chance, Nukariik, SlowPitchSound, Dialectica and Glen Hall have just gone up on Bandcamp, and there are plans to release another half dozen albums every six months or so. According to the Music Gallery’s press release, the majority of the income from sales will go to the musicians.
The Bandcamp releases are part of a new strategic plan adopted by the non-profit new music centre late last year to promote its own legacy and history. Founded in 1976, the organization recently completed digitally archiving all of its recordings of performances dating back to the year 2000. (Performances from 1976-1999 were archived some time ago, and are in storage at York University.)
This initial set of releases, recorded by technical director Paul Hodge, date from the Music Gallery’s recent past. “We wanted to make sure it was an interesting selection of music that illustrates where we’re at right now,” explains artistic director David Dacks.
The organization’s reputation for constantly breaking new ground is on full display, with one-of-a-kind performances by saxophone quartet Dialectica and Inuvik folk duo Nukariik frontier-pushing experimentalism from New Chance and Slowpitchsound Merganzer’s memorable set opening for Pauline Oliveros’s final Toronto show in 2016 and Glen Hall’s ambitious Rub Out The Word, a multimedia tribute to William S. Burroughs, performed by an ensemble of local avant-jazzers.
It’s not the first time that operating a label was part of the Music Gallery’s mandate. Music Gallery Editions, active through the late 70s and early 80s, released about 40 LPs, as well as some one-offs like 1992’s Masterpieces From The Music Gallery compilation. Some albums from that era – Nihilist Spasm Band and Lubomyr Melnyk, for instance – have subsequently been reissued by other labels, to much broader audiences.
Dacks is enthusiastic about the project’s potential. “Definitely I want to look at more recordings from the early 2000s,” he says. “When Jonny Dovercourt was artistic director, he programmed a lot of indie rock around that time that’s historically important to Toronto.
“I would also like to do more classical releases [but] they are more time-consuming to assemble since we need to seek permission from both artists and composers.”
Also on the table are compilation releases, and perhaps even turning over the archives to DJs and engineers for remix and collage projects (“if artists are cool with it,” he clarifies).
The launch is happening concurrently with the Music Gallery’s latest concert on Friday (March 2), the first installment of Chelsea Shanoff’s Emergents II series at 918 Bathurst. It features two experimental duos: the violinist-percussionist pairing of Duo Holz, and the double cello attack of VC2. Find all the details here.
A reception afterwards will celebrate the launch of the new label, which is now live online. Check out all six releases on the Live At The Music Gallery Bandcamp page here.
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