Heavy Vessel Music Series Launches

I went to the launch of the Heavy Vessel music series last night, which is being organized by Ohbijou's Casey Mecija. It was supposed to be held in a ship in a sandbox at a school on Toronto's Bellwoods Ave., but it got too cold last night, so it had to be moved to the basement of the house on Bellwoods Ave. where Mecija and her sister, Ohbijou's Jenny Mecija, live.

John O'Regan from The D'Urbervilles kicked off the show with some of his solo material. He plays solo as Diamond Rings and his solo stuff is much different from the Joy Division influenced post-rock his band plays. Little of it is strummed and he mostly finger-picks his guitar parts, so it made for a nice contrast from The D'Urbervilles and was a good way to start a mellow Sunday night.

Rolf Klausener from The Acorn was up next. He played some songs with two similarly attired gentlemen (who were both wearing the same sort of flannel shirt as Klausener), and I think one was The Acorn's Jeff DeButte. He played a few songs and shorter selections before the "headliners" — Bruce Peninsula's Matt Cully, Misha Bower, Neil Haverty and Andrew Barker — came up to do their thing.

Bruce Peninsula's A Mountain Is A Mouth is my favourite release of this year so far, and I was extremely impressed that several of its tracks stood up acoustically. A Mountain Is A Mouth is an incredibly dense piece of art and there's tons going on every second, not to mention that it combines styles as disparate as country and classical, and math rock and gospel.

The four members performed three songs from A Mountain Is A Mouth and two newer tracks, at least one of which they'd never done live before. I walked away even more impressed with Bruce Peninsula's musicianship after seeing this show and I can't wait for the next installment of Heavy Vessel.

The Acorn, Bruce Peninsula and The D'Urbervilles will all appear on the upcoming Friends In Bellwoods II compilation, which will also feature unreleased tracks from the likes of Basia Bulat, Great Lake Swimmers, Ohbijou, Sebastien Grainger and others.

The first Friends In Bellwoods compilation has raised over $11,000 for Toronto's Daily Bread Food Bank so far, and hopefully the second can do just as well and maybe even better. More information about Friends In Bellwoods II can be found here.

Aviva was at this with me and took a video during "Shanty Song." You can see it below: