Melissa Boraski, Isla Craig, Lisa Bozikovic
Holy Oak. Friday, August 21, 2009.
Friday evening, Bloor and Lansdowne. Found the venue, just steps away from the subway station, but needed to walk a bit — to unclench — before heading in.1 I had some time to kill.
After a bit, once I realized that the sky was not permanently grey and that ash wasn't raining down from the sky, I started to feel more myself and headed back towards the spot. Ducked into an empty-ish space — turned out to be a very nice little coffee shop, a homey room with a mishmash of assorted tables and chairs. Bought a cup of tea and settled in as some other patrons also started to straggle into the shop. Billed as a show for Eiyn Sof, turned out to be more of a pass-the-guit singer-songwriter night. Which was just what I was looking for. Figuring that my Saturday night was going to be a late night of loud/aggressive music,2 I kinda wanted the opposite of that, which was what led me to see these unfamiliar singers in a neighbourhood I don't get to much.
The room fairly nicely filled up with twentyish people on hand, Melissa Boraski started things off, standing barefoot at one end of the seating area and launching into a song with a voice as clear as spring water. Playing compact compositions with a strong melodic sense, Boraski's music was generally in the country-folk idiom — this is someone, I'd wager, who's spent some quality time with some Townes Van Zandt albums. Nice chops on guit, too. Her music definitely left an impression on me, evidenced by the fact that I found myself humming a couple of her tunes a day or two after the show.
Listen to a isong from Melissa here.
Lisa Bozikovic may have showed the most range on the night, not only in her voice, but also in presenting songs on piano and accordion in addition to guitar. One tune on guitar also featured a nicely bluesy tone, but her work was generally less "pop" than Melissa's songs. Lisa's work was less based in immediate hooks — more of an implied yearning exploration and an open-hearted emotionality.
Up last in the rotation was Isla Craig — the night's only known quality to me. Playing a spontaneously-derived set on piano and borrowed guit, Isla — with the third fabulous voice of the night on display — gave a bit more of a sense of someone whose songs are inherently designed for fuller arrangements. On guitar especially, she played with a two-stringed circularity, giving the songs a hypnotic regularity recalling sequencer arrangements. Isla threw in a cover of "It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry" to go with her originals. Fine stuff all around.
Listen to a song from Isla here.
The artistes played three songs apiece once through, and then did a second round, a bit more relaxed the second time through, with spontaneous harmonies popping up on a couple songs. At the end, after the hat was passed around, the three conferred to see if they could come up with anything else they could play together, but settled for conversation with friends in attendance. A very nice night, and done pleasingly early. Different sort of thing than most gigs I get to, but it felt like a nice change of pace.
1 This book is freaking me out! Getting off the subway, other humans suddenly seemed alien and suspect — I had that punched-in-the-gut ache I recall from reading all those Reagan-era "Day after" novels. What was the Scholastic book club doing selling those books to kids anyways? I think they left me scarred for life. But I digress.
2 This turned out to be more or less the case.
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