We hope you’ll join us at the Music Gallery this February 27th for a bit of music and an afterparty (sponsored by our label, Centrediscs). We hardly ever play Toronto these days, and having already released our CD in Berlin and Vancouver, we’re glad to finally introduce it to our hometown. More importantly, it’ll be nice to see (hopefully) some friends and have a drink, yes?

We won’t actually be playing anything from the album – instead, we’ll be taking a rare solo turn, each playing some of our favourite repertoire, including:

That which is bodiless is reflected in bodies – Matthew Burtner
lliK – Christopher Fox
AK-47 – Matthew Hindson
Grains – Unsuk Chin
Prelude and Fugue – Andre Ristic

800-820 opening act TBA
830-915 Toca Loca plays
915- join us for nerdy good times in the fellowship room

Admission $10 or $15 with a CD. If you’re strapped for cash, lemme know and we’ll figure something out.

THE CRITICS LOVE US

“Toca Loca…clearly believe that contemporary music should grab the listener as much as any other kind…they put on a passionate, disciplined performance that at times rocked harder than many shows I’ve heard in clubs.” – Globe and Mail

“The overall feel is of overhearing a reading of an off-Broadway musical…it’s great to hear new music experts let their hair down.” – Exclaim

“between the trio’s classical chops and its newfound techno soul, minds may well be blown.” – The Georgia Straight

“stands to be an explosive, brain-busting highlight” – EYEWEEKLY

“By far, one of my favourite shows from the past season…the musicianship of the trio is really unprecedented” – the Wholenote

(3.5 stars out of 4) “There’s no shortage of amusing gambits on this album…” – Globe and Mail

“The ensemble Toca Loca offered a vibrant short set of works by Georges Aperghis, Dai Fujikura, Louis Andriessen, and Andrew Staniland” – The New Yorker

LIKE US…

“Depending on your feelings towards Barbie rape, it’s either the best or worst of the fest.” – EYE WEEKLY

“one of the most unique if also convoluted shows at this year’s festival. There is something disturbingly contemplative about the show’s final moments…kudos for being so adventurous even if the end result is more of a misadventure. – Plank Magazine

“I must confess I don’t quite know what to make of the latest Centrediscs release…from Toca Loca” – the Wholenote

JUST WANT TO BE FRIENDS?

“self-referential, abstraction for its own sake, and the listener ends up feeling lost, left out or perhaps not smart enough.” – The Coast

“The best parts on this album were when they were screaming “Chiiii-iiiiii-iiiii-iiiii-na!” and “Chicken shit! Chicken shit! Chick! Chick! Chicken! Shit!” over and over. Everything else was just like the soundtrack to a bad horror movie, except the music would have been more horrific than anything in the film.” – Chart Attack

“I take no pleasure in saying this, but mean it very seriously: stop. All of you involved in this production, please, please, stop making this type of rubbish. Whatever you think you are doing, whatever mores you think you are challenging: you aren’t. You’re making shite that neither conforms to typical standards of pleasure nor challenges convention; all you succeeded in doing was gratifying your selfish needs to be on stage. You have robbed me of whatever eloquence I may possess: Just stop.” – Mondo Magazine

***½

There’s no shortage of amusing gambits on this album by Toronto trio Toca Loca, of composed responses to all things pop. Aaron Gervais’s Shoot Like a Film Star animates a snippet of junk e-mail text with energetic flourishes of voice and instruments (pianos and percussion), reinventing Dada for the spam age. Andrew Staniland’s Made in China worries over small musical aggregates while we soak in a phrase that contains a world of consumer goods. Juliet Palmer’s Five riffs on a song by Alanis Morissette, sending up pop’s insistence on repetition by writing canons that step on each other’s heels. Nicole Lizée’s Promises, Promises is a slippery, sharp-edge rumination on the passage of stylistic time, while other composers cut and rearrange elements of pop song structure. Nobody can resist the urge to complicate pop, though what would be really interesting would be to write something that’s as simple as pop, but that says more. R.E.-G.

purchase it here
original review here

September 10th at the Berghain in Berlin with VJ Safy Sniper, sharing with Kathleen Supove and Detroit underground pioneer DJ Jeff Mills!

http://www.myspace.com/clubcontemporaryclassical

October 15th at the Western Front in Vancouver.

http://front.bc.ca/newmusic/events/3281