JULY TALK

w/ OMBIIGIZI

Tuesday, September 10th, 2024

The Western Fair

Doors: 6:00PM Show: 7:00PM
Concert Ticket Includes Admission to the Western Fair on Day of Show
Order online at https://www.westernfair.ca/
Tickets (incl HST): $55.00 GA Floor, $65.00 Reserved Seating
(plus HST and fees) – All Ages

July Talk

The basic structural facts of rock band July Talk are this: two front people, Leah Fay Goldstein and Peter Dreimanis, surrounded by whiplashing guitarists Ian Docherty and Josh Warburton, and double drummers Danny Miles and Dani Nash. For this compulsively DIY, rigorously self-realizing group, the essence of July Talk has always been the tension between precision and chaos.

What goes on between these bodies, in that kinetic, staticky, sticky space, is where the truth of July Talk takes shape. On stage, July Talk unfurls and explodes. The action pings from slo-motion commotion to back-bendy communion, fluid (as in bodily) and liquid (as in the dark goo phase of metamorphosis). Things get weird, occasionally grotesque, always enthralling. Even in the stark orderliness of black and white, July Talk has always been a work in progress.

More accurately, it’s a work of progress, a communal pursuit of limitlessness as a mode of being. For a decade, July Talk has continued in its relentless project to know itself, a fundamental baseline from which to access raw ecstasy and agony. With Remember Never Before, the most potently yet inventively “July Talk” album yet, the band returns – changed – to where they began.

OMBIIGIZI

OMBIIGIZI – pronounced om-BEE-ga-ZAY, meaning this is noisy – is a collaboration between Zoon (Daniel Monkman) and Status/Non Status (Adam Sturgeon), Anishnaabe artists who explore their cultural histories through sound. Their music together is a rumination on family, a celebration and holistic cleansing, with a strong sense of unity and loving support. An amalgam of their Indigenous heritages and personal musical

architectures, Daniel and Adam imbue their lyrics with their families’ storytelling, revealing truths and finding common ground amidst their differences. The debut album, entitled Sewn Back Together, is a fusion of individuality – a reflection on Adam and Daniel’s commitment to each other as collaborators and distinct members of community.

“Connecting” is the latest song by OMBIIGIZI, sonic luminaries at the fore of the Anishnaabe revival. An exultant anthem awash in searing guitar melodies and jangling rhythm, “Connecting explores the idea that we’ve not always been given a choice in how to define ourselves. Is it the Indian Act, our identities, our family or the company we keep. It starts with you and we believe.” Erupting in raw emotion and ragged riffage, Connecting is propelled by the growing harmony and volume of Indigenous voices. This is the first of many singles for OMBIIGIZI that are rolling out through 2024.

Putting aside the tonal nuances of their previous work as Zoon and Status / Non Status (formerly known as WHOOP-Szo), OMBIIGIZI strips back the waves of distortion to reveal themselves, their voices, writing and improvising for the sake of the song. The family on their debut album “Sewn Back Together” includes Kevin Drew of Broken Social Scene on production and The Bathouse Studio’s Nyles Spencer engineering.

Recorded in fast and intentional sessions during the summer of 2021, Drew and Spencer helped steer this collision of divergent artists into some glorious sonic territory steeped in shoegaze, dream pop, anthemic rock, Chicago post-rock, and 2nd wave emo. While not always getting to play and perform alongside other members of their community, OMBIIGIZI is a coming together – Sewn Back Together is a resounding statement shaped by healing and the guidance of culture. Upon wide critical acclaim, the album received a JUNO Nomination for “Alternative Album of the Year” and a spot on the Polaris Prize Short-List in 2022.