SOUND SEEKERS: The Glass Chain plays Ritual, plus Local Ivan, Erin Saoirse, and more
Scene & Heard

SOUND SEEKERS: The Glass Chain plays Ritual, plus Local Ivan, Erin Saoirse, and more
BY Fateema Sayani
POSTED February 9, 2012 4:09 pm

Sound Seekers by Fateema Sayani is published weekly at OttawaMagazine.com. Read Fateema Sayani’s culture column in Ottawa Magazine and follow her on Twitter @fateemasayani

The Glass Chain. Photo by Bassam Daoud

DIGITAL BREEDS DYNAMISM
FOR THE GLASS CHAIN
 The younger generation of digital natives has always been spoiled for choice, musically. The rabbit holes of the Internet — with its pockets and alleyways of information — provide endless answers to questions and curiosities.

So, if you were too young to have experienced New Wave, you can explore its rise and demise through a timeline on Wikipedia. From there, you might go offline to get wise to the Beatles through your parents’ vinyl collection, then log on again and stream playlists on Grooveshark.

Access to all these genres makes for a wide lens, and having that broad frame of reference manifests itself wildly in mashed-up genres such as crunk or minimal techno. It also comes alive in a form of rapturous dance rock found in Ottawa bands such as Fevers and The Glass Chain. The latter is a four-piece creating wild electro capped off with the honeyed vocals of front woman Alie Lavoie, who joined the band last September.

“Around the time I got on board with The Glass Chain, I was really into the album Eyelid Movies by Phantogram,” she says. “I used the dreamy ambience and the vocal style as a jumping off point.”

From there, she collaborated with her band mates — Nik Salad (DJ, guitar), Evan Mullen (bass) and Yves Neron (percussion) — to churn up a sound reflective of their tastes.

“We’ve brought our backgrounds into the mix: folk, pop, indie rock, house, punk, funk and jazz,” Lavoie says. “Even if you can’t necessarily hear traces of it in our music, the fact that we’ve all cultivated really different tastes definitely adds some dynamism to our sound that might not be there if we had all spent our entire lives listening to the same stuff.”

The Glass Chain opens for Young Empires and Bravestation on Saturday, Feb. 11. 9 p.m. at Ritual Nightclub, 137 Besserer St. $13.

BEST BET
Your new favourite band: Ottawa AV dude Dave Norris released his third album, Alma Mater, in October. It’s lyrically wry, but tender in its musical arrangement. There is some seriously swooshy instrumental largesse on tracks such as Woe Is Me. The songs are pure pop that you can enjoy for their hooks, for their lyrical insight, or for the buoyant swirl of the two.

See Norris with his band, Local Ivan, Saturday, Feb. 11, 9:30 p.m. at the Elmdale Tavern, 1084 Wellington St. W. $10. Claude Munson & The Storm Outside headlines.

MORE MORE MORE

  • You won’t be able to resist the Feist comparisons: Erin Saoirse Adair’s songs are unadorned: a uke and affecting timbre is all that’s needed to bust up a stale folk scene. She’s at the Elmdale Tavern on Friday, Feb. 10 with Megan Jerome and Kaleigh Watts.
  • Garaga (weedhead fuzzrock) is part of a three-band bill at Raw Sugar Café on Friday, Feb. 10 with Banditas and Shanker & Romps. 653 Somerset St., W., 9 p.m., $5.
  • Orienteers play Gigspace, a music school-slash-arts space on Gladstone near Preston Street. See them Thursday, Feb. 9 night at 8 p.m., $5. 953 Gladstone Ave.