ADAM SAIKALEY AND ROLF KLAUSENER IN A ROW? OH, MY!
CBC boy Adam Saikaley — host of Bandwidth — and Rolf Klausener, hirsute master-of-yearning in song, have teamed up with Pat Johnson to form Silkken Laumann. The band, playing on the name of the Olympic rower-cum-motivational speaker, will host a “reveal show”, debuting a handful of songs.
In its bumph, the group describes its music as skirting “the lines between pop, improvisational + experimental music, rare grooves, disco, and global dance culture.” (Hover on the band’s FB page today, where some YouTube mixes are posted to get heads hyped). It’s a heady promise sure to be balm and bait for music nerds.
That zone (as in the global culture zone AND the music nerd zone) is familiar to Klausener. He travelled through good chunks of the planet with his acoustic-rockin’, folk-funkifying band The Acorn. Their 2010 release, No Ghost, is full of tracks with lyrics that touch on various levels of torment and joy. The band likes to describe the music by saying things like “swaddled in dichotomy.” For us writerly, self-indulgent brooding types, this is gold. (Swaddled in dichotomy? Does it hurt?)
Klausener has a fun side, to be sure, and he was hoping to get his ya-yas out by forming a dance band. He found common purpose in Johnson and Saikaley.
“There’s an exciting challenge to writing dance music that the three of us thrive on,” Saikaley says, meaning, that in order to be satisfying, the music needs to be floor-filling good, but also technically smart and wholly referential (see above re: music nerdism).
Friday, April 15. 9 p.m. $5. Raw Sugar Café, 692 Somerset St. W. (Show will end by 11 p.m. for those who want to head over to Timekode.)
WHERE ELSE TO BE THIS WEEKEND
Amos the Transparent is a band of many led by one. Ottawa songwriter Jonathan Chandler is at the helm playing songs with a good guitar base and plenty of embellishments, both instrumental and vocal. This show is a preview for its forthcoming album. Friday, April 15. 9 p.m. $8. Maverick’s, 221 Rideau St.