Free event: Art's Birthday at the Western Front, Sunday

Jeffrey Allport at Solder And Sons, photo by Dan Kibke. Not to be reused without permission.

I've written about Jeffrey Allport before; Glaciers is a very exciting new project he's involved in, featuring the minimalist improvising percussionist performing with electronics guy Robert Pedersen of Main Street bookstore/ performance space Solder And Sons, and Lief Hall of the defunct avant-punk/ No Wave noise unit The Mutators, doing very intense and sometimes quite quiet vocal improv that has little obvious relation to her extroverted shrieking of yore. They're one of the most interesting avant-garde musical projects afoot in Vancouver at the moment, inviting and amply rewarding careful listening; I find an almost hypnotic degree of focus is generated by what they do, perhaps because they themselves are so attentive to the music they're making. They will be playing Art's Birthday on January 17th at the Western Front - a free event, also featuring French For Sled Dogs, whom I wrote about here, another very cool project featuring guitarist Chris Albanese, bassist Dave Chokroun, and Fond Of Tigers honcho Stephen Lyons, dropping his guitar to sit at the drumkit for this unit; this is mathier, jazzier, and perhaps a tad more noodly than Glaciers - though these are jarring, decentered noodles, filled with unexpected bends and breaks. Cubist noodles, maybe: like that. These are two very exciting projects, anyhow, and no doubt Prophecy Sun and Soressa Gardner will be doing interesting things as well... plus it's a free event! Come say Happy Birthday to Art*!

*No, not Art Bergmann. Art, like, as in art.