In the latest installment of The Ottawa Voice Box Sessions, we wanted to give local musician Lindsay Ferguson, a platform to showcase her voice and her popular cover of “Donal Og”. Because of the nature and tone of the song we chose Ottawa’s Notre-Dame Cathedral Basilica. The churches ambiance and open door policy provided us with an interesting location to film the acapella performance. Patrons prayed and glided around both the camera and Lindsay, entranced and unopposed.

When you walk into such a space there is an unavoidable weight of something in the air. Secular or devout, the feeling slows you down, almost as if the weight of history is coming down. When we played back the ambiance of Lindsay’s footsteps into this space, there was an audible synchronicity between the speed at which she performed the song and the speed of her footsteps; a ephemeral metronome. Initially we intended to solely use Lindsay’s voice, but upon hearing the “beat and pulse” it became impossible not to layer her footsteps beneath her words.

On a conceptually level the footsteps even take on a metaphorical permanence, a way of perceiving life as a long walk down a long corridor, a journey ending in release and catharsis. On this journey art is the medium housed by man’s great structures, evident in the sculptures and stars painted on the cathedral ceilings. Although Lindsay admitted to not being a particularly religious individual, the space was as unbiased to her as she was to it, its own sacred pre-amp plugged into her soul.

We hope you enjoy the video!

Words by: Craig Allen Conoley (Owner & Head of Productions @ Partus Films)

If your interested in more about Lindsay, we reviewed her latest Album “Monkey’s Under Stars” in our Review section @ partusfilms.com + you can check out her personal website @ http://www.lindsayferguson.com/

The Ottawa Rock Lottery is really a one-of-a-kind event in the city. A music community can be just as fractioned as any other community: genres collide, bands can be exclusive of other bands, and then there is the new versus seasoned band divide. Bluesfest and Jazzfest – especially in the last few years of the events – have been adept at bringing to stage all sorts of genres, effectively bypassing the original meaning of “blues” and “jazz”. But, while these massive festivals showcase myriad bands in myriad genres, we get to experience something completely different at the ORL. First of all, not only does it solely feature local artists, but it blends these genres in unpredictable ways. Polar opposites have a chance to converge, and failure and success are both options. The ultimate fun is in the collaboration.

Wednesday night’s screening of the 2011 ORL documentary – a documentary of the 3^rd annual ORL, shot by local film collaborative Indefinite Project and showcased as part of Ottawa International Film Festival’s Spotlight Series – aimed at breaking down those barriers. It did that by providing a collage of different musical personalities. The screening took place at the Mercury Lounge, a space that loves to host a spectrum of artistic endeavours, whether it’s a spoken word event by Capital Slam or a setting for a short film like Digi60 entry “Mary Mae”. The amazing thing is that the collage could be found in both the documentary screened as well as in the people attending the screening.

Let’s go back to the original premise. ORL takes 25 people from 5 local bands, mixes them up in random groupings, and gives these makeshift bands 24 hours to produce … something. Though the first Ottawa Rock Lottery was in 2008, this year was particularly special because a film crew documented the events. It’s experimental – as in, experimental music and experimental experiences. The reality is that our surroundings affect our form and topic of discourse. Samantha Everts – ORL organizer – really seems to understand this and, unlike so many of us who dream big but act small, actually did something about it through the ORL. What she did was change each band member’s surroundings and, effectively, their frame of reference. If members are traditionally used to indie rock and are now grouped with a post-hardcore singer, what will the sound be like? What do you do when your band has no singer, and instead has two drummers? If a slam poet is faced with having to collaborate with a songwriter they just met, what will be the outcome? These were just a few of the situations with which the new bands dealt in the course of the mash-up. And the brilliance is: the experiment was caught on video!

This is where the mash-up/collage of differing voices is heard. If this were a piece of visual art, anything from oil paints to [place medium of choice here] would represent this project. ORL’s website promotes it by saying, “It could be great.  It could be shit.” Is there a better advertisement than that? The claim is, because it’s a purely raw experiment without a predictable outcome, we could get crap, but we could also get an unparalleled piece of art. That’s exciting! Moreover, the collage metaphor can also be used for the documentary screening’s audience. Mercury Lounge was filled with filmmakers, musicians, and all sorts of uncategorizable artists. If you didn’t know someone, chances are you will at the end of the night – either by seeing them perform in the documentary itself, seeing them perform live as a lead-up to the screening, or by conversing about projects. The collaborative experiment, which was in turn the subject of a documentary about collaboration, could well be the catalyst for future collaboration. Let the experimentation continue!

Vera Grbic - Dec 15th, 2011

As promised, here is our photo review of last nights happenings @ The Mercury Lounge. The tag line of the infamous Rock Lottery is, ” Why have a scene when you can have a community?”, and last nights gathering was proof in the pudding! The evening consisted of The Indefinite Project’s highly entertaining documentary; a half serious self parody on band ethos. The night also offered up a variety of music videos produced by Ottawa musicians and their collaborating filmmakers.

One of the many works screened was Kalle Mattson’s video gone viral entitled “Thick As Thieves”, an animated travelogue across space and time ending in mankind’s destruction at the hands of a cardboard Robot. The video was featured on Vimeo’s Staff Picks and the views havn’t stopped since!

The audience was also treated to a special performance by Atomic Wednesday, a combination of Uke and poetry, Brad Morden the former and Ian Keteku the latter. Check out a recent video the pair made while on tour in Europe. It goes by the name, THE PATH.

Amos The Transparent skeleton-ed the evening with an amazing set and word of their recent video release. The band was in full form and our photos don’t lie!

Thanks to Samantha Everts, Nina Bains and the entire OIFF crew for hosting and concieving of such an amazing project and event! The OIFF Spotlight Series is shaping up very nicely and OVB is excited to hear news of the next event!