If you’ve ever wondered what ambient remixes of rap would sound like, Connecticut-based producer/DJ Color Plus’ new EP Diagonals Vol. 1 is your chance to find out. The six track EP of remixes is the first to have any official remixes released by Color Plus (a.k.a. Lars Probert), and constitutes a serious attempt at combining the two contrasting musical genres of ambient and rap. Fortunately, Diagonals Vol. 1 is not just another lineup of overdone rap remixes. It is a treasure trove of lush, ethereal beats – think Memphis-style rap on lithium.

Nearly all of Diagonals Vol. 1’s tracks feature the down-tempo rhythms, stuttering hi-hats, affected vocal samples, and rap verses characteristic of southern – and particularly Memphis – style rap, but like his contemporaries Shlohmo, Yung Sherman, and Tokyo Hands there’s a less brash, more contemplative approach to Color Plus’ head-bobbing goodness. He succeeds in adding a new depth and richness to classic rap beats from tracks like Birdman’s “Pop Bottles,” featuring Lil Wayne, and Soulja Boy’s “Pretty Boy Swag,” while maintaining the sense of resilience so characteristic of the originals. The manner in which he artfully arranges these rap classics with airy and meditative ambient sounds produces a distinct mixing style which he carries throughout the entire EP.

“Honestly” and “Chain” deserve particular mention, slowing down and distorting the voices of Atlanta staples Future and Gucci Mane to such an extent that their lyrics lose meaning and take a back seat to the interplay of rhythms between the vocals and the rest of the beat. Color Plus deconstructs “Pop Bottles” by Birdman and Lil Wayne in his track “Empty Bottle” insofar as to lose its boldness and makes Birdman’s signature pigeon coos become soothing to the listener.

The all-too-common critique of southern rap as lacking in lyricism and sophistication always seems to overlook the interesting ways in which different rappers experiment with phrasing over various rhythmic figures. An EP full of creative and experimental remixes like Diagonals Vol. 1 brings these forms of rhythmic interpretation to light by placing classic samples in a brand new musical context.

-Celine Caira

Weeknight – Post-Everything
Artificial Records

For all those craving a refreshing and captivating sound that’s both calm and rhythmic, Weeknight’s new album Post-Everything is the one to discover – and adore. The New York City-based duo, known simply as Holly and Andy, creates an intoxicating atmosphere with their music, pulling us into an enigmatic world where sounds and voices come together.

The duo’s smooth voices, harmony, and intense rhythm manage to calm nerves and transport the listener. Borrowing from electronic and indie pop music, Post-Everything has a unique and dazzling sound. Weeknight’s peaceful and seducing melody resonates throughout the album, with songs that run together without being repetitive. “Dark Light,” punctuated by exhilarating lyrics, harsh beats, and strident electric guitar, takes listeners on an absolutely alluring phantasmatic ride. “Whale” and “S.O.M.V.” are more gentle and serene, but still captivating, bound to lull listeners into a deep sleep where the everyday world fades away.

The whole album works for virtually any ambience. It can serve as a beat when you’re walking through the city or provide a calming yet encouraging backdrop to a late-night cramming session. Pretty much the only thing it can’t do is help you wake up from that deep Monday morning slumber (you’ve been warned). Post-Everything is a charming album that offers an alternative to the more mainstream variety of indie pop, while still packing a punch for all the distraction and reverie cravings in the world.

-Max Mehran

Spring Offensive – Young Animal Hearts
Spring Offensive

Spring Offensive’s long-awaited debut album has finally arrived, thanks to a PledgeMusic campaign. While labels’ tastes are hardly infallible, there might be a reason why Spring Offensive has spent so long without a record deal.
Instrumentally, the Oxford-based band leans on foregrounded drums and super-polished, vaguely mathy, guitars throughout the album. The opening to “Cut the Root” is basically a sped-up version of Foals’ “Spanish Sahara.” Foals also hails from Oxford, and this isn’t the only band Spring Offensive seems to be borrowing from. Jonquil specializes in lacklustre vocal harmonies, and here Spring Offensive proves that it can be even more insipid.

The band is at its best when discussing money. It’s expressing what many moderately successful bands are sadly finding out: music is not enough to cover rent. In “Bodylifting,” the issue is dealt with wryly, with lyrics like, “I wish I had money, I wish I had self-control,” and in “Hengelo” a little more sinisterly, with, “When cash dries up you’re just skin and bones.” The culmination of, this mini-trope is “No Assets,” with a chorus of “If we’re serious we should start saving.” It also contains one of the bleakest lines in modern music, “The depth of our debt is deeper than love.” It’s refreshingly sordid and petty, a line that briefly separates Spring Offensive from the ocean of floppy indie bands that continue to linger. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the album is not so pragmatic. Check out “No Assets,” but avoid the rest, because you’ve heard it all before.

-Joseph Renshaw

Mr Little Jeans – Good Mistake
Harvest Records

Good Mistake goes down like musical ice cream, cold and sweet. This four-track EP provides a compilation of Monica Birkenes’ (a.k.a Mr Little Jeans) past singles in anticipation of her full length debut album, Pocketknife, out on March 25. Born and raised in Norway, Birkenes is not your standard female pop star. Rather than being the product of a team of producers working overtime, she is very much the master of her own music. As both singer and songwriter, Berkenes has created an electro-pop sound that is oddly touching. Her tracks are layered with plenty of high notes and soothing, steady rhythms. There is something sincere in her voice. Emerging from her lips, every line sounds personal, every rhyming couplet is poetry. In short, these songs are pleasant and sweet.

Yet the EP is saved from being just nice by its electronic edge. In Birkenes’ cover of “The Suburbs,” the wrought, emotional vocals of Arcade Fire are replaced by a voice that, thanks to mechanical tuning, does not give everything away. Her emotions simmer under the surface, but ultimately her voice sounds cold. As is common with electronic influenced music, Birkenes’ sound is apathetic but not unpleasantly so, and very laid back.

But her cover of “The Suburbs” is the best track here. Good Mistake is melting and dripping with potential but Berkenes now needs to create her own more distinctive sound. Right now Mr Little Jeans could be summed up as one scoop The Cardigans and one scoop Lorde. When it takes five artists and wild hand gestures to describe her, Birkenes will have come closer to fulfilling her full potential. So watch out for Pocketknife, and here’s hoping we’ll get more than just ice cream next time.

-Rachel Eban

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We go about our daily lives surrounded by a rich variety and an enormous number of microorganisms; yet our society strives for total antisepsis, and our culture praises the clean and antibacterial. Our milk is pasteurized, and nearly anything we purchase is plastic-wrapped and disinfected to hygienic perfection. A consequence of this hyper-sanitation could result in filtering out all smells that we don’t want. This is problematic, considering that smells and bacteria are crucial to the way in which we define, situate, and understand ourselves in relation to our environment. The intersection between smell and microbial communities is what led Christina Agapakis, a postdoctoral research fellow in synthetic biology at the University of California-Los Angeles, to explore whether knowledge and tolerance of bacterial cultures in our food improve our tolerance to the bacteria on our body and in our environment.

When Agapakis enrolled in a doctoral program to study biological and biomedical science at Harvard, she knew she was looking for a way to marry the disciplines of biology and engineering. One of her goals was to design technologies that would be useful to people beyond the lab while embracing the incorporation of a broad range of interests, methods, and concerns to synthetic biology. “Designing and developing a technology involves much more than the technical aspects of the genes and cells involved,” remarked Agapakis.

“[The] vision for the future of biotechnology is one that looks a little more like cheesemaking and a little less like computer chips, embracing rather than covering up the sometimes smelly and ‘dirty’ aspects of microbial communities in all their complexity.”

Applications in synthetic biology require the consideration of many contexts at once, some more surprising than others. These include the cell itself, the interacting genes and proteins, and the designed organism’s environment. Researchers must also consider the social, political, and economic integration contexts of their work. Since her doctoral research, which focused mostly on the cellular context of synthetic biology, Agapakis has turned to the exploration of the ecological, environmental, social, and cultural contexts – a demonstration that science is moving toward interdisciplinary integration with a greater emphasis on the big picture. “[I work] with microbiologists and ecologists, as well as artists, designers, and social scientists on research about microbial diversity and the many complex symbiotic interactions between microbial communities and between microbes and humans,” Agapakis explained.

Agapakis began the “Cheese Project” during her residency with Synthetic Aesthetics, a research program that brings together artists and scientists to explore the social and cultural aspects of synthetic biology. Agapakis paired with Sissel Tolaas, an odour researcher based in Berlin who studies how smells shape our experience of the world. As a part of her research, Tolaas creates odours we usually identify as unpleasant and try to cover up and “de-odourize”. She aims to recontextualizes these odours, challenging the spectator to reconsider their initial emotional response to “good” or “bad” smells. Through their collaboration, Agapakis and Tolaas found that many of the skin bacteria involved in producing body odour are identical to the chemicals found in cheese. ”Despite being identical, the different contexts that we find these bacteria and these smells in really shapes our experience of the smell,” noted Agapakis.

Before long, Agapakis and Tolaas began making their own cheese, using pasteurized milk supplemented with starter bacteria cultures isolated from human skin. The two researchers produced “cheese portraits”: different cheeses made from microbial samples from many different people. “These aren’t cheeses for eating, they are ‘food for thought’ to challenge some of our cultural biases about odours and about the role of bacteria in our lives,” says Agapakis. Although the future of science and technology may look sleek and encased in stainless steel, Agapakis sees it a bit differently. From her viewpoint, “[The] vision for the future of biotechnology is one that looks a little more like cheesemaking and a little less like computer chips, embracing rather than covering up the sometimes smelly and ‘dirty’ aspects of microbial communities in all their complexity.”

Agapakis’ holistic approach to science goes beyond the cultural biases associated with odours to the social issues surrounding women in science. “It was not very long ago when scientists seriously debated whether too much reading would make women infertile, presenting blatant sexism and discrimination under the banner of ‘objective’ science,” she reminded us. For her, feminist science is about recognizing cultural biases and being conscious of one’s position as a scientist and as a person. She reminds all scientists to strive for objectivity through awareness and inclusion of diverse voices in the scientific discourse.

While synthetic biology and feminism may appear quite distant from one another on the academic spectrum, Agapakis sees that the separation of arts and science hides important ideas and methods. The hope for interdisciplinary research is that it will make people increasingly aware of the role that culture, emotion, and aesthetics play in the advancement of science and technology.

* * *

Christina Agapakis will be one of the keynote speakers at this yearís Ampersand: the Conference, organized by the Bachelor of Arts and Science integrative Council (BASIC) on March 21 and 22. To see her speak, join the Ampersand McGill Facebook group and follow the link to buy your tickets ($7 for two days, $5 for one day). 

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According to organizer Emily-Jane Aouad, the festival is able to encourage an artistic exchange because the audience is mostly made up of Canadians who already possess a passion for learning about other cultures. In addition, the festival meshes Western and Eastern cultures in on-stage dialogues. For example, this year the festival brought together the Algerian dance group El Ferda with Montreal’s choreographer Kim Girouard to produce a performance of ancient Arab dances with a contemporary spin. A poetry slam at l’Escalier also illustrated this intercultural dialogue as Quebecois Arabs of Syrian, Moroccan, and Tunisian background recited prose recounting their experiences growing up as immigrants in Quebec.

The festival is one of a kind. According to Aouad, it is “the only event in Quebec fully dedicated to arts from the Arab World” offering exclusive and unique artistic programming. The high proportion of Arabs who speak French, for example immigrants from Algeria or Morocco, facilitates the sharing of cultural ideas within Quebec. According to Aouad, “Most of the international artists and intellectuals who come to the festival are Francophones. So the ‘Salon de la Culture’ section of the festival (where conferences debates and round tables happen) is held mostly in French.”

However, although the festival has always been well-received, Aouad pointed out that it is sometimes negatively influenced by the social and political context within Quebec. Aouad told The Daily that in 2007 when the “accommodements raisonnables” (reasonable accommodations) were being debated, the festival experienced a significant decrease in the Quebecois audience turnout. “There have also been a few incidents where team members or volunteers have been insulted while handing out flyers for the festival,”  Aouad said with regret. According to the festival’s website, “With every new edition, this event defies a social reality characterized by an increasing polarity” between Arab and Western cultures. Despite the sometimes unfavourable political and cultural atmosphere, the festival has grown significantly because of its commitment to showcasing original and innovative Arab-Quebec content and its courage to dare to do so.

This year the Arab World Festival entered its 14th year against the backdrop of political and religious aggravation caused by the the Parti Québécois’ recently proposed Charter of Values. “Well, we do not like to mix political and religious matters with the festival, which is purely dedicated to arts and culture. The festival has been a non-political and non-religious organization since its creation.” Aouad said. However, given that the Charter would affect a large percentage of Arabs within Quebec, the festival could not avoid addressing the issue. Aouad told The Daily, “We have programmed a debate discussing the Charter as well as other conferences and debates discussing social issues of our actual society.”

As the title of the festival suggests, “Arab” identity is treated as largely uniform, without much distinction between the many groups that fall under the umbrella of that label.

Despite the high quality of artistic content showcased at the festival, an event of this sort proves to be problematic. As the title of the festival suggests, “Arab” identity is treated as largely uniform, without much distinction between the many groups that fall under the umbrella of that label. In reality, Arabs have many different ethnicities, practice diverse religions, and inhabit geographically distant countries across the Middle East and North Africa. Presenting a wide assortment of ethnicities, religions, and countries under the same umbrella seems to belittle the vast cultural variety and ethnic plurality found in the Arab world. This runs the risk of greatly misleading the average Canadian viewer and enforcing the idea that Arab culture is homogeneous. Ask someone from Lebanon how they are different from someone from Egypt, and I’m sure they will have a lot to say.

The festival also claims to be “a non-political and non-religious organization since its creation,” however, this glosses over the many ethnic, religious, and political cleavages that have existed in the Middle East for centuries. “I don’t think you can discuss the Middle East without discussing politics,” says Omar, a Palestinian McGill student in attendance at the festival who was raised in Dubai. While the festival showcases performers and speakers from a myriad of Arab countries, it offered little discussion of the tension and discrimination that occurs between those groups. The salience of these differences could be seen in the film Would You Have Sex With An Arab, where documentary filmmaker Yolande Zauberman asked this question to Israelis at bars in Tel Aviv. To Arabs, she asked, “Would you have sex with an Israeli Jew?” There was a wide variety of answers given, shaped by their individual religious views and country of origin. The film demonstrated that, to Arabs, even something like attitudes on sex and intimacy are politically and religiously charged. “While striving for a festival that is non-political and non-religious is honourable, it would be deceptive and falsely utopian.” says Omar. “The festival can claim it is non-religious and non-political in the sense that everyone is welcome regardless of background, but not in the sense that art and culture of real value can be contributed without a political component. Maybe for a country like Belgium this could be true, but for a post-war country like Iraq, or a post-revolution country like Egypt, it would be unlikely. Can you imagine current Egyptian art that doesn’t discuss the revolution?”

According to Omar, the festival provides a platform for Arab immigrants who plan to stay in Quebec to find common ground with one another over culture, values, and food. However, he does not see the festival having a successful unifying effect unless the uglier, more difficult political issues are addressed. “What good does it do for Pan-Arabism if an Egyptian and a Sudanese can enjoy a plate of hummus in Montreal, if their political tensions haven’t been addressed for when they return to their respective countries?” he says. “Living as an Arab in a foreign country, you’re more likely to see commonalities than differences: you’re kind of forced to collaborate. Quebec could act like a marriage counsellor for Arabs, providing a safer, more accepting stage to delve into deeper issues. Instead of suppressing such problems, the festival should address them head on. Only then could we work for a more realistic Pan-Arab goal.”

Whether the Arab World Festival, with its dedication to showcasing artistic talent inspired by the meeting of Arab and Western cultures, succeeds at uniting the many ethnicities, religions, and nationalities that are Arab remains unclear.

The Arab World Festival will run till November 9. Events are held in a variety of locations in the Downtown and Plateau Mont-Royal areas. Go to festivalarabe.com for more information.

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French sound artist Sébastien Roux has attempted to answer this question. Roux works with translation principles by using pre-existing visual, musical, and literary artworks as the basis for his new ‘radiophonic’ or electro-acoustic works. Roux was first inspired to work with the process of translation in 2010 after experiencing Sol LeWitt’s wall drawings in New York. LeWitt’s wall drawings were not physically created by him, but by a team of craftspeople who executed a series of his instructions. The simplicity of their geometric shapes as well as the manner in which these pieces were made impressed Roux. In them he saw an inherent musicality, and consequently he sought a system of translation to make LeWitt’s wall drawings listenable. His artistic process today involves translating visual and literary art forms, which he ‘listens’ to, into music.

Friday night, one of Roux’s concerts titled Inevitable Music was presented as part of the Pre-AKOUSMA arts festival at the Eastern Bloc Gallery. Since his pieces are meant to be listened to collectively, Roux invited the audience to get comfortable on several large leather couches while facing a line of eight industry-sized speakers. The concert presented a series of sound pieces based on LeWitt’s drawings and their instructions. There was no visual component. Aside from when Roux timidly slunk to the front of the room to press the play button on his laptop, we did not see much of the artist.

Roux imitated LeWitt’s style of presenting his art pieces alongside their instructions by having a pre-recorded voice introduce the title of each sound piece, along with a concise explanation of how each sound component was made and used. Roux presented a series of 13 short works that lasted from ten seconds to ten minutes. His first piece was titled “Inevitable Music Numéro 1” and consisted of several sound components including “quatre kilohertz descendent” or four descending kilohertz. This piece was reminiscent of sounds one would hear while at an airport landing terminal, and evoked the feeling of having water stuck in one’s ear while clenching your jaw in an effort to pop it. “Inevitable Music Numéro 2” sounded like moaning teakettles and “Inevitable Music Numéro 9,” superimposed on “Inevitable Music Numéro 10,” sounded like a Jedi light-saber fight scene played backwards.

Given that images of everything from teakettles to light sabers lit up my imagination, Roux seemed to be successful in making me ‘see’ through my ears. However, my mind’s eye interpreted the sounds differently than that of my friend’s sitting beside me. Roux’s electro-acoustic pieces were extremely evocative and they painted a different picture for each viewer.

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In their opening number, the couple started from scratch to build what would develop into a smoky rendition of “Devil’s Got a Gun” by using a floor tom looping device to layer tracks from a variety of instruments, plucked from what looked like a costume trunk. Shivering maracas, household pans, and old telephone receivers were just some examples. The end product sounded like nothing less than a full band, as they moved from setting the percussive foundations of their song to adding guitar and bass, topped with moody vocal harmonies. Their live performance charmed with its DIY feel. Mid-set, singer McClelland let out a squeal of satisfaction, which was accidentally recorded by the looping device. Humorously, the noise proceeded to resurface in each chorus of “No Glamour in the Hammer” (“Hammer” is shorthand for Hamilton). The couple made use of the entirety of the stage space by dancing and occasionally swapping instruments. They were in constant communication as they executed the choreography of their thoughtfully crafted songs.

The end of their set earned them a standing ovation from the crowd, which they followed with an immediate demand for an encore. The older gentleman behind me yelled, “Play ‘Out Like a Lion!’”, to which I echoed a resounding “Yes please!” To the crowd’s dismay, they opted to play their smoldering rendition of Bruce Springsteen’s “I’m On Fire.” The song ended with the crowd joining the couple in singing the chorus a cappella. Little did the audience know this was their sneaky ploy to make a classy exit. As everyone was snapping their fingers and repeating the lyrics “I’m On Fire,” the couple set down their instruments and quietly tip-toed off stage while waving goodbye, marking the end of a close-to-perfect concert experience.

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The question, “What is POP Montreal?” is a loaded one that has no right answer. POP Montreal is not simply about showcasing underground bands, nor is it just about providing a media platform and gallery space for visual and performance artists. The POP Montreal festival, with its wide and multidisciplinary artistic scope, ultimately serves to remind us of the importance of supporting local artists within an accessible, independent, and minimally corporate atmosphere.

According to the event organizers, the POP Montreal International Music Festival is an annual not-for-profit curated cultural event that looks to champion independence in the arts. Beginning Wednesday, POP Montreal presented an assortment of art forms and events including symposium discussions, live concerts, artisan and visual art exhibitions, fashion shows, film screenings, and a few all-night loft parties. Last year, the five-day festival showcased more than 600 artists and attracted audiences of over 50 000 people. POP Montreal provides critics, musicians, curators, music producers, and fans alike with a rich and dynamic introduction to the next generation of independent musical talent and art forms.

On Wednesday I attended the festival’s launch party at POP Montreal headquarters on St. Urbain where, appropriately, L’École Des Beaux-Arts once stood. Although the launch was designed as an exclusive RSVP event solely for artists and press-pass holders, to my surprise POP volunteers welcomed inquisitive passers-by. This illustrates the first cardinal characteristic of POP Montreal: accessibility. Ticket prices range from free to $40, and most events take place at a series of venues situated over a relatively compact area, reachable by foot, metro, or bike, making it easy to sample a variety of artists while getting to explore the Mile End.

The launch party gave a taste of the bold cross-section to be expected at POP Montreal over the next five days. There was a variety of art installations in the dark rooms upstairs at the POP headquarters. Projections looped shaky images of indecipherable objects across the room, accompanied by droning bass tones. These projections were so spooky that one even succeeded in making a five-year-old boy cry. Downstairs, partygoers had pretty much struck gold. POP Montreal offered free food, music, and drink for its opening night, along with a gift bag containing glow-in-the-dark nail polish, a bike bell, chapstick, and condoms, among other things (in other words: just the essentials). Surprise musical guest Fabricville, who could be mistaken for a group of escaped balding carnival clowns, began to play an acoustic cover of M.I.A.’s “Jimmy” that quickly launched the eclectic crowd into fits of sporadic swaying.

Next up, after all this swaying, it’s onto the Théâtre Rialto for Fashion POP, an annual design competition that attracted the city’s brightest up-and-coming fashion design talent. Following this, Le Divan Orange was host to Jay Malinowski & The Deadcoasts of Bedouin Soundclash fame. The rest of the week was a fantastical blur of visual and musical experiences.

Highlights of POP included Colin Stetson’s performance on Thursday at Théâtre Rialto. Stetson is a bass saxophone musician who dabbles with experimental, jazz, indie rock, and dub-step styles. Eyes bulging and cheeks puffed like a blowfish, he challenged my previous conceptions of what sounds could be humanly produced with a saxophone. Up close you can almost feel the pain and physical stress he undergoes to miraculously produce such heaving and complex sounds. He didn’t have any looping devices or pre-recorded background music for aid; everything the audience heard was produced live and birthed from his hunky diaphragm. As a result of looping his breath for four minutes at a time, he seemed to not be able to see straight or coherently address the audience following each song. His endearing “Sorry guys, I can’t see you […] too much blood in my head” got a chuckle or two from the audience.

Aware of its home in a bilingual city, POP Montreal attempts to appeal to both English and French speaking audiences. To facilitate this, bilingual volunteers were provided at every venue. Still, there was definitely a lack of Quebec talent at this year’s festival. Visiting several venues across the Mile End, I stumbled upon Dresden Dresses, The Trick, Colin Stetson, Honey Wild, and Tim Hecker, all of which, except for Dresden Dresses, hail from outside Quebec, and all of which performed in English or had English song titles. Although I applaud Dresden Dresses and Colin Stetson for their efforts in addressing the crowd in French, I would have liked to see more local Quebec artists at this year’s festival. If POP Montreal claims to be a festival that promotes local talent, what is more local than native Quebec artists?

Now, if you’ll excuse the corny metaphor, POP Montreal is like a soda pop beverage: it looks cool, tastes sweet, and makes you hyper as hell, yet all the while you are not exactly sure what’s inside. Perhaps it is the festival’s mélange of obscure venues and unusual content that allows it to be just as exciting every year. I can confidently say that POP Montreal is enshrined among the most beloved of Montreal cultural celebrations. Whatever the secret ingredient, POP Montreal is a gathering that brings forth and amplifies the city’s underground artistic pulse like no other.

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I began my Study in Action experience by attending the Saturday morning panel “Whose strike was it, anyway?” The panel included four speakers, including Alex Matak, a self-identified queer anti-capitalist nerd and student strike activist, and Gabrielle Bouchard, who works with the 2110 Centre for Gender Advocacy. A recent Concordia graduate, Matak opened the panel by presenting her research on the student strike and ways in which power was experienced, constructed, and reproduced within the organizing bodies at Concordia. She qualified her presentation with data gathered in interviews, and backed it up with academic theories of geographic and social space. Her presentation was by far the most structured, clear, and interesting, despite also being the shortest. The other speakers did not have formal presentations prepared, and embarked on anecdotal rants about their experiences subverting the Concordia administration during the strike. Although these monologues were illuminating at points, for the most part, they were just an outlet to voice disdain for Quebec’s educational institutions. At the end, the panel’s overarching goal remained unclear.

After a delicious vegan lunch served by The People’s Potato, I attended the workshop “A $400,000 Fence and Other Stories: An Introduction to the Prison System.” The workshop gave an overview of the prison system in Canada, particularly focusing on Bill C-10. This bill was created to allow for increased federal funding in prison infrastructure, with the aim of keeping people within these institutions for longer, and consequently creating more jobs in security and prison construction to stimulate the Canadian economy. The workshop was more organized than the previous panel and had a clear topic focus and thesis: how prisons in Canada are a business.

The workshop invited people that had experience with the Canadian prison system to speak about how Harper’s reforms have dramatically changed their day-to-day lives in prison. “$6.90 a day is the most you can make in jail,” said one speaker, “and Harper is cutting this by taking 32 per cent of our annual earnings for ‘room and board’ costs.” The average convict in Canada serves 27.5 years in prison for a murder conviction, and such cuts to the absurdly small amount they make every day is affecting their ability to support their families while in prison. Perhaps even more upsetting is how the university programs and college workshops that were previously available to prisoners have been replaced by petty chores such as lawn mowing. One speaker expressed that he did not know where to draw the line between being in prison and being a slave. Since 2007, provincial governments throughout Canada have been in the process of building 22 new prisons and 17 additions to existing prisons with an estimated total cost of over $3.375 billion. Through these reforms, the Harper government is not increasing the number of jobs, but simply displacing them by decreasing employment opportunities for prisoners, and increasing the number of guards employed.

Although this workshop was fascinating, I felt it didn’t directly fit with Study in Action’s mandate of showcasing undergraduate student research. I left the conference more informed about the Canadian prison system than undergraduate research on local activism.

As a political science student, I appreciate events that create a space for minds to debate and coalesce. I had hopes that Study in Action would create such a forum, but, unfortunately, the promise of an “undergraduate research conference linking students with community activism” was false advertising. I would have liked to see the conference use a more academic lens when examining local activism, and they could have done so by allowing undergraduates to actually present their research.

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River Tiber was born from a solo project by Paxton-Beesley, a former McGill undergraduate who now attends Berklee College of Music. Paxton-Beesley composed and recorded the entire album himself, and then assembled the band to play in live settings. As they started picking up steam, the group evolved into the collective and collaborative project that is now River Tiber. Synapses is the strength and clarity of Tom’s vision and our collective enthusiasm to see it through. “It’s an exciting album; exciting to play and even more exciting to play with good friends,” says Lewis, River Tiber’s bassist.

Paxton-Beesley sings from the soul. He smears together his soft vocals with layers of dissonant guitar and off-kilter beats. “Every level has a different character, from the rhythmic foundation, to the keyboard and guitar textures, to the vocals on top; every part adds to the conversation. To me it’s like a big collage of colors and shapes,” he says. Tracks such as “Prophets” and “Reverie” feature delightfully tender vocal harmonies and chorus-rich guitars accompanied by interludes of convulsive crescendos and rock rhythms.

Synapses was released on January 1, after which the album received considerable attention from social media forums both in Canada and abroad. On January 3, River Tiber performed live to a packed crowd at the Drake Underground at Toronto’s celebrated Drake Hotel.

With many fresh bands such as River Tiber penetrating the local music scene today, it would be naïve not to address the paradigm shift within current music distribution. “Free music is the norm, and it’s actually a good thing,” argues Lewis. “Albums no longer have price tags, therefore the competition and comparison among artists is now based [on] the assessment of something much more substantial than monetary value.” By making Synapses available for free online, River Tiber has been able to reach a much wider audience. “The music scene is such a different place today than it was even 15 years ago. Obviously labels are still a valuable means of distributing a band’s material,” explains guitarist Mavro, “but thanks to technology, big labels aren’t as crucial to a band’s success as they once were.”

Paxton-Beesley succeeded in knitting together elements from a variety of genres, including jazz, electronic, and rock, to create a fresh and tantalizing sound. “Synapses are the connections between neurons. Neurologists believe that the root of intelligence isn’t contained in the neurons themselves, but in the connections between them – their plasticity, their substance,” he says, regarding the album’s title. “I thought that was a pretty awesome metaphor. Meaning created in the space between words, life in transitory bodies, infinity between two mirrors.”

Synapses is available as a free download at rivertiber.com.

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Canada’s vast, varied ethnic landscape has often lead to the marginalization of certain groups. For this reason, Phillip Koneswaran and Jenoshan Balasingam of AGNI Communications Inc. filed an application earlier this year for a low-power FM station – 102.9 – which plans to feature 100 per cent ‘ethnic’ programming – no French or English at all. About half the programming would be in Tamil, a dialect spoken in Southern India and parts of Sri Lanka; the rest of the programming would be in many languages – from Somali to Nepalese. The station would consist of a variety of programming, but for the most part, the goal is to help ethnic groups integrate into the mainstream Montreal community.

This project raises questions about the relevancy of radio in the age of the internet, and whether this broadcast platform will be successfully help integrate ethnic youth into the Canada’s francophone community.

The need for a Canadian presence on the airwaves arose during the 1920s as a way to protect Canadian culture from American influence. Today, crown corporations such as the CBC aim to define and preserve Canadian culture through a wide variety of daily programming. The CBC radio’s program “Q” with Jian Ghomeshi debates compelling cultural trends in Canadian life and has garnered the largest audience, in its morning time slot, of any cultural affairs program in Canadian history. Radio is not dead, and Canadians across the country feel that it is essential to critically explore our diverse Canadian cultural landscape.

Koneswaran and Balasingam hope to provide a unique type of programming with a view that will capture the attention of a younger ethnic demographic. Although there are currently several stations that provide a mixture of foreign-language and bilingual English-French programming, such as CKUT 90.3FM, a Montreal campus/community station, there are none that currently cater to young Tamil, Sinhalese, Nepalese, Somali, Ethiopian, or Malay speakers. “We have done our research and found that these communities have been neglected due to their small size,” says Koneswaran, who filed the application. According to him, the existing foreign-language stations in Montreal do not provide programming to any of these communities at the commercial level.

Despite radio’s gradual decline in popularity amongst a younger demographic, Koneswaran is positive that young generations will tune in. “Although there may be a cultural and linguistic barrier that exists between the younger generation of ethnic communities, most of these people still listen to music in their native languages,” he said.

The proposed station will provide a variety of programming including hit music, which they hope will attract ethnic youth, a large number of whom live within the proposed parameter for the low-power station. Koneswaran is hopeful that the local FM station, which will also be streamed online, would be able to compete with the online content that already exists in these languages. “We plan to accomplish a distinguishing factor by programming the proposed service with a high degree of local content,” he said.

The inauguration of such a radio station is especially pertinent within francophone Canada.  According to Koneswaran, “the integration of ethnic communities in Montreal is much slower than in other parts of Canada.” This is most likely because immigrant and second-generation communities face the challenge of integrating not only into the larger Canadian context, but also into the francophone community. Koneswaran believes that such ethnic groups in Montreal should integrate into Quebecois society. The new radio station aims to facilitate this process. Since the station will target younger generations within these ethnic groups, there is a greater possibility for smoother cultural integration, as youth learn and grow while preserving their cultural heritage within the French-Canadian context.

Despite strategically targeting the next generation within these communities, the efficacy of such ethnic radio programming as a mechanism of cultural integration, given that the programming is exclusively in a third-language, is questionable. While there is an undeniable need for third-language radio programming to serve immigrant communities, it’s unclear how this would fulfill the goal of reducing barriers to full participation in Quebec society.

Program developers are confident that the application for the ir100 per cent ethnic radio station will be approved. Montreal is an ethnically diverse city containing language groups that are currently underserved, or not served, by existing radio stations. This new station plans to fill the cultural gaps experienced by these communities and provide them with a reservoir in which they can maintain and develop their languages and cultures within the context of the French-speaking Canadian community. Our own Canadian history is proof that despite recent leaps in social technology, the merit of radio as a medium of propagating culture cannot be denied. Once approved, the station is expected to be on-air within six months.

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