Three years ago, Alexa Dirks began to transform. Dirks—an eminently talented vocalist equally comfortable singing lullabies, headbangers and ballads—had made a name for herself in local circles for her work in ensembles like the Juno-winning Chic Gamine. But in 2016, she stepped forward, redubbing herself ‘Begonia’ and signalling the blossom of a dynamic and intriguing artist: a glittery supernova who felt like music’s best-kept secret.
With her long-awaited debut album Fear out September 13, that secret will finally come out. Fear is a deeply personal album, at once bursting with ruminations on solitude, self-doubt, anxiety, and panic, all bundled up in that serene feeling that comes with an artist fully embracing themselves in both the past and the present tense. She wrote and co-produced the record with a familiar team: Matt Schellenberg and Matt Peters of Royal Canoe, along with Marcus Paquin, who has previously worked with The National, Arcade Fire and Local Natives.
On stage, Begonia dresses in bold, sometimes bright-coloured wardrobe: it’s how she feels most powerful, “almost like a superhero version of herself,” she says. On most tracks, her invincibility is buoyed by profound vulnerability. The title track begins with frantic clapping, and the lyrics take the cue: Begonia rattles through anxiety after anxiety, fear after fear, eventually culminating in a pained scream that acts as a pseudo-chorus we’ve all sung before. This is the power of Begonia: her music feels like something we’ve all been waiting for the chance to say, but couldn’t quite phrase, a throwback to something that’s never existed before.
Begonia’s debut full length album, Fear, is being released via Begonia’s own label imprint, Rex Baby Records (Birthday Cake/The Orchard) on September 13, 2019. The single Hanging On A Line has already gone #1 in Canada on CBC Music (Canada’s national public broadcaster). This is the second time Begonia has topped the chart in Canada, following #1 single Juniper in 2017. Begonia’s first solo EP, Lady in Mind, was well-received, being listed on NPR’s 10 Artists You Need To Know in 2017. Noisey wrote that, “Begonia has one of Canada’s most extraordinary voices, and thankfully she uses it to obliterate the misery from this world one live performance at a time.” NPR wrote that Begonia is “the place where where synth-pop meets old soul and scrappy meets sexy."
Wendy Eisenberg is an improvising guitarist, banjo-player, vocalist and poet. Using the languages of free jazz, new music, metal and art song, her music challenges the representational and technical demands placed on a guitar and a banjo in contemporary music.
She has two solo careers: improviser/composer, and songwriter. Wendy’s debut record as an improviser, “Its Shape Is Your Touch,” came out in October 2018. Her trio, “The Machinic Unconscious,” with Ches Smith and Trevor Dunn, released their debut album on Tzadik that same months. Both records made Billboard’s Critic’s Choice Top Ten Jazz Records year end list, and received features and attention from NPR and National Sawdust. Her album of quiet art-pop songs, Time Machine was remastered and re-released on Feeding Tube records on September 7th, 2018.
In addition to her work as a solo artist, she has written and performed in numerous projects, including the critically acclaimed experimental band Birthing Hips, described by NPR as “brainy, noisy punk based in sonic adventure, technical mastery, and rejection of the status quo.” She leads a rock trio, Editrix, which explores similar parameters.
Her work as an improviser has led her to collaborate with Matt Mitchell, Trevor Dunn, Ches Smith, Ted Reichman, Joe Morris, Damon Smith, Shane Parrish and Zach Rowden, among many others. She has premiered work by John Zorn, Matt Mitchell, Ted Reichman, Maria Schneider, and Marta Tiesenga, as well as works by her many peers, and has premiered her own work at The Stone, The New School, the Hartt School of Music, New England Conservatory, Yale, and Hampshire College.
Wendy has provided soundtrack work for the scientific projects of MIT Media Lab fellow and scientist-artist Ani Liu. Her poetry has been set into two large scale works by Matt Curlee, premiered at the Eastman School of Music in 2014 and one awaiting its premier featuring percussionist Michael Burritt. Her writings on music can be found in John Zorn’s Arcana VIII: Musicians on Music, and in the forthcoming edition of the Contemporary Music Review.
Eisenberg's music can be found at wendyeisenberg.bandcamp.com and birthinghips.bandcamp.com.
Mary Jester
Mal Devisa
"Mal Devisa is a project started by Who'da Funk it's Deja Carr. With driving bass melodies, hypnotizing harmonies and a variety of genres, Carr conjures up a live show one would have to see in order to truly hear."
$10, All Ages, Wheelchair Accessible