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Slim Twig[edit]
Slim Twig is a songwriter/ performer and film actor. He was born in 1988. Raised by his parents, both filmmakers, in Toronto, he graduated a drama major from the Claude Watson School of the Arts. He started creating music in elementary school. In late 2008, Slim Twig was named Toronto's Best Pop/ Rock Artist of the year[1] by that city's alternative news and entertainment weekly, NOW Magazine. He is currently signed to Paper Bag Records.
Slim has been cast in small parts in a number of films and television series, including ZOS and Repossession Mambo. More prominently, he played 'Billy Zero' in Bruce MacDonald's 2007 film, The Tracey Fragments and recently was cast as 'Archer' in French director, Kim Chapiron's film, Dog Pound, which is set in a juvenile detention centre.
In addition to his solo music project (backed by the Mercy Mercenaries), since 2004 Slim has sung and played guitar for an avant-punk duo called Tropics, which also features Simone TB on drums. Tropics was accorded the top rating by Chart Magazine[2] at the Canadian Music Week festival in March, 2008. Tropics has both headlined shows and opened for well-established acts like Oneida and Constantines. At a show opening for the Swedish band, Love is All, the Tropics set was recorded with the intention of releasing an independent cassette in 2009.[3]
The earliest Slim Twig recordings, made when he was 16, comprise a series of spare, haunting tunes featuring his vocals accompanied by guitar. These songs were self-released in 2005 on a CD entitled Livestock Burn.[4] Two songs from this collection also formed the basis of music Slim composed for a short film entitled Letters from R.
In 2006, Slim recorded a handful of songs at Toronto's Gas Station Recording Studio, run by musician, Dale Morningstar. Slim determined at the time to withhold the resulting eleven tracks from release until a record label picked them up. Seven of the songs subsequently were included on Derelict Dialect, the first Slim Twig EP release from Paper Bag Records, in April, 2008. Organ, guitar, cello and drums create “...a carnivalistic quality...serving as an apt reflection of the songs' funhouse-mirror shapes...”, which range from The Replica and Martyr, “...the most intriguing and confunding track...”, to Trembletongue, which closes the album with “...two minutes of eerie, haunted-house organ drones...”, according to Pitchfork Media's Stuart Berman.[5]
In 2007, Slim home-recorded a small number of remarkable songs that were self-released as an EP called Whiite Fantaseee.[6] All but one song from that recording were subsequently re-mastered and issued on the Vernacular Violence EP by Paper Bag, in August, 2008. The songs from the two Paper Bag released EPs were also made available on a limited edition, vinyl LP.
Vernacular Violence arguably has brought Slim Twig the most attention to date and like many innovative artists, he has generated somewhat polarized opinions. Nonetheless, even some baffled critics have hailed him as an artist worthy of serious attention, while others have been unequivocally positive.[7],[8],[9] Various prominent figures in popular music, notably including Nick Cave, Lou Reed, Suicide and David Bowie,[10] have been mentioned for comparison purposes in reviews of Slim Twig's work. His interest in constructing a persona and adopting unsavoury characters' points of view in his songs,[11] together with his “switchblade-sharp lyrics” and quasi-experimental musical bent, clearly point to his originality.[12] His approach to creating pop music is paradoxically self-aware and yet trusting in the accidental, part of a process of assembling bits of audio and sonic textures he likes to call “songsculpting”.[13] He is unafraid to draw on disturbing imagery and ideas. Critics also have suggested the influence of cinema on Slim Twig, with one remarking on “...his compulsive soliloquist's flair, a direct but static-filled line into a collective cinematic unconscious.”[14] Indeed, in speaking about his creative approach, the artist cites his admiration for David Lynch's work.[15]
Paper Bag is slated to release Slim Twig's first, full-length LP in April, 2009. Entitled Contempt, the album marks yet another departure for the adventurous artist, as he has reportedly created the record largely from found sound and significantly altered samples set against his own vocals. As with Whiite Fantaseee, the Contempt sessions were home-recorded and then mastered by the Gas Station's Dale Morningstar.
References[edit]
- ^ [1]NOW's Guide to the Best of 2008
- ^ [2]Toronto's Tropics Pick Up Highest ChartAttack CMW Report Card Mark
- ^ [3]Love Is All @ the Horseshoe, Dec. 11 With Crystal Stilts, Tropics
- ^ [4]Aphonia Recordings News. Livestock Burn is no longer available.
- ^ [5]Slim Twig: Derelict Dialect / Vernacular Violence
- ^ [6]Slim Twig: Whiite Fantaseee
- ^ [7]Slim Chance
- ^ [8] Indieville review
- ^ [9]Year End Pulse: Slim Twig
- ^ [10]Exclaim reviews Gate Hearing
- ^ [11]A ghost is born
- ^ [12]Slim Twig Whiite Fantaseee
- ^ [13]Year End Pulse: Slim Twig
- ^ The Globe and Mail: Ten Acts You Shouldn't Miss by Robert Everett-Green and Carl Wilson, published 06/03/08
- ^ [14]A pinch of Lynch
[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13]
External Links[edit]
Categories to add: Canadian indie rock groups, Toronto musical groups, Art rock musical groups, Canadian film actors
- ^ [15]NOW's Guide to the Best of 2008
- ^ [16]Toronto's Tropics Pick Up Highest ChartAttack CMW Report Card Mark
- ^ [17]Love Is All @ the Horseshoe, Dec. 11 With Crystal Stilts, Tropics
- ^ [18]Aphonia Recordings News. Livestock Burn is no longer available.
- ^ ]http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/record_review/137679-slim-twig-derelict-dialect-vernacular-violence]Slim Twig: Derelict Dialect / Vernacular Violence
- ^ [19]Slim Twig: Whiite Fantaseee
- ^ [20]Slim Chance
- ^ [21]Exclaim reviews Gate Hearing
- ^ [22]A ghost is born
- ^ [23]Year End Pulse: Slim Twig
- ^ [24]Slim Twig Whiite Fantaseee
- ^ The Globe and Mail: Ten Acts You Shouldn't Miss by Robert Everett-Green and Carl Wilson, published 06/03/08
- ^ [25]A pinch of Lynch