Transmission 8.5 | 11.01.25
Studio updates for the East Van Culture Crawl, A Soft Geometry on the CBC, The Lowdown, Local art shows and current music obsessions.
Friends,
November is here. It’s a dark and epically rainy Day of the Dead here in Vancouver. Lots going on. Let’s get into it.
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Tristesse and I both have pieces in A Shared Madness a two day pop-up show which is open today and tomorrow from noon to 4PM. The show is the in-person version of the most recent issue of the magazine—30 local artists responding to the topic of mental health through image and text. The show includes work by Mark Mizgalla, Jason McLean, Barbara Strigel, Alastair Bird, Makito Inomata, Carson Ting and many others.
In just a few weeks we'll be opening our studio at the Arts Factory for another edition of the East Van Culture Crawl. We're both working on new work and getting the space ready—come through, we'd love to see you!
November 20-23, 2025. Thu/Fri: 5pm-10pm. Sat/Sun: 11am-6pm
There’s just under two weeks left to catch Tristesse’s show A Soft Geometry at Propellor Studio. If you haven’t had the chance to see it in person, I highly recommend making the trip to Granville Island to check it out. There’s a subtle dimensionality that is only truly accessible when you’re in the room with the work. For a primer on the work and process, have a listen to the conversation CBC’s Margaret Gallagher had with Tristesse and Toby Barratt when she visited the show last month.
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We’ve been devouring Sterlin Harjo’s new series, The Lowdown. Since finishing Joanna Pocock’s Grey Hound, I’ve had Tulsa on my mind—home of Larry Clark, J.J. Cale and—be still my beating heart—S.E. Hinton1. The show revolves around a character loosely based on Tulsa journalist Lee Roy Chapman,2 and it’s exquisite noir with a stacked cast. The whole season hasn’t dropped yet but it had me hooked by the end of episode one.
If you’re local, don’t miss Vancouver-based, Métis artist Jean-Paul Langlois’ current solo show War and Peace and Smoky the Cowhorse at Fazakas Gallery—It runs until December 19th. Jessie McNeil has Containments: Care in the Open up at Visual Space until Saturday November 8th with a closing reception from 2PM to 4PM.
As always, the music does not stop. I’ve put together a playlist with a handful of the tracks I’ve had in rotation this first bit of autumn. More on that here.
Standout current obsessions: New Delhi/Mumbai-based collective EXCISE DEPT are just kind of blowing my mind. Their project combines music, short films, visual art and design forming this vision that just seems to be uniquely their own. Also got me onto Lapgan, Shauharty and off on a whole desi hip-hop bender.
This ~6.5 hour b2b set with Andrew Weatherall and DJ Harvey from 2012 is bonkers and provides a lasting source of energy. I miss having Weatherall on the planet.
60’s American Gospel duo The Consolers. I didn’t know, now I know. Thank you, Brian Eno.3
Peter Doig’s new show House of Music at Serpentine South in London looks amazing. For the paintings, of course but also for the deep integration of music into the experience. I’m not sure I’ll catch the show but I'm dying to know what's in the 300-record selection they're playing for visitors to the show.
That’s it for the minute. If you’re local, hope to see you out there somewhere. If you’re elsewhere, take good care and reach out and say hello!
Until next time.
✌️D
It’s where The Outsiders was set and home of The Outsiders House Museum. ↩
Even a quick scan of his wikipedia page is proof enough that Chapman was a maverick character dedicated to chasing down some pretty wild stories. ↩
Eno mentioned them in a recent interview with Ezra Klein. I love gospel but I hadn’t come across them yet. It’s a reminder to me how absurd it is to fuss about being on top of music in the last year when I’ve only scratched the surface of the previous century of recorded music. ↩