“It’s multimedia night here at the Jam Factory. First up is poet Byron Vincent.”
“Poet… Poetry? I’m going to need another beer…”

Poor poetry: always getting such a bad rap in these good-for-nothin’ modern times. The trouble with spoken word is the painfully raw and demanding, confrontational setting that modern man simply doesn’t have the patience for. There’s no music, no costumes, and nowhere to hide. All you can do is sweat, watch the people next to you sweat, and watch the poet and his little red book sweat. Fortunately, Byron Vincent is delightfully comedic and animated; he tells tales of juvenile petty crimes, festival drugs, and turning your first love into a lesbian. What a great way to break the ice.

Colleen (Cécile Schott) flutters about her contraptions laid out on the floor – clarinet, wind chimes, acoustic guitar, and cello. She fiddles with delay pedals and loop machines, setting straight all last-minute details, which are imperative in creating her enchanting, minimalist magic. Assured that everything is set correctly, she picks up this gorgeous, 17th Century cello of seven strings and begins to bow a minor melody, low and lengthy, thickening with each repetition. It doesn’t take long for the melody to work its wonder and inspire me to doze into a daydream; it also doesn’t take long for me to remember that the venue is also a restaurant. Clutter and clatter of dishes, masses of mumbling conversation, and the slamming of toilet doors consistently intrude. The intimacy and inconvenience of the space unassumingly paints a strange hideaway: it does not feel formal in the least, but like fortuitously stumbling upon your grandmother’s amazing instrument collection and attempting to have a recital in her attic while the rest of the family is downstairs having Christmas dinner. Despite the distraction, Colleen reverently constructs fragile layers of poignant colour as I notice that the once almost-empty room has become shoulder-to-shoulder full, and during Colleen’s multi-instrumental flights, every pair of shoulders is silent, embracing the subtle and mysterious musical statements.

“Hmmm, good film music,” a faceless voice pompously declares from behind me. I am a bit offended by the comment. While it’s a compliment, the statement implies that Colleen’s music only reaches its maximum potential with collaboration of a more immediate medium, one that dictates images and associations to you rather than freely allowing you to make your own images and associations; a freedom I find so satisfying during this performance.