(cont.) ... Wavelength ... starts with a surprise showing from Jim Guthrie and his band, who are just back from touring with the Constantines. I've got a hardened heart when it comes to Guthrie, because I saw Royal City open for Arab Strap three years ago, and it was one of the worst live sets I've ever seen. Here's what I wrote at the time

Aside from the odd sweet ballad, they're a tuneless mess of alt-country with a Blink 182 sense of humour, that is, childish and not one-tenth as funny as they think they are.

Arab Strap were awesome, by the way.

Dozens of accolades later, I started giving Guthrie another chance. A flip through his most recent solo disc revealed a more focused approach in a classic singer-songwriter mode, so if Guthrie wants to be president of Toronto's Young Springsteen club, I say give him the job. Tonight, his band is polished but unremarkable, much like the songs they play. Maybe it's me. But I've come a long way -- at least I don't hate the guy's music anymore.

{hyperbole alert} Here's where you stop skimming over all the harebrained crap I've been writing and start paying close attention, because unless Orbital bring their farewell gig to Toronto along with a fifteen piece orchestra accompanient on twelve minute versions of "Belfast", there won't be a better gig this year than what In Support of Living pull off tonight. Brad Ketchen, who doesn't need to prove anything thanks to his outstanding work with Hollowphonic, assembles a small army of people and instruments for a project of staggering beauty and ambition. Performing in collaboration with the films of Rob Tyler (recurring animated theme : pastel-coloured shapes ressembling eyeballs swell and contract like a constantly refocusing lens filmed in fast-forward), it's Hollowphonic's latter-day Slowdive approach with a motorik-in-molasses groove, shards of guitar noise, simultaneous xylophone and glockenspiel solos (!!), and the finest flute drones this side of Bardo Pond's border. The whole band acts like a trance-inducing machine, and the hypnotic films round out the lulling effect. They claim to have mistakenly run overtime, but time has been standing still for over seventy minutes. More. An album. Something else. Now.

It's now well past midnight, the crowd is looking a bit weary. Junior Boys fight fire with water. Their minimal instrumentation and personnel are a drastic contrast to the full sensory overload of their predecessor, and they achieve a lot with so few toys. This is not your older brother's electro revival, it's your older brother's New Order 1983 scrapbook. It's a great period of NO's history, with the italo-disco running roughshod over the goth-rock, with a lo-fi "touch" and sparse instrumentation. Despite the firm intent toward a dance sound, Junior Boys aren't ready to let the laptop era swarm them, in fact, they're striking back with guitars, cheap keyboards and beatboxes, and even vocals. And also like 1983 NO, they make succinct statements -- 40 minutes and out. I sense a future worth following.