bar le ritz – The Concordian

**The violinist launched her new album Entanglement, last Thursday at Bar Le Ritz**

Since the early 2000s, Jessica Moss has been best known for her work as a member of Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra.

She has also contributed her skills on the violin to some of Canada’s most recognized independent releases, including Arcade Fire’s 2004 debut Funeral, and Broken Social Scene’s 2002 album, You Forgot It in People.

However, it wasn’t until 2015 that Moss put out her first release under her own name, a self-released cassette-only album called Under Plastic Island. Her official debut release, Pools of Light, followed in 2017 from Montreal-based Constellation Records.

Her latest album was inspired by the quantum theory of entanglement, which describes the little understood phenomenon of two or more particles displaying correlative physical properties (such as amount of spin), even if those particles eventually find themselves on opposite sides of the universe.

Moss uses this as a jumping off point for exploring the ways in which humans become entangled with each other. “Because it’s beyond the realm of human understanding, then my feeling that somehow entanglement is happening around us, in ways that affect us, […] I don’t need to think that ‘well, science can’t prove that,’” Moss said.

Now as a solo artist, when Moss tours, it is typically completely on her own. Considering her work with Thee Silver Mt. Zion involved touring with upwards of five people, this has represented a bit of a shift for her.

“I spent a very, very many years in my own version of collective working environments, music-wise, […] it’s been very interesting to take my own experiences and learn very much from travelling alone,” Moss said.

Of course, it was Moss’s experience touring with bands over the last 20 years that gave her the confidence to take on the challenge of being on the road alone. And, besides, it gives her ample opportunities to observe humanity.

“I’m a little bit obsessed with watching people in their natural environments, you can only do that in certain circumstances, […] if I can watch people watching the opening band, I find it very interesting,” Moss said.

For the album launch at Bar Le Ritz last Thursday, Moss wanted to perform with some of the humans she has become entangled with over the years. “I play shows all the time, it’s my job at the moment, and my job is to play the best show I can,” she said. “It was really important for me to have people on stage that I very much respect and connect with.”

Moss’s friend, writer Alexei Perry Cox, opened the show with a poetry reading while her newborn was strapped to her chest. Incidentally, Moss helped deliver the baby just a month prior.

After Cox, Sam Shalabi, a long time friend of Moss’s and Constellation Records artist gave a solo performance on his Oud, a lute-type instrument used in a lot of Middle Eastern and North African music.

Moss began her own set by playing traditional Jewish songs, accompanied by Thierry Amar, bass player in The Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra and Godspeed You! Black Emperor, before moving on to a performance of “Particles,” the twenty-one minute opening piece from Entanglement. The array of about a dozen pedals allowed Moss to make many different sounds with her live violin, using a loop pedal to layer strings upon pulsating and blipping alien soundscapes.

“Particles” eventually gives way to gloriously grandiose and ethereal strings, and then slowly decays into serene, whispering drones as Moss switches to using her voice to produce the sounds on stage.

On Feb. 19, Moss will begin a short tour promoting the album, opening for Julia Holter, and will play Montreal again on Feb. 24 at La Sala Rossa.

The songwriter’s performance on Monday was a rollercoaster of emotion

Nostalgia within the scope of popular music, though often overused to the point of cliché, can add intensity to a song. A well-written song can take you back to a specific time and place. It can trigger intricate, acute memories and feelings to the point where you almost feel the air as you felt it in that moment. Following his recent sold-out gig at local favorite Bar Le “Ritz,” Los-Angeles based psychedelia-tinged folkster Kevin Morby did more than simply prove his status as a master of nostalgia; he took the crowd along with him on a journey.

Clad in a blue suit embroidered with bold white musical notes and his initials stitched on the jacket’s lapels, Morby took centre stage surrounded by his touring band. The band consisted of guitarist and backing vocalist Meg Duffy—whose solo work under the moniker Hand Habits has earned her plaudits for its lush melodies drenched in fragile sentimentality—as well as bassist Cyrus Gengras and drummer Nick Kinsey.

Kevin Morby’s effortless cool was a breath of fresh air during his performance at Bar Le “Ritz” on Monday. Photo by Ariane Besozzi

Running like a well-oiled machine, the musicians worked together in perfect harmony. The more energetic album cuts, such as Morby’s “1234” and barnyard garage-rock jam “Dorothy,” were reinterpreted with a punk-rock grit and intensity that was lacking from their recorded counterparts. The group often broke into sprawling CSNY-esque country rock jams with the help of Duffy’s guitar heroics. It was the more tender moments, however, that defined the show. In these moments, we heard Morby at his most earnest, his vocals unforced yet necessary and brimming with the kind of raw emotion you can’t capture with recording equipment. Morby even switched to piano once during the gig. Though the live set was less instrumentally complex than Morby’s albums, this simplicity gave it a raw sentimental ambience, acting as an avenue for him to convey his nostalgia. And this he did, but not without the help of his backing band. Kinsey played with large mallets, and Duffy oftentimes backed up Morby on slide guitar. The textures and sonic colours created by the group completely enthralled and enveloped the crowd, and gave the sold-out show a sense of intimacy.

The show reached its nostalgic climax before the encore when the band packed up and left the stage, leaving only Morby. He was now clad in a cowboy hat and gripping an acoustic guitar. Swiftly gliding into a cover of Townes Van Zandt’s “Colorado Girl,” he followed it with the show’s closer “Beautiful Strangers,” an imagery-ridden protest song. In these tracks, he let his voice convey the colours of his nostalgia, transporting the crowd to a world that was truly his, and making them forget everything about themselves. This factor is thanks to Morby’s organic instrumentation and devout influences. Throughout the night, the musician channeled the same resonant chords as Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen, but provided a edge all his own. While some might have been stuck standing behind one of the venue’s ill-placed poles or sandwiched between an uncomfortably intimate couple and a man reeking of sweat and alcohol, others were with a young Morby—driving through American mountains, enveloped in fresh air and heartbreak.