Tomorrow is the first day of Mental Health Week in Canada. So it’s a good time to share this:
-Unsolicited Advice, a short film/music video by @charlesspearin and @JaredSales -
As a contribution to a song-a-day writing club of friends and peers, just around the time the pandemic hit, I pitched up my voice and recorded this odd little letter of encouragement to my daughters. I guess it was just something I needed to say out loud. To anybody, to nobody. Thoughts of a dad. And maybe the thoughts weren’t really for my kids but more for my younger self, more for everybody. Whatever it was, I shared it with the group and let it go.
A year later, I was emailing back and forth with video animator Jared Sales about a different project and sent him a folder of my music which happened to include this song. When he heard it, he got kind of excited. Jared saw it as something that could be joined with an idea he was kicking around, a sort of algorithm of kindness (Imagine if algorithms took mental health into account 🤔). And so, following his inspiration, he quickly transformed my song it into this wonderful allegorical story of a robot that consumes and feels the overwhelming sadness in the world and then transforms it into messages of encouragement and love.
May 10-16 is Mental Health Awareness Week and so it seems like a good opportunity to share this collaboration. In the end, both Jared and I are just hoping that this small contribution to the bigger conversation about mental health will simply be of some benefit to somebody, somewhere.
Leaving Records’ ambient jazz maverick Cole Pulice land in Toronto at Collective Arts on May 23rd with Toronto improvising duo of Karen Ng & Charles Spearin's SpeariNg, and experimental harpist Grace Scheele. Check the details below!
COLE PULICE
California based electroacoustic saxophonist, improviser & composer Cole Pulice makes their first appearance in Toronto after dropping 2025’s ethereal album “Land’s End Eternal" on Leaving Records. Ambient jazz moods hum with airy saxophone breathes and delicate guitar notes. Synthesized swells ripple like rays of sun dancing through the clouds. Pulice’s light touch can be heard throughout their music, letting the released notes float their own way through this enveloping atmosphere. Fourth Worldian landscapes that recalled the influence of Pauline Oliveros, David Behrman and Terry Riley among others. Transformative, meditative worlds pull you deep into the zone.
SpeariNg (Karen Ng & Charles Spearin)
Toronto saxophonist & improviser Karen Ng hot off the release of her newest record “Blue Backward” on Halocline Trance last fall, teams up with another Toronto stalwart, Charles Spearin (Do Make Say Think, Broken Social Scene, etc.) for a new duo project. Inquisitive horn phrases flourish with creaking tones and sputtering whispers. Saxophone notes tie themselves in intricate knots, as Spearin’s nyckelharpa fills the air with wavering elongated drones. These long time pals and frequent collaborators refine the textural sonic dance in a stripped down duo setting.
GRACE SCHEELE
Grace Scheele is an unconventional artist noted for her innovative take on experimental and ambient forms. She masterfully interweaves harp rumblings, cinematic drones, textural loops, and candid tape confessions into music that celebrates that liminal ‘in-between’; a place of question, blank existence, or wonder. An interdisciplinary artist, electroacoustic harpist, and composer, she works across a wide range of disciplines.
8pm
$20 Adv in the linktree
$25 Door
2025 Toronto
(Progress Bakery by Eliza Niemi not pictured, Staying Mellow Blows as a stand-in. Also,You Can Can is not from 2025 but I love it so. Maybe a couple others.)
Charlie & I were so blown away by Dijon’s show Tuesday night that HE JOINED the band 😂
….or at least sat in for the entire second night at History.
We also dragged Leslie outta mom-town. She came by again last night and mama found the mute button!! (One button to mute everyone on stage in an instant)🤣
Musicianship is a magical universe and when a musician is so open as to invite other musicians - who they literally just met - to join them it’s a crazy beautiful thing.
And super lovely to see Amber Coffman again (Dirty Projectors, singing backup)
Got some very sweet & very fun friends ♥️
HAPPY TWENTY SECOND WEDDING ANNIVERSARY CHARLIE! ♥️🥂♥️
‘Major Label Debut’ lyrics as first conceived by Kevi for our wedding jam.
(Susie, with or without a Z 😂)
THANK YOU @murray_a_lightburn for the fab Polaroid pics💕💕💕
Do Make Say Think’s first Toronto show in 2 1/2 years is this Saturday at the Concert Hall!
Tickets @collectiveconcerts
⬆️ Photos from Danforth Music Hall, 2023 by the great @green__yang
