Concert Review: Skin Tone, Buffalo MRI, Thin Gaze at Concordia Greenhouse
By Carol Fraser
The Concordia Greenhouse, tucked away into the clouds above Concordia University’s Hall building, greets you with a warm humidity and lush scent, once you find your way to the thirteenth (no need to be scared) floor. Last Thursday photosynthesis was not the only creative process occurring.
Arriving before the concert started, I stopped to rub my fingers on a purple-flowered herb – annis hyssop, a delicious tea – and to smell the incredible flowers of the lime (!) tree. So different from the urbanity just a hundred feet or so below, I and the rest of the audience was enchanted by the greenery surrounding us. Nestling between and behind ferns, bushes, trees and hand-built nooks, we settled in for the music to begin.
Skin Tone opened the show with a super short but just as sweet set, opting to ditch the pedals entirely by the end to give us raw, unfiltered saxophone sounds. This was followed by Buffalo MRI, who could barely be seen, as she was tucked to the side of the stage (the stage being no more than an open wooden box, a demonstration balcony garden). But all that needed to be observed were the plants, listening more intently and silently than any of the humans present, absorbing these otherworldly yet earthly tones. Thin Gaze closed out the show with a more human, vocal touch, but mixing the same elements of computer and organic for a thought-provoking twenty minutes or so.
The music ended but the humans remained, unable to step away from this sonic rainforest. Just for a moment, it finally felt like spring.
