Great Bloomers (photo by David Waldman)

One thing I’ve noted from all Great Bloomers shows is that no matter how many times you’ve seen them live, they never fail to play consistently dynamic performances. To kick off their upcoming fall tour, the Toronto quintet put together a show at the El Mocambo this past Friday, Aug 20th with London, Ontario’s Olenka and the Autumn Lovers and Kalle Mattson from Sault Ste. Marie. Great Bloomers took the stage around midnight and opened with a trumpet-full track from their new 7-inch record, to be released next month.

A few technical problems arose during the set, but nothing too critical to set back the band, who continued with palpable sincerity and skill. After playing a handful of new songs, the band turned to play tracks such as “Young Ones Slept”, “Honey Blanket”, “Admit Defeat” from their well-received debut album Speak of Trouble, released last year.

It was also a delight to see Andrew Kekewich – the band’s former drummer who now plays for another Toronto outfit, The Wooden Sky – move to the front, leading much of the fist-pumping. Another thing that I love most about Great Bloomers shows, besides the teeming energy from the band, is the crowd’s complete adulation and submersion to the country-imparting rock music. Left and right, you could see everyone in the audience singing back to guitarist/vocalist Lowell Sostomi, both equally heartfelt.

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Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/greatbloomers
Website: http://greatbloomers.com/

Photo By Aviva Cohen

If there is one thing that can be said about The Loom, it would be that their swelling horns, authoritative downbeats, and generally serene harmonies can haunt any room with their earthy sound – even a nearly-empty El Mocambo this past Friday night.

The Brooklyn six-piece took to a Toronto stage for the first time Friday night, delivering jangling chord progressions and eerie desert-like chants, creating a scene that looked and sounded as if Edward Sharpe had lost about half of his Magnetic Zeroes and was stranded in some sort of Middle Eastern desert terrain.

The Loom pounded through their set list, taking little time to breath between one spiritual and tranquilizing hymn-like number to the next, while Lis Rubard quickly alternated between French horn and trumpet mid-song, keeping in time with the band’s creatively abrupt tempo changes. The constant and dreamy harmonies featured throughout The Loom’s catalogue were delivered skillfully by lead vocalists John Fanning and Sarah Renfro, although the articulation of the lyrics were inaudible for the majority of the set, unlike on the recordings.

“Song for the Winter Sun,” boasts the choral proclamation of “This year we will not, This year we will not, Sleep our way, Through the winter,” whose eeriness resonated not only throughout the El Mo, but possibly all the way into Chinatown.

Reaching the end of their set, the band played a song Fanning called “Snowed In,” although the aggressive tribal-like bass drums and warm horns and banjo that carried out the number did not correlate with the image of snow, but rather the same feeling of dust, dirt, and penetrating ultraviolet rays that had been a constant image throughout the show.

Ending the show with “Helena,”  The Loom had knocked out about 10 songs, all of which were within the same desert-like realm, but all of which were played with heart, soul, and any third party that may be affiliated with such things, despite the meager number of onlookers.

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MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/theloommusic