Sled Island Rock Lotto album launches
Sled Island is one of Western Canada's largest independent music and arts festivals and is well known by Calgary music lovers as a celebration and showcase of the best emerging and established local talent alongside international sensations.
This year due to the pandemic, Sled Island organizers made the unfortunate but uavoidable decision to postpone the annual five-day festival. In an effort to continue to support the musicians and their fans, organizers came up with an idea.
Sled Island Rock Lotto which has been a highlight of the festival in previous years makes a triumphant return in a new format. A press release from the Sled team spells it out:
"Like the annual live tradition it's based on, these bands were formed by drawing the names of the 45 participating musicians from across Canada at random, but this time they were tasked with writing and recording a brand-new song solely by sending ideas and tracks to each other from afar. Many of these brave and fearless bands will have released a song together before ever meeting each other in person!"
CTV News met up with Marlaena Moore, one of the rock lotto participants to get her take on the ambitious project.
"The fine folks at Sled just reached out (to me) and said, ‘We can't really do sled this year, so let's try something different.’” Moore said. “They reached out to a bunch of different musicians and asked if they'd be interested in meeting up with strangers over the internet and somehow making up bands and releasing a song to be released on a comp and it sounded just wild enough to work, you know?”
Moore said this was the first time she had ever attempted to write a song with remote collaborators but the whole process proved to be fun.
“We were meeting like once a week over Zoom and it was very sweet because it was so collaborative in the sense that, like, each piece of the puzzle of the song was fully contributed by someone.”
It's no secret that touring musicians were hit hard by the pandemic and the restrictions that caused a complete shutdown of most, if not all live music venues. Moore reflects on the time as being difficult but also eye opening.
“It was nice in some ways to have time to be creative, but at the same time, a pandemic does not equal a residency,” she said. “I think that kinda tripped a lot of people out too, that you have to be creative if you’re given a lot of time and not factoring in that this pandemic causes so much anxiety and depression and stress.”
Despite those struggles Moore and her collaborators Matthew Cardinal, Jamie Radu, Thomas Englund and Nick Schofield formed the supergroup ‘Casual Fridays’ and in the course of one month produced an indie-pop song Sure Thing, which is now featured on the Sled Island Rock Lotto Album.
Moore says the group wanted to do something fun and dancey and drew influence from bands like Talk Talk and Blondie.
“The appeal is being able to make something that you wouldn't normally make with people that you may not normally jam with.”
The full album was released on Aug. 6 and is available to stream or purchase on the Sled Island Webpage, and on Bandcamp.
Sled Island organizers have also recently announced Camp Sled Island, a three-day event taking place at Beltline’s High Park (340 10 Ave. S.W.) running Aug. 19 to 21.
Details can be found online.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
'The world is too messy for bureaucratic hurdles': Canada still bars Afghanistan aid
Ottawa has plans to finally stop blocking Canadian development aid to Afghanistan this year.
Student anti-war protesters dig in as faculties condemn university leadership over calling police
Students protesting the Israel-Hamas war at at universities across U.S., some of whom have clashed with police in riot gear, dug in Saturday and vowed to keep their demonstrations going, while several school faculties condemned university presidents who have called in law enforcement to remove protesters.
Toxic testing standoff: Family leaves house over air quality
A Sherwood Park family says their new house is uninhabitable. The McNaughton's say they were forced to leave the house after living there for only a week because contaminants inside made it difficult to breathe.
Hamas is reviewing an Israeli proposal for a ceasefire in Gaza, as possible Rafah offensive looms
Hamas said Saturday it was reviewing a new Israeli proposal for a ceasefire in Gaza, as Egypt intensified efforts to broker a deal to end the months-long war and stave off a possible Israeli ground offensive into the southern Gaza city of Rafah.
Cisco reveals security breach, warns of state-sponsored spy campaign
State-sponsored actors targeted security devices used by governments around the world, according to technology firm Cisco Systems, which said the network devices are coveted intrusion points by spies.
I just don't get Taylor Swift
It's one thing to say you like Taylor Swift and her music, but don't blame CNN's AJ Willingham's when she says she just 'oesn't get' the global phenomenom.
More than 115 cases of eye damage reported in Ontario after solar eclipse
More than 115 people who viewed the solar eclipse in Ontario earlier this month experienced eye damage after the event, according to eye doctors in the province.
Russia renews attacks on the Ukrainian energy sector as Kyiv launches drones at southern Russia
Russia launched a barrage of missiles against Ukraine overnight, in attacks that appeared to target the country's energy infrastructure. Meanwhile, Russia said its air defense systems had intercepted more than 60 Ukrainian drones over the southern Krasnodar region.
Sean 'Diddy' Combs files motion to dismiss some claims in a sexual assault lawsuit
Lawyers for Sean "Diddy" Combs pushed back against a woman's lawsuit that accused him of sexual assault, filing a motion on Friday to dismiss some claims that were not under law when the alleged incident occurred.