Highlights from Wavelength Festival

What is Wavelength, you might ask. Well, it’s Toronto’s longest running underground music festival operated as a non-profit, artist-run organization. This year the festival took place over the long weekend in what people might refer to as the shittiest  weather so far this year.

The thing about indie shows is you never know for sure what you’ve gotten yourself into – you’re either introduced to new, fantastic, mind-blowing music or you’re moderately traumatised. Everyone has their own take on what went down.

Music is much like love; there is someone for everyone and I have no doubt some good discoveries were made in the sexy light of General Chaos’ projections but let’s just say that 11-member bands who look like they may have recently robbed a thrift shop were not within our range of expectations.

The highlights of the weekend were Montreal duo Blue Hawaii and Canada’s hip hop treasure Cadence Weapon.

Blue Hawaii’s production handiworks combined with soft yet piercing voice came together in incredibly haunting, delicate tracks. The audience seemed surprised by the performance but by the third song everyone was well into the grove. Put aside the sadness and melancholy and Blue Hawaii actually sounds like peace, true to the name, that comes toward you  in waves.

Cadence Weapon, on the other hand, is a whole different experience. Being recently nominated for Rap/Hip Hop Artist of the Year at the upcoming Indies, the artist known offstage as Rollie Pemberton seemed quite content with his achievements which made the performance pretty smooth. In the traditional fashion Pemberton raps to a live DJ which adds a good dimension to the show, especially when your DJ is a somewhat of a clown.

Is this something we’d do again? Sure. The music scene is just that, it’s a scene. Everyone deserves a chance to play and to be seen. That being said not everyone who decided to form a band should carry on doing it.