Sunglaciers Bring That “Calgary Sound”

Calgary’s Sunglaciers toured their new LP Subterranea through Midway Cafe on the night of Tuesday, 15 November 2022. Lane, Betty Moody, and Class President played in support.

There was no sun to be had on Tuesday night, nor glaciers, but the first snow of the season loomed as a possibility in the forecast. In other words, it was cold in Boston. Not as cold as Sunglacier’s hometown Calgary though, where freezing temperatures have been the rule rather than the exception in November.

The cosmopolitan jewel of Alberta sits in the meaty middle of the Canadian expanse. Just an afternoon drive’s distance from Edmonton to the north, but otherwise Calgary must fend for itself on the icy bluffs of northerly North America. And, in contrast to some of the more symbiotic, cross-border communities bridging the cultural gap between Canada and the USA (think about the proximity of Vancouver/Seattle, or the cluster of metro centers in the Northeast with Toronto, Montreal, Boston, and New York City), Calgary has no international dance partner. The state of Montana does not count. For god’s sake, Spokane, WA might be the closest, best option for a cross-border cultural adventure (it’s a college town, right?), if you call a 7-hour drive ‘close.’

Much like Chicago, the lonely titan of the American Midwest, Calgary has had to create its own identity in the wilderness. You don’t want to push the point too far, since streaming media has broken down many geographical barriers to being a part of the larger cultural conversation. But material conditions on the ground matter to artists trying to figure themselves out. Painters trying to paint, musicians trying to music, writers trying to write. Like Tom’s Diner in Suzanne Vega’s hit single of the same name, a locale can leave its impress on the artist. Perhaps Calgary has done the same with Sunglaciers, though the factors of influence in the subterranean processes of art production are never fully explicit in a good work of art, lest art-work be reduced to art-formula.

Boston’s Betty Moody opened the show. The three-piece crafts dreamy, low tempo pop numbers highlighted by Anna Neumann’s lush vocals. The singer can go low, or go high, exhibiting range and control over the quirks of her delivery with a painterly touch.

The fellow sitting at the synth provided a nice atmospheric counterpoint to Neumann’s voice — and though he switched to guitar on a few songs, the real motor of the band remained the leisurely low end of the four-string bass.

Rumor has it the drummer is a new/old addition to the ensemble, having joined up with Betty Moody recently after having played with Neumann in a more distant past.

If you go to enough shows, you start to notice the little things like the assortment of guitar pedals that guitarists have at their feet. Flangers, phasers, metal distortion, wah wahs, echo, delay, reverb. Whatever you want to sound freaky. Some musicians collect them like charms on a charm bracelet. A particular sound catches their fancy for a day, a week, a month, and becomes a permanent part of the collection, which they tote from gig to gig in vintage, custom-purposed suitcases.

Honestly, the add-ons can overwhelm the music if you don’t watch out. Picture Gordon Ramsay looking over a 8-page long menu at a roadside diner, aghast. Scrap it all and give the customers three choices: beef wellington, risotto, and a nice frisée salad.

Boston’s Lane scrapped most of it, with only one member of the four-piece keeping a few pedals at foot level. The result was a very straightforward and clean style – you might even say ‘austere.’ Like the songwriting stood itself naked in a steel tub and scrubbed itself clean with a Brillo Pad, Howard Hughes-style.

Having scrubbed away the excess, what was left? A series of compositions that relied on the geometry of melody, rather than the coloratura of transistors. Shades of math rock, as if the band was trying to digest a particularly sticky polynomial expression. In their poppier moments, Lane smack of postpunkers like turn of the millennium Q and Not U. But they’ll just as soon segue into a prog-inflected jammer or go down an 80s synth art-pop rabbit hole.

Shout out to their 4-song EP Theremin, which doesn’t seem to offer any theremin playing (correct me if I’m wrong in the comments).

Headliners Sunglaciers brought that “Calgary sound” to the Midway Cafe in the third spot on the bill. It’s the prized spot for touring bands who want to create a sense of anticipation for their set, but don’t want to twiddle their thumbs all night. Before taking the stage guitarist, vocalist, and frontman Evan Resnik downed a tall glass of water at the bar and exclaimed “Oh yeah, rock & roll!”

There’s a sense of self-deprecation in Resnik’s stage presence that comes from “living in the prairies.” When it comes to the music, though, Sunglaciers are all business. The four-piece brought the bells and whistles to the set. The core instrumentation consisted of two guitars, a bass, a drum kit, plus a keyboard in the wings. At different spots on the stage, however, the band had set up additional “substations” of music-making equipment, into which members rotated at critical moments to give the song a little extra oomph or take it on a sonic detour. A good chunk of the setlist was pulled from their recent LP Subterranea. The album is an effervescent mix of uptempo danceable club rock with throwback synth sounds and a bit of darkwave attitude.

It’s probably a wasted effort trying to pinpoint a national, or even Calgary-local, character to Sunglacier’s sound. Arguably, there is a more melodic tendency to the use of synths in Canadian indie rock, in contrast to the more “wallpaper”-approach of their American counterparts. How far you can extend this insight, it’s hard to say. But Sunglacier was definitely using the keys for more than “bloop bleep” hooks and shag rug aural carpeting.

Pride of Lowell Class President closed the night, performing pop punk with some light emo persuasions. The three-piece played songs off its recent four-track EP. In fact, the frontman counted off each song from the EP as they performed it: “One,” “Two,” “Three,” and so forth.

Quick question: is the bassist from Class President also the frontman for Burp, another Pride of Lowell? Let us know in the comments, as we stitch together the genealogy of the underground Lowell scene…