Leah Singer + Lee Ranaldo: The WL Interview
Purveyors of: Moving image + swinging guitar
File next to: Sonic Youth, Michael Snow
Appearing: Wavelength x Project Nowhere, Friday Oct. 4, 2020 @ St. Anne’s Parish Hall (651 Dufferin Street). Get tickets here.
New Yorkers Leah Singer and Lee Ranaldo have a 30+ year history of collaboration. Lee is best known as a founding member of Sonic Youth (1981-2011), the American band that redefined electric guitar rock through altered tunings, intense amplification and imaginative song structures, laying the groundwork for the indie/alt-rock revolution of the ‘90s and ‘00s. Leah Singer is a Canadian-born multidisciplinary who has worked in film, photography, and painting and has collaborated with luminaries across the art world and around the world. Jonny Dovercourt spoke to the pair via email in advance of their performance of Contre Jour as part of the Project Nowhere festival this Friday (Oct. 4) at a show co-presented by Wavelength at St. Anne’s Parish Hall — a once-in-a-lifetime show that will be opened by their friend and collaborator Zoon, which whom Ranaldo will be performing, along with most of Toronto’s own Broken Social Scene.
Hi Leah and Lee! How are you doing and whereabouts in the world are you as you write this?
We are currently in New York City, where we live. We’re both doing fine!
You’re coming to Toronto to perform at the Project Nowhere this Friday. The title of the piece you’re performing is Contre Jour. Though I know this term refers to a photographic effect, is there any significance to the title for you? And is this the piece’s premiere?
We have performed variations of image and sound shows using different names including DRIFT, Sight Unseen, and Contre Jour, since 1991. This latest version of Contre Jour is technically not a premiere but it is a new variation we have not used in performance before. So it will be the first time anyone is seeing it. Our performances include the folding in of previous shows to the mix, both sound and image, to create an ouroboric state of self-references. The shadow and the silhouette are re-occurring in these performances and directly relate to the title Contre Jour, which means “against the light.” We are playing with shadows — the earliest form of cinema — both as part of the films we present and live-in-the-room during Lee’s performance.
Your artistic collaboration now spans many years. Do you approach each performance as a fresh-start challenge or is it something that’s constantly evolving?
It is a fresh challenge every time, and it is constantly evolving. The character of the performance has evolved over now 30 years, in both content and presentation. Some of the concerns that interest us are carried over across the performances, but new things are always being added, new visuals and sounds, new approaches to the live show.
This isn’t the first time you’ve performed a show in this format — Lee’s swinging guitar plus Leah’s projected visuals — in Toronto. Do you have any fond memories of past performances in our city?
We performed at Nuit Blanche 2010, in the courtyard of Old City Hall, with immense projection screens, and also at the X Avant Festival [at the Polish Combatants Hall, a show produced by this interviewer] in 2011 with the swinging guitar. Both were memorable in many ways, and each was a very different presentation of what we do, as will be this latest iteration for Project Nowhere. At the X Avant Festival, Michael Snow and his wife Peggy Gale were in attendance and that was special.
Lee, you’ve struck up an exciting collaboration with Daniel Monkman aka Zoon, someone near and dear to the Wavelength/Toronto/Canadian music community. How did this creative relationship come to be? We hear you’ll also be performing with Zoon on Oct. 4th, can you preview a bit of what we can expect to hear?
Yes, both Leah and I have been friends with Daniel for a few years now. Leah and Daniel share a connection in that both hail from Winnipeg. Daniel and I first connected through my work with Yonatan Gat’s Medicine Singers group, of which we are both members. We love what Zoon is doing and have become close friends. I played on his forthcoming album (we recorded at the legendary Bath House studios of the Tragically Hip) and I’ll join for one of those new songs during his set.
What new music or art excites you? Besides Daniel and Zoon, do you see echoes of work you’ve innovated in that of younger artists nowadays?
Echoes of various aspects of Sonic Youth’s long career pop up here and there. It’s really gratifying to hear young and new bands name-check us as an influence. We hear a lot of different music from across a wide spectrum, always finding new artists and also returning to long-lasting favorites. Lately we’ve been listening to a lot of the German band Cluster – their albums are each very different and we think they are all pretty great! In terms of new music, it includes new work from Ka Baird, Circuit des Yeux, Six Organs of Admittance, Kali Malone, and Andre 3000’s flute album.
Don’t miss Leah + Lee this Friday as part of Project Nowhere at St. Anne’s! Tickets available via DICE.