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For many people, 'tis the season for parties and celebrating. Frequently, it is also a time of year where you're hurry-up-and-waiting for baked goods to bake, or there's down time while you're visiting family, or there's no work getting done at your desk job since people took time off. Or you've just finished your holiday shopping and you're kicking back with a congratulatory cup of a winter beverage and your technology fix of choice. Your local community's contra organizers are likely to be taking a well-deserved break before New Year's, so what's a 'Net-savvy contra dancer to do?

_If you've found something cool and contra-related while web surfing, please share with the rest of us! Happy Holidays to all!

_Back in September when I talked to Julie Vallimont (of Nor'easter and Double Apex), I learned that the other half of Double Apex, Brendan Carey Block, had been performing his own experiments with techno music. Like any curious person of the digital age, I consulted Google to learn more. What I found was not only that Brendan, the 2000-2001 U.S. National Junior Scottish Fiddle Champion, had recently parted ways with contra bands Annalivia and Matching Orange to pursue other projects, but that one of those other projects was DJing under the moniker Matt Blackfield. Further, earlier this year, The Matt Blackfield
Project was released for digital download.

The Matt Blackfield Project is a rather eclectic blend of folk flavoring and evocative electronic techno. All of the tracks create lush soundscapes, and if I was more inclined as a visual artist, I might have been reaching for some paint and a canvas (and created very different pieces to suit each track's mood).

To wit: the collection opens with a watery, echoey rendition of "Fingal's Cave," which the liner notes tell us is an ancient Scottish march with some modern treatment. The addition of the enigmatic, echoey spoken-word passage from Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland made my inner literature geek smile and adds another dimension to the piece.

The sixth track, "Short Road, Long Journey," opens with a keyboard loop before introducing more mechanical effects and bells that sound a bit like a rushing crowd. It then shifts to a lower variant of the melody and then weaves a bunch of layers together before it fades out and leaves the distinct impression that the listener has just glimpsed a scene that will continue even
after it becomes inaudible.

My favorite track, however, is "Dark Field," which frankly to me sounds like a group of pixies decided to crash into the titular field and hold a rave; it opens with cricket-like noises and night sounds, then adds some sparse but reverberating keyboard and then a thumping beat and some steadier, higher-toned drums.

Interestingly, it isn't until relatively late in The Matt Blackfield Project's eleven tracks that we hear a lot of the fiddle playing for which Brendan has up until now been known. Both "Soda Springs" and "Leaving Lake Morey" are square (or nearly so) tunes that feature the fiddle heavily and remind me a bit of Perpetual e-Motion's work. For "Leaving Lake Morey," Brendan notes in the liner notes that it was composed "for [his] departure from the fantastic community at the lakeside Hulbert Outdoor Center" and the sense of farewell and longing in this piece is rather clear. "Soda Springs," on the other hand,
features some hot fiddle action with some equally hot guitar sounds and framed very well by a backing drum loop.  

While this is very much an electronic album, The Matt Blackfield Project still shows off Brendan's folkie roots (I was a bit surprised to figure out that about half the tunes are square, or exceedingly close to it) and provides for a foray into the full spectrum of the multidimensional, if somewhat disjointed, world this Project has created.

The Matt Blackfield Project is available for digital download at Brendan Carey Block's web site and is also streamable from his Facebook page and his Myspace.

_A couple of weeks ago, Contra Syncretist talked to caller Ray Polhemus, who among other observations connected more "swingy," more flourishy dancing with the techno contra trend. Despite the inclusion of our Friday Flourishes, I'm not sure I see the same causal link between the two.

_Dennis Gagaoin (pronounced "GA-ga-win") was looking though Spokane, WA's Craigslist when he came across an ad looking for an event DJ. "What caught my attention was the emphasis on electronica music, which is what I am particularly fond of spinning," he explains. In fact, DJ Gaga used to host "Spintronica" on radio station KYRS. "Little did I know that it was for a contra dance until Terra Price contacted me about the details." The event in question was Spokane's Deca-dance, held on October 29 and called by Ray Polhemus. I had never even heard of a techno contra but the idea intrigued me, and when I researched it online and saw videos of techno contra events in other parts of the country, I was extremely excited to DJ the event. I thought it was a great concept and I knew I had to be a part of it."

When I found out that George Marshall had called for the Spark in the Dark series up in Massachusetts last spring, I was intrigued. George has been on the folk dance scene for many years and has called with and played in some iconic acoustic bands within it. As George puts it, “I started dancing at 15, I started calling in 1978, and I’m 53 now.” What would his view be of electronic music and a club-like atmosphere recently fusing with this dance scene, with which he has been involved for many years?

“I’ve been playing piano since I was six,” says Julie Vallimont of Double Apex and Nor’easter fame. “I started as a classical musician and played organ professionally for 15 years. I really got into midis in the ‘90s and was always interested [in electronic music]. But then I moved to Boston for grad school, and had no time.” It was around then that she discovered the contra dancing world and “fell in love with the music and the way the music and the dance fit together, and thought, ‘maybe I could do that.’”

With its new season starting, the Club Contras series in Greenwood, VA found itself looking for some new DJ talent to supply the music for dances. Last month, Brian “DJ Nu B” Murphy made his Club Contras debut. I caught up with him and talked to him about his tunes, his other musical endeavors, and the inspiration he brings and communicates with his DJ skills.

After calling the Sunday FSGW dance with Nor’easter playing last week in Glen Echo Park, Dave Eisenstadter turned around and called the August edition of the Contra Sonic techno contra series two nights later in Arlington, VA. While it was his first time calling Contra Sonic, this was not his first exposure to a crossover contra event:

“My first techno contra was on New Years Day 2010 in Asheville, NC, and it was organized and DJ'd by Jordy Williams. Since then, I've been to a handful of techno and alternative music dances at Youth Dance Weekend in Vermont and throughout Massachusetts. Dancer friends told me about Jordy's dance and we wound up driving 12 hours to see what it was like.”

It seems that these days North Carolina is a hotbed of crossover contra series, as there appear to be not one but three groups (that I’m aware of -- there may be more!) having events on a fairly regular basis. One of these is Electric Camel Contra, where DJ Eileen Thorsos and her internationally-flavored “electrotrad” music are based.

Eileen herself describes her music as follows: “I focus my DJing on (awesome!) fusion music: traditional tunes played on bagpipes, fiddle, accordion, whistles, etc. and arranged with a lot of beat, electric instrumentation, and other excellent non-traditional arrangements. I've drawn most heavily on the Peatbog Faeries, Shooglenifty, and the Afro Celt Sound System, with important contributions by Martyn Bennett & Martin Low, Enter the Haggis, Urban Trad, Richard Wood, and others....I look for Celtic fusion music that I like (hopefully LOVE), that I want to dance to, and that is upbeat with a rich and interesting sound. I want the dance to be joyous. Many of the sets aren't precisely square the whole way through: They just have to have the potential to be square. I can cut, copy, and paste to make it work out.”

One of the advantages of maintaining a blog is the ability to drag out the soap box every now and then.

Specifically, I want to address my viewpoint on a common complaint about this whole crossover contra thing, that somehow crossover contra "isn't really contra dancing" because it uses non-traditional music.