bg

  

  
   

hursday, March 19, artist
| Erica Grimm-Vance presented
her works in the Amelia Douglas
lery. The name of her exhibit is
etaxu; Beauty is the Beginning of Terror.
his name is the message that Grimm-
ce is trying to convey in her art.
‘The mediums are diverse: beeswax,
n oxide, cast lead, steel, graphite,
te, clay, and 22k gold. Grimm-Vance
es these textural mediums to provide a
trast that speaks of a contrast in her
bssage. The soft paper images are
ated in beeswax and are framed with

 
  

b cast lead and steel. The images are

MC student's first album rates high on OP

sk-0-Meter

gle 1: New Band
s not too often in this age of mass
bduction that any given person holds,

  
   
 
  
   
  
 
   
  
   
   
  
   
 
  
  
 
   
  
   
   
   
 
 

their hands, a single copy of anything.
t that is what happened when the
itting Adam lead singer, Ceren

lina, dropped by the OP office to ask
to give the band’s first CD a listen ‘n
iew. “Oh, by the way,” he says, “it’s
only copy.” Jeez! Really new band.

gle 2: Local Band

bt only are Splitting Adam from
couver, but Gallina is a Douglas
llege music student.

Really local band.

ere seems to be two kinds of bands
t come out of BC; there are your

nic, cool bands whose hook- and
pp-filled music belies their general
achment from the rest of the

tinent. They put out whimsical

ums with hidden, pointed barbs for
bse who listen to their car tape decks
sely enough. We're talking here about
40, the Odds, Pure, or By Divine
Pht.

Then you have your dour bands,

nse and serious enough to be
sidered almost Vulcan, that seem to
ye cut their albums during the darker
s of winter. Moist comes to mind.
jah McLachlan, too, could fit in here
ewhere, though her music is

iously quite a different beast than
yer. Anyway...

bplitting Adam would belong to the
er category. The quartet's first CD is
etty meaty mix of guitars and
scendo, like the impressive opening

a&e@op.douglas.bc.ca

etaxu:

Beauty is the beginning of terror

mostly of human figures, some seem-
ingly contorted in agony, others in
binding positions of self-preservation.
They are drawn in graphite on paper
with colour streaks of red and green
tones.

What Erica Grimm-Vance spoke
about as the topic of her work was “the
transcendence of body to spirit.” If one
were to really see an angel one would
probably be terrified of its unfamiliarity.
The twisted bodies are representations of
the soul in the moment that it departs
from the body. They are not pretty like
the clichéd angel images; they are

track, ‘On My Way Out,’ and more
delicately-crafted songs, like ‘Overcome,’
that seem to find their own way along. It
is music with a heavier weight, but the
songs are nicely composed—with not
too many of those awkward passages
that are common to newer bands—and
go in some pretty interesting directions.
‘Falling Down,’ for instance, one of the
more prominent tracks, goes all over the
place. That rule seems to work for the
rest of the album, too. While the tone
generally remains constant, the ten
tracks all seem to have their own
identities,

Guitar is the weapon of
choice for the band, and
they wield them pretty
heavily. But the band
knows what they're doing;
the solos actually go
somewhere, there is a nice
flourish of bass here and
there, and the band
doesn’t stick to the same
tricks from song to song.
Gallina is also the vocalist
(as well as the distribu-
tor), and provides a pretty
strong aural presence,
slightly reminiscent of
Jim Kerr from the Simple
Minds in a strange kind
of way (though he'll
probably want to beat me
up for saying that).

Splitting Adam is a
strong debut for the
band. There are apparent
singles, strong melodies, a

 

  

terrible and yet beautiful.

Grimm-Vance is from a Christian
background, but she does not limit her
message to Christianity, as she believes
the soul is present regardless of religion.

She graduated from the University of
Regina in 1981 where she studied print
making and painting. She studied art in
Germany for one year and started her
career immediately upon her return to
Canada. The exhibit will be shown until
April 18 on the fourth floor in the
Amelia Douglas Gallery.

 

good presence, more hooks than a pirate
convention, and a lot of promise. And
they're as homegrown as you can get.

Oh, and another measure of the
album’s quality, the OP Office Ask-O-
Meter. While this CD was playing in
our office, three different people asked
about the disc, a subtle, but certain, sign
of approval. And that was on a slow day,
too.

By the way, the CD release party is at
Richard’s on Richards, June 18, 1998.
Be there.

     

of the

Jim Chliboyko

Fall is my favourite time

year

I love to walk through the leaves

and hear them soften my foot steps
The crisp north wind awakens my senses
My nostrils flare

My eyes widen

Prowling strides

fuel my heart’s inner hearth

A twig snaps

A booming flutter fills my left ear

I spin

Point

And squeeze

A grouse frantically flails to the ground
The hunt

The kill

Fall is my favourite time of year

John B. Morash

 

 

 

The Other Press April 1998 5