Articles by Alex Mcgill
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Creatively Engaged
How Successful Is Artistic Activism?
The hardest assignment you can be given at Concordia right now is finding ways to keep students who are on the fence about a strike engaged and involved in the cause.
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Weekly Spins
One Mature, One Just Starting
Any band that can pull off covering Gucci Mane and James Blake in the same set deserves some serious respect. Include the fact that it’s done in a dirty, hard jazz style and it becomes a must-listen.
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Breaking Down the Wall
The Wooden Sky Merge Artist and Audience
The Wooden Sky are raring to go. It’s part childish giddiness, but it’s also part cabin fever.
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Art by Design
Subject to Change Talks Aesthetics
However polished the finished product is, art exhibits are made, not born. They’re the end result of hours and hours of work—and often their fair share of trial and error.
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A Little Bit of Whimsy
The Poupart Gallery Explores Space Within Space
You might not spend much time thinking about it, but gallery space for an exhibit is a crucial element for both curator and artist.
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Our Guide to Art Matters
The 12th edition of Concordia’s Art Matters festival kicks off this Friday and they’ve got some surprises in store.
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Rapping for the Queer Collective
Rough Diamond Collective Embraces Queer Hip-Hop
Hip-hop is not entirely accustomed to seeing Queer artists amongst its ranks—or so you might think. Having a strong, Queer hip-hop community in Montreal may be surprising, but Queer artists have actually been incredibly present in the Montreal hip-hop scene since the 1980s.
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A City of Festivals
Art Matters Explores Art and Athleticism at Nuit Blanche
“I cultivated a weird fetish for boxing this summer,” said Zoe Koke, exhibitions coordinator for the 2012 edition of Art Matters, when asked about the theme for the long-running Concordia art festival’s upcoming event In Our Time.
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Exploring the Darkness
Chronicles of a Disappearance Digs at Our Deepest Fears
We are often perched just at the edge of a void—going through life with an unrealized deep-rooted fear of death, the unknown and the unfamiliar. Chronicles of a Disappearance, on now at the DHC/ART Gallery, is the kind of exhibit that leaves you thinking about these things for days afterwards.
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Weekly Spins
Soft & Slow
With an approach that sits somewhere between those of artists like Dirty Beaches and Women, Damon McMahon’s solo project Amen Dunes offers an edgy introversion with his second LP.
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Editorial
Engage in Your Education
How passive are we about our education?
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Bringing the Outdoors In
Montreal Graf Legend Goes Straight in New Studio Show
From the team that created the FAKE brand—a clothing and lifestyle shop located just off the main drag of St. Laurent—comes a new project.
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The Darcys Find Their Sound
Toronto Band Drops New Album, Remake Steely Dan
Toronto rock outfit the Darcys’ self-titled album, released this past fall and the catalyst for their upcoming North American tour, was one that even the band thought would never get finished.
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Fringe for the Holidays
Local Craft Fairs Offer Up Unique Gift Possibilities
The best parts of the holiday season are those things you can’t quantify: decorating your house, visiting your family, digging into fantastic meals, playing in the snow. That nice warm, cozy feeling you get when you sit back and contemplate the things you have to be happy for.
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Print’s Not Dead
Local Small Press Fair Expozine Hits Decade Mark
In the age of Internet domination, where we’re told almost daily that the printed word as we know it will soon be obsolete, Montreal’s infamous small-press festival, Expozine, is celebrating a decade in the biz and showing no signs of slowing down.
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Moving Landscapes
Trailer Obscura Takes the Photographer Inside the Camera
Concordia Fine Arts students Daniel Paterson and Bella Klein travelled from New York to Prince Edward Island this past summer with their camera literally hitched to the back of their car—a utility trailer that they converted into a five-foot by 10-foot camera obscura.
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Weekly Spins
Slow Dance for the Soul-Barer
Los Angeles duo High Places are dressed in low frequencies and heavy percussion on Original Colors, finding their roots in electronic club sounds pushed through a deep, minimalist filter.
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FA$A
Fine Arts Executive Honorariums Officially Up
The Fine Arts Student Alliance budget, which includes an increase in executive honorariums, was officially passed at the FASA meeting on Nov. 1.
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Literary Animals
Concordia’s Co-op Bookstore Nurtures Nature
Living in the mostly urban mecca that is Montreal, sometimes the concept of nature and the other creatures that inhabit it is hard to imagine. However, for Montreal-based writers JP King, Ashley Opheim and Mark Ambrose Harris, the animal kingdom is a major source of inspiration in this concrete jungle.
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Art Minds & Art Matters
Art Fest to Hold Annual Info Party, Launch New Website
Entering its 11th year, Art Matters, Montreal’s student-run multidisciplinary art festival, is back. Get ready.