In an exciting Toronto community event, three-piece band LAL are releasing their 4th LP tomorrow night at the Garrison. For those interested in music, community, and much much more, check out some more info on the band below, as well as the event page by clicking on the image above.

LAL will be celebrating their 4th LP release, Friday, May 18th 2012 at the Garrison.

LAL is a band, but not only a band – they are a music making magical mushroom, the visible flowering part of a much larger organism, connected with very fine but infinitely resilient roots.

They are the flowering fruit of a complex network of microscopic filaments, these roots also belonging and are connected to other firms and organizations; incisive and relentless activists, ethical community based businesses and performance companies.

They are a huge, justice-hungry organism. A world-wide team of individuals, groups, organizations, companies, firms, NGOs, businesses, researchers, activists, philosophers and artists. Those who are determined to give a shit.

The music of LAL is made by poet, lyricist, activist, singer and Bengali-rooted tough-guy Rosina Kazi and her life partner, producer, sound designer, philosopher, aphorismist and Barbados-born king of chill, Nicholas Murray, joined by bassist and walking guru Uganda-born Ian De Souza,

The Remix Project graduate Fresco P has been steadily making his presence felt in the Toronto music scene over the past little while. On “Anomaly” he hooks up with the Hundred Faces group to perform his vocals alongside their improvised instrumentation. Make sure you watch out for Fresco this summer!

Honest Music duo Times Neue Roman offer up the visual treatment for their ode to one of the most mesmerizing vocal talents of the past couple generations on “Sade Is In My Tapedeck”. We’d like to congratulate the boys on some serious blog placements as well, and with a beat as mellow and lyrics as catchy as these, it shouldn’t come as any surprise. One listen and you’ll be repeating the mantra “Sade is in my tapedeck, I’m moving in slow motion”.

The Remix Project is proud to share news that it has recently been announced Astral Media’s Harold Greenberg Fund will be supporting the City Life Film Project in the development of a feature film. As part of this groundbreaking partnership, CLFP finalists Gebriel Deneke, Kim Miller-Price and Kobi Ntiri will develop their shorts into a feature film treatment with the assistance of a story editor.

Read further in the full article, previewed below.

Like the Cannes Film Festival programmers, the Fund representatives were equally impressed by each of the completed short films. The $10,000 set aside in September will be shared between the three filmmakers and their story editors, who until this point have been generously volunteering their time to work with the finalists.

A Partnership between Temple Street Productions and The Remix Project, the City Life Film Project (www.citylifefilmproject.com) is a short film program dedicated to helping at-risk youth get a leg up in the film and television industry. The goal of City Life is to provide talented youth with the unique opportunity to tell stories from their communities and to achieve artistic excellence through filmmaking.

 

Our good friend Jason Eano has been selected by Paper Mag as one of 7 Creative People Making Good and Making Bank! Read what they had to say about him. Congratulations to Jason!

Jason Eano, of Toronto-based artist agency Hermann & Audrey Community — made up of photographers, directors, strategists and producers — spearheads the company’s community programming, bringing the arts and philanthropy together. He is a behind the scenes shadow warrior for good, taking on a wide array of clients and forcing collaboration on everything from photography exhibits to fundraisers, all the while advancing the missions of the organizations he works with and raising the money they need to get their work done. One  key to his success: Jason began as a freelancer, building a portfolio of clients that were cause aligned, which enabled him to start an agency, which led to full time work for both him and his friends.

Remix Project graduate Gifty Singh puts the visual treatment to his talented voice with the brand new video for his song “Winterrors”. A quick glimpse at his music that keeps you wanting more, take a couple minutes to take in the imagery. His forthcoming Winterrors EP will be released via his website on Friday, April 13th.

Astral’s Harold Greenberg Fund was to recently award a prize to one of three short films produced for Toronto’s City Life Film Project. But John Galway, president of the fund’s English-language program, tells Playback Daily that he liked all three projects – Gebriel Deneke’s Cul-de-Sac, Kim Miller-Pryce’s Baby Half Lie and Kobi Ntiri’s Fading – enough to help them be developed into treatments for possible feature films with the help of story editors.

“Not every short is destined to be a feature, but all three have a kernel of an idea that could be expanded into long form,” Galway explains. The City Life Film Project, which helps at-risk youth get a leg up in the film and TV industry, is a collaboration of Calum deHartog, a former cop-turned-film and TV producer, The Remix Project and Temple Street Productions.

All three short films debuted at the TIFF Bell Lightbox in January after Deneke’s Cul-de-Sac was mentored by director Leonard Farlinger, Miller-Pryce’s Baby Half Lie was mentored by Ruba Nadda, and Ntiri’s Fading received mentoring from David Weaver. Galway says each short springs from its director’s personal life growing up in Toronto. “These are all personal films that they created and that gives them an extra weight and importance,” Galway explains.

Gebriel Deneke turned to filmmaking after writing poetry, hip-hop and R&B music, while Kim Miller-Pryce, who was born to a teenage mother, is eyeing a career in film as she develops her storytelling and editing skills. And Kobi Ntiri shot his first film, Young World, a documentary about young entrepreneurs in Toronto, in 2009, and recently co-directed his first narrative short, The Gesture.

Galway says all three filmmakers will develop a treatment and then return to the Harold Greenberg Fund and Telefilm Canada for possible feature film development coin. “It’s part of the learning process,” he adds.

The support for the three possible short-to-long form adaptations follows the fund’s English-Language Program and The Movie Network in November 2011 launching a short film program to encourage emerging filmmakers to eventually make a debut feature film. The strategy is to choose short films that can succeed on the festival circuit, and possibly fit the TMN pay TV movie brand.

The Harold Greenberg Fund more recently launched a $1,000 comedic short film award to be handed out at the upcoming Just For Laughs Montreal Comedy Festival in July.

DefineTO – main promo from OpenOptics.TV on Vimeo.

The Remix Project has been selected as the beneficiary of the very first DefineTO event on April 12th, 2012 at The Fifth Social Club in downtown Toronto. DefineTO is a brand new initiative launched by a group of organizers from last year’s TwestivalTO event, which raised over $18,000 for Remix’s Creative Arts and Photography programs. This year another great event is being planned, with the goal of raising $20,000. Proceeds of all funds raised will go directly to The Remix Project.

DefineTO is a volunteer-driven initiative that aims to use the power of social media for social good by connecting the Toronto community in a celebration of innovative and passionate ideas. With the motto “Be the exception, not the rule” DefineTO aspires to support local causes that help others define their own paths to success. The Remix Project supports the values of DefineTO with our mission to provide youth with opportunities to define who they are, on their own terms, through creative programming.

It is exciting for The Remix Project to receive this incredible recognition from DefineTO and Toronto’s digital community, allowing us to provide more and better resources for the 40 or more youth that participate in our programs every six months. Remix thrives on the generous support from our community, which sustains us in our cause of providing valuable opportunities for all of our young people to thrive.

We hope you will join us for DefineTO on Thursday, April 12th! For more information and updates on all the fun things that will be happening during the event, follow @DefineTO and visit www.defineTO.com.

Click here to purchase tickets!

Honest Music artist Times Neue Roman recently hooked up with Remix Project alumnus Rich Kidd for a song they call “Late Night Toronto”, an ode to the city we know and love. What’s more impressive than the recording of the song is the reception it’s been getting by prominent media sources online. First the renowned urban tastemaker DJ Booth picked it up, and now it’s been spotted on Jay Z’s ROC4LIFE web blog. Check the links for proof, and listen below!

Remix graduate Fresco P has teamed up with one of Toronto’s most well-respected DJs, DJ Law, for a tribute to the legendary late producer Jay Dee aka J Dilla. PanDilla’s Box is a collection of songs performed over J Dilla beats, and features a number of high octane Toronto hip hop artists, including Fresco’s fellow Remix participant Moses aka Mosley Claxington. Wait no longer, download it now!

Download: Fresco P x DJ Law – PanDilla’s Box