Saturday February 17, 2024
Time: 6:00 PM - 9:00 PM
Olympic Plaza
228 8 Ave SE Calgary, AB T2P 2M5, Calgary
Block Heater is pleased to again partner with Chinook Blast on Saturday February 17 to present icicle-melting artists on Olympic Plaza. On their 20th anniversary, dance to Le Vent du Nord’s deft Quebecois mélange of traditional styles; former Orchestra Baobab lead singer, Senegal’s Cheikh Ibra Fam with his modern hip-hop, Afrobeat and dub sounds; plus hip hop iconoclast Odario’s tongue-in-cheek socio-political commentary.
Le Vent Du Nord
Saint-Antoine-sur-Richelieu, Quebec.
Over their multiple Juno-winning 20-year recording career, Le Vent Du Nord has raised the bar for folk acts in Canada with their mélange of traditional styles and deft musicality that ties their ancestral Québecois music to long-established celtic, British, and French folk styles. Formed in 2002, Le Vent Du Nord quickly caught the attention of the Canadian folk community, winning the 2003 Juno for Roots and Traditional Group Recording of The Year for their debut album Maudite Moisson. A prolific creative run in the first decade of the millennium the band cap off the decade with another Juno for their fourth record, La Part Du Feu. The band has continued their creative streak throughout the 2010s and into the ‘20s, with another six albums and multiple collaborations to their credit. With their striking compositions and rollicking musicianship, Le Vent Du Nord are at once dramatic and energetic, a force of natural instrumentation that conjures visions of fur-lined windows, warm fires, and cold ales while the winds of the north blow steadily through the woods of old Québec.
-Mike Dunn
Cheikh Ibra Fam
Senegal
His first proper solo album following his departure from the seminal, mystical Senegalese group Orchestra Baobab, Peace in Africa, is a sprawling affair. It incorporates modern hip-hop and R&B beats, alongside distinctly Afrobeat horns with nods to his Senegalese heritage plus hits of calypso and dub. Ibra Fam’s songs meld these styles seamlessly, naturally moving between lyrics in English, French and Wolof. These are songs that implore you to dance, but Ibra Fam isn’t afraid to explore a more tender side than the staccato horns and bouncing beats might initially portray. There is an undercurrent of longing for change that rolls through his music, and his fearless calls to challenge systemic issues punctuate his songs and transcend language. Bringing his white hot performance to Calgary, Cheikh Ibra Fam marks another of those occasions where audiences might walk in unsure of what to expect and leave wondering how they hadn’t come across him before.
-Derek McEwen
Odario
Toronto, ON
Odario (Garfield) Williams is a voice, a soothing set of frequencies, sometimes delicately spoken into the pop filter of a CBC microphone, allowing the proximity effect to fill your ears with the low register of the Guyanese-born, Winnipeg-raised raconteur’s scintillating afterdark program, or otherwise expounded to the back of the room as part of one of his bombastic hip-hop performances. Born in Guyana, Odario got his start in wintrous Winnipeg, rapping in the pop and dub influenced ensemble Mood Ruff, which received much acclaim from Much Music and CBC Radio 3 in the mid ‘00s, but whose website now redirects to a Chinese industrial glue brand. As Grand Analog, Odario became the sole frontman, moving deeper into rock and soul to carry his tongue-in-cheek socio-political commentary through the ‘10s, garning several western Canadian music award nominations. Looking more internally, Odario has set aside the band moniker and opened up the rolodex, collaborating and creating freely, recently channeling Gil Scott-Heron on ‘Low Light (In This Space).’ His latest is in collaboration with Edmonton’s jazz-hop ensemble Good Information. Nod your head sideways to this true hip-hop iconoclast.
-Liam Prost
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