Vancouver-based cellist Peggy Lee and guitarist Cole Schmidt are two of the city’s most respected and prolific creative music artists. Their considerable talents easily span a dozen projects, including three they share, Sick Boss, Echo Painting, and their self-titled trio (which uses a different drummer for each performance). Schmidt also programs the Vancouver International Jazz Festival. When they decided the concept of their first album together would be akin to “hosting a party,” as Schmidt has said, assembling an impressive guestlist was a given. Wayne Horvitz, Frank Rosaly, Erika Angell, Meredith Bates, Sara Schoenbeck, and Dylan van der Schyff are among the international luminaries making appearances, along with fellow Sick Boss members bassist James Meger and JP Carter, whose high-flying trumpet marks standout tunes. While all the compositions are credited to either Lee or Schmidt, the music—a treasure trove of diversity, encompassing multilingual vocals, epic instrumental rock-outs, freak-folk meanderings, electronics-heavy abstractions, and abundant warm grooves—conveys an improvisational and experimental feel that is undeniable and exciting. You’re always wanting to know what’s going to happen next and, since not all fifteen participants rendezvoused simultaneously, how the songs were made. Liner notes reveal the album was recorded in Montreal, Vancouver, and remotely, from spaces in Gothenburg, Melbourne, and New York. Forever Stories of: Moving Parties manages to forge a keen sense of uncompromising creativity as it welds both traditional and non-traditional musical elements into a shindig worth attending.
