Slim Twig
Encyclopedia
Biography
Slim Twig is the stage and screen persona created by Max Turnbull. He was born in 1988, the son of TorontoToronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
-based filmmakers, Ross Turnbull and Jennifer Hazel and graduated from the Claude Watson School of the Arts in 2006. In 2008, Slim was called “an icon-in-the-making...” and named Toronto's Best Pop/Rock Artist of the year by Now Magazine
NOW (magazine)
Now is a free weekly newspaper in Toronto, Canada. It was first printed on September 10, 1981 by Michael Hollett and Alice Klein. Now is an alternative weekly mixing arts and entertainment news with political coverage....
. He is currently signed to Paper Bag Records
Paper Bag Records
Paper Bag Records is a Canadian independent record label and artist-management company, founded in 2002 and based in Toronto, Ontario.-History:...
.
Slim Twig played 'Billy Zero' in the 2007 film, The Tracey Fragments
The Tracey Fragments (film)
The Tracey Fragments is a 2007 drama film directed by Canadian Bruce McDonald and written by Maureen Medved, based on her novel of the same name. It stars Ellen Page in the title role, is produced by Sarah Timmins and executive produced by Paul Barkin....
, directed by Bruce McDonald and starring Ellen Page
Ellen Page
Ellen Philpotts-Page , known professionally as Ellen Page, is a Canadian actress. Page received both Golden Globe and Academy Award nominations for Best Actress for her role as the title character in the film Juno...
. Slim was cast as 'Max' in French director Kim Chapiron's film, Dog Pound, set in a juvenile detention centre, and plays the lead character in an independent feature film entitled Sight Unseen, for which he also composed the score. He has acted in other commercial productions and shorts and composed music for films.
In addition to Slim Twig-branded music, Slim fronts Tropics, a “Guitar vs. Drums” duo (with Simone TB on drums) that plays what Pitchfork Media called “a feral
take on the Birthday Party
The Birthday Party (band)
The Birthday Party were an Australian rock band, active from 1973 to 1983.Despite being championed by John Peel, The Birthday Party found little commercial success during their career...
's blitzkrieg blues.” Slim Twig also pursues a second solo project called Archaic Women. Tropics was accorded the top rating by Chart Magazine at the Canadian Music Week festival in March, 2008. In 2009, Tropics released a cassette tape entitled SETTE and Archaic Women released a cassette tape entitled The Hit Sixties.
The earliest Slim Twig recordings were self-released in 2005 on a CD entitled Livestock Burn, with some of the songs released on Seattle experimental label, Aphonia Recordings
Aphonia Recordings
Aphonia Recordings is an independent record label founded by Ben L. Robertson and Andrew Senna in Seattle, Washington in 2006. Mostly regarded as an outlet for digital releases of experimental and ambient music it also has released more pop oriented artists such as Desolation Wilderness and Slim...
in the U.S.A., under the EP title, Dissonant Folk. Derelict Dialect was the first Slim Twig EP release from Paper Bag Records, in April, 2008. Prior to that, Slim Twig self-released an EP called Whiite Fantaseee. The songs from that recording (save one) were subsequently re-mastered and issued as Vernacular Violence by Paper Bag Records, in August, 2008. One critic mused that the “frustrating circumstances that inspired this recent Slim Twig EP should be worshipped.” Paper Bag later released its two Slim Twig EPs as a limited edition, vinyl LP album.
Paper Bag Records released Contempt!, Slim Twig's first, full-length LP, in 2009. He asserts that he created the record largely from found sound and samples set against his own vocals. The album was acclaimed in numerous reviews, typified by NOW's assertion that Contempt! is “...a startlingly unique project.” Coinciding with the release of the album, Slim created a free, downloadable “mixtape” EP entitled Spit It Twig! (Vol. 1). Spit it Twig! Vol 2 was issued in the fall of 2009 and was named one of the top downloads of the year by Toronto's alternate weekly magazines. Naming Slim Twig "...the outsider's outsider", one critic enthused that with Spit it Twig, Vol. 2, "...It's as if everything everyone has been doing this year culminates right here."
For a young performer, Slim Twig has received a considerable amount of often highly admiring press coverage, in print and on the internet, as well as a smattering of somewhat baffled or dismissive blog commentary. Various prominent figures in popular music have been mentioned for comparison purposes, notably including Nick Cave
Nick Cave
Nicholas Edward "Nick" Cave is an Australian musician, songwriter, author, screenwriter, and occasional film actor.He is best known for his work as a frontman of the critically acclaimed rock band Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, established in 1984, a group known for its eclectic influences and...
, Lou Reed
Lou Reed
Lewis Allan "Lou" Reed is an American rock musician, songwriter, and photographer. He is best known as guitarist, vocalist, and principal songwriter of The Velvet Underground, and for his successful solo career, which has spanned several decades...
, Suicide
Suicide (band)
Suicide is an American electronic protopunk musical duo, intermittently active since 1970 and composed of vocalist Alan Vega and Martin Rev on synthesizers and drum machines. They are an early synthesizer/vocal musical duo....
and David Bowie
David Bowie
David Bowie is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s...
. In a concert review, music columnist Sarah Liss suggested that Slim Twig's music sounds like “...what might happen if
you left a bunch of Elvis Presley LPs on a radiator, smashed them to bits with a hammer
and re-assembled them for play on a turntable. In a word, otherworldly.” Slim Twig's interest in constructing a persona and adopting unsavoury characters' points of view in his songs, together with his "switchblade-sharp lyrics" and quasi-experimental musical bent, clearly point to his originality. He calls his approach to creating pop music “songsculpting”, which Courduroy Magazine suggested makes him "...a molder who meshes disparate sounds to create a unique musical patchwork..." A number of critics also have suggested the influence of cinema on Slim Twig, with one remarking on “...his compulsive soliloquist's flair, a direct but static-filled line into a collective cinematic unconscious.” Indeed, in speaking about his creative approach, the artist cites his admiration for David Lynch's
David Lynch
David Keith Lynch is an American filmmaker, television director, visual artist, musician and occasional actor. Known for his surrealist films, he has developed his own unique cinematic style, which has been dubbed "Lynchian", and which is characterized by its dream imagery and meticulous sound...
work.
In 2011, Slim Twig professed to a change of direction, with NOW Magazine stating in an interview that he "...is now reinventing himself as a 60s pop craftsman." His first foray in this direction, the recently released Palmist split recording with U.S. Girls, has been greeted with effusive reviews. Slim Twig and U.S. Girls have jointly created their own label, Calico Corp., and issued 7" singles from each of the artists as the label's first productions.
Discography (as Slim Twig unless otherwise noted)
- Livestock Burn (self released: 2005)
- Dissonant Folk EP (Aphonia Recordings: 2006)
- Quilibrate split EP with Huckleberry Friends (self-released: 2006)
- Whiite Fantaseee EP (self released: 2007)
- Derelict Dialect EP (Paper Bag Records: 2008)
- Vernacular Violence EP (Paper Bag Records: 2008)
- Derelict Dialect/Vernacular Violence LP (limited edition vinyl) (Paper Bag Records: 2008)
- Contempt! LP (Paper Bag Records: 2009)
- Spit It Twig! (Vol.1) EP (digital download: show-released free CD, 2009)
- Slim Twig Toronto/ Le Corbeau Oslo (7" vinyl split, Best of Both Records, 2009)
- Spit It Twig! (Vol. 2) EP (digital download: show-released free CD, 2009)
- Tropics - Sette (limited edition cassette tape/ digital download, Popsick Records, 2009)
- Archaic Women - The Hit Sixties (limited-edition cassette tape/ digital download, self-released, 2009)
- A Sheik in Scores (Spit It Twig! (Vol. 3)) (limited-edition cassette tape/ digital download, self-released, 2010)
- Tropics - Pale Trash (7" vinyl, Pleasence Records, 2011)
- Bloodstains Across Ontario (7" vinyl compilation, including one song each by Slim Twig and Tropics, Mammoth Cave Recordings, 2011)
- U.S. Girls/ Slim Twig (12" vinyl split, Palmist Records, 2011)
- There's a Secret to Your Pleasure (7" single, Calico Corp., 2011)
Video
Slim Twig:- Notorious Bride (A Veil & A Vice) - video by Jennifer Hazel
- I'll Always be a Child - video by Mitch Fillion
- Priscilla - video by Jennifer Hazel
- Street Proposition - video by Zonial Pictures
- Mansion Haunting - video by David Rendall
- Birthing and Birthing - film/video collaboration with Dona Arbabzadeh
- Gate Hearing! - film/video collaboration with Exploding Motorcar Collective
- Where the Dead Are Glorious - video by David Rendall
- A Black Hole Is Quite a Lot - film/video collaboration with Dona Arbabzadeh
Tropics:
- Enuff Film - video by Zonial Pictures, edited from footage from The Tracey Fragments
- Extermination Night - video by Exploding Motorcar Collective