Search - Adam Frank :: Overpass! A Melodrama

Alien8 Recordings presents the release of Overpass!, an audio meditation on the strangeness of Vancouver. A mix of dialogue, interviews, documentary material, and composed music, Overpass! presents the story of Antonia, a new arrival who finds herself mystified by the city. This CD is the product of a three-year collaboration between Adam Frank, who teaches poetry at the University of British Columbia, and Sam Shalabi, a Montreal-based composer and musician. Shalabi has been a longtime member of the Alien8 Recordings family, with two solo releases, a trio recording with David Kristian and Alexandre St-Onge, and four recordings with his psychedelic improv ensemble Shalabi Effect. In seven vignettes, Antonia orients herself through encounters with real and fictional locals. She investigates the city's peculiarities, including its preoccupation with nature, failed freeway projects, and attempts at urban planning. Weirdly drawn to the Keefer Street pedestrian overpass and its history, Antonia finds a way to understand Vancouver's particular response to modernization.