I Already Took That...

Top 50 Songs of 2011 | Songs 20-1

2012-01-05T08:59:00.000-08:00

there's totally a lack of good NYE shots, so I'm recycling this one

Picking up where I left off the other day, here's my the rest of the entries on my year-end Top 50. If you missed numbers 50 to 21, click here, and if you missed the Honourable Mentions, click here.

20 | Memphis | "I Want The Lights On After Dark"

Memphis' Torquil Campbell will always have a soft spot in my musical heart, if only because he provides the male vocals for one of my favorite bands, Stars. Memphis is one of his side-projects, along with Dead Child Star, and if he can put out more songs like this one, he can keep doing as much side work as he pleases. There's an underlying sense of sexiness here - probably just from the come-hither delivery Torquil's always used for his romantic-pop stylings - oddly coupled with some palpable sense of fear or insecurity, denoted by the song's title. The "I was never really..."s he spouts only add to that sentiment, and the song is propelled by steady drum hits, tuneful guitar, and an uplifting chorus. Ending with repeated chants, the tune offers a lot, and stands as a testament to Campbell's formidable musical prowess.

19 | The Black Keys | "Lonely Boy"

"Machine-gun guitar". I'm pretty sure that's how Pitchfork described the opening stanzas of "Lonely Boy", and I really can't improve upon that description. The song starts off with that bang, and never lets up. Following the garage-rock ethos of the rest of The Black Keys' work, "Lonely Boy" is another feather in the group's cap - they make rock'n'roll seem easy.

18 | Fucked Up | "The Other Shoe"

A lot of these songs have little vocal quirks that really catch on with you and don't let go. Here, it's the relatively deadpanned initial delivery of "we're dying on the inside" over and over, a morbid proclamation that almost seems to build into confounding elation at some point. The lyrics are a real strong point on this track, as its one of Damian Abraham's better turns vocally, his yells and the guitars performing the perfect balancing act. "You can't be comfortable/with all the things about to fall" is another line that sticks with you, and they make sure of it, Abraham going overboard by yelping each word in the phrase in a neat see-saw fashion. The easy dismissal of Fucked Up is to call it screamo, but that ignores the amazing guitars, the great percussion, the skilled backing vocals, and the thoughtful concepts behind all of their work. "The Other Shoe" fits that just fine.

17 | Yuck | "Operation"

For the life of me, I can't figure out where these guys stole that catchy riff from. "Dun-dun-dunnn...dun-dun-dunnn...dun, dun dunnenenene....dun, dun dunnenenene". I tried Big Wreck, Sonic Youth, all the 90's bands I could think of that supposedly form the inspiration (source material?) for this bunch, but nothing was resembling what I was hearing in "Operation". Now, this isn't actually a story of discovery, since I still don't know why it sounds so familiar. It is however a testament that if you're new and you do something really well, a lot of people will think you probably stole it from somewhere else. Full credit to Yuck in that case for shredding so well on this song that I thought they were lifting riffs from other groups. When your shtick is that you're a 90's-mining rock band in the 2000's, being original is quite the accomplishment.

16 | Austra | "Lose It"

Ah, the keyboard is to die for here, at least until Katie Stelmanis' voice comes in and she puts her opera-trained pipes to work. As mentioned in the previous section of this list, what Austra is doing is unprecedented, layering otherworldly-amazing vocals over dance-y electro beats and bloops. "Lose It" is one of my favourite examples of that, with the various affectations of Stelmanis and the group's other singers coming to life spellbindingly over the propulsive electronic instrumentation underneath them. I swear I could listen to this song all day.

15 | Mother Mother | "The Stand"

Easy number one material here, and it probably is for a lot of people. The most interesting part of "The Stand" is that it's basically a naughty/philosophical/foreboding conversation set to song - and it manages to work astoundingly. It's unfathomably catchy, has some of the most memorable lines of the year (what's space like? "it's like paradise/spread out with a butterknife"...what?!), and that's even while there's all sorts of instrumental craziness going on around it; like, I swear I heard banjo and trumpet. There probably wasn't a more fun, funny, interesting, and awesome song this year. Maybe it didn't capture the top spot for best song, but it was certainly some of the greatest entertainment.

14 | James Blake | "The Wilhelm Scream"

I don't know if any of these songs gave me the shivers this year, but James Blake's performance of this song on Jools Holland's late-night show in the spring may have been the greatest live thing I haven't seen with my own eyes. To be able to reproduce electronic music so proficiently live isn't an easy task, especially given Blake's use of negative space in his recordings, valuing silence just as much as sound. The build is brilliant in an unnerving way, and Blake's lamentations on dreaming almost make you feel afraid of doing it yourself. For such a seemingly dreary song lyrics-wise, there's undeniable magic anchoring this song sonically, and it makes for the greatest kind of performance when married to James' top-notch singing. He may say he doesn't know about a lot of things in the song, but it's hard not to know this song was one of the highlights of 2011.

13 | Gauntlet Hair | "I Was Thinking..."

Fuzzed-out rock had an off year after so much success these prior few, and I have to say I missed it. I didn't discover these guys until the fall, but I'm sure glad I did. I've heard some Japandroids comparisons, but Gauntlet Hair is a different kind of beast - for one, there's a much sunnier vibe to their tunes, rife with bright guitar and the far-away-sounding vocals that are so synonymous with solar-tinged songs nowadays. "I Was Thinking..." is a weird tune in that I don't really listen to the music, and I barely know any of the words, even though I've played it dozens of times. I just kind of listen to the thing as a whole, almost as if the song is something that just "happens", and I'm there while it does so. I don't interpret it the same way I do other songs, or try to find or assign meaning, or pretend I'm playing guitars or drums or sing along to it. It just is. It's a strange thing for a song to be, and it's even stranger for something like that to be appealing musically, but its existence as a kind of "pleasant noise" doesn't really need to be explained. It's just pretty cool that it's like that.

12 | James Blake & Bon Iver | "Fall Creek Boys Choir"

Ah, I was wrong: it seems James Blake is making his fourth appearance on this list, not the three I thought earlier. The fact he does so with Bon Iver on this tune is just icing on the cake. Now even though many of the lyrics in this song are just as unintelligible as Gauntlet Hair's above, it's actually kind of fun to sing your own words along to it as best as you can guess: "I've been fucking up your road"? "I'll get foreclosed"? "Oh red phone"? I'm joking because it's hard for me to take this song seriously when it's Autotuned to the extreme, and when you can barely tell which one is James Blake and which is Justin Vernon. The saving grace is that the duo's choice of music to accompany their hilarious vocal romp is magnificent, and bordering on beautiful. If the Fall Creek Boys Choir was a real thing, I'm pretty sure they would dress really goofy, have laughably strange voices...and you'd somehow still love every minute of it.

11 | Grimes | "Vanessa"

Wait til 0:18 in, and once this song actually drops, it's five solid minutes of the neatest pop you'll hear all year. I don't know if I believe Claire Boucher's claims that she barely knows anything about reading or making music, but if she can make such amazing, sprawling tracks at such a young age with next to no experience whatsoever, then it's scary the kind of musicians (if that's even the right word) might come out of this digital age. Her voice isn't perfect, but that doesn't stop "Vanessa" from being a joyfully dark trip through electro-pop, keeping you wanting more from the up-and-coming artist. On a completely unrelated note to this song, I love that she called her EP "Geddy Primes". I'll leave you with that one for a minute...

10 | BRAIDS | "Lammicken"

BRAIDS ARE AWESOME. I don't know why they capitalize their name like that, but that's pretty cool too. Another group I saw perform live at Halifax Pop Explosion, their avant-garde musical stylings keep you guessing at which direction their songs are going to explore next, and their vocals keep you focused while the chaos builds around you, like on this particular tune. Basically four solid minutes of build, the payoff is astounding, and you'd be hard-pressed finding anything else this year or any other that sounds a thing like "Lammicken", or most of BRAIDS' other music for that matter. I love the direction they've chosen to take with their work, and this song is obviously no different, cramming a ton of emotion into one line repeated over and over again. Can't wait to hear what else this group has up their sleeves.

9 | The Rural Alberta Advantage | "Stamp"

It was hard to escape "Stamp" this year, and that was a great sign of success for The RAA. It was on the radio, the video was a cheeky hit, and the instrumental soundtracked a Molson Canadian ad of all things. 2011 treated these guys well, and even if their album had a few irrational songwriting quirks to it, it was great to see them make it on a bigger stage after putting out a debut album as stellar as Hometowns a few years ago.

8 | Hey Rosetta! | "Yer Spring"

Okay, now I remember getting the shivers to at least one song, because it was this one, on a drive home one night - and I'm pretty sure during their entire set when I saw them this summer, as they outperformed Broken Social Scene in my opinion at M Fest. "Yer Spring" is the perfect synthesis of Hey Rosetta!'s ballads and rockers, providing acute bursts of emotion alongside heartfelt lyrical swathes. "Oh man, I hate this part/when the car sails off the bridge/my knuckles white/my water rushing in...am I rising up?" just cuts through you, especially as Tim Baker's distinct voice repeats that last bit again and again, raising his own voice each time to mesh perfectly with the sentiment of the line. The various sections of "Yer Spring" are all shout-along-able, and the ebb and flow of the music makes it the perfect representation of the watery East Coast of Canada this bunch is from. Probably Hey Rosetta!'s crowning achievement right here.

7 | HEALTH | "Goth Star" (Pictureplane Cover)

So, this is kinda like a cover of a cover of a cover, as one of my friends pointed out that Pictureplane's original used Stevie Nicks' voice from a Fleetwood Mac tune for the distinctly-detached human voice sound-effect that pretty much makes up the chorus of both versions of "Goth Star". The greatest part about this song is that HEALTH is usually an industrial-electro-rock band, making squelching masses of guitar and drums somehow coalesce into something you can call music (and that description might belie the fact that I actually like their music). The surprise here of course is that the floaty vocals and tinkling sounds throughout completely throw off that notion of the band, and the fact that it's apparently one of their favorites to play live makes me feel oddly justified for liking these guys - it's like having a particularly talented friend you didn't know was also really good at something else.

6 | M83 | "Midnight City"

Somehow, this tune admirably follows up "Intro" on M83's album, which I gushed about in the Top 50-21 earlier. Anthony Gonzalez unleashed a masterpiece with "Midnight City", the snyths blowing the roof off of the song time after time, his vocals providing the in-between verses, and even throwing in a sick sax solo for good measure. The drum fills are another highlight on this track, coming in just before the instrumental chorus - which is something that deserves its own little write-up. It's always nice to see a song that draws on something like a non-vocal chorus as its proverbial earworm; that takes a lot of work by a master musician, or at least one with a keen knack for what's likely to get stuck in people's heads. Many people in the "indie" world may have probably become disillusioned by pop music's insistence on formulaic hits, progressing from verse to chorus to verse to chorus to break to chorus, one song just like the other. When that chorus instead transforms into something played and not sung, it throws that little bit of variance into the equation that elicits just the right amount of differentiation to pique your interest. "Midnight City" does exactly that exceptionally well - on Top 40 radio, "Midnight City" would have its titled repeated ad nauseum in whatever chorus its producers had chosen for it. Here, M83 lets the music do the talking, and benefits for it.

5 | Shooting Guns | "Public Taser"

Now, here's an example of song that let's the music do all of the talking. "Public Taser", and indeed Shooting Guns, came out of nowhere this year, and from the minute I heard the song, I knew I had a new favourite. I've already used adjectives like "bad-ass" and "awesome" all over the place here, and those just begin to describe this track. It makes me want to learn guitar. It makes me want to discover Black Sabbath for myself. It makes me want to grow really long hair and become a headbanger. It makes me want to do some kind of drug that would complement this song the best, so I could be on it and play this as the soundtrack to my trip. It makes me want to put it on in my car and take a drive around the city at night, or at least through some kind of montage like the start of a Sopranos episode. They say a picture is worth 1000 words? This song doesn't even have any - it just makes you want to do 1000 different cool things.

4 | Sloan | "Unkind"

Oh Sloan. They're so classic that when I first heard "Unkind", I thought it was some old song of theirs that had fallen through the cracks and resurfaced in time for me to catch it on Radio3 one random day. It's everything these guys have been doing so well for two decades. The guitar is fresh, the drumming provides that kick present in most of the band's work, and the lyrics are the usual fare - it's just the way that everything comes together that makes this song pure rock'n'roll bliss. I hope Sloan goes another 20 years, and keeps putting out amazing work like this that long from now too.

3 | Junior Boys | "Banana Ripple"

Wowowow. When I bought this CD and threw this track on, I just started involuntarily moving along to it, and I haven't stopped every time since. I swear the CD hasn't even left my car, and when I need a pick-me-up or something fantastic to listen to driving around on errands or when no one can agree what to listen to, this is what gets thrown on. It's so damn catchy, it's so perfectly executed, it's such a treat that you don't even realize that it's nine minutes long. I'm serious, there are maybe four or five other songs this long and this astoundingly listenable - and I mean that I've heard in my whole life. "Do" by Do Make Say Think, "Remind Me In Dark Times" by Shout Out Out Out Out, "It's All Gonna Break" by Broken Social Scene, and "Yeah (Crass Version)" by LCD Soundsystem are the only others I can think of, and nothing else is really close. That's really saying something for a song that only has two, maybe three distinct parts. Junior Boys don't capture you through endlessly looping dance beats, or mind-numbing vocal repetitions - they somehow combine their voices and the music into a compelling whole that you never truly tire of. I don't know if "Banana Ripple" is the biggest surprise this high on the list, but it's one of the most pleasant ones; a song I'll keep enjoying forever I hope.

2 | BRAIDS | "Peach Wedding"

After I saw BRAIDS play their show, I had to make sure I saw the band at their merch table, mainly to speak to their cute-as-a-button lead singer and tell her how much I enjoyed the show. Waiting for them to get there, I figured I'd buy the split 7" single they had for sale, mostly to help support the band. What I didn't realize was that along with that vinyl, there was a free download of the track "Peach Wedding" that was their side of the 7" (Purity Ring's "Belispeak" was the other). One neat and really geeky thing about the download was that while most high-quality songs are 320 kbps, and 8-12 MB large depending on their length, "Peach Wedding" was 831 kbps and 35 MB - I didn't even know such high quality existed in mp3's. Figuring I had a real gem on my hands without even listening to it, I grabbed my headphones and immersed myself.

Whoa. The waxing and waning of the snyth in the background, coupled with the water droplet sound effects splattering away in the background, added to the airy and beautiful singing, all rendered a completely spellbinding track. Why this hasn't even had on play on Radio3 is beyond me - it's BRAIDS' best work, which is truly saying something for a band that made the Top 10 for Canada's prestigious Polaris Prize for best album of the year. There is so much fearless emotion in "Peach Wedding", even though you have no idea what she's actually singing about, or even saying most of the time. That mercurial nature lends itself to a feeling of awe that overcomes you, being moved by something so unknown. I might be the only one who liked "Peach Wedding" this much in 2011, but anyone who hasn't heard it doesn't know what they're missing.

1 | Diamond Rings & PS I Love You | "Leftovers"

When I first put together this list, I put this at number one and never looked again. I kind of just left the list on my desktop for the holidays, and I was taken aback when I typed it out again for this blog - "I put 'Leftovers' at number one? Really?" Then I started to remember just why I loved this song: it's two of my favourite artists of the last couple years coming together for a rousing performance. Diamond Rings provides the vocal gusto, while PS I Love You bang their drums and strum their guitar in aid of the musical mission. Maybe it's the divergent styles - both musically and aesthetically - of the two different components as well. Diamond Rings is John O'Regan, a synth-utilizing, 80's-ish male diva who embraces gay culture and performs in Hammer Pants, full make-up, and gets pretty bejeweled on stage. PS I Love You is basically a drum and guitar duo banging out ferociously fuzzed-out tunes - and their most recognizable member is so because he tips the scales at probably over 350 pounds.

Anyways, I haven't spoken much about the music here because I think it speaks for itself: O'Regan deftly tells the story (genderless, as he always does) of a love interest who's traveling, or otherwise just away. "I've got your number and I've know that you've got mine/ten digits scrawled across upon your screen/and if you call I will be waiting on the line/ready to come over, I'll be leftover" may be quite simple, but the way Diamond Rings weaves the whole tale together and makes you feel part of it is the true accomplishment. Relatability is always essential to songs sticking with you and making a lasting impression, and if you've ever chased anyone (like I did for most of 2011), this song will speak volumes to you. So yes, "Leftovers" really was my favourite song of the year.

Top 50 Songs of 2011 | Songs 50-21

2012-01-03T23:20:00.000-08:00

now that we're all done celebrating the new year...

Since there's no way I'm finishing this list once school starts, I'm gonna try to bang it out as fast I can. For a few reasons, I'm splitting it up into two parts - numbers 50 to 20 first, then 20 to 1 a bit later. Here goes:

(and if you missed the honourable mentions, you can find them here)

50 | Honheehonhee | "A. Is For Animal"

This one was just a random song I heard once or twice on CBC Radio3 (a great source not only for this list, but for my daily music diet), but it struck such a chord with me that I had to add it to my playlist on there. There's just so much going on, it's just the right side of alternative pop-rock for me, the drum flourishes are great, and the singing is oddly impassioned. Even the break around two minutes in adds a nice change-up to the song, and I can attest that it sounds just as good live, as I saw these guys at the The Seahorse during Halifax Pop Explosion this October. Honheehonhee is definitely a group to watch for.

49 | Handsome Furs | "What About Us"

The video is pretty risque for this song, I'll just put it at that. The song itself is relatively bleak, and follows the Handsome Furs' normal formula of electronic drumming, Dan Boeckner's by-now-recognizably distinct voice, and post-apocalyptic-like lyrics. Where the song might struggle for the first few minutes, it has an interesting turn at the 2:40 mark (feel free to skip ahead while playing any of these songs - if I'm recommending a particular section, it's probably the one that landed the song on this list anyways). At that point it shifts its musical perspective totally, slowing it down a bit, both instrumentally and vocally, and it becomes a bit of slow-burner. That second-to-last section is the saving grace for "What About Us", even if the lyrics on the album it's featured on aren't exactly hopeful for a similar type of saving.

48 | James Blake | "Limit To Your Love" (Feist cover)

James was no slouch this year, putting out a ton of music, and landing himself three spots on this Top 50. I took marks away because this is a cover (albeit of everyone's favorite, Feist), but that's not denying the fact this is a really solid song, showcasing much of the vocal talent that's made Blake much, much more than just a post-dubstep artist bleeping and blooping his way to a wider audience. The piano is deep, and the percussion is sparse, while still instilling a subtle tension in the song itself.

47 | The Rapture | "Miss You"

Good song, yay, blah blah blah...I'm using this space to wonder how and why The Rapture is one of the most overtly-Christian mainstream bands out there (and the only dance-punk outfit I know of)...but nobody calls attention to it! Not a hint in the Pitchfork review I read, other than to say that band used to be a Christian outfit. Umm, the lyrics on their album In The Grace Of Your Love (that isn't a hint right there) do everything but say "Jesus" and "God", though anyone who's heard of the The Bible could pick up on the obvious allusions. Now don't get me wrong, there's nothing afoul here - the music is great, and you can sing whatever you want. I'm just saying that if I'm going to get preached to (and dance to it!) I wanna know beforehand, not as I'm snapping my fingers to a great bassline. Or I at least want someone else to notice the Christian themes, and point it out - you'd think it'd have happened by now in our increasingly secular culture. But suffice it to say that in my search for an answer or at least another view on the subject, looking up "The Rapture" and "Christian" renders millions more apocalyptic-themed hits than musical ones. So does anyone out there know? "God, it's me..." (Oh, and by the way, "Miss You" is one of the few songs on the album that doesn't tip its hand to the group's religious views, oddly enough.)

46 | Holy Ghost! | "Static On The Wire"

Alright, this is just strange now, because when I ranked the songs a couple weeks ago, I obviously didn't know I was gonna rant like that about "Miss You"...then follow it up with a group called Holy Ghost!...who are also The Rapture's labelmates on DFA Records (also home to eternal favorites LCD Soundsystem). That's all to say the two have absolutely nothing to do with each other, since I've never noticed any religious bent to Holy Ghost!, name aside. All I hear are the laid-back, smooth 80's stylings of this great song, which was my choice from their similarly great self-titled album. If you hear some Chromeo in this (especially three minutes in), it's not just you - there's obvious stylistic similarities between the two groups. Whether it's "awesomeness" or "badass-ery" however, I have not decided. I just know you that you can really groove to this stuff.

45 | The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart | "Heart In Your Heartbreak"

I really enjoyed this album, and this song was one of the highlights for me, from the nimble lyrics to the jittery guitar. Another song I caught live at the Halifax Pop Explosion, it's great whether there or in the funny, kinda-precious video. Can't really say much more about this song; it's pretty much like that crush you have, but when you can't really put into words why you like the person so much if someone asks you - you just...do.

44 | The Go! Team | "Apollo Throwdown" (Star Slinger Remix)

I've tried to start way too many parties with this track, and it's just never worked. Why, I'll never know. It's got that stittering piano line, the fresh drum beat, the choir/kids singing that makes anything that much more danceably juvenile, and ridiculous lyrics along the lines of (as I hear them) "what's like a panther?" and "rockets to the left of me/bullets to the right of me/snakes to the back of me/spark the TNT". That sounds like it could get an entire revolution started - but not a dance party?! People, come on!

43 | Ohbijou | "Niagara"

From boisterous child-singing and shoutable lines, we switch to the ever-precious vocal beauty that is Ohbijou. The song is laden with fantastic strings, rendered just as nicely in a live setting since - you'll notice a theme here - I saw them play HPX as well. Lead singer Casey Mecijia is absolutely spell-binding as a vocalist, with a high-pitched voice that cascades over the fragile piano and drum hits in a remarkably light way the titular falls could never. When she needs to put emphasis or an extra bit of feeling into a verse, she does so admirably. "Niagara" is about as close to pure magic as any song on this list.

42 | Papermaps | "Reunion"

Piano. I'm a complete sucker for it, even from my formative musical days listening to rap music. The first few notes of "Reunion" completely draw me in that way, and the jovial group shouts of "I promised you a keepsake!" keep your interest piqued. I really wanted to feature this song because of the bittersweet lyrics, offset by the uptempo, happy-sounding instrumentals. I'm at that age where you start reflecting on your childhood and thinking about adulthood and everything it brings. This song hits that feeling square in the middle: "if we stage a reunion/would you come back anyway?" You're always going to miss someone as you grow up, and even though you may think of a high school reunion when you first hear this, you start to realize this song is about just one person. It's never clear if they were a lover or just a close friend, and that kind of ambiguity lends itself greatly to the relatability of the song. It's one of the more unexpectedly emotional tunes on this list - especially wrapped in the pop-rock fervor of its delivery - and I love it for that.

41 | Handsome Furs | "Memories Of The Future"

These guys are on the list three times, same as James Blake and another artist we've yet to get to. "Memories Of The Future" is much more upbeat off the top than the Furs' previous entry on this list, and it benefits from it. The lyrics are obviously forward-looking, but still no more optimistic than anything else these guys usually do. The music certainly helps make up for that lack, and the same kind of tempo-changing breaks are apparent here as with other songs by this husband-and-wife duo on the album Sound Kapital. Probably as Wolf Parade as anything Handsome Furs has put out, it's a nice testament to what they're capable of when they cheer up a bit instrumentally.

40 | Rococode | "Weapon"

Had I done this list a few months from now, this song would be way higher, but for the time being, it's only had so long to grow on me. In that span though, I've come to love the keyboard at the start, the complementary boy/girl harmony, and the oh-so-awesome "dry your eyes! dry your eyes!" yelps from the great female vocals. The latter is one of those weird things that takes a song to that next level, where you're like "well, that was good before, but now, it's just...wow". You never know what the element could be, or when it's going to come in, but when you hear it, it just hits you, and you're completely sold on the song. There's other things going on here that make this one of the better debuts of the year, but that shouting - of all things - is what stands out the most for me.

39 | WU LYF | "We Bros"

A few of the songs on here kind of serve as representatives for great all-around albums. This is one of them. While it may not necessarily be the greatest or most engaging song on WU LYF's strangely-titled debut, Go Tell Fire To The Mountain, "We Bros" captures a veritable feeling of togetherness implied by the title. There's the group-singing part, that's for sure, but the big drum and the album's imagery totally makes you feel like this is the kind of thing you would shout incoherently around a bonfire with a few of your best friends (and I stress the "incoherently" - if you can tell me what he's actually saying in any of WU LYF's songs, then I would be greatly impressed). When it comes to tunes that make you want to just stomp your feet and shout it out, this was near the top for the year: fervent vocals, driving guitar, endlessly-percussive drums - it's all there, and for six-and-a-half minutes at that.

38 | Purity Ring | "Ungirthed"

I had their single "Belispeak" on here, but then I recanted on that choice when I realized this bubbly tune was a better one to include on the list than a song about sleepless nights of bad dreams and drilling "little holes into my eyelids". Songs about the sun hitting your skin and getting "ungirthed" (whatever that means) are so much more pleasant, no? The stuttering beats are great, and serve as an appropriate introduction to the duo's style, a mixed-up kind of avant-garde electro dream-pop. Too-short at under three minutes, it's like those little pieces of sugary gum you keep popping in over and over when the last piece quickly runs out of flavour. Thank God for that little replay button on Youtube.

37 | My Morning Jacket | "Circuital"

This one kind of came into my life, then faded back out the way the song itself actually does. Everything that's great about My Morning Jacket all rolled into one seven-minute piece, I'm going to cop out and just leave it at saying you should give this one a listen and simply let it wash over you.

36 | Cults | "Abducted"

(Just a tip: skip ahead to 0:40, since the video takes a bit to get started). It was a toss-up between this song and the equally-catchy "Go Outside", but the clincher was the greater amount of emotion in this one, and the interesting technique of lifting the haze of the introductory part of the vocals, revealing Maddie Follin's stellar voice for all it really is. Another song representative of a solid album (albeit one without much variance in the tunes), "Abducted" - both song and video - tells an interesting story, and definitely one worth paying attention to.

35 | Fucked Up | "Life In Paper"

Ah, the other artist with three entries on here, and easily the most controversial of the bunch. I think the Toronto-based group was going for that when they named themselves Fucked Up, but then they went and got fronted by the most gravel-voiced hardcore singer I've ever spent any time listening to: Damian "Pink Eyes" Abraham. As lots of my family and friends can attest, this isn't the easiest album to put on with anyone else in the car, and it's not gonna soundtrack a party any time soon. But if you really take an hour and listen to this album, I guarantee it will be worth your time. The guitar tracks are amazing, highlighted by the mutli-layered assault on this tune. So long as you can push the somewhat-grating voice (it's really not that bad once you realize these guys are hardcore punk rockers, and this is what the genre simply sounds like) to the back of your ears, you'll be met with some of the best musicianship in any genre this year. Two other notes: I love this album as a favorite to win this year's Polaris Prize...and, when I went to these guys' show at HPX, my ear was literally ringing for three days afterwards. They're loud.

34 | Austra | "Beat And The Pulse"

Dun-dun-dun-dun. Dun-dun-dun-dun. When I first heard those notes on Radio3 - and this whole song in fact - I figured it was just another electro-artist flash in the pan. Then Austra kept getting played, and the amazing vocals of former opera singer Katie Stelmanis started to imprint themselves on my brain, and wiggle their way into my impressionable ears. This was Austra's year, and "Beat And The Pulse" is what got it started for them. It's enjoyably dark and ominous, spaciously haunting, and beautifully sung. There really wasn't anything else like these guys this year, and you'd be hard-pressed to find another electronic song fronted by a vocalist as talented as Stelmanis. I'm happy to say this isn't their only entry on the Top 50, and they deserve each one.

33 | Handsome Furs | "Repatriated"

The last of Handsome Furs' three songs to make the list, the relative positioning of the tunes means two things: I really enjoyed Sound Kapital more on a whole than the previous two albums by the duo; and, the songs were all good, but not great, seeing as they didn't crack my Top 30. Continuing the upbeat trend of "Memories Of The Future", this song is probably the finest on the album, and from the hint in its title, it sonically portrays the kind of deliverance those sung about in the lyrics of the album seem to be looking for. The elation they would find at such a thing is evident in the climbing guitar strums and the lilt of the usually-emotionless snyths. Somewhat unpleasant subject matter, really pleasant songs.

32 | James Blake | "Lindsfarne (Pts. I and II)"

Auto-tuned to heck and barebones as Blake's songs come, Lindsfarne works best if you were to set it to a slow-motion clip of Marissa shooting Trey on The OC. Yes, I watched that show. Yes, it was great until they killed Marissa off. No, I don't have anything else to say about this song. It's just pretty, okay?

31 | Jai Paul | "BTSTU" (Edit)

"Don't fuck with me/don't fuck with me". It's funny how a lot of songs become known and stay known for their innocuous use of swear words (dammit, I just realized I didn't include this amazing track, which does the same [for clarity's sake, I would have ranked it in my Top 10...I'm basically kicking myself for only realizing this as I write it]). Anyways, Jai Paul's "BTSTU" is great for more than just its initial vulgarity. The kaleidoscope of styles going on all at once is teetering on unlistenability, but to Paul's credit (or whoever did the edit - which is really just the addition of a dubstep-y bassline to the tune) he manages to pull it off, and even throws in a sick sax feature, just to turn the tables around and fuck with you instead. The crescendo this thing builds to is also impressive, and then...lasers?! This song should be this high based on brashness alone.

30 | Junior Boys | "A Truly Happy Ending" (Diamond Rings Remix)

Diamond Rings did a series of remixes earlier this year, and thankfully he chose a sparse Junior Boys tune (who make another appearance here on the Top 50) to play around with, rendering it an upbeat 80's kind of tune, the kind you could see soundtracking some equivalent of The Care Bears back then (yes, I just went there, and I meant it in the best way possible). The song is overflowing with Diamond Rings' signature style of electronic drums and synths, and it does wonders for the original track - just listen to it for comparison's sake. It's not only nice to see a song transformed in this sort of way, but it's also a pleasure to see that Diamond Rings is skilled not only at making his own music great, but improving the work of others as well.

29 | Fucked Up | "Queen Of Hearts"

Like trumpets calling you to rise, the guitars at the start of this song are unlike anything else I've heard this year. We already talked about Fucked Up, so the screaming is right there from the start, balanced only by the female vocals in the totally ridiculous chorus ("hello my name is David/your name is Veronica"), made sensical only by the knowledge that Fucked Up's album David Comes To Life is a multi-faceted rock opera of the grandest scale, both musically and conceptually. Again, pay close attention to the guitar tracks - they're catchy and appealing to my ear, and serve as the perfect foil to the grinding vocals of Abraham. Kind of how Veronica is to David.

28 | M83 | "Intro"

Okay, a few weird things going on. Easily the shortest artist and song title combo on this list (I notice things like this, and at this point, I'm fighting to just stay awake writing). Also, is this the best song named "Intro" ever? I think that's a legitimate question, because very rarely are these things anything more than instrumentals, or on a rap album, skits. This tune is as impassioned as any this year, the build-up is epic, and it musically dwarfs most of the rest of M83's double-album Hurry Up, We're Dreaming, which is really saying something over that many songs. Zola Jesus lends some vocal help here, and it's a strangely effective pairing, her deeper voice completing Anthony Gonzalez's higher one, then a chorus of "oooooo"s rains down (but floats up?), lifting the tune to dizzying heights, before dropping it back into the realm of the rest of the album's songs. As rare as a good song called "Intro" is, it's even rarer to start an album off on this high a note - "Intro" is honestly, musically, emotionally - perfectly - suited to close an album, instead of open it.

27 | The Soft Province | "One Was A Lie"

The one song I couldn't find on Youtube. The Soft Province has parts from one of my favorite groups, The Besnard Lakes, who unfortunately didn't put out anything this year. Aside from getting decent play on Radio3, I didn't hear of these guys anywhere else, and it shows with the lack of any Youtube videos of this song at all. The same way I'm drawn to piano, if you can tweak a couple off-tune guitar strums just the right way, you've got me sold on your song. "One Was A Lie" has this in spades, with that guitar line coming in during the chorus, and keeping me rapt for the full five-and-a-half minutes, even without much else going on in the song. For such an unheralded group, this bunch did well to overachieve with this extremely pleasant, laid-back earworm of a track.

26 | Future Islands | "Balance"

Even though Future Islands' latest album On The Water didn't offer me much compared to their previous two outputs (two great, great collections of songs), "Balance" did well to live up to the oddly-hinged Baltimore group's reputation. Where On The Water as a whole suffers from too many slow-burners, "Balance" is immediate and fast-tempo, a style Future Islands had a lot of success with in my opinion in their prior work. Here, another one of those musical quirks rears its head; I'm pretty sure that's xylophone I'm hearing throughout, and I'll unabashedly say it's one of the cutest things I've heard in a song in a while. While the subject matter on the album is typically heavy, that childish ding of the keys makes you think of happier times past and more pleasant places you've been. Looking back, it's always better to remember the good stuff.

25 | Miracle Fortress | "Raw Spectacle"

One of the more ethereal entries on the Top 50, "Raw Spectacle" builds like crazy, leaving you in a state of always expecting some huge outburst that never truly comes. That type of sustained build is admittedly awesome, and the presque-moments that manifest themselves along the way get amplified by it. The verses may not be anything extraordinary, but the re-builds during the choruses are enthralling, and the vocals are slightly haunting, like the faraway yells in some kind of dream. Clocking in at six minutes, this song is like a musical painting of a dream (umm, yeah, I need to get to bed soon), some mural draping across your mind's eye, drowning out your senses in a manner that answers the album's titular question: Was I The Wave? Yes, yes you were.

24 | Yuck | "Georgia"

I don't know why this is here. I listen to it a lot though. Must be the singing the girl does.

23 | Great Bloomers | "Catching Up"

I can't separate this song and Papermaps' "Reunion" in my mind. The subject matter is very similar, even if the country-ish stylings of this song differentiate the two just enough. What's even creepier is how it's still not clear in this song if the person being sung about was a lover, or just a really good friend. In a way though, "Catching Up" is also the sequel to "Reunion", because it's what would happen if that song's main character did show up for the proverbial reunion. There's a steady guitar driving this tune, and it veers between alt-rock, alt-country, and pop somewhat jarringly, but the lyrics keep you on track and wondering what will happen next in the story being told. The same nostalgia inherent in "Reunion" is present here of course, but maybe it's the resolution that makes me appreciate this tune a little more - or at least the sense of closure it offers. Not to mention the actually closure of the song, mixing harmonica, "haaa-oooo"s and out-of-tune guitar by turn, then fading out like the bonfire the characters in the story are probably catching up over.

22 | The Rapture | "How Deep Is Your Love?"

I already had my Rapture rant, so I'm just going to point out how bad-ass this tune is to dance and snap your fingers to. The beloved piano is here again, plodding away without much help for a while, before the percussion (cymbals and handclaps to the rescue!) comes in and the whole thing just slow-burns its way through the dancefloor. There's still a lot of Christian imagery going on in the song, which makes it a bit of an incongruent listen at the club, but the driving nature of the song just keeps propelling it towards some sweaty finish of drenched shirts, tired feet, and loosened hips. And that's before you even get to the rebuild-ing break around 3:30 in, when a saxophone joins the melee and the whole things just goes bonkers from there on out. These guys might have church Sunday morning, but they're going all out Saturday night.

21 | Bon Iver | "Calgary"

"Holocene" may have been the bigger song off of this album (a Record Of The Year nomination from the Grammy's is usually indicative of that), but my favorite song off of Bon Iver's (mainstream) breakthrough album had to be "Calgary". It's rife with the auto-tuned weirdness Justin Vernon's seemed to espouse since For Emma, Forever Ago - which actually feels like forever ago now - but still has the acoustic flourishes that made his debut so enjoyable and heartfelt. The title, the instrumentation, and the the general vibe definitely lend a wintery feel to the song, and it's just a beautiful piece of music any way you slice it. It's agreeable, but not boring; different, but not off-putting. Kind of like Justin Vernon's beard? God I have to sleep.

Top 50 Songs of 2011 | Honourable Mentions

2012-01-02T16:14:00.000-08:00

First of all, I love lists, and I can't resist posting my favorite songs of the year here. So as a little primer for the entire Top 50, here are the songs that I liked this year, but for one reason or another, didn't make the final list:

Malajube | "Synesthesie"

This is a weird one, because I loved it so much when it first came out that I went and got the whole album. I don't know if the rest of the songs let me down and dragged this one with them, but over time it's lost it's pop-y sheen to me. It's effervescently jaunty, and I can understand enough of it that the language certainly isn't a barrier, but I've resigned myself to simply liking this song enough to include it here - just not on my actual list of favorites.

Carly Rae Jepsen | "Call Me Maybe"

Wanna know why it's not the overt pop stylings of "Synesthesie" that turned me off of it? It's because this song is so ridiculously pop and twee that I should be looked at with the kind of questioning gaze an adult that still watches YTV would get - if that makes any sense. It's not even funny how juvenile "Call Me Maybe" is, but maybe that's what's so appealing about it: at worst, it makes you think back to high school and any good times you had as a teenager. The truly great part about the track however is the music itself. The strings are unprecedented in such a tune, and the rest of the music hangs back enough that it doesn't overpower her voice or the strings. Speaking of her voice, I guess Carly Rae was a former Canadian Idol contestant, so it's nice to see her turn out a great song like this. Her delivery at the start makes you think of just another Miley Cyrus/Disney star-wanna-be, but as soon as the beat drops in, she showcases her worthy pipes. I've wrote too much about it already, but suffice it to say "Call Me Maybe" was easily my guiltiest pleasure of 2011.

Asobi Seksu | "Little House of Savages" (Walkmen Cover)

I had to sneak this one in mainly because it introduced me to Asobi Seksu, a New York dream pop band in the guitar-feedback vein of My Bloody Valentine. The song itself stays quite true to Asobi Seksu's own music, with the guitars whirring away in the background. But the real magic starts when lead singer Yuki Chikudate drops her falsetto and puts on a typically great singing performance for her, making a great show of a tune originally done by The Walkmen. It may be grinding on the ears at first, but give it a minute and it opens up as a rewarding listen.

Russian Circles | "Mladek"

Unfortunately, the reverse happens here, with a very promising song taking a turn to a darker side, and in the process ruining some of the good will it had amassed in its opening instrumentals. About a minute and a half into "Mladek", a deftly nimble cacophony of inspiring guitars veers into the crunching abyss of instrumental death metal. I mean, I expected as much, seeing as that's the genre Russian Circles calls home, but for them to tease at such a premise, then rip it down one evil-sounding note after another - it was enough to make this song enjoyable, but not enough to land it a spot in the Top 50. The musicanship is obviously great on this track, and in changing up the mood, it spans a variety of emotions over it's nearly eight-minute runtime; so don't get me wrong, I like the song. Just pointing out that it's never that pleasant to be on a nice walk in the woods, then take a wrong turn and end up face-to-face with a grizzly - musically or in real-life.

The Strokes | "Under Cover of Darkness"

A blast to whistle. Probably a joy to play on guitar. A pleasure to imitate Julian Casablanca's whiny delivery. But just as with every song on this short-list, there's something that keeps me from making it one of my favorites. It's tough to pinpoint with "Under Cover of Darkness", because there really is so much to love. If I had to pick anything though, it's what has befallen all of The Strokes' music since their debut: it just isn't their debut. They've proven they'll never do anything as good or as iconic as Is This It, but damn if they haven't tried. Occasionally they end up with a pop-rock gem like this one. So even though part of me wants to appreciate this song for what it is, I can't listen to music or view it in a vaccuum. It's the very reason we make lists, rank things, or argue about them. And I list this one with the honourable mentions, rank it outside the Top 50, and argue that it's not as good as the rest of The Strokes' stuff, or the other 50 songs I liked better than it in 2011.

Where is our "Freebird"?

2011-10-31T12:39:00.000-07:00

Where are our killer solos? Do we need them anymore? Havethey disappeared? If so, when? and why?

Were they not a cathartic experience? Don’t we need thatin our lives? If they’re gone, what have we replaced them with? Is our catharsisnow being provided by the drop of a dubstep bassline? By a howling Chris Martinchorus? By the drone of My Bloody Valentine guitars? By heavy metal riffs? By aman in a large mouse-head, on his laptop? By a particular dude in a headband, onhis laptop?

Where are the minutes-long meanderings? Where’s theartistry inherent in taking a song to a whole other plane? Where is our divergencefrom the expected? Is it with Animal Collective’s fire-side yelps and shouts?Even when they showcase it, aren’t they using a Grateful Dead sample? Where isour 21^st century staple?

Are we past the days of guitar solos? Have we evolvedpast them? Have all the good ones been done already? Would we only be rehashingthe past? Is “Freebird” maybe best experienced through the lens of a high-schoolcover band? What about the other great guitar solos? What about any seminalsolo, of any kind? Doesn’t everyone want to play air drums when “In The AirTonight” is on? Didn’t Mike Tyson?

Don’t you wonder sometimes?

Halifax Pop Explosion in Haikus!

2011-10-24T09:53:00.000-07:00

tough to see, but No Joy's Jasamine White-Glutz is the second-hottest girl in Canadian indie

I've never really been one to limit myself, but in the spirits of expediency and experimentation, I gave this a try:

Tuesday @ Reflections:

Ohbijou:

Beautiful singing

Orchestral sound, very good strings

Horrible venue

Braids:

Spell-binding voices

Off-kilter drum beats resound

Bought split 7”

Wednesday @ Olympic Community Hall:

The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart:

They’re from NYC

Last stop on tour, happy bunch

Exceeded my hopes

Thursday @ The Seahorse:

Jenocide:

Cute girl, toned it down

Show consisted of beat loops

Had people dancing

We Were Lovers:

Pretty non-descript

Fleshed out their live act nicely

I had a few beer

Bonjay:

Kind of reggae sound

Didn’t stick around too long

Roommate liked them lots

Thursday @ The Khyber:

Something Good:

My friend’s band, at Khyber

Small, living-room-sized venue

Loud, but diverse sounds

Friday @ The Seahorse:

Honheehonee:

Saw half, stood outside

Seahorse bouncers suck a lot

Real neat sounding band

Graham Wright:

Tokyo Police Club

Their keyboardist, was good show

He liked Halifax

Library Voices:

My favourite show

Packed so much energy in

Eight people on stage

Friday @ The Palace:

Juan MacLean:

DJ just stood there

Few people at the Palace

Left early to eat

Saturday @ The Palace:

No Joy:

Love this band so much

Hardest rocking girls I’ve seen

Weren’t really “there”

PS I Love You:

Love this band so much

Fattest rocker I have seen

There was too much there

Fucked Up:

Great show to end on

Ears rang for two days after

Pink Eyes is nutso

What I've Been Listening To

2011-06-21T19:51:00.000-07:00

I'll just cut to the chase here: in ascending order of how much I liked them, the albums I've listened to since about January, with a little blurb about each one, and song recommendations.

19 | Decemberists | The King Is Dead

Meh. I deleted all but two songs. Definitely not my kind of thing.

Listen to: "This Is Why We Fight", "Down By The Water"

18 | Radiohead | King Of Limbs

Radiohead is pretty hit or miss for me I have to admit. I can't say I even listen to this any more. Disappointing effort from Radiohead, and definitely not as engaging as In Rainbows.

Listen to: "Give Up The Ghost"

17 | Malajube | La Caverne

It's a fun album, but it sounds pretty much the same throughout...and it's in French, which is cool if you're Coeur Du Pirate, but otherwise...

Listen to: "Synesthesie"

16 | Lykke Li | Wounded Rhymes

Another disappointing follow-up from a favorite artist of mine. "Wounded" is right, because there's a lot of pain behind this album it seems, and the "sexy" Lykke seems to have largely disappeared, other than on the track "Get Some". She's still got the chops, just doesn't seem like she has the same attitude.

Listen to: "Get Some", "I Follow Rivers"

15 | Cut Copy | Zonoscope

A pleasant mix of sounds, and the whole thing goes down like an iced tea. It's all pretty much the same, and it's refreshing amidst other tastes, but all on its own? It's a bit boring, if not unoffensive.

Listen to: "Need You Now", "Hanging On To Every Heartbeat"

14 | James Blake | Echoes

As soft as Blake can make his voice, his production skills balance a fine line between enjoyably listenable and downright annoyingly repetitive and vocally scathing. The chipmunky voice has its place, and it's not on a proper album. There's a handful of standout tracks though, like "Wilhelm's Scream", "Lindsfarne" (Parts I and II), and the Feist cover, "Limit To Your Love". Otherwise, there's some low lows.

Listen to: "Wilhelm's Scream", "Lindsfarne Pts. I & II", "Limit To Your Love"

13 | Salem | King Night

Just a really weird album that hits me the right way. It's everything you would expect from a bunch of white kids from Texas who make dark, pseudo-rap music that sounds like what everything would if you were tripping on sizzurp.

Listen to: "King Night", "Trapdoor"

12 | The Rural Alberta Advantage | Departing

Already gave a rundown of this album here, but overall, it's in the lower half of what I've listened to recently. There's just more upbeat, interesting things that I've come across in the last six months or so.

Listen to: "Stamp", "Under The Knife"

11 | Explosions In The Sky | Take Care, Take Care

I really wish I'd gotten into these guys years ago. Awesome instrumental music that makes me think of Do Make Say Think. Only six tracks long, it's short on quality, but at eight minutes long on average, there's a lot of quality.

Listen to: the whole thing

10 | CFCF | The River

Along the same lines as the album above, as well as Salem's. I'm a big fan of instrumental music that simultaneously keeps you engaged, while freeing your mind to do other things like essay-writing or reading. CFCF is my favorite artist for that right now, and I'm proud to say he's homegrown talent from Montreal.

Listen to: "Upon The Hill"

09 | The Strokes | Angles

Why do people seem to be shitting on this album? I don't even hear the single on the radio any more. Sure, it's no Is This It, The Strokes' otherworldly-great debut album...but what the hell is? It's fun, it's pure Julian Casablancas, and as far as I can tell, it's what the future of The Strokes is gonna sound like anyways. It may not have the same staying power as their previous albums, but it's got the sugary immediacy of cotton candy. Also, in a totally abstract way, every song is a Simpson's episode. You know how every show starts off in a completely different and unrelated way from the ending? That's the deal with this album; 90% of the songs start off kind of weird, then move in a different, noticeably catchier direction. I feel like maybe people who hate this album really only listened to the first 20 seconds of each song or something.

Listen to: "Under Cover Of Darkness"

08 | Cults | Cults

Just listened to this one all the way through today. Multiple times. Each song is just an earworm. If you thought all the catchy hooks and melodies had already been written and done to death, think again. This stuff is damn good, like the even-beachier version of last year's Sleigh Bells.

Listen to: "Go Outside", "Abducted"

07 | Hey Rosetta! | Seeds

The album Hey Rosetta! was meant to make. For me, it's through-and-through their most consistent effort, and the songs are complex, with lots of build and layers. Can't wait to hear them play most of these ones live this summer.

Listen to: "Welcome", "New Sum (Nous Sommes)"

06 | The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart | Belong

I like that they went in a different direction from their debut, and still pulled it off fine, getting rid of a good part of the noisy fuzz that defined their first album. Their name conveys the very twee sentiments of their music, and "Heart In Your Heartbreak" is a track I keep going back to. Their name also gives them tons of bonus points. But like Whose Line Is It Anyway?, those are technically worthless.

Listen to: "Heart In Your Hearbreak", "The Body"

05 | Future Islands | Wave Like Home

I love Future Islands. They're super weird vocally and sonically (which, I guess, is the whole make-up of music...soo...yeah), and I'm pretty sure I've written about them before (ah yes, I have). This is their older album, but it has lots of treats for anyone who might like their unexplainable style.

Listen to: "Old Friend", "Seize A Shark"

04 | Yuck | Yuck

Yuck. Sorry, good things come in threes. Or from the 90's, which is where these guys' music is rooted. Just good old fashioned rock; Britain's version of Japandroids.

Listen to: "Georgia", "Operation"

03 | Shad | TSOL

The only hip-hop album I really have in rotation, Kanye West's MBDTF included. Shad's wordplay is intelligent, hilarious, and layered like an onion. The beats are great, giving him room to work. His flow is well-defined and distinctive. And he's great live to boot.

Listen to: "Rose Garden", "Telephone", "Yaa I Get It", "We, Myself, And I"

02 | Fucked Up | David Comes To Life

I know you want to listen to the greatest hardcore group ever. There's nothing more you like than driving down the street with Pink Eyes' cheese-grater voice yelling out, blaring from your speakers. You wouldn't be caught dead without this CD in your car. Oh, that's just me? Yeah, it's kinda awkward listening to this stuff, let alone in the summer with the windows rolled down, but for this album to be enjoyed, it has to be turned waaay up. Sure, no one will want to sit in the car with you while you're listening to it, but that's unavoidable if the group is named "Fucked Up". Anyways, the real gems here lie in the backing vocals, lyrics, and amazing guitar tracks that make these songs so multi-layered and enjoyable. It's seriously not even music - it's a work of art, right down to the album being structured as a four-part play. I'm not joking.

Listen to: "The Other Shoe", "Ship Of Fools", "A Little Death"

01 | No Joy | Ghost Blonde

On reeepeat. It's a shame this album's dropped down on my list in iTunes, because it's definitely my favorite thing from this year so far. It's like My Bloody Valentine updated their sound just a tad, became two Canadian girls, and still ripped it up when they had to. I've spent many a night listening to this album; as a way to wind down, as something to read to, as something to write papers to...I love versatile music like that, whether it's the instrumental albums mentioned above, or one like this where you can just crank it and let the waves of guitar wash right over you. I feel like No Joy's kind of music (shoegaze, to generalize) is like a force of nature: it has to be experienced to be fully understood. You may not always like it, but at least you'll know what it's like.

Listen to: "Hawai'i", "Still", "You Girls Smoke Cigarettes?"

Polaris Music Prize 2011 Predictions

2011-06-21T18:54:00.000-07:00

a simple logo for a not-so-simple prize

In two weeks, the short-list for Canada's most prestigious music prize will be announced, paring down the current grouping of 40 "long-listers" to a more-manageable, more-acclaimed list of 10 albums, representing the best of Canadian music over the last 12 months. You can check out the many details of the prize, how it's awarded, and who gets to choose it right here...but my own, educated-guess/partially-informed take on who ends up making that short-list is below, in no particular order:

- Neil Young

- Diamond Rings

- Land Of Talk

- Arcade Fire

- Malajube

- Timber Timbre

- Imaginary Cities

- Destroyer

- Braids

- Austra

Now, my list is by no means scientific or particularly well-informed, especially compared to last year, when I'd had much stronger connections to the Top 40 and Top 10. So it's kind of like when you pick your brackets for NCAA's March Madness: who's looked good, who seems good, who you've heard is good, and what surprise upset might just happen. However, I can say with certainty that I've heard tracks from everyone's album on the list other than Neil Young, including the entirety of Arcade Fire, Land Of Talk, Diamond Rings, and Malajube's albums.

Although the prize is touted as simply recognizing the best of Canadian albums on musical merit alone (evidenced by awarding Fucked Up the 2009 prize over the likes of Joel Plaskett and Metric...and giving the inaugural prize to an album named He Poos Clouds), I went for balance on my list, because the jury inevitably gets roasted if they lean too heavily one particular style of music, or region of Canada.

Neil Young's simply a legend. Diamond Rings burst onto the scene this year, drag make-up and all. Land Of Talk put out a really solid effort that worked well for me as a whole album. Arcade Fire's already won a Grammy. Malajube provides the French content. Timber Timbre is a huge favorite with the types who sit on the jury, even though his brand of downer-jazz doesn't resonate so well with me. Destroyer is a literary-type staple of intelligent indie. Imaginary Cities are great from what I hear. Braids are extremely interesting and innovative. Austra is super-compelling (yes, I just said that) and impresses all the more for someone with a background in opera.

Now, again, I stress the amateurishness of these selections -- just me making some picks to see how well I do against the actual list once it comes out in 14 days. Can't wait.

The Rural Alberta (Songwriting) Advantage

2011-06-21T17:00:00.000-07:00

get it? it's winter!

It's been foreverrr since I've put anything up here, but that doesn't mean I've stopped listening to music or thinking about it. I uh, just haven't had all that much time to write those thoughts down. But once in a while, I finish my undergrad, work 9-5 in the summers, come home, have supper...and have nothing to do but sit down, watch baseball, and listen to all the new music I've amassed.

So it's under these circumstances that I post something I wrote back in May, about The Rural Alberta Advantage's (then-new) album Departing, best described by Pitchfork calling it the "winter counterpart" to their summery-sounding debut Hometowns (profiled on this very blog right here). Now, I wouldn't say it's any better than that album, due in part to the more sombre feeling the whole thing evokes, but on its own, it's certainly a nice piece of work, worthy of many listens. What it lacks in peppiness, great-to-amazing drumming, and backing vocals (the sneaky-good elements that made Hometowns so great overall) make replays an exercise in tediousness though.

Either way, what I wrote back then had nothing to do with the music itself - I like The RAA and will listen to all their new stuff regardless. Instead, the first impression I got from the record -- listening to it on the drive to and from surfing in Lawrencetown -- was that lead singer Nils Edenloff either has an ironically self-conscious sense of humour when it comes to song-writing, or he's managed to become completely unoriginal at it.

Behold -- quite literally, if Nils would have his way -- all the different uses of the verb "hold", or the simple idea of "holding" itself, by The RAA on Departing. Hearing the first few instances of it, I chuckled. The next few, I smirked at the songwriting. The subsequent ones? I started laughing at the absurdity. At that point I decided that the band was either pulling our collective legs, or had run out of words to put into songs. Those were the only two options. Read on and see for yourself, while keeping in mind that most of these lines were repeated in the respective songs:

--- --- --- --- ---

"Two Lovers":

- “and if I ever hold you again/I hold you tight enough to crush your veins”

"The Breakup":

- “and I held you tight/we were waiting for the break-up”

"Under The Knife":

- “never gonna hold us/tear us apart when you/tear us apart tonight”

- “the devil’s gonna tear us apart/the fight is gonna tear us apart/my love is gonna hold you tight”

- “we’ll hold the mistakes for time/never wanna grow/never wanna grow old when I’m holding you close tonight”

"Muscle Relaxants":

- “I know and I know when I’m holding you/but you wouldn’t try to find…”

- “our hearts will slow and I know you’ll hold me tight”

"North Star":

- Nothing...surprisingly.

"Stamp":

- “hold me close while you can”

- “hold on lover/you’ll find another”

"Tornado ’87":

- “oh Lord I lost you/I held you tight, oh I/hold on to your love in the night”

- “oh Lord I found you/I held you tight”

- “I let you go/I let you go/I let you know that I hold you”

- “black sky comes and I hold you”

"Barnes’ Yard":

- “oh let’s lie down for another night/I’ll hold you close under these skies”

- “we struggle to tear ourselves apart in the night”

- “I was holding on to you/and you were holding me tight”

"Coldest Days":

- “Lord, Lord, it’s tearing us apart/the way the love is holding on to your heart”

- “I held you in the coldest days/I held you in the coldest ways”

- “I would never be the one to hold/your creaky chest is holding an empty stone/our love was holding on/through the frost-bitten dawn”

"Good Night":

- Nothing...because I think they ran out of ways to say "hold" and "held"

Top 25 Albums of 2010

2010-12-29T19:55:00.000-08:00

it`s the most, wonderful time, of the yeaaar (lists and reviews season!)

Already ran through the whole preamble in my previous post, so look there for an explanation of how my Top 25 works (otherwise: Hey, here's 25 albums I thought were pretty great this year!).

25 | Delorean | Subiza | The album that knocked Band Of Horses out of this last spot is a cheery and upbeat musical portrayal of a night out in the Mediterranean.

Highlights: "Real Love", "Stay Close"

24 | James Blake | Various EP's | Probably the closest I'll come to dubstep, this guy takes everything that makes dubstep good (at least to Londoners) and mixes in snippets of R&B as well as his own voice to craft haunting flashes of warbling beats and eerie vocals. "I Only Know (What I Know Now)" may be one of the songs of the year, off his Klavierwerke EP.

Highlights: "I Only Know (What I Know Now)", "CMYK"

23 | Gayngs | Relayted | Have you ever wondered what would happen if a bunch of guys from the Midwest got together to craft an homage to the cheesiest beats/songs/musical ideas of the late 80's and early 90's? This is what. Call it a guilty pleasure, but also call it one of the most interesting and unassumingly engaging albums of the year (neat feature, if not overdone: the end of each song has around a 30-second lead-in to the next). The kitsch is all over this one, but Gayngs know it sounds that bad - which doesn't really allow us much room to make fun of them. So just appreciate the musicianship -- as well as the great Justin Vernon (of Bon Iver) cameos.

Highlights: "Faded High", "The Gaudy Side Of Town"

22 | Free Energy | Stuck On Nothing | Pop-rock like you probably haven't heard in years, these guys are what mainstream radio sorely needs right now, and which alarmingly few American bands are offering (instead acts like Down With Webster and Bruno Mars are dominating the airwaves). A lot of it is sugar-sweet, with none of the comedown usually associated with a treat like that; it's an earnest effort by a group of kids who know how to craft catchy, timeless tunes.

Highlights: "Bang Pop", "Young Hearts", "Dream City", "Free Energy", "All I Know"

21 | Crystal Castles | Crystal Castles II | It doesn't have the immediate appeal of their debut album, but II makes up for that with more depth, and a greater reliance on Alice Glass' always-haunting vocals. There's not as many party-starters on here, but I guess it shows a more polished and balanced side of Crystal Castles. Meh, dunno if you can notice, but maybe I ranked it too high; either that, or it's just not outdoing Crystal Castles I. Whatever. Oh, but just remembered, the version of "Not In Love" featuring Robert Smith (of The Cure) isn't on this album, so it's missing a little something. Definitely check that song out, great addition with his stellar vocals over an otherwise solid track. Yes I write in stream-of-consciousness.

Highlights: "Empathy", "Baptism", "Celestica"

20 | Black Keys | Brothers | Would probably rank higher if I'd had more time to listen to it, but since it's only been with me for a couple weeks now, this is a decent position. My sister opined that it's an album that keeps its pacing throughout, which is definitely true. It's also one of the few collections of music that makes me appreciate blues-rock, in a way The White Stripes never could (because even they don't get nearly this bluesy). The instrumentation is great, the song concepts are well-done, and there's a few standout tracks to be enjoyed on repeat. "Tighten Up" especially makes its mark with the transition halfway through between a healthy dose of soul, to something more rocking and slightly darker, but no less engaging.

Highlights: "Tighten Up", "Next Girl"

19 | PS I Love You | Meet Me At The Muster Station | Possibly the most annoying album name on this list, even though the group name gets an A+. I was missing my Japandroids this year, with not much other than singles coming out from that duo, so these Kingston boys did well to fill that void. Lo-fi has its rightful place in rock (not pop, which has been a year-long peeve of mine due to "chillwave"), and PS I Love You does a great job with that style: quick-hit headbangers with echoes of deeper feelings filling the space between the endlessly banging drums and effects-pedaled guitar.

Highlights: "2012", "Facelove", "Get Over"

18 | Diamond Rings | Special Affections | Coincidentally, this guy and PS I Love You split an EP in the summer of 2009, and they're here side-by-side as well. John O'Regan's alter ego, Diamond Rings, manages to craft one of the best synth-pop albums of the year, while at the same time drawing on his fantastic songwriting to produce some of the most memorable lines of the past 12 months. There's probably not a weak song on this album, and it has the added perk of being completely gender neutral: every song could be sung by a girl for a guy, guy for girl, guy for guy, or girl for girl. An album that really has to be listened to for the clever lyrics and impeccable backing tracks.

Highlights: "All Yr Songs", "Wait & See", "Something Else"

17 | The National | High Violet | Yes, I ranked this one probably 10 spots lower than just about everybody else doing their year-end lists. It's great, don't get me wrong, but it's not totally my cup of tea...though I have to say the album would go over well alongside a spot of that and some biscuits. It's not coincidence that one of the best songs on here is called "England"; The National are a regal band, and no more so than on this album. Even their stadium-big anthems maintain a sense of propriety, made all the more imposing by Matt Berninger's always-impressive baritone. Unfortunately, the downtempo nature of a lot of the music on High Violet didn't garner many replays with me. I can still more than appreciate the talent and skill The National possess however. So 17 on paper, 17 in my head, but probably a 7 in my heart.

Highlights: "Bloodbuzz Ohio", "Afraid Of Everyone", "Lemonworld", "England"

16 | Wolf Parade | Expo 86 | I swear I started them off in my Top 10, probably even Top 5. But then I thought about it, kept re-doing my lists, and they had to drop down to here. There are enjoyable songs, but nothing possessing the immediacy or shout-out-loud lyrics of their exceptional Apologies To The Queen Mary (think "Grounds For Divorce", "Shine A Light", "This Heart's On Fire"). There's still standouts, but they all seem to drag their feet a bit, and in the end they still come out a bit too dark to become timeless indie anthems (something entirely within Wolf Parade's wheelhouse, and both Dan Boeckner and Spencer Krug individually, considering Handsome Fur and Sunset Rubdown's work). As I've said before, this album leaves them mired in a decent middleground between ATTQM and follow-up At Mount Zoomer...but short of what they're truly capable of.

Highlights: "Ghost Pressure", "What Did My Lover Say? (It Always Had To Go This Way)", "In The Direction Of The Moon"

15 | The Besnard Lakes | ...Are The Roaring Night | Another group that got bumped down as I wrote and rewrote my Top 25. It's a great album (I still think it should have won the Polaris Prize), and works amazingly as a whole. Individually, the songs are hard to get in to without the context of the rest of the album, one highlight aside. But where four of the songs are split into "Pt. I" and "Pt. II", I think you catch my drift. The harmonies and space-rock (a term I've never really liked for this genre, but which seems oddly appropriate) are maxed out here, and it's easy to get lost listening to the album in its entirety. That's more of a testament to the complexity and enjoyability of the work than anything else though.

Highlights: "Albatross", "Like The Ocean, Like The Innocent, Pt. I and II"

14 | Yukon Blonde | Yukon Blonde | From deep rock orchestras emanating from the throes of space, to this album of down-to-earth rock done right. Yukon Blonde just kills it, with some of my favorite guitar solos and lyrics of the year (yeah, I guess it was a good year for lyrics...not so much for solos though?). If you look at it one way, this is simply an album of songs from a guy to a girl, set to artfully executed drum hits and guitar plucking. That would ignore how it all meshes together so well though; I can throw this thing on and listen to it all the way through and not feel a hint of boredom. Yukon Blonde manages to keep you locked in in the same way as The Besnard Lakes, but a manner just different enough that it really makes you marvel at the various veins of rock that are out there to enjoy. For good measure, they even throw in some Fleet Foxes-like harmonies on a few tracks.

Highlights: "Brides Song", "Rather Be With You", "Babies Don't Like Blue Anymore", "Wind Blows"

13 | Javelin | No Mas | The first of three darkhorses on this list, this is one of the albums I'm truly thankful for discovering this year (as usual, courtesy of Pitchfork). It's 15 tracks of expertly mixed samples and snippets, but instead of party-accentuating bangers from the likes of Girl Talk, it's a collection of some of the most chill beats (and even funny lyrics) I've had the pleasure of throwing on this annum. So much on here makes you think you've heard the song before, or at least a part of it. Javelin's cut-and-paste style has a lot to do with that, but you still can't shake the familiarity of a lot of the tunes, and it's in the most comforting way - not the nagging kind where you're killing yourself to come up with the name of that five-second rip. I'm just disappointed more people and lists didn't pick up on this gem; the 13 ranking is modest: it deserves to be higher. For hilarity's sake, the vibes conjured up listening to this album range from Hercules strutting down the street in Anicent Greece, to The Chipmunks hitting on a girl in a disco. I'm not kidding.

Highlights: "Vibrationz", "Intervales Theme", "Susie Cues", "Shadow Heart"

12 | Holy F**k | Latin | I'm lumping +Ghost in with this too, the companion EP, because there's not much theme variation between the two works. All that matters though is that they work. I'm a big fan of instrumentals and electronic music as it is, so it's easy for a group like this to please me; some tracks venture to blow me out of the water however, in the same way "Lovely Allen" by these guys did a couple years ago. Holy F tries and succeeds at what they do best, which is make the best beats from the simplest things around them - from Casio keyboards to unaltered drumsets. These are two albums that keep pulsing and throbbing, leaving you wanting more, but knowing there's still enough to tide you over (yes, it's "tide"...I looked it up).

Highlights: "Stay Lit", "Latin", "Jungles", "SHT MTN"

11 | Land Of Talk | Cloak And Cipher | This one flew under the radar for me way too long, even though I've had it for a while. It was pretty prominent around the time I broke up with my ex, and the sombre tone of a lot of the tracks didn't mesh too well with the difficulty the breakup brought emotionally. Anyways, I digress, because this is an expertly done album. The songs are long and enjoyable in a micro-Broken Social Scene way; much was made of them being tourmates and having it rub off on Land Of Talk, but I'm not totally buying that, because they don't go for the grandeur BSS so masterfully exhibit. This is like Broken Social Scene-lite if anything; one main vocalist, chugging guitars and drums, and just the right amount of variation that the good songs on here are really good in their own different ways. That's the problem with some of the albums ranked lower than this one: the good songs on those albums are almost undifferentiated from the lesser tunes, which makes it tough to pick standouts - when everything is just solid, can anything really be that much greater than everything else? Land Of Talk answers that question by avoiding it altogether, and crafting a great collection of midtempo crooners.

Highlights: "Blangee Blee", "Quarry Hymns", "Swift Coin"

10 | The New Pornographers | Together | My eyes lit up glancing at this one as the next entry on the list. That's the problem with this album: I kind of forgot about it during the year, the same way I did just doing this list. But as I usually do, I throw on each album as I write its review, and my eyes lit up realizing I'd get to listen to Together for a bit. Now, what I'm getting at is that The New Pornos had the bad luck to release this album the same week as another Canadian juggernaut ranked higher up on this list - a group receiving a fair bit more spins from me the last half of this year. That takes nothing away from this great compilation; I wouldn't call it their best as some have, but I think it lived up to expectations for the most part. There's the old-standard ballads, the AC Newman-led upbeat tunes, the requisite wordy and lamenting Dan Bejar tracks, and the uplifting Neko Case anthems. It's status-quo for a band that does this kind of thing with ease; I don't really think they can or even should get out of their comfort zone when they team up for New Pornos records like this.

Highlights: "Crash Years", "Up In The Dark", "Valkyrie In The Roller Disco", "We End Up Together"

09 | LCD Soundsystem | This Is Happening | Yes, I just ranked a Top 3 album at number 9. I can't seriously contend that it's any better than Sound Of Silver, and yes I'm going to measure it by that exemplary 2007 effort. Heck, I'll even put it up against their earlier work. Everyone has waxed eloquent about how James Murphy has found his voice and his touch, and while I agree wholeheartedly that he has on about half the songs here, the other half are seriously lacking for my tastes (and I love LCD Soundsystem). The anthems and slow-burners on This Is Happening are done impeccably, and certainly show off the maturity Murphy has attained these last few years, but: what the hell happened to his party-starting abilities? I mean, I know the guy is getting old, but you can't put out more than one banger on this album? The highlights are real highlights -- unfortunately, the rest of the songs don't deliver like their older material did. It's not a case of selling out, it's not a case of going in a different direction...it just seems like James and his usually-impeccable rhythm section didn't bring it on half the songs on the album. So that's why it's at number 9.

Highlights: "All I Want", "Dance Yrslef Clean", "I Can Change"

08 | Kanye West | My Beautifual Dark Twisted Fantasy | Heretofore known as MBDTF, it's probably also known as the be-all-end-all of albums this year, a perfect 10 from Pitchfork needed to drive home that idea. I love the fact that Kanye returned to his College Dropout roots, focusing on his legendary production touch and letting a litany of guests provide a good portion of the vocals. Even on the songs where he's the primary vocalist, he's matured enough from 808's & Heartbreak's (autotuned) singing that he can more than hold his own the handful of tracks he's featured in. As mentioned, the rest of them are more than adequately buoyed by guests ranging from Rihanna (good), Fergie (horrible), Elton John (surprising), and Jay-Z (honestly: disappointing on the whole); a smidgen of the kind of guest list that was sorely lacking on his last couple efforts. The reason I can't rank it any higher than this is the same as the reason LCD got ranked so low: it didn't consistently blow me away. If this got a 10, and College Dropout didn't, I can still listen to College Dropout almost the entire way through. MBDTW on the other hand, has too many songs I'll skip through, especially for a 13-song album. One thing has to be mentioned before I finish though: Nicki Minaj's verse on "Monster". My sweet Lord Jesus did she ever blow everyone out of the water on that song.

Highlights: "Power", "Monster", "Runaway", "Lost In The World", "Gorgeous"

07 | Tokyo Police Club | Champ | Case in point: this album delivers throughout, deserving of its ranking above Kanye. It's good in the same way Land Of Talk's Cloak And Cipher is: consistent themes, great songs throughout, and the really great ones stand out enough from the just-great ones that the album works perfectly as a whole. Tokyo Police Club do a great job here of keeping 90% of the songs uptempo and dynamic, something I thought was missing from previous release Elephant Shell -- for every good song on that earlier album, there's two on Champ. Either way, I'll keep this short: great album; the only reason it's not higher is because it's not particularly awe-inspiring or epic music.

Highlights: "Breakneck Speed", "Wait Up (Boots Of Danger)", "End Of A Spark", "Bambi"

06 | Caribou | Swim | I like how these are leading in to each other, because Swim truly is epic and awe-inspiring. A few tracks from the album had me in a trance-like state when I saw Dan Snaith and company live (two drumsets and all!), as they do an amazing job of improving on the album material with live instrumentation and dream-like meanderings. I guess between the title and interviews with Snaith, he wanted an album that was very fluid dance and electronic, and he easily succeeds. The beats drip with sound, the vocals are smooth and slippery, and the whole thing seems to be under a layer of heavy water, if not a thin layer of ice. There's a coldness to Swim that's not there on his other albums (why would there be, on something titled The Milk Of Human Kindness?), but it succeeds, in part because there's a common thread of fragility and ethereal feeling that doesn't allow us to get too close to Snaith or his subject matter. The instruments do a good-enough job of conveying anything Dan doesn't emote on his own, as they slither and clink their way in and around his oft-haunting vocals. By the end of the whole thing, you don't know where Snaith stands with his love(rs), but you at least know he's not standing on dry land.

Highlights: "Odessa", "Jamelia", "Lalibela"...various other names that would sound great attached to a Russian hooker

05 | Future Islands | In Evening Air | Darkhorse number two. What I love about this Baltimore group, affiliated with Dan Deacon, is that they take what could be the latter's electronic instrumentals, and infuse them with heartfelt lyrics and vocals, in a way Deacon's well-intentioned squelches and beeps never could. The singer wavers between an out-of-place English accent and a deep and gravel-y baritone, even on the same song at some points. The tracks are all distinct and varied in their delivery, and it's so out-of-the-ordinary on the whole that I can't help being enthralled every time I listen to a song from In Evening Air. It's a rare gem that works very well front-to-back, but also when you pull bits and pieces from it to listen to casually. The subject matter is dark enough, but the keyboards are endlessly pacing the tunes, allowing your emotions to keep a comfortable distance from the heavy material. On that note, there's a veritable sadness throughout this album, one resulting from loss, and also from fearing impending loss. The greatest highlight however is the singer's voice - I can't say I've ever heard anything like it, and as eccentric as he gets, he makes this album. I can't say much more than it wholeheartedly deserves this Top 5 ranking.

Highlights: "Walking Through That Door", "Long Fight", "Inch Of Dust", "Swept Inside"

04 | Rah Rah | Breaking Hearts | I can't really call these guys darkhorses, as they've been decorated with a couple iTunes awards that would make any upcoming band blush for their good fortune. I just had to double-check that this album came out this year, because where the hell have I been?! I heard their songs on CBC Radio3 a handful of times, and was instantly intrigued. Once I won a $50 gift certificate to iTunes from said radio station, I bought Breaking Hearts, and it's been my most-played album in the two months or so since then. It's simply expertly crafted, supremely earnest, and innovative pop music, with just the right twinge of Canadian rock to it. Top to bottom, the album deftly navigates the highs and lows of love and life through near-perfect sequencing (putting two of your best songs at the start is my only qualm with it) and a great balance between rockers and ballads. The main vocalists have an endlessly endearing interplay between guy and girl, their call-and-response working to perfection on a tune like "Ghosts", definitely the standout here. It's like they mix the hard-rocking attitude of Ladyhawk with the pop sensibility of The Ghost Is Dancing, while placing their own unique stamp on the outcome. They sound like everything pop music should be.

Highlights: "Ghosts", "Arrows", "Salty Cites", "Breaking Hearts"

03 | Arcade Fire | The Suburbs | I wrestled with this one for a while, starting it off at number 10 and moving it up in subsequent lists. That's a microcosm of how I've felt towards this album since it came out: I was probably unimpressed at the start, and it's seemingly grown on me ever since. After repeated listens driving back and forth to surfing over the summer, I came to realize (and vocalize to my friend) that The Suburbs is a truly and thoroughly good album, front to back, top to bottom. That's saying something for a 15-song work, because it's always easier to trim the fat and put out a solid 10-song effort. While there are indeed five songs on here I could probably do without, I know there are others who hold those as favorites and couldn't do without them. This is the effort I've been needing from Arcade Fire, who I honestly don't hold as dear as many other Canadians, or indie music fans in general. Their forays into synth-pop and increased use of Regine Chassagne's beautiful voice (the combination of the two could hang with Robyn or any European pop songstress) certainly put The Suburbs over that edge for me, as did many of the more uptempo selections from the album. All in all, epic songs about a not-so-epic life spent in the 'burbs.

Highlights: "Ready To Start", "Half Light II: No Celebration", "Sprawl II: Mountains Beyond Mountains", "Empty Room"

02 | CFCF | Continent | If you're thinking "who/what the fuck?" I'd totally understand. This is darkhorse number three, a kid from Montreal in his early 20's who seems to have found the auditory magic required to turn Italodisco into relevant, contemporary, and enjoyable music. On an almost-entirely instrumental album that can be alternately useful for study sessions, dinnertime music, reading, low-key parties, and even writing essays, I definitely found the most versatile and thoroughly graceful album of the year. I first came to know about CFCF through his artful remix of Justice's "D.A.N.C.E.", but I would have never expected an album of this magnitude from the still-young Canadian mixmaster. It's so unlike anything else I've heard in a long time: it's not the bangers of the aforementioned Frenchmen, it's not the downtempo croonings of Junior Boys (though they would absolutely murder some of these tracks had they considered adding vocals to them), and it's so far removed from any crunchy electronic that it doesn't even merit a comparison. At an hour long (first time reference I've made, been trying hard to avoid them), it's a longer and very rewarding listen, but it's the least you can do to support such astounding homegrown talent.

Highlights: "Raining Patterns", "Monolith", "Invitation To Love", "You Hear Colours"

01 | Broken Social Scene | Forgiveness Rock Record | I've spoken at various lengths about my unwavering love for these guys, so it should come as no surprise that I've ranked them number 1 for 2010. No other album was this complete, this chock-full of talent and superior execution, this wide-ranging, this artfully constructed, this well-sequenced -- this deserving of number 1. Where other BSS efforts following You Forgot It In People have been drubbed for being too lackadaisical and unfocused, the supergroup (there's really no other word for such a talented collection of individuals) really got their act together for this album, churning out 13 of the most solid tunes on one album this year ("Me And My Hand" expressly not included...whether or not it's an ode to masturbation is irrelevant; it's the most skippable and only boring song on the album). There's epics here in good measure, poignant social commentary, ethereal instrumentals, hard-rocking instrumentals, and vocal affectations so late 80's/early 90's that I get severe nostalgia for years I wasn't even alive for.

There's the requisite female-driven tracks with Emily Haines, Feist and Amy Millan starring, and Kevin Drew's dependable pained-like delivery, maybe this time for the mournful state of his fellow man and his many shortcomings. Just a solid, solid album throughout, and other than the one previously mentioned song, I would not change a single thing about it. The material surrounding the album has been similarly well-done, from the jarring fan-made video for "Meet Me In The Basement" to the cool-as-shit Starslinger remix of "Texico Bitches" (also a candidate for Best Song Title of 2010). There is unequivocally nothing lacking on the stellar record, and now it's just a matter of deciding whether or not 2010 albums qualify for Best Of The 2000's, or if Forgiveness Rock Record has to wait for a 2019 list to receive any higher accolades.

Highlights: The whole thing, but specifically "Romance To The Grave", "All To All", "World Sick", "Meet Me In The Basement"

The Top 25 Albums of 2010 | honorablementionythingies

2010-12-26T20:01:00.000-08:00

it was the best of times...it was the end of the naughts of times

Year-end list time! Let me be straight-forward here: I guess I only listened to about 40 full albums this year. While that’s a little less than one per week, I still don’t feel like it’s all that many, especially when Pitchfork lists their “top” 50. I know I can’t really compare myself to a daily music reviewing site, but I still like to aspire to that kind of level, at least taste- and writing-wise. Anyways, they do five reviews a day. 25 a week. For argument’s sake, holidays accounted for and re-issues discounted, that’s about 1000 reviews a year. That’s a shitload of new music. So now, I think you can see how my mere 40 albums pale in comparison.

I’m just telling you straight-up that these are the 40 albums I listened to, ranked in an order based on how much I liked them, how good the music itself was, and the amount of time I’ve had to be exposed to it. Albums I’ve only listened to a little bit are probably ranked lower than they should be. Albums I like more than other people might are ranked higher than they should be (much more so in some cases). Either way, the list has its flaws, and I’m making those clear from the start.

Before we get to those rankings though (my top 25 by the way), there’s 12 other albums that didn’t quite make the cut, for a variety of reasons – most of which I’ll expand on below. They’re arranged by categories, and not in any way by preference or quality. How about we just go alphabetically:

Avant-Pop:

Robyn – Body Talk: I’m lumping in Body Talk Pt. 1 and Body Talk Pt. 2 here, much the same way the artist herself did by releasing the aptly named Body Talk. I gave both parts a few listens, and Robyn has her pop downpat obviously. In some ways, she’s light years ahead of pop here in North America – probably owing to years of honing her skills in the vastly different pop climate of Europe. In other ways, she bangs out tunes with Pharrell and Snoop Dogg much like Katy Perry and other American pop contemporaries. Either way, the girl is good. Not whole-album good though, which is why she didn’t crack my Top 25. There’s absolute gems like “Dancing On My Own”, but there were too many songs that sounded like filler to me. Maybe to a pop aficionado they come off a little more meaningful, but to an appreciator like myself (Katy Perry’s “Teenage Dream” kills me – in all the good ways – simply because I can recognize it’s amazing pop music) they don’t mean much, and they didn’t earn many spins because of that.

Yeasayer – Odd Blood: Oh yea Yeasayer, I cannot say much. There are neat tunes like “ONE”, “Ambling Alp”, and “Madder Red” on here, but they kinda lend this category its name – it’s pop music that’s too forward-thinking for my tastes. Like, I can see these guys appealing to pop radio listeners in 2030 – with their 2010 album. I guess I just don’t get it. But keep it up guys. The future still needs music.

Autre Ne Veut – Autre Ne Veut: A late contender emerges! I guess this was released in August, but I only picked up on it after a warm Pitchfork review the other week, and a very enjoyable mp3 of “Two Days Of Rain” off the internets. Couldn’t find the album anywhere though, so I bought it off iTunes (!), and it’s had a few (mainly falling-asleep) spins over the last week. It’s solid, I love the singer’s audacious range, and he rivetingly straddles the line between avant-pop and retro stylings recalling the 80’s in all their gaudiness. Maybe if I’d discovered Autre Ne Veut earlier in the year, he’d have cracked the Top 25. For now though, he’s hanging with Yeasayer and Robyn. I’m thinking there’s a lot of makeup tips and weird song ideas being thrown around there too.

Black Sheep:

Frightened Rabbit – The Winter Of Mixed Drinks: These guys got kind of unlucky. They’re good. The album’s pretty good. I listened to it. I kinda liked it. But my God are they pretty depressing when it comes down to it. Between the tone of the songs, the album title, and the moods you can get in to while listening to them, I’d swear all the songs are about crumbling relationships, forlorn love, drinking yourself into a stupor, and speaking in the most indiscernible Scottish accent possible. Really, I think that’s what it’s about. Poor bastards.

Droners:

Tame Impala – Innerspeaker: I want to get this one out of the way first for this category. I can’t take it off my iTunes library. And you know why? I think it has to do with the album cover. Seriously: I can’t get enough of that thing when it comes up on my iPod. The music though? Literally just a drone of undifferentiated Australian stoner-rock songs. Imagine a range of 1-10, just a simple thought exercise where 1 is one end of the spectrum, and 10 is the other. These guys are constantly locked in between 3-5. That’s to say, there’s really isn’t a difference between most of the songs on here. It’s boring. Well, the songs are at least.

Pink Skull – Endless Bummer: Punks Kill? Get it! If Tame Impala is stoner-rock, this is electronic music on acid. I don’t mean that in a bad or trippy way; the music is pretty rudimentary in a lot of ways. I just mean the song titles are nuts, the album covers (it’s a two-sider) are bright pink and neon green, and the songs just kind of ebb and flow. I remember writing a few essays and generally chilling out to this album, and it has a really good vibe (no bad trips here), but I just couldn’t bring myself to name it to my Top 25 for the year. I’d still definitely get their next album though.

Emeralds – Does It Look Like I’m Here?: Alright, you want trippy and droning? This album. I swear to God this gave me sleep paralysis one afternoon when I was home sick from work and threw this on while napping and wearing my headphones. That memory still makes me queasy (I think you’d understand if you’ve ever experienced sleep paralysis), and kind of turned me off of this otherwise great electronic/drone record. The songs are epic, varied, and quite interesting. It’s a masterful effort by Emeralds even, who I only knew before this album as crafting one particularly great, autumn-like electronic tune called “Side A”. But waking up with my body asleep, my eyes awake, and the most unsettling visceral buzzing in my ears did a lot to get me away from listening to this for the rest of the year. It would probably do the same for you.

Enjoyable Rockers:

Sleigh Bells – Treats: I don’t get it. I really don’t. It’s a good album. It has some great songs. But it’s one dude tearing away at his guitar, and a girl with some cute and sometimes poignant lyrics about school, summer, and boys and girls. I have nothing against that kind of thing, but it doesn’t exactly lend itself to epic music, overarching themes, or an album rating better than my number one on my list (seriously, Pitchfork rated them like that – I told you I don’t get it). “Crown On The Ground” bangs like nothing of this world, and there’s at least four or five other solid tracks. It’s just not great music though. I think that’s what I’m getting at. Fits the category anyway: it’s enjoyable, it rocks…and it’s not in my Top 25.

Hawksley Workman – Meat: …aaaand, the award for worst album title goes to…! I kid. This isn’t a great album either – in fact, I deleted all but about five songs off it. Hawksley (that’s not his real name, as you can probably guess) has such a knack for easily relatable and heartfelt ballads that I couldn’t leave him off this list. One of my favourite tracks this year was his “We’ll Make Time (Even When There Ain’t No Time)” simply for his delivery and lyrics, spare instrumentation be damned. “The grass is always greener/but you’ve still gotta cut it”? Golden. Album title? Nooot so much.

Los Campesinos! – Romance Is Boring: …aaaand, so is this album! Only kinda though. I dunno, I was expecting a ton from these guys with their follow-up to one of my personal favourites, We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed. There’s still some laugh-out-loud lyrics, elaborate and abstract song titles, and the same great instrumental breakdowns and oddities, but there’s a distinct lack of character compared to their previous efforts. I probably gave this thing like five listens, and I just didn't pick up on the real-life relationship re-tellings that made me fall in love with these guys in the first place. I couldn’t get enough of WAB,WAD. Swingandamiss on this one.

Letdowns:

Stars – The Five Ghosts: I’m pretty sure the title is foreshadowing what would happen to the five members of Stars' musical careers if they put out another album like this. Okay, that’s pretty harsh, but after absolutely stellar efforts on all their prior releases, Stars just went somewhere…else, and that didn’t go over well with me, nor most others I know who really love them. Gone are most of the heartstring-tugging ballads, replaced by synthy, fake-sadness, wannabe-tearjerkers. Alright, that was harsh, but deserved. I just don’t feel like they delivered with this one. I was so pumped for a new Stars album, and they gave me two, maybe three good tunes, and the rest was almost unlistenable. That’s not a Stars album to me. That’s the ghost of one.

Band Of Horses – Infinite Arms: Ohhh, it got bumped off the Top 25 by literally one spot, as I was sitting down watching the World Juniors and listening to the Strombo Show on CBC Radio2 count down their Top 100 of the year just about an hour ago. Really, they were at number 25 for each one of the four lists I did (more on that next time) until they got bumped. That’s more of a reflection of my less-than-40 album listens for the year than it is of the quality of this album. I thought I liked Band Of Horses before Infinite Arms; at least the songs “Is There A Ghost?” and “The Funeral”. That counts as liking, right?

Alright, I barely listened to them, but I was surprised by the panning most critics gave them for this effort. I gave it a bunch of plays and I thought it was pretty good, a few tunes aside. Only afterwards did I also grab some of their older albums, and only then did I realize album standout “Laredo” could be sung right along with earlier effort “Weed Party” – and not only that, but the words sounded better over the “Weed Party” track. It’s one thing to make a middling album; it’s another to rip your own songs off to do it. Oh, plus my ex would constantly make fun of me for liking these guys, and especially this album. This is kind of a “washing my hands clean” ranking, for that reason.

Anyways, that’s what I’ve got for now. Later on this week, I’ll do my Top 25 albums of 2010, and if I can squeeze them in before the New Year, my Top Singles of 2010 (the number of which is as of yet undetermined). In the meantime, try and think of your own; I’ve always liked to use lists like these as a kind of barometer for my own tastes, and I’d be glad if you used mine the same way.

Wolf Parade | Expo 86 | Album Review

2010-08-22T19:47:00.000-07:00

it's 1986...do you know where YOUR children are?

It's been too long. There's been too much music in between. Same old, same old. So let's get right to it. I love Wolf Parade's new album Expo 86. Like, so much. If I'm ever bored or tired of my other music, I throw it on. If I need something to play while I'm in the shower, I play the middle of the album. If someone asks me what my favorite album of this year is (there are maybe three people who might ask me that, and none of them have...but if they did!), I'd probably put Expo 86 in my top 3 right now.

Before I break this thing down track-by-track, as I usually do for albums I really love, let me take a minute to discuss the state of music reviews currently. Now, I'm a big fan of Pitchfork. However, I don't always feel like reading their reviews. There's a few reasons for that:

1.) They're long: yeah, they're a few paragraphs, maybe two or three for something not-that-interesting, but still, it's a lot of words. I love reading. If you read this at all, you probably like reading. I love writing. I'm a total hypocrite by calling them out for overly-long reviews. But we'll get to why they're unbearably long in a minute. For now, just ask yourself: why do I need to read eight hulking paragraphs about Arcade Fire's Suburbs? Wait, you mean I don't? That I could probably get through a song or two in the time it takes to read it? Weird.

2.) They have little to do with the music: even when they talk about the music, what are they actually saying about it? Are they just comparing it to something that's already out there? Are they talking about the music climate that currently exists around that genre/band/scene? Are they musing about something totally unrelated? Or are they telling you what songs sound good, what songs sound bad, what's alright, what they could've done better, and maybe, what kinds of things they're hearing in each song? Maybe it's just me, but I'm more apt to wanna read something that has lots of quotation marks in it. You know why? Because lots of quotation marks mean they're naming lots of songs...on the album. And if I'm not able to listen to the album, or if I wanna read a review about it, I wanna know what you think of the songs that make up the album. It's as easy as that. Try to cut down on all the extraneous BS. To use that Arcade Fire review as an example, the second-shortest paragraph contains the most quotation marks. Which means the paragraph containing the most song mentions is the second shortest of eight. That doesn't seem right to me.

3.) They don't correlate with the rating: it's often I'll read a review of an album rated 7.8, and it'll be largely glowing, with maybe one flaw mentioned. Why didn't it get something higher? Did the reviewer get to rate the album them self? Is the rating a consensus among the staff? Some clarity would be nice; even those video game and car magazines will tell you "the total score is not a cumulative score of how well the game/car did in individual areas - it is simply a total score we have assigned it". Those scores make sense to me, because at least they explained how they arrived to them. Pitchfork seems to lack that.

4.) They're too short: okay, this one flies in the face of the first point, so this is a critique of other review sites. I read a blog this week that would rate something out of 5, then write about two short paragraphs concerning the album. If you have the time to write as many reviews at once as this blog did, why not make the effort and give something good and in-depth? I can understand something so short for singles, but this is obviously much more than that. If you're gonna do yourself a disservice by limiting your rating scale to a five-point one, at least counter that with deeper writing. Those are just my thoughts.

5.) Maybe I'm just being a sourpuss and Pitchfork's not that bad and I'm just so busy in my life right now that I don't have time to read and appreciate their reviews like I used to.

Anyways, now that that's off my chest, let's get to the review:

"Cloud Shadow On The Mountain" | This song is the most Sunset Rubdown-y of the bunch I'd say. Spencer Krug's waw-waw voice is all over the map, and if I were doing the sequencing, I'd think they'd have better options to kick the album off with. Many of Krug's mentions of mythic creatures and sceneries abound, but like the better Sunset Rubdown tracks, the instrumentation keeps the whole thing chugging along and interesting. The guitars rip through the drum beats and punctuate the spaces in between Krug's grandiose statements ("you gotta jump, jump over the islands/like a gazelle"). There's enough screeching weirdness in the background to fill any voids, and the whole thing gives you about 10 seconds of respite in all. I can't stress the Sunset Rubdown connections enough though. Wolf Parade will always be Dan Boeckner and Spencer Krug coming together, but it's the differences between their side projects and the sounds they bring with them from those that set them apart - and at the same time, keep Wolf Parade albums interesting. We'll explore that more later on anyways.

"Palm Road" | The guitars instantly resonate happier on this track, and as expected, Boeckner's more laid-back voice leads the charge. I've gotta admit though: these two openers don't really do it for me. They've got the some of the right elements there, but not the catchy anthemics of Wolf Parade's greater songs, especially the ones off Apologies To The Queen Mary (I like to pretend that the follow-up to that - and pre-cursor to this new album - At Mount Zoomer, never happened). Anyways, "Palm Road" doesn't really hit hard, and comes off more as a warm-up for Boeckner's usual bombastic-ness than anything else. Like he's holding something in reserve for the other songs.

"What Did My Lover Say? (It Always Had To Go This Way)" | Before Dan can get there though, Spencer brings what I think is his best performance to the album. The beat is an awesome back-and-forth rocker -- if anyone has seen Death Cab's Ben Gibbard perform, this beat is the equivalent of his on-the-spot, hip-rocking, odd-thing-going-on thing...alright, if you've seen him, then you know what I mean, if not, I'm no help here. Anyways, back to the song: it's got a few distinct sections, and Krug, as he seems to do in most of his tunes, lets his voice rise above all the other sounds, and the songs where he does that benefit from it. He has great tone, for as much as he vibrates it up and down, and you'll never mistake him for anyone else given his unique delivery. The guitars are at work again here, delivering wordless jabs to keep you on your toes, and there's this whole sense of them, along with the drums, constantly "driving" this album. It's a great sound that Wolf Parade have always had a grasp of, but never executed as well throughout - I think - as on Expo 86.

"Little Golden Age" | The previous song really starts what you could call the "meat" of this album; that great string of tunes that defines the collection and keeps your attention when it's essential an album does so. So on "Little Golden Age" (I think Katy Perry-song when I first hear it start up, not gonna lie), Dan builds upon his earlier offering, serving up an earnest stomper complete with some of the catchier guitar lines filling in the bars between his cryptic lyrics. Here's where I think Expo 86 excels by the way: even when it's trying to sound sad, it's still moving and it's still percussive and it's still awesome. Songs are constructed in a way that elicits emotion from you as a listener. When the notes drop, that usually a signal for sadness. Now, when you can take those drops and keep them exciting and - ultimately - not depressing, you've done something great with music. "Little Golden Age" has a lament to it, but that's lost in the instrumentation and "uh-oh"s and great guitar. This would also be a good place to point out that so far, the drumming has been very consistent on the album, if not spectacular. Wolf Parade is certainly a guitar-driven group.

"In The Direction Of The Moon" | I had a real thing for this song for a while. I still do. But I'm talking a thing where I'd come home and have to turn this on, just to hear it. It's Krug again, but this time, what really does it for me is the stellar keyboard stabs. And this is where I hesitate to talk about keyboards and guitars and all; we all know you can do a ton of stuff with electric guitars. Those guitar mentions I've made above then? For all I know, they could be keyboards. I'm still not that great at picking out individual sounds, other than for this all-too-easy and -encompassing idea of "catchiness". Anyways, there's wicked keyboard running through this song like a glowing line of contrasted stitching; it's not enough to totally draw your attention away from what it's holding together, but just by being there, it's making whatever it is that much better. The other hero of this song is the guy helping on the "I'll put my rockets away" vocals; they're another reason I'm so drawn to this tune. There's a slight lull for a minute plus on "Moon", and that's probably all that brings it down, but once it recovers from that, it's this onslaught of keyboard, marching drum, droning guitar, and Krug finally hiding his voice behind some of that, letting it do its thing. Even the "rockets" guy gets his chance to shine, no longer singing in unison with Krug. The ending is a bit different from the rest, building up then finishing kinda flat, but it takes nothing away from the rest of the song.

"Ghost Pressure" | The lead single from the album, and the one I've heard the band make reference to as their most danceable - even going so far as to say the working title for it was "Beyonce". It's certainly the most radio-ready, with Dan toning things down a bit and letting the song play out like a ride down a set of rapids, if I had to find the best descriptor for it. It starts off fine, picks up momentum, then it just sails through. The keyboards do a great job again here, to change things up between the choruses, and then add an electrified organ sound to the choruses themselves. All in all, this is probably the most straightforward track on the album: it's meant to get you moving, it's driven largely by the instruments and a few repeated lines, it's at this constant 8 out of 10 sound level, and then jacks it up to 10 out of 10 when it needs it. Wolf Parade could make a whole album of these; they wouldn't be expanding into new territory, but they wouldn't really be letting people down either.

"Pobody's Nerfect" | For me, this is where the album starts to slow down a bit. This song in particular is probably the most Mount Zoomer of the bunch, so while I don't not like it, I wish it was, you know...something else? It's technically sound, like I've heard At Mount Zoomer described before, but it doesn't do much for me other than when Dan picks the song up by its britches and shakes it with his "and you don't know how to stop it at all" lines. Oh, and he also says "we built this city on cocaine lasers", which might be my favorite line from anything all year. The song doesn't really hit its stride til about halfway through, where the big guitars come out and do their 80's-rock thing all up and down the strings. These guys can shred no matter the style, and they do a good job of showcasing it here on a tune that would otherwise be kinda boring if not for those guitars and a raucous finish.

"Two Men In New Tuxedos" | ...and here's the point where I wished Wolf Parade's songs were named with a little more Handsome Furs influence and a little less of Sunset Rubdown's. It is Krug's song though, so I guess his side project's naming rights win out. This tune just kinda does its thing, but functions like one of the more forgettable Sunset Rubdown tracks, and it's these times when you can clearly see the side projects' influences that I think Wolf Parade suffers from: Spencer should leave the grand theatrics to that group, and bring his foot-stomping, fist-pumping best to the Wolf Parade side. There's too much stop-and-start, too many up-and-downs, for this song to really grow on me, and not enough in the way of guitars/keyboards/drums to draw me back in. Probably the biggest miss on the album for me. But good for you Spencer. Get it out.

"Oh You, Old Thing" | I had a hankering to hear this one the other week; I dunno why, and it probably can't be considered one of the more stellar tracks on here, but I think that speaks to an album that's well put-together and demanding of multiple listens. You seem to discover something new and enticing every time through. In this particular tune, there's an interesting keyboard pattern starting it off, and Krug gets his turn on vocals again, though this time he's toned it down a bit. There's so much going on around him, and although I may have mentioned above that he really shines through when he lets his voice rise above everything else, there's other times when he can dial it back to a level appropriate for the song, and simply mesh with it like he's just another instrument. "Oh You, Old Thing" is odd, in that, even though it's a good song, it doesn't leap at you like most other great Wolf Parade songs ("Shine A Light", "Grounds For Divorce", among others); it just kinda vibes along, something which the songs on Expo 86 seem to do well it seems. Wolf Parade has really found themselves -- or at least, found themselves again, going back to the roots they so successfully showcased previously on Apologies To The Queen Mary.

"Yulia" | Wow, did Boeckner really restrain himself enough to only gives us one Handsome Furs-inspired track on this new Wolf Parade album? I mean, Spencer seemingly took as many liberties as he could bringing Sunset Rubdown into the picture, but Dan? What moderation. The triumphant guitars and galloping beat are there, and the snippy lines punctuate the "sense" (because I don't know if it's nostalgia, sadness, longing...what it is) the lyrics and their delivery are trying to bring to the surface. More than any of the other songs, this is the most pleasant listen on the album by far. Again, there's so much going on that it's hard to place exactly what works the best here and makes the song the standout it is. Is it the cymbals, oddly lacking on the other tunes? Boeckner's earnest vocals? The tom-tom? In the end, yeah, it's probably the percussion in one form or another. But rest assured: when you need to take the time to figure out which one of the many great things go towards making the song itself great, I think you're doing something right.

"Cave-O-Sapien" | The longest track on here, and the closer. It's pretty upbeat, this time propelled by the fast-forward of the drumming. Yes, I just made up that phrase. Krug is like Sonic The Hedgehog here, nimbly running his way up and down the walls of the obstacle course that is the music in front of him. That music though: Wolf Parade consistently do a great job of making melodies out of instrumental lines, delivering just as much feeling and distinction through those as they do via the lead duo's voices. There's tension in the guitars here, though totally that video-game kind if we're talking Sonic; it's fake tension, just manufactured to get things going. You know you're never in any danger of the song falling apart around you, same as you're never worried you yourself are going to be injured while playing a video game. Spencer's cries of "I got you/til you're gone" are the real hook here, followed closely (and literally) by the odd-sounding electro stabs of the keyboard. There's almost a joking sense to this whole song, from the title to the words to the sounds. These guys are having fun, and you can tell.

Thankfully, by manufacturing a return to their former glory - albeit, short on songs emulating Apologies For The Queen Mary's rocking anthems that a generation of indie kids embraced as their own - and balancing the triumvirate of Wolf Parade, Sunset Rubdown and Handsome Furs in relatively equal parts, Dan, Spencer and the boys have restored that exciting feeling to their albums with Expo 86. So maybe more of the same old, same old isn't always that bad.

2010-06-26T04:16:00.000-07:00

we couldn't afford a cover artist, so we got my 6-year old nephew to do it

It's 7am on a Saturday, I just got up, and I don't feel like getting back to sleep. The working life is doing wonders to me. It's weird, but I think I could eventually come to enjoy it - which is the perfect sentence to describe Sunset Rubdown's music.

Sunset Rubdown is a Canadian group made up of five people (four of them unreferenceable as they don't even have Wikipedia pages - I mean, that's like you don't even exist, right?), including lead singer Spencer Krug, who splits time between these guys, Swan Lake, and his slightly more acclaimed - and certainly more popular - band Wolf Parade. You know, he's the guy with the strange and affected voice, whereas Wolf Parade's Dan Boeckner has the more straightforward-sounding one.

Introductions aside, if you know me, I like to work backwards: get the more recent album, and if I like the music, explore the back catalog. Thing is, I've had Sunset Rubdown's Dragonslayer for a little less than a year, and often, I tend to listen to a band's older stuff within a month of liking their newer offerings. Not so with Sunset Rubdown. Like I mentioned - this is weird stuff: heady lyrics, irrational progressions and song structures, and if you've ever heard the term "swirling rhythms", it had best have been about Sunset Rubdown's music, because I'm relatively sure they have the style trademarked. Due to all the unorthodox clattering Sunset Rubdown seem to do, I wouldn't blame you if you listened to either Dragonslayer or the here-to-be-discussed Shut Up I Am Dreaming (awesome choice of name if I may say so) and couldn't get through more than two songs.

Anyway, in usual fashion, I was turned on to this album by listening to CBC's Radio3. They occasionally play "Stadiums And Shrines II" off of it, which is surprising, because Shut Up I Am Dreaming came out in 2006, and R3 doesn't seem to stray too far from a playlist that's 95% newer music. I first heard "Stadiums And Shrines II" a few months ago, and got as far as finding the torrent for the album, but never decided to hit the download button. Dunno why. So I heard the song again yesterday and decided "to hell with it, I really haven't been listening to enough music lately, and I'd like something challenging". Luckily, the album didn't disappoint, and I had it on repeat all night.

But I'm not here for the album review. I'm here cause I groggily got up to pee at 7am, and all I had stuck in my head, wriggling about like a musical earworm, was "I'm sorry/that your/mother died/...I'm sorry/that/any/body dies at all/these days". Now forgive the gratuitous use of forward slashes, but I couldn't think of any other way to textually present Spencer Krug's staggered delivery of that stanza. The words themselves may be poignant, and their presentation all the more impactful, but his tone is such that you can't quite take it too seriously. Unfortunately, it almost even comes off as mocking, but if you were to listen to the rest of the songs on any Sunset Rubdown - or even Wolf Parade - album (think "Grounds For Divorce" for the best example), you'd realize it's just his natural singing voice, and nothing is implied by it.

Sunset Rubdown - "Stadiums And Shrines II"

So yeah, the words really stuck with me, but so did the instrumentation. They made a great choice starting this record with "Stadiums And Shrines II", because it's one of the warmest tunes they've ever produced. Where "Idiot Heart" from Dragonslayer was their callous and drum-banging lead single ("I hope that you die/in a decent pair of shoes/you've got a lot more walking to do/where you're going to"), Shut Up I Am Dreaming's lead offering is sympathetic and - my God, is that a flute?

Honestly, drums and distortion aside, it sounds like a lead-in from medieval times, or even the ancient Greek figure Pan playing his wood flute in a low-slung forest. I mean, that's the kind of mental image it calls up for me, I dunno if that's strange, but whatever. The flute makes a few other appearances in-song, all of them welcome. Some piano even joins in. These guys will play anything (Pitchfork's review of "Idiot Heart": "...their trademark willingness to play anything that's lying around...") and their songs certainly showcase that. For example, the song following is "They Took A Vote And Said No" and it transitions from quite literally a sea shanty with a triangle tinkling in the background, to an outro with enough distorted guitar pounding it would make My Bloody Valentine slightly proud.

So if you can put up with that, some mind-bending lyrics, equally head-spinning and disorienting swirls of guitar, and a lead singer who could be providing voiceover for the weirdest character on a morning cartoon show, then I certainly encourage you to give Sunset Rubdown a listen. If you can't, then I've probably turned you off of them and I don't care and I'm gonna try and go back to sleep. I'm thirsty too. Ugh.

The Best 1-2 Punches

2010-05-19T15:30:00.000-07:00

This little musical experiment combines everyone's love of lists (really!) with two of my favorite theories/mannerisms: the first being that I need to hear two great singles from an album to be sold on it; the other, that I like to be able to play one song on an album, then not mind the one after it. The latter speaks to an album's structure, sequencing, track interaction, and consistency, while the first speaks to strengths of songs individually.

A good album can grab your attention in a few ways. If you're like me and hearing two great singles does it for you, then great. If you're just sitting down and listening to an album for the first time, then you're more impressionable, and the whole 1-2 punch concept becomes that much more important. Does it come right off the bat and hook you instantly? Is it placed a few songs in, to pique your interest? Is it smack dab in the middle, forming a crescendo of sorts for the album? Or is it right at the end, leaving you with a pleasant taste in your mouth/sound in your ears as you come away from the compilation?

I ran through my library and tried to pick out the combos that stood out the most to me. Some are debatable, some are infamous, and some are purely personal choice. I've laid out the rules for the selections beside the categories, and I'll make short commentaries on the choices as I go along.

Great album openers (has to be the first two):

"Moves", "The Crash Years" - The New Pornographers, Together
The first starts off with authoritative guitar stabs, then softens up a bit into the more recent, mellower NP sound. The follow-up tune is easily the best cut from the new album, and reminds me the most of "The Bleeding Heart Show" in its triumphant chorus.

"Fake Empire", "Mistaken For Strangers" - The National, Boxer
The first is one of the better mood-setters for any album anywhere. You can palpably feel the cool air around you as you "tiptoe through our shiny city", down the dark and deserted alleyway at 3am in the morning. The rest of the album does nothing to dispel that feeling...other than the second track, easily the most drastic departure on the album. It's foreboding, but in a way that comes at you, like a fearsome spirit, with it's cold rhythms and fervent drumming. The rest of the songs on here lay back and invite you into the sombre mood - "Mistaken For Strangers" hits you over the head with it.

"Free Energy", "Dream City" - Free Energy, Stuck On Nothing
You'd better have a good song if you name it after your band, on your debut album nonetheless. On an LP full of bubble-gum pop-rock, the first cut is nothing but, and establishes the group's identity perfectly. The second tune is more of anthemic stomper, but paired together the tracks offer an accurate presentation of one of the more straightforward rock bands out there now.

"Son The Father", "Magic Word" - Fucked Up, The Chemistry Of Common Life
The first here is a 6-minute-plus epic, and let's you know that you're in for an album-full of hardcore at its most refined. From the minute-and-a-half build-up to the first shout of "Wooooooooooowwwwwwwwwww!" to the ear-piercing chorus, it's an aural assault of unheard-of proportions. "Magic Word" on the other hand is a jive-like tune that shows the true stylistic depth of Fucked Up, chalkboard-raking vocals and all.

"Switched On", "No You Don't" - Islands, Vapours
With the breeziness of the album on full display, the first song throws out Beach Boy harmonies and laid back vocal delivery, with a quirky smoothness you can only find on an Islands album. The second track balances that with some drug-referencing synth-pop, the vocals dripping with sly warnings. Still breezy, but more like "shit, I'm in a tropical country and there's a good chance I'm going to be robbed right now" kind of breezy. Apologies to tropical countries of course.

"Johanna", "Havin' My Baby" - Think About Life, Family

One of the few combos here where I think the order should've been switched. "Johanna" is a stuttering dance-rock tune, the voice seemingly pleading with the titular femme. "Havin' My Baby" on the other hand is fucking awesome. The soul sample starts it off with minimal instrumental backing, then like a kid in a candy store running to the most sugary sweet delicacy there, the chorus is the first part of the song you hear. Here the vocals seem breathless, like the singer is trying to keep up with the frenetic pace of the beat. So much of what Think About Life does best is featured here, so you can see why it would be great had this been the first track on the album.

Middle-of-the-pack track-ers (not the first two, and not near the end...just in between):

"Afraid Of Everyone", "Bloodbuzz Ohio" - The National, High Violet

One of my favorite National tunes leads off this duo, with Matt Berninger largely leaving behind the usual drama and deep baritone of his voice, in exchange for something a little more laid-back, but no less imposing. The instrumentation feels a little "bigger" than similar tracks on Boxer, the chorus a bit more stadium-ready. I'm going to see The National in Montreal this summer, and I can't wait to see how they pull off this tune live. "Bloodbuzz Ohio" follows that big-rock feel The National seem to have taken to some of the cuts off the new album, even more so than "Afraid Of Everyone". The drum hits are purposeful, and Berninger's voice re-ups that distinctive baritone, while the seemingly non-sensical hooks about Ohio and money owed (tax evasion problems, Matt?) may seem odd, the juxtaposition of sadness and triumph going on here is too compelling to ignore.

"Ungrateful Little Father", "Meet Me In The Basement" - Broken Social Scene, Forgiveness Rock Record

This was really, really tough, because I'm a huge BSS fan, and they have a ridiculous 1-2-3(!)-4(!!) combo of "Texico Bitches", "Forced To Love", "All To All" and "Art House Director". If you're a fan of "Chase Scene", you can string together album opener and first single "World Sick" with the above tunes, and you'd have an unprecedented 6-spot of great tunes. But alas, I've decided on two of the more different cuts on here, which follow much the same formula that makes me love BSS so much in the first place. Great piano, fervent singing by Kevin Drew, that little bit of quirkiness that lets you know you're still listening to like, ten people on one song, and some vaguely risqué and sexual lyrics. The second tune is an instrumental (save for a shout of "here we go!"), and as they go, I'm not usually a fan of BSS instrumentals on their full-length albums. This one however has the hallmark sounds of Do Make Say Think and even Electric Light Orchestra, along with engaging guitars and a lively string section, seamlessly telling a wordless story.

"Ageless Beauty", "Reunion" - Stars, Set Yourself On Fire

One of the best - if not the best - Stars songs leads off this pair, followed by one of their most recognizable. "Ageless Beauty" really speaks for itself and has to be listened to - romantic pop music on a widescreen. "Reunion" has a back-and-forth cadence and a relaxing lilt to the verses; however, the chorus will have you reaching for where you think you've heard this tune before. I still haven't figured it out. But damn is it timeless.

"Vampire", "Holiday" - Pink Mountaintops, Outside Love

The first offering here is a haunting acoustic piece that just washes over you. Again, simply give it a (rewarding) listen. As for "Holiday", I'm gonna be selfish and save myself some writing by referring you to my previous post on the track.

"Phantom Pt. 1", "Phantom Pt. 2" - Justice, Cross

I remember walking home from downtown one night, the first song here repeating itself over and over and over again in my head, my lips happily obliging by trying to reproduce the industrial-like electronica of Justice on their own. A lot of Cross flows from one song to the other, barely separated but for a brief bridge cutting from one tune into the next. Part 1 and 2 of "Phantom" showcase this quality the best, with the second part not only continuing in the musical spirit of the first, but rebuilding and infusing the beat with new life - no less frantic or head-bobbing, just in a different way. Both songs feature what seems like a voice. I say that because imagine a human voice put through one of those vocoders that make it sound like a monotone robot. Then imagine putting that voice through another vocoder. Then doing it five more times. Then you have the main thrust behind the Phantom two-some.

"Crystalized", "Islands" - the xx, xx

As I've mentioned before, there's easily four standout tracks from the xx's amazing self-titled debut. Luckily, they put these two back-to-back. No need to explain. But do give the album a listen. Seriously.

"I'm Not Here", "Too Far Apart" - The Wheat Pool, Hauntario

The Wheat Pool were a group I only discovered this year through CBC Radio3. "I'm Not Here" is other-radio ready rock, mixing a bit of country-twang with smart melodies and nicely intertwining harmonies. The emotion in the lead-singer's voice shines through his pulling of every inch of feeling from the chorus' lyrics, and the guitars and drums recall everything from silos on the prairies to run-down factories to a dusty country road. "Too Far Apart" speeds things up just a tad more, but keeps that emotion intact. The Wheat Pool are a great and under-appreciated band on the Canadian indie landscape, and these two songs just show everyone what they're missing by missing out on these guys.

"Black History Month", "Little Girl" - Death From Above 1979, You're A Woman, I'm A Machine

As for bands that are sorely missed on that same landscape? DFA1979 are those guys. Sebastien Grainger and Jesse F. Keeler are doing their own things and still making a fine living producing great music, but this duo had it back in those days. The strut and cocksure-ness of "Black History Month" followed by the Black Sabbath-like chords and shout-along lyrics of "Little Girl" (whose first verse I always want to start like 20 bars too early...anyone else?) are the sounds of an unforgettable tandem stringing together their own unforgettable tandem.

"Ibi Dreams Of Pavement (A Better Day)", "7/4 (Shoreline)" - Broken Social Scene, Broken Social Scene

Missed the Album Openers section by one strangely-placed Feist near-instrumental. "Ibi" strains at the limits of the music as well as Kevin Drew's voice. When I was first getting into BSS, I only had these two songs and I think one other from the self-titled album, and all of You Forgot It In People. It was once I realized, not only could I tolerate the wayward-seeming composition of "Ibi", but that I totally loved it, did I know my liking for the collective was well-founded. "7/4" is a bit more pedestrian, at least in terms of the Scene's music, but the female vocals are a nice balance to the insanity of Kevin Drew's delivery in the song preceding. The nimble guitar playing is masterful, and I can't help but feeling this could soundtrack one of those corny car commercials where they're trying to sell you an SUV that's gonna change your life, evening-time runs on the beach, rock-climbing, forest hikes and all.

"Young Hearts Spark Fire", "Wet Hair" - Japandroids, Post Nothing

Maaaaan. I love these guys. And they love each other. Ferocious but heart-felt rock about all the shit you go through in your early 20's.

"All My Friends", "Someone Great" - LCD Soundsystem, Sound Of Silver

The first track is one of the Top 5 of the last decade. I can't really say much that hasn't already been said about it. The second track has one of my favorite videos, and holds a bittersweet message for anyone missing someone that's gone.

"Stars And Sons", "Almost Crimes" - Broken Social Scene, You Forgot It In People

Can you tell that I like Broken Social Scene? Most of their entire albums could go on this list, but as mentioned, I've tasked myself with narrowing it down. That stair-climbing bass on "Stars And Sons" is unmistakable and forms the backbone of the song, with "Almost Crimes" sputtering down to start off, then launching into a quick-strike, lo-fi tune - before lo-fi was cool. The first tune is the sound of a polished band crafting a musical benchmark. The second is that same group getting together in the garage and jamming out on a Saturday afternoon - but either way, you know it's gonna turn out great.

"Electric Feel", "Kids" - MGMT, Oracular Spectacular

Need I say anything, really? In a year when MGMT has been some spectacularly bad decisions/videos/songs/appearances, it's refreshing to know that at one time, they put these two jams back-to-back.

"Sex On Fire", "Use Somebody" - Kings Of Leon, Only By The Night

Again, if you haven't heard these, you're probably living under a rock and your iPad hasn't arrived yet, so you're not reading this.

"All We Want Baby, Is Everything", "I'm Confused" - Handsome Furs, Face Control

I guess I'm getting a little tired of writing by now and need to save up some words and effort for the next section. Just let me say it's nice when you put the first two singles from an album back-to-back, and those two singles also happen to be the best songs on said album. More Handsome Furs here and here if you do feel like reading up.

Great album closers (doesn't have to be the second-last and last songs, but close enough to them):

"Yeah (Crass Version)", "Yeah (Pretentious Version)" - LCD Soundsystem, LCD Soundsystem [Side 2]
20 minutes of funky dance-punk? Yes. Now that I think about it, this tandem is right up there for best overall 1-2 punch. When you can throw on the first track for 9 minutes and the second for 11, and one just builds off and complements the other, you know you've got a good tandem going. The "Crass" version is more word-heavy, while the "Pretentious" cut I guess, assumes you know James Murphy already said his peace on the prior track, and just intends to rock out for 1/6th of an hour.

"Remind Me In Dark Times", "In The End It's Your Friends" - Shout Out Out Out Out, Reintegration Time
16 minutes of electronic? Um, yeah. I can see a bit of a theme here. This CD was in my car for months at the start of the year, and anytime I was taking a short drive, these two songs were a perfect soundtrack. I've highlighted the first tune already on here, and the second tune just takes some of that same bravado and parlays it into a track about your friends being the ones you should probably watch out for should things turn sour.

"Edmonton", "In The Summertime" - The Rural Alberta Advantage, Hometowns
It could've been "Four Night Rider" followed by "Edmonton" - all I know is that the latter had to be featured if I was gonna do a 1-2 punch article. "Four Night Rider" leads into "Edmonton" a little better, but the difference in pace and delivery of the first tune here and the second was the deciding factor for me. I broke down the whole album track-by-track on here late last year, so it's at least worth a look to see what I said about this outstanding pair of songs.

"We Are Being Reduced", "Before You Leave" - Thrush Hermit, Clayton Park

Didn't even realize these two combine for 12 minutes of album time. On a fun Clayton Park album, these are a couple of the more downer tracks lyrically, but the music picks itself up off the ground in rousing fashion and provide a strangely appropriate ending for what was to be Thrush Hermit's last album together. I saw them on their reunion tour (not "comeback" because they have no intention to do so) in March, and they broke out both of these, finishing their encore and the show itself with an absolute bang by trotting out "Before You Leave". While the first song, with its mournfully poignant guitar, takes a whole 4 minutes to truly get off the ground, it ends with a decent flourish, and provides the perfect lead-in to "Before You Leave". The latter flips the formula, starting off happy and slowly peeling away the layers of the musical onion until you're left with a pleading Joel Plaskett baring his soul to the girl who's left him. The guitar riffs throughout are quite pleasing, and the instrumental ending the track - and album - runs through an entire gamut of emotions.

The Best:

"Use It", "The Bleeding Heart Show" - The New Pornographers, Twin Cinema

I had no choice but to go with this pair. It's often you'll see a band string together two of its singles on an album; sometimes this means they also happen to string together the two strongest tracks from an album. But to be able to put together arguably the two best songs you've ever made? That's unheard of, and that's why this tandem has to be the best 1-2 punch I know of. The immediacy of "Use It" is lost on no one, especially that sonically-perfect drumming of Kurt Dahl. "The Bleeding Heart Show" for its part is the most fruitful exercise The New Pornographers have ever undertaken in attempting to craft the perfect pop song. It has one of the most soaring choruses, the sharpest drum fills, the ooo-iest "ooo"s, the uplifting-est "hey la"s...the list goes on and on. The two tracks back-to-back is an embarrassment of riches album-wise, and an undeniable treat for the ears.

Not gonna lie...after eight great minutes of The New Pornographers like that, you might just wanna lay back and light up a smoke.

The Bedtime Playlist

2010-05-15T15:23:00.000-07:00

mmm...album art?

I have to say I'm already hoping The Besnard Lakes Are The Roaring Night - the album pictured above, by none other than Montreal's husband and wife duo The Besnard Lakes - will make the Top 10 of this year's Polaris Prize, rewarding the best in Canadian music. I'm not here to review the album though, only the song that got me into the group and anticipating the above release, so forgive me for getting ahead of myself.

Some background before I start then. As I've said before, this blog is just as much about the intricacies and the various ways of discovering music as it is about the songs themselves. The Besnard Lake's "Albatross" fits in perfectly with that theme. I for one, can't fall asleep without music or the radio playing. For years, this used to be sports talk radio, but this year I started playing music on my laptop - and much like picking something good for taking a shower to, the Bedtime Playlist is a similar balancing act of music I enjoy, but that doesn't engage me so much that I can't get to sleep. That means finding a measure between the upbeat tune of The Weakerthans and the seemingly-too-subdued harmonies of Bon Iver and Grizzly Bear.

I mention those three groups because I've playlists of all three, and usually I'll fall back on my range of playlists for bedtime music. Somehow, I strain so much to hear the quieter music of Bon Iver and Grizzly Bear that I can't just relax and go to sleep. The Weakerthans on the other hand, as I mentioned, produce lyrics and imagery so engaging that I can't properly clear my head enough for slumber.

That leaves me with a lot of night-time listens to the xx (chronicled here for their great nocturnal-soundtracking), Broken Social Scene (whose expansive sounds and lush instrumentation provide a strange, "washed-clean" slate of a mind before bed), and The New Pornographers, for whom I can't really provide a back-up, but who just sound so great and have enough epic and slow-tempo numbers that they're passable as bed-going fare. You might think Radiohead and The National could slide in here and steal some plays, but to be frank, I've tried that route with The National, and after a few times, I found the music just too depressing for that kind of listening. Plus anyone that feels like Thom Yorke crooning them to sleep with his detached and unhuman voice should re-consider what they consider is creepy and what's not.

So anyway, all that aside, my laptop's right there at my bedside. This also means that when I wake up to my alarm clock, I usually roll over, shut it off, and effectively hit the "snooze" button by turning on CBC Radio3's live stream and lying half-asleep in bed until I figure I have to get up (full disclosure: that's during the school year, when the first thing I have all day is an 11:30am class...doesn't work so well for the summer job that starts at 8am). Something like that went down in late January of this year, when I heard the most compelling thing in quite some time on Radio3. I had no idea what it was; I'd never heard it before, and it wasn't even similar to anything I had ever heard. I don't remember how exactly I came to find out the name of the track, but I think I was awake enough that I heard the host say something about the b-something lakes, and an albatross.

For my luck, I had no idea at the time who The Besnard Lakes were, how to spell it, and if the Lake was even pluralized. I did some thorough searching though, found the group's wikipedia page, and discovered they were from Montreal, and had already produced a Polaris Prize-nominated album, The Besnard Lakes Are The Dark Horse. The song was indeed called "Albatross", and though it took me a couple days to get that particular track (which I had glossed over earlier in the month when Pitchfork had given it a 7/10 in the tracks and singles section), I got their debut album instead and gave their spaced-out and lengthy jam-rock sound a good listen.

The Besnard Lakes - "Albatross"

The song on its own has to be my favorite thing from The Besnard Lakes, hands down. It combines so much of what they do, so much of their signature sound and style, with the immediacy and listenability of more pop-oriented music. It's the Lakes at their most focused, most emotional, and tightest, without compromising their unique musical identity. From the otherworldly clangs of those first few fuzzed-out guitar notes, to the cartoony "wooooo"s to Olga Goreas' unconventionally gorgeous voice, everything there is to love about the duo is on full aural display.

"Albatross" drops into the grandeur quicker than most other Besnard Lakes tunes, and when it slows down around the 2:40 mark, you think the best may have already come. Then Olga hits you with possibly my favorite line of the year: "and I have to admit/things got weird for a bit", followed by all the sounds mentioned above - plus an array of crashing cymbals - coming together once again in glorious unison to push the song to new heights. Once it's settled back down, it starts to carry a triumphant feeling, the vocals repeating "and I scream for you!/there goes my man".

If it all sounds a little strange, maybe it is, but the feeling in Olga's voice throughout is unmistakable: it's love, it's longing, it's a bit of sadness, and in the end, it's a veritable pride in the one you love. The lines are endlessly quotable and relatable, especially the first-half chorus of "you showed me so much", but also ones like "I wanted to help you" and the heartstring-tugging, "those days are never gone/wish I had your picture". I'm practically giving the whole thing away like candy on Halloween, but I think that alludes to my attachment and appreciation of "Albatross". Thought it may not help put me to sleep, it certainly speaks to me.

you say you want a revelation?

2010-05-08T07:49:00.000-07:00

one of the neater, classier album covers I've seen in a while

Again, I've got a handful of new music since my last post, including The New Pornographers' Together, Crystal Castles' (second?!) self-titled album and Broken Social Scene's Forgiveness Rock Record. I even went out of my way and paid for the first and last of those. Now they've all been highly rated, and reviewed all over the internet, so I'm not going to waste a lot of my time or anyone else's by writing reviews for those. Suffice it to say: I love Together, I'm in love with Forgiveness Rock Record (yes, there's a difference), and I'm lukewarm towards Crystal Castles (II? 2010? what's the procedure here?), so it'll have to grow on me.

What I'm gonna do today is a bit more of an experiment. I'm posting a song, and you have to decide what you think it sounds like. It used to be that you could throw out simple terms for music: rock, pop, hip-hop, country, jazz, maybe electronic. Then the internet age began, and as technology increased, so did the experimenting and collaborating people were doing. Genres were folding in upon themselves, some were expanding like veritable universes, and some were falling out of existence altogether.

For a joking take on what I mean, check out this t-shirt from (often read) hipsterrunoff.com blogger Carles. It would be both futile and hilarious to try to pick out the best genres from there, but hopefully you get an idea of what I'm talking about. So without further ado, I delve into the discussion by offering you a cut from Spanish group (?!) Delorean's recent effort, Subiza.

Delorean - "Stay Close"

Now what does that make you think of? Is that a maraca? Is that an old soul sample crooning "baby"? Those are definitely synths, no? There's vocal effects galore, pedal effects thrown in for good measure, then dance-y English vocals. What the hell? Now, this breezy kind of music, with an intentional push of most of the sounds on the track under a layer of "lo-fi" - albeit a thin one in this case - classes it with my often-hated-on genre of "chillwave". But I actually like this song. I like the album for the most part too. Nine consistent tunes, hearkening a night on a Greek island beach, high on life, and maybe a bit tipsy from the drinks. Some of the songs delve into maybe waking up on that beach the next morning, somehow feeling even better, and watching the sun rise over you. Other ones might take you back to the club from whence you came to the beach. Either way, there's a mood, a theme, and Delorean does a great job as a collective sticking to that.

But let's not get too off track from the track itself. We're talking about chillwave here, or at least I'm pointing the discussion in that direction. Some artists, like Best Coast, hate being branded as chillwave, to even more of an extent than when "lo-fi" branding was all the rage over a year ago. It seemed to cause a rift and confusion between those who did it out of necessity, and those who did it as an aesthetic. Was there a right and a wrong use for the lo-fi sound? That's up for argument as ever, but chillwave is decidedly a direction you have to take by your own volition.

Much of the blame for branding of course comes from reviewers, who, like myself, are always looking for a way to class something, to attach a genre to it. It makes comparisons easier I suppose, but with all the genres out there, and the list ever-expanding, your search for similar sounds either gets you something too specific, or leaves it so wide open that it's a pointless endeavor to try and class a song or group or artist in the first place. Now Delorean, as you can see above, are - quite strangely - better described by where they sound like, more than who or what. Sometimes, it's simply laziness that leads reviewers into this genre-fying. When you really search for an in-depth comparison, it may be better than just bandying about taglines like "sun-tinged lo-fi" or "attic-dwelling chillwave". What the hell does that even mean? may be the thought coming to most reader's and listener's minds.

We've delved a bit into that issue of genre and classifying then I hope, or at least my stance on it. But that still leaves this whole chillwave thing, and how I can rectify my liking this Subiza album while still maintaining a healthy disdain for the chillwave sound as a whole, and especially as a way of classifying new music. I can do so, by saying that Delorean's sound is nothing more than dance music. That's right. Plain, simple, dance music. Throw in a bit of that lo-fi sound, and you've got their charming aesthetic. Maybe lo-fi just makes it sound like you're not trying that hard, so it's cool, it's effortless...it's chill. Whoa. I think I just brought that shit full-circle.

But truly, Delorean have just crafted an unpolished dance record, free of the glitz and glam that leads most dance records astray (I'm kiiinda looking at you, David Guetta/Armen Van Buren). And I say that in the best way about Delorean. They've got all the dance music elements, from the BPM's to the synths to that Euro sound. That's not a knock on it. That they can make it so appealing to an otherwise "indie" crowd, who've sworn off anything remotely techno for as long as I can recall, is truly an accomplishment. Maybe it's that there's a bit of likeable pop mixed in there on some tracks, but that's for another day's judgement.

In the end though, it was my iTunes that steered me to this all-encompassing revelation. I'm a bit OCD, which I may or may not have mentioned on here before. Now I'm not so much that I'm gonna have to now go through all my old posts to see if I have mentioned it - I just like there to be some order and organization in my life. So in my music library, you won't find a lower-case letter starting a word for song or album titles. Each song is given a genre, and most importantly, an equalizer setting. Usually I'll wait til I've listened to the song to decide if it should be "Acoustic" or "Rock" or even "Jazz" if it's got the right sounds.

But back to genre for a second. In light of everything I said above, I'm obtusely narrow-minded in giving genres to my music. Heck, I don't even know why I still do it. People just like classing stuff; it's a game we all play, and for me in particular, it goes: "I got some new music. What kinda genre should it be? There, cool, I'm done." It doesn't help me sort my music in any way, and it doesn't even help me pick what to listen to really.

It's that equalizer that really matters though, because that dictates what's brought out from the multi-layered sounds in a song; it tangibly and truly affects how I listen to my music, which I think makes it the most important classing practice there is - at the very least, on iTunes. So when I listen to Delorean, I think: "Dance". There, simple as that. As for genre labeling; I give out the simple ones like "Electronic", "Alt. Rock", "Pop", "Rock", "Hip-Hop", "Folk" or the catch-all, "Alternative". You know, the way it used to be in the old days.

The Shower Playlist...and other oddities

2010-04-19T16:42:00.000-07:00

don't worry, I can see it too

I shower with my laptop. Yes. Well, not in the actual shower of course, but I bring it with me so that I can have some music while I'm in there. Yes, some people have a radio. In my apartment, we don't. So laptop it is. You know how tough it is to figure out what you wanna listen to for 15-20 minutes when there's nothing you can do about what's playing? It's one thing to make a playlist (believe me, I have a couple), and it's something totally different to choose an album to throw on.

You have to be picky. If it's a morning shower, what can you play that's gonna get you excited for the day? If it's a late-night shower before bed, what are you gonna play that'll help wind the day down? If it's something you enjoy, is it gonna be too quiet to even hear over the fan and the running water (I'm looking at you The xx)? If it's something that's best played loud, is it gonna be to the point that you're gonna start annoying your roommates? These are all the considerations that must be made for The Shower Playlist.

Sometimes though, you luck out, wake up at 11am on a Monday like this, your roommates are gone for the day, you have nothing to do but study for your final exam tomorrow, so you jump in the shower and turn up We Are Wolves' electro-rocker of an album Invisible Violence.

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...but The Shower Playlist is only the lead-in to this post. What I really wanted to do was two-fold: I originally wanted to highlight "Reaching For The Sky" from that album, but then I was just listening to "Something Hiding For Us In The Night." from The Wooden Sky, so I figured I'd tie those two together somehow. They're both on the longer side of their respective albums (The Wooden Sky's comes from If I Don't Come Home You'll Know I'm Gone), and as I've made clear on here before, I'm an absolute sucker for a longer song that's done well. If there's two pieces of music that are equally good, but one is 3 minutes long, and the other is 5, wouldn't you rather the longer one? That's my attitude at least.

So anyways, I was giving The Wooden Sky's tune a spin like I was saying, and I noticed it was a great slow-builder, so I went and checked, and it clocked in at 5:29. I scrolled up a bit in my iTunes library, and there's the We Are Wolves track I wanted to feature...also checking in at 5:29. So I figured that coincidence was as good as any reason for creating this post.

I was initially tabbing "Reaching For The Sky" because for all of We Are Wolves' immediate, chugging rockers (like my can't-stop-spinning-it-right-now favorite "Paloma" - check that one out at the end of the post), it's one that sounds more LCD Soundsystem-like in its cadence, quickly building up with an undercurrent of a jive, adding electronic bloops and bleeps, drum machine hits, some deft keyboard work, a crunchy guitar after about a minute, then finally some vocals. It takes its time though, not rushing things along, almost recalling some of The Who's sprawling rockers if I'm really gonna make a reach for comparisons (around the 2:20 mark though, tell me you can't hear it too).

We Are Wolves - "Reaching For The Sky"

Like LCD Soundsystem's more outstanding grooves, "Reaching For The Sky" really hit its stride at 4 minutes in, just when you think you've settled into a monotonous rut. There's no real chorus here...just good old fashioned dance-punk done with We Are Wolves' own great twist.

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On the other end of the music spectrum lies "Something Hiding For Us In The Night." (alright, maybe acid jazz or death metal actually lies on the other end, but humour me here). It's a great, slow ballad, kept alive for the first few minutes by the faster-than-usual-paced percussion and expressive vocals. The latter seem to be The Wooden Sky's hallmark - pensive lyrics delivered with sincerity and an underlying power to them.

The Wooden Sky - "Something Hiding For Us In The Night."

Around 3 minutes into this one, the cymbals crash here and there, and the vocals raise in intensity and volume, before mellowing for a verse or two, coming down to a level even quieter than the intro, hitting a nice little guitar solo...then bam! exploding into a pained-sounding chorus, which - whether this is just a case of the file I have, or the actual mixing of the album - sounds like it's going to burst out of the speakers.

Either way, that's two great slow-burners, from very different areas of (Canada's!) alternative music. And two more to add to my ever-growing list of great long(er) songs.

---

As promised, We Are Wolves' raucous affair: (bonus points if you know what the hell he's saying...I'm pretty sure it's Spanish, but from a Montreal-based group that has some Francophone songs on their albums, it's a strange direction to be sure)

We Are Wolves - "Paloma"

there is a mountain of snow, up past the big glen...

2010-04-02T09:40:00.000-07:00

Dan Deacon. The one innocently-named artist I would never think to share with any of my friends -- at least the ones I want to maintain a semblance of a relationship with. His music isn't necessarily abrasive; it's just that it's "batshit-crazy pop music" as I've seen it described. Sadly, that's probably the best and most apt description for his brand of songs. From earlier release Spiderman Of The Rings to 2009's Bromst, Dan Deacon has kept his class of glitchy, impossibly-catchy electronic music going, and has even managed to reach a world audience larger than the ones he entertains in his native Baltimore. His up-close-and-personal shows should come as no surprise -- any idea that Dan Deacon is the least bit sane is smashed as soon as you listen to any one of his tracks.

Looped samples of cymbals crashing, piano hits literally too fast for a human to play, chipmunk-y voice filters, fantastical lyrics, droning synthesizers, Casio-centric effects and a whole gamut of other noises, sounds and beats proliferate Deacon's work. This is definitely the kind of stuff you have to be in the right state of mind to listen to; if you're having a bad day, this isn't going to cheer you up. On the other hand, if your day is going inexplicably wrong, and you're largely confused as to how it all turned out, then you may find a bit of salvation in these songs. Nothing seems to make sense, whether it's a three-minute burst of energy, or an 11-minute rendition of nursery-rhyme-like fantasy like the tune featured below: (accompanying lyrics here, cause heaven knows I needed them to figure out what was being said)

Dan Deacon - "Wham City"

As mentioned though, those I hold dear can barely stand my electronic music choices as is, and they're a relatively pedestrian outcropping when compared to even Deacon's least-abrasive content. Over the Christmas holidays, I thought I'd throw on "Wet Wings," a slow-building and almost tribal-sounding track bubbling with emotive female voices layering themselves a capella over each other, but alas, I was shot down when my sister asked "what the hell is this? turn it off" and my mother commented that it sounded like women mourning at a funeral.

Was it really that bad? No. Was it really that weird? Yes. And that's probably the biggest reason I can't share my Dan Deacon tunes: he's just too weird. Unfortunately, being blessed with the ability to make catchy, crazy pop music out of anything and everything is a bigger detriment than you'd think.

SuzieQ, I've got a List Of Demands

2010-04-02T09:11:00.000-07:00

Wow, it's been just under three months since I last wrote anything on here. And to be honest, I'm only writing now so that I can get some practice in before I start writing a myriad of papers for university. But also, I've been listening to a ton of music in that time (I mean a lot of music; since my last post I've had the following fill up my iTunes: Stars, Bon Iver, The Avalanches, Shout Out Out Out Out, Pink Skull, HEALTH, The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart, Yeasayer, Dan Deacon, Dinosaur Jr., Interpol, The Ghost Is Dancing, The Mantles, The Weakerthans, Do Make Say Think, Broken Social Scene, The Besnard Lakes, Los Campesinos!, Neko Case, Neutral Milk Hotel, Islands, Hockey, Fucked Up, Slow Club, Liars, Free Energy, Crystal Castles, Thrush Hermit, The National, The Antlers, Camera Obscura, Hawksley Workman, and today's subject, Gonjasufi) and obviously, my mind's been thinking of possible subjects I can talk about on here.

So whether this is trivial or not, I thought I'd take a quick look at the subject of sampling. I'm not talking about like, old soul samples, the kind Kanye West worked to perfection back before AutoTuning himself to death. I mean the kinds of samples where it's a simple riff taken from one song and placed as the backbone of another. I know a few examples I've only heard of, but none that I've been able to experience first hand, i.e. having both songs in my library. This happened to come up though as soon as I delved into the new album by Gonjasufi, A Sufi And A Killer.

I had no idea what to expect from the album, even after I'd read Pitchfork's favorable review. Maybe some "head-nod" music, but "what is that anyway?" I thought. The sixth track, "Suzie Q," piqued my interest however. Now, after giving it a few listens, this is an album I've explained to friends sounds like a mix of rock, hip-hop and jazz. There's stranger combinations, but I've never heard anything that sounded so...listenable while having that many influences. "Candylane" is my personal favorite, but I'll leave that one for another day and subject. Today, I want to look at how "SuzieQ" samples the crunchiest bits of Saul Williams' "List Of Demands (Reparations)" from his acclaimed self-titled 2004 album.

You may recognize "List Of Demands" from some Nike SPARQ commercials that ran a few years ago, and indeed that's where my first exposure to the song came from. It's a powerful song, both musically and lyrically, which made it a great song for Nike to use in promoting its then-new line of training equipment. For the sampled part in question, I'm not sure that it's a guitar, because it seems bouncy and synthy in a way a guitar never really is. But whatever it is, on "SuzieQ," the effect is replicated by what most likely is a guitar. Now it's not just that the "SuzieQ" reinterpretation sounds vaguely similar -- it's exactly the same, right down to the pace of the sample.

One thing that intrigues me is whether or not Gonjasufi's producer, Gaslamp Killer, took his cue directly from Saul Williams' tune, or even if Saul took the sound from another song that came out even before his. That's where this investigation kind of stalls. But in the meantime, take a listen to both the tunes, and judge for yourself the similarity.

Gonjasufi - "SuzieQ"

Saul Williams - "List Of Demands"

this was hard, it was dumb, we should do it again

2009-12-10T18:45:00.000-08:00

it's not "The Rural Saskatchewan Advantage," cause there isn't one

In my constantly expanding list of music I've been disgustingly late on, I'm doing a bit better if you judge by The Rural Alberta Advantage. I actually picked up quite quick on them from hearing "Don't Haunt This Place" from a blog that now escapes my memory. It was back in April of this year...and I loved it. Everything about it. I never tired of hearing it, it was a perfect jam, short and sweet -- but in usual fashion, I never gave their album Hometowns a chance, even after a glowing 8.0/10 review from Pitchfork, probably my most trusted source for musical advice. Late in November though, after a happenchance incident I'll describe in a bit, I decided I had to get the rest of the album and give it a spin.

In a bit of my defense, "The Deathbridge In Lethbridge" was the second song I heard off Hometowns, and it's probably the one black sheep from the outstanding tracklist. But instead of getting into all that, you know what? If any group's gonna get the song-by-song album review treatment, I have no problem giving it to The Rural Alberta Advantage:

"The Ballad Of The RAA" | With such a self-referencing name, it's a pretty good track to start an album with. The fast-paced and muted drum kick gets things going, and Neils Edenloff's voice exhibits itself in a way that you're either like "yeah, I really like this guy, this is gonna be good" -- or basically the exact opposite reaction. You can feel the emotion and strain in his delivery, and the "singing in a barn" exhibition of it during the a capella ending is icing on the cake, along with the triangle tinkles playing like snowflakes above the insistent drumming. I've heard that he gives off a Jeff Mangum-like vibe (of Neutral Milk Hotel), but having heard maybe one or two of NMH's tunes, it's something I'd have to look more into before I could say one way or the other.

"Rush Apart" | There's something endlessly charming about the acoustic guitar and Edenloff's far-away-sounding vocals that start off "Rush Apart." In an album of comparatively short songs (most are in the two-minute range), this is the second-shortest at 1:56, but still manages to flesh itself out into something more than respectable. It's like a campfire tune that managed to convince an entire drumset to make the trek. When Nils says "it's hard to know what's right/I need you tonight," it's one of the love-soaked references on an album chock-full of them. You'd love to know who hurt him this badly, because there has to be a place where all this creativity stems from. And on that note, this is probably not an album you want to be listening to while you're with someone; it functions much better when you're trying to get over someone.

"The Deathbridge In Lethbridge" | The RAA does punk? The vocals have an almost-evil bent to them, no doubt helped by the line "you let me down, I let you down/with your grandfather in the ground." Not to say it's not a good song - it is - but it seems kind of out of place with the rest of the tracks on Hometowns. The others tend to have a more or less melancholy feel to them, instead of the seemingly revengeful tone of "Deathbridge." At least they named it the right way though. Let's skip ahead, cause as mentioned above, this one pretty much turned me off The RAA the first few times I laid ears on it.

"Don't Haunt This Place" | The track that pretty much got it started for me with these guys. It's got that same upbeat and stuttering drumming (courtesy of part-time Woodhands member Paul Banwatt...a fact I found out when I caught both groups at Osheaga this summer), and if I ever said "Sun In An Empty Room" was the best song to play if you were leaving an old apartment Friends-style (and I did say that), this would certainly be a close runner-up -- especially if you shared said apartment with a significant other. The lyrics change up confusingly between declaring the whole ordeal as "hard" and "fun" then switching to "hard" and "dumb" effortlessly. Keyboardist Amy Cole makes one of her few cameos providing precious backing vocals, and the emotions are laid bare for all to see with crisp-clear lyricism.

"The Deadroads" | For all the acoustic guitar abounding on Hometowns, you can't really hear many familiar strains from other songs, a rarity when all you've got to work with are six strings and some chords. The drumming again makes itself well-known here, but I'm not gonna take all the credit for picking up on it; Pitchfork pointed it out pretty well in their review, and I can't help hearing the album without focusing strongly on the superb percussion. It's much the same way I listen to The New Pornographers' Twin Cinema; I've always been a fan of nerdishly drumming along to the beat, and that album along with Hometowns provide me with ample and exemplary opportunities. The "oooo-oooo-oooo-oooooooo"s add that little something extra to this tune, and Nils brings his now-dependable rakish croon to the forefront once again.

"Drain The Blood" | If "Don't Haunt This Place" first turned me on to the group, and "The Deathbridge In Lethbridge" almost turned me off of them, then "Drain The Blood" was that track that truly sold me on The RAA and sucked me in enough to get Hometowns. Even at 2:50 long, this is one of those strange tracks that feels much shorter than that, a quick-burst of sound and passion. It's one of the few where Edenloff showcases more than one side of his voice: the mid-range delivery in the verses, the more throaty and alternately pleading vocals of the chorus, and the outright desperate croaks in the break the song so abruptly builds towards.

Whereas most songs are rollercoaster rides, with multiple ups and downs, "Drain The Blood" comes off like those super-fast thrill rides, that speed you up until you think you can't go any faster, then it's all over like that. It also signals the album turning more to a deemed cohesiveness: where the first few songs kind of stand apart, and prepare you for some cross-Alberta road trip, "Drain The Blood" is like where the road-trip comes to a head, and you know you can't really look at the people you're with quite the same again for the rest of the trip/album.

"Luciana" | In reference to the above, this is kind of that "night after" track, where you can just imagine having a few too many at the local dive bar, and The RAA playing this tune up on stage the whole while. The drums really stand out here for me, the crashing cymbals accentuating Nils' now-whining voice with a vigour that's kind of lacking from the vocal delivery (not something you can say often about the vocals on Hometowns). The horn section also makes an appearance, showing The RAA's versatility and continually-surprising take on alternative rock: they do everything well. Like it's not even fair; they pick and choose their styles and pull them all off expertly, like they've been at this much longer than the four years it's been since they formed. Every track is a rewarding listen, and the album as a whole is that much more listenable because of that.

"Frank, AB" | They also tend to nail those little things that bring their songs to that "next level." They again employ some "oooo-oooo"s, this time with male vocals, and add in the right amount of bass, snare, and everything else that makes their instrumentation just lush enough without being overpowering. The lonesomeness of "Frank, AB" is easy to hear, like it's the hangover "morning after" to the above track. The minute-long a capella at the end is especially moving, with Amy joining in with Nils ever so quietly, like the hand on his back as he's getting it all off his chest.

As an aside, before I wrote this entire review, I never really considered Hometowns as anything more than a love-and-loss-tinged album, but the closer I listen and analyze it, the road trip analogy and all the emotions and scenery that goes with it makes more and more sense, as even some of the next few tracks will show. The fact it works on so many levels is another great thing about the compilation. Heck, for all the place-name-dropping going on, just about the only thing I haven't picked up on yet is the painting of visual scenery you'd assume would come from the album's evocative cover art.

"The Air" | A swooning acoustic guitar and piano-inflected slow-it-down kinda tune? Yeah, I guess there truly is a bit of everything on here. "The Air" literally clears the air, even though it states "the air is unbearably harmful tonight." The clean slate provided by the sparse instrumentation lets the piano shine and the guitar slide along with purpose, keeping a calming quiet over everything before the album itself slows the pace down a bit. Not much to say here; you just have to check out Hometowns and hear for yourself.

"Sleep All Day" | Of all the tunes, this is probably my favorite to drum along to, with the exceptionally nimble snare providing the perfect balance to the organ-like keyboard and longing vocals. For the monotony of the track (over 3:46, it never really goes up, but it never creeps that far down either) it keeps your attention admirably. I really can't rave enough about the diversity of this album. Even though there's a few of these slower numbers, they're never done the same way, and all the originality and creativity in the world seeps out of them in a way I've heard from few groups, let alone on their debut full-length. I have all the faith in the world that The RAA will be able to bang out another album on endlessly enjoyable folk-rock-pop along the same lines as Hometowns, without copying any of the essence or ideas from the latter.

"Four Night Rider" | The shortest tune on here, by one second over "Rush Apart," you can truly feel the frenetic pace set forth by the energetic drumming, and when everything kind of explodes right before the end, you can easily hear the full musical force of the trio in a kind of last gasp effort to convince you that, hey, if you don't like us by now, we're really gonna try our damnedest anyways. Amy's vocals come through the strongest right before that section, drowning out Edenloff's for the first and only time on the album. There's nothing on "Four Night Rider" that hints towards the drawn-out and boring "four night bike ride out of town" to Edmonton professed by the band. There's even an underlying triumph to it all that's a little hard to explain on here, so again, you've really gotta check out the full album.

"Edmonton" | If it was all building up to something, Hometowns' true piece-du-resistance is this tune, just by an edge over the other amazing standouts on the album. It starts off boisterous and doesn't let up until the tambourine breaks in around 1:45; but it's just setting you up for the re-build, where the percussion builds back up again, the guitar becomes more insistent, Edenloff's voice gets that familiar strain, the lyrics take their most powerful turn, and then after the once-through, it slows down once more into the emotional "and I will never try/to forget you're not alive," then breaks out into full-force once again for the victory lap around the whole damn countryside.

On a note again: I write each song's review while I listen to it on repeat. It's a common thing I do whenever I review any song or album, because it puts me in the best mood to write about each individual track. With every other song on here though, I've had to take multiple listens to encapsulate what I really want to say about it; with "Edmonton" however, I banged it out in almost precisely the 3:52 run-time of the song. I'm not trying to say that I'm a fast typer or that I'm so good at describing songs or whatever -- my point is that "Edmonton" is so immediate, so good, that it can't help but being taken at face value, because it's raw emotion on a musical level. Plus it kinda gets to me in a way, so for whatever reason, I wouldn't wanna go through the whole process of listening to it again, with that slow build and everything. Take that for what you will.

"In The Summertime" | Much like the love interest in this tune, we're done. I have some personal interest in this song actually, and every time I listen to Hometowns all the way through, it's always "Edmonton" and "In The Summertime" that get to me the most. I don't know if it's just where I am right now in my life, or if The Rural Alberta Advantage just crafts songs so damn well that they call to mind feelings and emotions you didn't think could well up so easily like that. It doesn't make much sense for me to try and explain this one, and I say that just as it closes out its 2:38 song length.

I don't think I've ever been so emotionally invested in an album to be honest, and it kind of pains me to say that, because I wonder where I was way back in July when this thing actually came out and I had my chance. But I guess life's all about those missed chances...but also about the joy you feel when you're still able to get what you desire, even after it's seemingly too late. Sorry.

(Buy Hometowns here: Amazon)

2009-12-08T15:49:00.000-08:00

So I go through little phases. I've found in the last year or so, I went from a leaning towards dream-pop/ethereal kinds of tunes (big credit to gorillavsbear for leading me to a bunch of them), to more dance/electro-based stuff, back to guitar-driven rock in the summer, and a seeming obsession with dance-punk/house this fall. Driving in the car the other day however, I forget which song it was, but I hadn't heard it in quite a while, and it was one of the slower tunes that went out of rotation with me as the weather was warming. It was then that I realized -- the snow having been on the ground here finally, and the chill setting in, getting ready for winter -- that these things are cyclical.

Grouper - Heavy Water (Phaseone Edit)

Just as sure as it gets really cold here, then tapers off into that uncomfortable springtime, turning into the sometimes heated summer, and then transitioning to our awesome autumns, my musical tastes follow the same predictable pattern. Now granted, I've really only had one year of trend-spotting, blog-following, indie-loving music listening to work off of, but I have this suddenly imperative urge to seek out trippy, "Balearic"-sounding tunes. Now I don't wanna sound pretentious, so I'll say straight-up that I don't know what Balearic means. I know it's capitalized, so it's probably a place -- or at least something important. I've been shown blogs containing mainly Balearic music. I've even looked the word up on Wikipedia. I could even do it again right now. But frankly I don't care; it's just a term for a certain type of music, and I know what that music sounds like.

Bon Iver - Re: Stacks

Now we're just getting out of this "endless summer" of chillwave crap (obviously termed as such because it's lived far beyond its beachy climate and straight into November), but it's strange that these wintery dream-pop tunes encompass many of the same elements as chillwave: far-away sounding melodies, usually unintelligible lyrics, the faintest tinkles and rings, and synths that lolly-gag and then drift off to God knows where. I don't feel hypocritical in saying that the same factors that make me hate chillwave are the reasons I love this "winter-pop" I'll call it. Where chillwave is boisterous and wants to have a good time (albeit a time drowned out in a druggy haze of feedback and tape-hiss), winter-pop is introspective, pensive, and all-to-acutely frames the winter-blues mindset.

Fight Bite - Swissex Lover

Look at it this way: chillwave's forced sense of lo-fi is like an oppressive swath of heat suffocating your otherwise beautiful summer day. Winter-pop on the other hand glasses over an otherwise stoic landscape of sounds the same way that fresh, few-inches-deep snowfall covers trees and roads and lawns alike in the same white blanket, pristine and untouched until the tinkle of bells rings over the acoustically-balanced veneer of it all. Music...or scenery? Winter-pop to me means I don't really have to choose. I dare you to throw on an appropriately winter-pop-sounding song on your next drive through a fresh snowfall and tell me it doesn't feel near-perfect. It soundtracks a season in a way chillwave could never hope to accomplish.

Emil & Friends - Fire Flower

Chillwave is just too...chill. Summer is about having fun and being boisterous and throwing loud parties and going to the beach. Guitar rock and pop music have that covered. Winter-pop takes the dreariness of winter and turns it on its head, finding the beauty that's not even under the skin, but right there on top of it, for the whole world to see. It's still fall, but frankly, I can't wait for this winter's new batch of mood-complementing tunes to come out. Until then, I've scattered a few here that really grew on me throughout last winter.

out out out out out out out out out

2009-12-05T14:10:00.000-08:00

watch out

This could be a first. Look up Alberta's (best? only?) electro-outfit "Shout Out Out Out Out" on hypem. (Here, I'll save you the time.) Didn't really find what you're looking for, right? Now look up "Remind Me In Dark Times." (I'm so nice to you.) Still nothing? Darn. I think for the first time, I'm posting a song that has yet to be shared on the whole wide interwebs. It's also almost 9 minutes long, so start listening now.

Shout Out Out Out Out - Remind Me In Dark Times

This was a tune that I put in heavy rotation in the strangest of ways this summer. I had a government job, meaning the only thing I could listen to on my desktop was CBC Radio3 podcasts. "Remind Me In Dark Times" was charting on Radio3's Top 30 countdown back then, so I would download the condensed podcast whenever I wanted to hear this, skip ahead to the part where it started (and sometimes listen to the Junior Boys track right before it) and then I'd backtrack and listen to the whole thing again once it was done. The great thing about songs over 8 minutes -- especially electronic ones? If they're good in the first place, they're so long that by the time they're done, you wouldn't get sick of them if you listened again.

Anyways, I'm super-tired, overstuffed from supper, and I'm rambling/not making the best points here. So let the song ride out, in all its awesome, sinister vocoded-ness. And remember who sent you.

Buy Reintegration Time here: Amazon

Sunday Night Spotlight | No. 3 | (on a Tuesday)

2009-11-24T19:05:00.000-08:00

your guess is as good as mine

Little Dragon is a Swedish pop group. Among other things I've professed my love for on here, European sugar-pop is probably my biggest guilty pleasure of any. It makes no sense to me: I hate things that sound like the 80's. I hate pop music (in its current state). But I love Swedish people. Okay, I've only ever seen one Swede in my life that I know of, and that was Lykke Li. But I imagine they're all just as cool as her. I'm extrapolating here. Either way, Little Dragon are at least deserving of a Sunday Night Spotlight -- even if it is Tuesday.

They make slightly downtempo and dreamy pop, and lead singer Yukimi Nagano (yes, half-Japanese, half-Swedish), sounds eerily similar to Lykke Li, which is probably why I like Little Dragon so much in the first place. The quirky instrumentation is definitely there, mixing slippery drums with synthesizers, whistle noises, and even one song seemingly sampling that noise Mario made when he jumped up. Yukimi's flighty voice is the perfect compliment to all the above, delivering an airy accompaniment in cutely endearing English. There's so much summer in recent release Machine Dreams that it's a shame it just came to this side of the ocean in the fall.

Little Dragon - Never Never

"Never Never" is probably as downtempo as Little Dragon actually gets, but it still carries with it a bit of swagger, lilting along on the strength of the drum hits and Nagano's perfectly up-and-down, side-to-side vocals. It has a bit of a lounge-y feel to it in the verses, but never feels old or staid thanks to smile-inducing bridge and chorus, with its synthesizers working on overtime to produce the desired pick-me-up. When you listen to a song like this and call it "pop," you're ostensibly putting in it in the same dimension as the tunes you hear when you turn on the radio. But all you hear on the dial is a bastardization of the genre -- Little Dragon delivers pop music with a retro vibe, and in the way it's supposed to be heard.

Little Dragon - Swimming

"Swimming" on the flip-side is Little Dragon at its quirkiest. "ooooh-oooh"s abound, and the simple piano chords lay down the basis of a boy-girl story -- told on top of a tune you could easily imagine soundtracking a silent film, at the part where the couple-to-be is running around the park, playing a most-flirtatious round of hide-and-seek, peeking out from the trees just in time to see their crush and run off to their next hiding spot. (Wow, if that's not evocative enough - whether good or bad - I don't know what is. Try imaging Charlie Chaplin and seeing the whole thing in black-and-white and that might help a bit.)

Yukimi is good at some juxtaposition of sultry and kooky, her voice emoting both at different times, with the aide of that complimentary instrumentation. On top of "Swimming" and "Never Never," there's a few other tracks from Machine Dreams that border on dream-pop, thanks to their deft use of atmospherics and space. It just goes to prove that what you don't use is just as important as what you do -- silence is not nothing, it is simply the absence of sound, and sound and silence have to work in an effective tandem to make music truly great. Little Dragon know when to carry on a beat, when to cut it short, when to change it up. Sometimes they may over-indulge, like the "why'd they do that?" break on "Looking Glass," but largely, Machine Dreams is an enjoyable album, full of everything there is to love about 80's-tinged European pop music at the moment.

Buy Machine Dreams here: Amazon

LCD Soundsystem

2009-11-24T18:25:00.000-08:00

I fucking love LCD Soundsystem. I'm just putting that out there. My dad can't stand them. My roommate complains about me playing my "shitty" music whenever I put them on in the car. I can't really find many people I know at all that like them, let alone as much as I do. I don't understand it. There's nothing particularly offensive about their sound. It's punk- and disco-inflected dance music -- without the over-aggressiveness of some strains of punk, and borrowing from disco influences in an almost pretentious fashion (I'm not even joking: they literally have a song called "Yeah [Pretentious Version]").

LCD Soundsystem - Tribulations

Band front-man/lead singer/DFA Records boss James Murphy is the essential cog to LCD Soundsystem, with his matter-of-fact delivery and stunning knack for turning what are seemingly monotonous subject matters and beats into minutes-long opuses on life and death and everything in between. Obviously, he crystallized the latter pinpoint-perfectly on top-ten-track-of-the-last-10-years "All My Friends," but the guy's been doing it with his cohorts in LCD Soundsystem for years in one way or another. Their 2007 album Sound Of Silver is also widely considered one of the best of the last decade, and it's certainly among my favorite albums ever. Recently though, I've been listening to their first release, a double CD simply titled LCD Soundsystem, a compilation amassing one disc of earlier singles, and a second disc of then-new for 2005 material.

Both are certainly great CD's on their own, and could easily have their own glowing reviews from me, but for some reason, I tend to favour the disc of their older material. There's no great discrepancy between any of their three discs really: 90% party-ready jams, and 10% slower numbers that cover everything from how shitty New York got in the last decade, to the heart-aching departure of someone you really love -- all corkscrewing their way into your psyche in seven- to eight-minute cuts.

LCD Soundsystem - On Repeat

Maybe that's the one thing about LCD Soundsystem that makes them a hard band to get into and appreciate: the formidable length and structure of their music. The elements themselves are fine, and rarely stray from the usual dance-floor fare: hi-hats, drum machines, atmospherics, crunchy guitar, and (God love James Murphy) more cowbells than are probably a good idea. Either way, the manner in which all of those culminate is truly something to marvel at, if you really take the time (quite literally) to do it. There's one Sound Of Silver track - "Get Innocuous" - that for about 30 seconds, takes a fast-paced kind of "banging on alien steel" sound, and transforms it bar-by-bar into an equally quick but simple ticking noise. I mean it's intricacies like that that I really appreciate about these guys, but that may go unnoticed or just plain ignored.

But getting back to it, it really might be that musically density that forms a wall between eager ears and musical minds. When even the above-mentioned "All My Friends" spends its whole first minute of seven repeating the same piano loop over and over again (the source of my father's frustration with the group), I may start to understand some people's hesitance at getting into LCD Soundsystem. Begrudgingly, I'll even admit that James Murphy's voice is - realistically - not the most pleasing thing to listen to for the three hours of their music I have in my iTunes.

LCD Soundsystem - Great Release

But it's not always so much how he's saying what it is -- it's without a doubt what it is he's actually talking about. And it really is more like talking than singing. I can barely think of any lines he actually rhymes with proficiency, and it seems like most of his lyrics are stream-of-consciousness verbal assaults on ageing and friends and socializing and love and getting fucked over and music and what's cool and what's not. And all of it is endlessly quotable. For me, James Murphy is nothing short of a modern philosopher. In reference to above quotability, I could write an entire post on the genius musings contained in LCD Soundsystem's tracks, but the best way to pick them out is to actually give the tunes a listen.

This is possibly the best analogy I have for LCD Soundsystem's music: Remember "The Sunscreen Song"? Sadly, not as many people as I thought do, and its lyrical content and origin are an entirely different story, but if you imagine Baz Luhrmann in that song is some kind of fatherly figure doling out advice to you on your graduation day, James Murphy is like your best friend yelling life advice over the dance grooves at a house party. And when you really think about it, it's as simple as that.

Buy LCD Soundsystem here: Amazon

2009-11-23T13:10:00.000-08:00

look in the book...

Pointless musical trivia: Pink Mountaintops' members come from the same collective of artists that form Vancouver's Black Mountain -- which also produced the indelible Lightning Dust outfit. It's like a gift that keeps giving. I've already broken down some of Lightning Dust's and Black Mountain's previous work, and as much as I appreciated some elements of their music, Pink Mountaintops seem to take the best of both groups, with folk-inflected and sometimes plodding rock music, along with more uptempo jaunts and cathedral filling wails.

"Execution" and "Vampire" are the singles already released from Pink Mountaintops' album Outside Love, and I knew what to expect from those songs having already heard them, but when I delved into the album itself, I was pleasantly surprised with one track in particular. "Holiday"is outfitted with harmonica, tinkles, acoustic guitar, and a campfire melody -- something that's a bit of a change of pace for a group with its feet well-set in the comforts of straightforward rock and dreamy psychedelia. I mean, I'm talking like I'd toast s'mores to this tune.

Pink Mountaintops - Holiday

It's actually a pretty mournful song in lyrical content, lamenting friends who have left "on holiday," and preaching about bastards and cowards, but you'd never guess from the sea-shanty-like sway of the thing, drowned in expressive yet almost monotonous singing. In view of the Peaches-sounding guitars and garage-rock drums of cuts like "The Gayest Of Sunbeams" (yes, you read that right) and ballroom twirls of "Come Down," Pink Mountaintops certainly make use of the many musical styles they have under their belts, and are no worse for it. The whole album still sounds like a whole piece, with good flow from start to finish and a good number of strong tracks.

Look at that. I set out to write a little snippet about "Holiday," and I ended up with a mini album review on Outside Love. But it felt organic and natural, a lot like Pink Mountaintops' music.

now I'm just crazy, and fucked in the head

2009-11-18T21:51:00.000-08:00

Girls really had to grow on me. No, not like that -- Girls, the band. Maybe a bit less than the xx, I was wary of the hype surrounding these guys. Pitchfork's review had a most interesting story on the band's background, but that still wasn't enough to get me to listen to the group. An initial listen to "Laura" didn't convince me of their talent any more either. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I half-recall listening to the particular track featured in this post, "Lust For Life," but if I really liked it that first time (in the summer if I remember at all), it would certainly stick out in my memory a bit more than it seems to right now.

No, it took a very random and recent listen to "Lust For Life" for me to warm up to Girls even a little bit. I'm still not totally into them, and it hasn't even been two weeks that I've had the track I'm speaking of. But -- damn is it ever catchy. At 2:25, I've probably taken longer pees. But the ridiculously jangling guitars, the almost-cartoonish half-croon/half-whine of lead singer Christopher Owens, the barely-there beach vibe, the sustained tempo of the whole thing (not much time to really do anything different with it anyway), the out-of-nowhere harmonica riff that for the life of me I can't place quite which 90's TV show it reminds me of...for God's sake, it's not really fair that a song with really only one verse can be this good. Even the way it trails off at the end is irresistible, and I frankly can't get enough of the song.

Thankfully -- and probably a big reason why I like the song so much -- what it's lacking is that "chillwave" beach-haze, symptomatic of this summer's drowned-out, barely-audible excuses for sun-soaked soundtracks. The song could've easily went that way, but laid bare (or what some people might call "not produced with layer-upon-layer of tape-deck hiss, pushed to the background vocals, and unrecognizably distorted guitar"), it sounds ten times better than anything else of a similar ilk put out in the last six months.

Girls - Lust For Life

Obviously if you wanted to, you could delve into the deeper meaning of the track, as there's certainly enough there to work with. Owens' probably-personal longings -- some we can relate to (sun tans, beach houses, bottles of wine) and some we can't (boyfriends, for those of us heterosexual males; and fathers, for those of us who grew up with them) -- abound. Vulgar thoughts of insanity and matters of the heart even wander their way into the condensed-soup of a song, but it never feels like too much -- rather, it feels just right. Even if seemingly nothing in Owens' world is.

did you dive too deep, like you always do?

2009-11-18T21:26:00.000-08:00

Music for me isn't just the sounds. It's the feelings and the memories and the stories associated with those unique sounds. Sometimes it's complicated, like a concert experience. Sometimes it's as simple as a memorable tune in your car or on the radio (not a great chance it was on the radio nowadays though). "Lions For Scottie" by Hey Rosetta! has a very abstract backstory for me.

My younger sister occasionally borrows my car. While I usually listen to my mp3 player when I drive, she brings along her own mix CD's, which she tends to leave in the car afterwards. After I moved out this September, I started taking quick drives around town, as opposed to the half-hour treks I used to commute on before my move, so that meant either forgetting or foregoing my mp3 altogether. As alluded to above however, the radio absolutely sucks in Halifax. So on those quick drives, which would sometimes extend into mini-shopping trips or proverbial taxi rides for my roommates, my sister's CD's came in more than handy.

On one particularly eclectic mix, I found some Noah & The Whale, Death Cab For Cutie, Joel Plaskett, some oldies, and a few Hey Rosetta! cuts. Very representative of my sister's listening habits to say the least. Those Hey Rosetta! tracks really connected with me though -- until then, I'd really only listened to one of their songs with any consistency, aside from seeing them in concert this summer. So picking her up one night from work, I asked if the songs were indeed by Hey Rosetta!, and told her how much I liked them. A while later, I got the band's two albums (as well as a concert ticket for their Halifax show this December) and though I'm still missing a few songs, they've got a solid catalog already just from that pair.

"Lions For Scottie" really stood out to me for one reason or another though. It's one of the more immediate songs the group has, starting with a few drumstick hits and launching into a full-out assault right off the top. It doesn't build and well up like most other Hey Rosetta! tracks, and singer Tim Baker's vocals are among his most exuberant and impassioned on the Plan Your Escape disc "Lions For Scottie" comes from. Though the album cut is 7:41 long, the meat of it really only extends 3:26 in, then gives way to a markedly more somber and diametrically opposed affair. In iTunes, I left that self-titled "Extended Mix" alone as part of the whole album, and cut myself the shorter version for easier listening to the single. Take a listen to it for yourself here:

Hey Rosetta! - Lions For Scottie

Halifax Pop Explosion | Day 5 | Japandroids!

2009-11-03T19:51:00.000-08:00

Japandroids @ The Paragon (pic courtesy of The Coast's flickr pool)

I'm about two weeks removed from going to this show, but I've had just a ridiculously busy fortnight, so I haven't been able to write anything at all. In this case though, it was almost one of those things where you don't wanna really re-live it all, because it's so perfect in your mind. Japandroids at The Paragon was a concert I'd been looking forward to since the tour date was announced in the summer. These guys had already played festivals like Sasquatch in Washington state and Pitchfork's in Chicago. After Halifax they were heading to the UK for a slate of shows there. So these guys are big-time, and like I've mentioned numerous times on here, one of my favorite new bands. Nothing could ruin that night.

It was so perfect in fact, that Girl Talk and LMFAO were in town that night too, so I wasn't worried about having a crowd similar to the one at MSTRKRFT, considering those people would be at those two shows -- if they weren't still hungover from the previous night. Like I'd been doing before every night of the HPX, I listened to every band's music as much as I could, to at least get a feel for them and establish some sense of familiarity with their songs. With Little Girls, Zeus, and You Say Party! We Say Die on the bill along with Japandroids, I think there was finally a focused night for the festival: rock music that I actually like, so I was even more excited, and I hadn't even got to the venue yet.

Little Girls | @ The Paragon: I got there about five minutes after these guys got on stage, after the security guy was being a weiner and told me I had to wear my festival pass bracelet...the one I'd cut off my wrist four days earlier. I don't get those guys sometimes. Anyways, Little Girls was one of the groups I'd actually heard some stuff from before, via Gorilla vs. Bear if I remember correctly at all. One of the openers I was looking forward to the most at the HPX actually. They definitely impressed.

Although they didn't sound much like the drowned-out dominated leanings of their recorded stuff, their live show was much more energetic than I'd expected, and they still provided lots of droning instrumentals -- basically, stuff I like listening to, so I was having a ball. If you listen to Little Girls at all, I guess they don't have many vocals, and when they do, they're pushed so far behind the instruments that they're almost unintelligible. That being the case, I was a little shocked to hear vocals, pretty clearly, on almost all of their songs. All in all, their set was a bit of a blur to me, as the songs seemed to meld into each other a bit. What I remember though is that they had one hell of a closer, upping their unexpected energy to the point where I thought they were going to break something. Great opener.

Little Girls - "Youth Tunes"

Zeus | @ The Paragon: right before these bearded and mustachio'd guys went up, I found out my favorite radio station around, CBC Radio3, was broadcasting the entire concert live. One of their on-air personalities, Craig Norris, was MC'ing the whole event I guess, and in introducing Zeus, he said the group was fast becoming one of his favorite bands. From what I'd heard of them, I wasn't quite so sure they were worthy of such a distinction, but I figured Craig's was as good an endorsement as any, so I was ready for a good set.

Zeus easily delivered. Their live show definitely had more of a "full" sound to it than their recorded music, which is either a testament to The Paragon's unequaled sound system (I think it's the best in the province from the ones I've heard), or the band's great on-stage delivery. Their tunes sounded much less "precious" if I could say that, and were filled with lots of emotion, zealous in its delivery. The guys in the group were constantly switching up their instruments too, jumping around between bass, keyboard, guitar...everyone but the drummer was exchanging basically. The one constant however was that it seemed whoever was on keyboards got the singing assignment for that track.

The set had such a strong 60's and 70's pop/rock vibe going on that I couldn't help but imagine if classic rock really was where it's at after all (I'm not a big classic rock fan -- just putting that out there). The set sounded like it was straight out of that era, and the songs were just plain catchy and indelibly harmonious. Amazingly, Zeus actually put on the most danceable show of the night, and they really, really had the crowd going.

I've been to a few shows, and there are a few feelings you can get standing in the crowd, listening to the music. Either you're there just taking it in, enjoying the sounds, letting it wash over you, maybe thinking about something else...or you're completely lost in the sounds, absorbing every second of it, feeling like the music is running right through you, and like you've been taken to that next level. For me, I can basically say that as soon as I've lost the self-consciousness that comes from dancing to rock music, I'm in that second state of mind. I was unabashedly dancing along to the retro guitar-and-drum assault these guys were putting on, along with everyone else within 10 feet of me. Zeus seemed to be feeding off that energy as well as adding to it, as they were more than appreciative of the crowd's enjoyment of their music.

The band also did their version of Genesis' "That's All," which surprised me a bit as I thought most acts at festivals tended to play only their own music in the short amount of time they had to perform. Either way, I'm a fan of Genesis and Phil Collins, so I wasn't complaining. Their whole show went by in much the same manner as Little Girls', in that the songs flowed together quite a bit, even with some between-song banter and instrument changes. The set was rife with false endings to songs and big flourishes, but I have to give them credit, because they didn't overdo it (a la Arctic Monkeys at Osheaga), nor was it even predictable when they were going to. Overall, Zeus was just a ton of fun and a great time, so kudos to Craig Norris for the recommendation; he knows what he's talking about.

Zeus - "That's All"

You Say Party! We Say Die! | @ The Paragon: I don't really have much to say about these guys actually, even though they were actually Radio3's "Artist Of The Month" for October. I knew one of their songs, sent to me by my roommate, and they were decent dance-punk I guess you could call it. Funnily enough, I found them the hardest act to dance to during the entire HPX. I liked the show I suppose, but definitely not one of my more favorite bands. The songs were short, and there was some feeling to them, but I overall it just wasn't really my kind of thing. The crowd did seem to swell quite a bit when they came up, and there were surely those around me who liked them, but meh -- I hadn't come for them anyway. In lieu of more words that wouldn't really tell you much about YSPWSD...pictures!

Coolest part of the show? They set up four X's (their new album XXXX) like this for their whole set:

Second-coolest part of the show? I finally got into an HPX concert pic. I'm the one who's kinda into it oddly enough:

You Say Party! We Say Die! - "Laura Palmer's Prom"

Japandroids | @ The Paragon: Yesssss. If I haven't mentioned it yet, I own these guys' album Post-Nothing on unopened vinyl. They can basically do no wrong for me. With that said, they of course played what was just a perfect set, even though it ended up stupidly getting cut short, leaving the duo playing their encore with all the lights up.

One thing I haven't mentioned, about The Paragon itself: it's almost completely dark in there save for candles on some tables, the bar and stage lighting, and really dim chandeliers hanging from the 15-foot ceiling. Just a wicked vibe for a venue to have, and they pull it off in a really classy way. So when they shut down Japandroids what seemed like half an hour into their set, and added insult to injury by hitting the lights, I thought it was a real unfortunate act by the management. Why the hell do you have to close at a certain time when the only time you open is for concerts and dances? I don't get it.

Either way, Japandroids were everything I expected, and other than a lack of songs - due to their short set - it was easily one of my favorite shows of the year. Guitarist Brian King broke a string on one of his first songs, and he also told the crowd that the duo was battling the flu, so things weren't exactly the best even at the start -- though King did say that given the guys' condition, we were encouraged to sing along if we knew the words. Thankfully, Japandroids make music that you can just shout to, so we were none too shy to oblige.

The whole crowd was just insanely into these guys: screaming the lyrics, pushing and shoving each other in the front, jumping up and down like mad -- I mean I'm not head-banger, but I got in there with them, jumping off people's backs, yelling all the words I knew, and generally acting like I never have before at a show of any kind. You'd think I'm a hypocritical jackass the way I'm describing the crowd at Japandroids and then contrasting it to my bitching about the MSTRKRFT crowd -- but I'm telling you, the two weren't even on the same wavelength.

The pushing and shoving and jumping was somehow the friendliest I'd ever witnessed, everyone feeding off of each other's energy and enjoyment of the show, instead of getting pissed off that someone hit you with a stray elbow or arm flail. I mean, one guy even ended up falling down and was bleeding from his hand, with his girl there beside him to see if he was alright. He basically wiped his hand off, grabbed the girl, and went back into the pit, happy as a flower. See what I'm getting at? There were even two or three smaller girls in there doing their best to keep pace with the boys. Just a totally awesome vibe, and I haven't been into a concert that much since Crystal Castles this summer.

Back to the set getting shortened though. When the stagehand told Brian they had a few more minutes, you could tell he was real pissed off about it, and he promised us they'd be back again to play a longer show -- with enough vigor that there was no way you didn't believe them. I feel bad at this point too, because I've been talking more about the crowd and the feeling watching the music than about the actual songs themselves, and the guys playing them.

Brian - and David Prowse on drums - were just murdering their instruments, every bit as into their aural assaults as we were. It's like they just let themselves go on stage, losing any pretense some groups carry around, and playing purely for the joy of the moment and the visceral energy that comes from their eardrum-beating rock. The epitome of that was definitely Brian ripping on his just-repaired guitar during show-closer "Crazy/Forever," breaking the same string once again, and carrying on like a champ, just rocking out on the thing, as off-tune as it was.

Little treat: aside from that Crystal Castles concert, where I had a picture of the actual set-list, I can actually tell you all of what Japandroids played that night, and in order if my memory serves me right:

"The Boys Are Leaving Town" (my least favorite, but not a bad opener)
"Rockers East Vancouver" (fun little romp, and ode to their stomping grounds)
a brand-new, unreleased song (definitely in line with their other stuff)
"Heart Sweats" (their/our shouts of "X!O!X!O!X!" mighta been the night's highlight)
"Young Hearts Spark Fire" (their most complete song, and best intro to the duo)
"Crazy/Forever" (builds up quite a bit, but an epic and melancholy closer)

Six songs, which is just an embarrassment that The Paragon only let them do so few. From Post-Nothing, they left off "Wet Hair," "I Quit Girls," and what's one of my favorite songs of the year:

Japandroids - Sovereignty

Halifax Pop Explosion | Day 4 | MSTRKRFT

2009-10-27T20:09:00.000-07:00

I'd hide my face too if I was that bad

The worst show of my life. Unequivocally. No contest. Without a doubt. That's how bad MSTRKRFT at The Palace was on Friday night. Fuck needing notes (but not really, I'll be using them), that concert will stay fresh in my mind for how historically and wholly bad it was on every level.

So it started off like this: I get to The Palace at about 11pm, thinking I'd slot in comfortably haflway through the five-act set. In front of me was the biggest line I've seen for the venue since the last time they had "dollar drinks" for sale, November 10th of last year. I saw a few of the same faces from the last two nights, so I was hoping the rest of the crowd wouldn't be the usual Palace set, or all-too-eager band-wagoners who decided to come get sloshed to a concert featuring possibly the one name they knew on the Halifax Pop Explosion's vast roster of acts. Sadly, I would be proved wrong on all counts throughout the night.

The place was already packed when I got in following my 20 minute plus wait, and Double A was still spinning more than half an hour after Scientists Of Sound were supposed to be on stage. That was an early indication of how the night would be trending. I "snuck" up front, which basically involved swimming my way through what was a crush of people packed into the smallish dancefloor. Double A's music was nothing special at all, as I spent more time focusing on keeping my arms up so I wouldn't get smothered than I did on whatever the hell he was playing up there. The amount of pushing and shoving was just ridiculous, as was the amount of drinking that was going on. I already knew The Palace was going to make a killing that night, but getting in and seeing just how much people were drinking and how many of them were already drunk, I had to seriously reconsider not only The Palace's profitability from a night like this, but also the prospect of me actually sticking around to see if it was worth it.

I could tell people weren't there to see MSTRKRFT, let alone anyone else on the bill that night. I'm a MSTRKRFT fan from what I've heard of them, but I knew it would be a tough show when many of their best songs are remixes of other people's work, as well as tracks featuring acts who have neither the time nor the need to tour along with them and provide vocals (see: "Bounce" featuring Thunderheist's Isis and N.O.R.E. as well as big hit "Heartbreaker" with John Legend). As that was the case, I was glad to see Scientists Of Sound were also performing, due to the great show they put on in opening for Thunderheist at The Paragon in September. Anyway, try relaying any of the above to the people packing the floor on Friday night: they seemed like they didn't give two shits about who was playing that night -- they just wanted to get drunk and maybe dance.

And don't get me wrong: I don't think there's anything wrong with that. What I do think is wrong is if you're already charging about $40 to see MSTRKRFT play, oversell the venue, keep everyone waiting in line while you pat down all the guys going in, treat the whole thing like it's just another night at your sketchy downtown bar, and generally mishandle the thing so badly that I was seriously considering leaving the show at multiple points during the night. And I mean multiple as in: within ten fucking minutes of showing up, and every ten minutes after that. Why I stuck it out? The misguided principles of "journalistic duty," the perverse notion of "at least I can say I saw MSTRKRFT live," and what seemed like the most reasonable: "I just wanna see if they're any good live." All horrible excuses when I was having as little fun as I was.

Scientists Of Sound eventually got on stage, and they eschewed standing behind the incomprehensible "DJ stand" that was basically a stomach-high bar, embossed with a "MOLSON" decal missing the "N." You were lucky if you could even see whatever was on whoever was up there's t-shirt if they stood behind it. In lieu of that monstrosity, they set up on the right-hand side of the stage, synths and keyboards and laptops stacked on makeshift tables, looking similar to the last time I saw them. Except this time, there was nowhere near the pitch-perfect and crystal-clear sound I'd heard at The Paragon from them, or even the full-sounding acoustics The Weakerthans had played with at the only other concert I'd ever attended at The Palace.

Either the crowd was so damn noisy or the sound system so badly tuned, that I probably would've never bothered checking out Scientists Of Sound again had I not heard them that initial time. Just a real letdown, and the only person who seemed to enjoy it was a guy up on stage who was so drugged out that he stared wide-eyed and in amazement at the duo throughout their entire set, somehow flabbergasted that these two were making the kinds of noises they did with the instruments at hand.

That wasn't the strangest site either that night. There were other random people on the stage throughout the night, sometimes photographers, sometimes friends of the bands, the occasional lush, and most disconcertingly, a guy who I can only imagine is The World's Biggest Douchebag, rocking a completely out-of-place dress coat over a pink polo with its collar popped. That's not even to mention the poor girl who was dancing for about half an hour on-stage with her nipple hanging out, before some kind girl on the opposite end of the floor waved her over and pointed out her embarrassing wardrobe malfunction. Just a weird, messed-up night.

After Scientists Of Sound, the last opener Kay Gee came on, and you could tell the crowd was getting restless, as no one seemed into his set whatsoever. In my eyes and ears, the only good thing he did for however long he was up there was play Breakbot's remix of PNAU's "Baby" and Fred Falke's reworking of Little Boots' "New In Town" (both featured earlier last week right here on IATT as it happens).

In between the sets though, I should mention that z103, the local "Beat of Halifax," had one of their staff members MC'ing the event, and introducing the upcoming acts. I like z103, and it's the only local station I listen to when I bother wanting music on the radio here. But for the love of all that's good: fuck off with promoting the upcoming drink and cover specials when we've been waiting in a sweaty mass of people for the last hour to hear some freaking MSTRKRFT. We could care less about what he was talking about, and it got to the point that the second time I saw him come up, the crowd was startling to heckle him and tell him to "fuck off!" quite plainly. It's the Halifax Pop Explosion, it's MSTRKRFT, we're paying good money, 75% of us are drunk, the show's behind by more than a half-hour, you're boring, you're holding us up, and you're not telling us anything we want to hear. Shut up.

The worst part of z103 sponsoring and MC'ing the night? They don't played a damned bit of anyone performing. That might actually qualify them as the worst bandwagon-jumpers of anyone on Friday. Anyway, it got so bad after Kay Gee kept his set going that we were starting to shout him down as well, with calls of "you! still! suck!" and "mas-ter-kraft!" All in all, the kid seemed a little too excited to be there, and just a tad nubile. Plus between him and Double A, neither was doing anything different than a regular DJ would at your local club, except maybe play a set that's not quite as radio-heavy as they tend to be here around Halifax.

Scientists Of Sound on MySpace

By the time Kay Gee was done his set, I was able to nudge and generally "work" my way up to second or third row from the front, hoping to get away from the sway and the crush near the middle of the floor. As luck would have it, it only got worse once I was up there: I was so tightly squeezed between people that I felt the breath being sucked out of me at points, and I heard similar complaints all around me of people having problems even catching a breath. Even between all the pushing and shoving on its own, I saw two fights almost break out, and if I wasn't being subjected to the radius of the guy's voluminous dreadlocks in front of me, I was involuntarily invading the personal space of the two raging lesbians having a mid-concert make-out session beside me.

Finally, MSTRKRFT showed up to a roar of pleasure from the crowd...and I was gone in ten minutes. No lie. I got fed up with the now-even-more rabid crowd, and it was still at the unfathomable point where I was more concerned with my bodily safety and not getting hit in the face with a glancing elbow than I was with paying attention to the music. The last straw was when I realized Jesse and Al were doing no different than anyone else had that night: setting up behind the MOLSO bar and stoicly playing with their laptops in an effort to try to amp up the overtired crowd. I either didn't know it before, or I should've, but MSTRKRFT - at least live - aren't the expert mix-masters they come off as, but instead simply glorified DJ's.

In an effort to salvage the night, I texted my friends who I knew were frequent Palace VIP, hoping they had showed up and could possibly show me a better time now that the music part of the night had let me down. It turned out they were just showing up to the club, and we ended up having some drinks, stuck around for a mostly forgettable listen to the majority of MSTRKRFT's (what I found out later would be three-hour) set, and danced a little bit to the strains of "Bounce" and some other unrecognizable electro. Even when they threw in a remix of "D.A.N.C.E." you barely felt the place pick up, as close to 70% of the people at The Palace were having drinks and talking to their friends, not on the crush of the dancefloor "enjoying" the show.

People overcharge for a lot of things these days. Gas. Popcorn at the movies. Cell phones. Add MSTRKRFT to that list. Definitely not worth the price of admission, let alone the time of my life I wasted on Friday hoping the night would turn out for the better at some point.

Halifax Pop Explosion | Day 3

2009-10-27T18:39:00.000-07:00

Cadence Weapon at The Paragon

By this point, I'm about five days removed from actually having went to shows last Thursday night, so I'm going off my memory, plus some notes I made the day after. Let's get right to it:

Jenocide | @ The Paragon: this duo reminded me right off the bat of Crystal Castles. Nowhere near the stage presence or ominousness of that Toronto pair, but the same girl vocalist and silent mixer thing going on, plus of course the electronic nature of the whole thing. Whereas Crystal Castles has that dissonance between Alice Glass' shouts and the otherworldly hums, burrs and samples coming from Ethan Kath's various electronic instruments, Jenocide's a much more straightforward venture, in that they sound poppier, and lead singer Jen Clarke's voice is clear and complimentary to the tracks.

That didn't necessarily mean however that they were always needed. Jenocide's mix-maker Ed Renzi more than holds his own, ever-so-quietly providing killer beats for Jen to work with and around; when some of the loops dropped in, or an additional beat kicked up, they came harder than you'd expect for such a seemingly electro-pop outfit. How they tied in to Jen's vocals was almost strange: although her singing was great and her stage presence an integral part of the show (wandering down on more than one occasion to serenade the crowd of 20 to 30, both on the floor and from a strategically placed chair in front of the stage), you almost felt like Renzi's beats alone would be enough to start a party, and Clarke's lyrics just a sugary side dish to the main beat-centered course. Either way, the singing never took away from the quality of any of the tracks, so I'm not complaining here.

Jenocide - Fashion Icon

Old Folks Home | @ The Paragon: I first have to point out that I'm used to going to bigger shows, where you're lucky to even catch a full look at what the band members' faces all look like. Thursday night at The Paragon, the members of Old Folks Home were actually standing right beside me during Jenocide's show, unbeknownst to me until a stage manager came up behind them and said "they've got five more minutes and the stage is all yours after that." Definitely a different kind of vibe for the Halifax Pop Explosion shows I'd have to say, and the only time I can remember something like that happening was when my friend and I accidentally stole The Pack A.D.'s table before their show.

Anyways, Old Folks Home's set was definitely a smidgen darker than Jenocide's (the acts during these shows didn't always exactly follow the same genre I found) and provided lots of distortion, as well as drum and synth loops -- which was weird, considering they already had a drummer. That led however to pretty well-textured sound to their set, but also some awkward moments when the drummer just kinda sat there while the loop played for the first minute or so on some songs. Overall, the duo had a spacey sound, and the lead singer's voice was pretty good for a band that relied so much on distortion of instrumentation -- usually a sure sign they're trying to compensate for a singer's lacklustre vocals.

They killed their first two or three songs as far as I remember, but the pace and ferocity really slowed down after that, and never really recovered. During one of the tunes though, lovely local star Rebekah Higgs wandered out from backstage and lent her vocals, which was kinda cool. Overall though, I felt a little underwhelmed by these guys. The rest of the night in retrospect was upbeat and electro-driven; Old Folks Home had some of those elements in their show, but used them in a slower, more deliberate and probably "deeper" way. I wouldn't know for sure though, as I could barely make out most of the words being sung.

Funny aside: between songs, they mentioned their merch was all $5, to which a (drunk) female crowd member yelled what sounded like: "five dolla make you holla!"...but unfortunately, the lead singer must've heard something different, and responded by saying "no, five dollars makes YOU hotter!" in a jokey sort of way, but which elicited some "oohs" and a general uncomfortableness among the crowd. Thankfully, he realized his faux-pas, and proceeded to apologize, but it couldn't have felt too good.

Old Folks Home on MySpace

Think About Life | @ The Paragon: to quote the first line of my notes? "FUCKING KILLED IT." It was by far one of the most fun and exciting shows I'd been to all year. But before that, I'm gonna bore you a bit. As the band was tuning and setting up, there was a woman walking around in what looked like an awkward 90's pantsuit: it went up to her waist, she was rocking quite an unflattering top and a bowlish haircut straight out of some "how not-to" guide. She just looked completely out of place. Plus her shoes didn't match the rest of the suit. Anyway, I thought she was some understudy at soundcheck or general "stage-handing" and that they were kind of "letting" her do the show. I mean, she just looked like that to me. Lo and behold, she walked out with the three guys I'd seen in The Coast's pictures of Think About Life, and grabbed a spot in front of one of the mics. Go figure. She proceeded to provide some harmonies, a few vocals, and awkwardly nonrhythmic dance moves for the next half-hour or so. Even slapped some bass for a tune.

Before the whole group materialized though, the guitarist stood by some of his electronics and started fiddling with them to create some really interesting atmospherics. After that however, Think About Life went on to bang out one song after another of pure. awesome. dance-inducing. party-starting. music. I cannot stress enough how much I immensely enjoyed their set. Unfortunately, a certain fellow in a plaid red shirt beside me (coulda been anyone considering how much plaid was being rocked over the weekend) seemed like he needed a few drugs to enjoy the show, and was writhing and dancing like a maniac for the first few tunes -- on top of delivering the most malicious elbow I've ever felt at a concert as he was trying to go by me, and this is from a guy who will literally let anyone by him if they wanna move up. After their first few initial tracks though, Think About Life had me dancing at a pace approaching his drug-induced level, so that's how that all ties in; just totally contagious, body-moving sounds.

At one point, I turned around to see Rebekah Higgs moving to the music with some of her friends, and looked across the floor and spotted Wednesday night's star Hannah Georgas similarly enjoying herself. Think About Life brought out that night's headliner Cadence Weapon to help out with the energetic "Sweet Sixteen," which had everyone shouting along the words and simultaneously jumping up and down to the stuttering beat. Cadence was just as into the show as Think About Life themselves, and it was one of the most engaging renditions of any song I've heard on the festival circuit this year so far. The crowd itself was so locked in to the performance that we started an instant call-and-response with lead singer Martin Cesar (aka "Dishwasher") from one off-key shout of "woo-oo!" Cesar even proceeded to come down into the now-packed crowd and get up close and personal with the raucous bunch.

Overall, Think About Life was one of the catchiest and best live groups I've ever seen, matching the same feeling of fun (though not quite the same deliriousness) I had during Crystal Castles' set at Osheaga in the summer. Their zest for their music and Cesar's indelible stage presence made every single second so full of energy and vigor that even a set twice as long would never be enough. Their style was completely unique, and I definitely can't wait for the next time they come through town. I was actually so taken by them that on my way out (I didn't stick around for Cadence Weapon's set) I bought one of the t-shirts the band had for sale at the merch table, something I've never actually done at any show. Oh yeah, we also cheered like crazy for an encore, but I guess only the headliners were allowed to come back out for one during Halifax Pop Explosion, so that was literally the only letdown associated with Think About Life on such a great night.

Think About Life - Havin' My Baby

Fox Jaws | @ Coconut Grove: I wound down my Thursday night with a visit to see these guys play where my roommate and his girlfriend were for the night: the nicer-than-expected Coconut Grove, a cozy little club with a low ceiling I'd always known about, but never been to. It was the kind of place that would be a perfect basement spot...if it wasn't on the top floor overlooking the infamous Pizza Corner, with its own patio and all. The place had a weird stage set-up inside, with the guitarist and singer on the floor, and the bassist and drummer on a small elevated platform in behind.

The first thing I noticed as soon as the set started was the sound: it was nowhere near as encompassing as The Paragon's -- but I'm now convinced that no venue in town has a sound system quite as great as that club's. At the Grove, there were only about 25-35 people taking in the show, but in a small venue like that, we were all pretty close in. I was told that the night's earlier acts - Yukon Blonde, The Paint Movement and Hot Panda - all put on a good show, so I was looking forward to a nice close to my night, a kind of wind-down from Think About Life's spirited set. Singer Carleigh Aikins (drummer Brandyn's sister evidently) has a great voice, with the slightest rasp to it, and she sounded great even when yelling some of the vocals, keeping good tone throughout.

Carleigh often had a tambourine in hand during the set, and although I'm not usually a fan of that instrument, Fox Jaws brought up a sax player for "Ahab's Ghost," a song which also featured a persistent guitar loop. On that latter point, I'd never been to so many concerts featuring as much sampling and looping as I had over those few days. It's probably more to do with the smallish size of the bands themselves and the genres of the music I was watching, but it was almost a mini-revelation to see how a lot of the music I like is done live.

Fox Jaws played a pretty all-out and rock-infused set, keeping up their intensity throughout. They were definitely deserving of a bigger crowd, and even their sound itself is built ready to tackle larger venues and sound systems, so it was a bit of a shame they were secluded to a sparsely-attended show at Coconut Grove. To temper that though, I wasn't particularly blown away by their music - it could've been me coming down from the amazing Think About Life set, my creeping tiredness, or my general need to grab a slice of pizza - and we ended up leaving early to grab a bit of said pizza and head home.

Think About Life - Ahab's Ghost

Halifax Pop Explosion | Day 2

2009-10-22T14:40:00.001-07:00

The Got To Get Got (courtesy of TheCoast's flickr photo-pool)

You'll notice there's no Day 1...because I didn't actually go. I have a festival pass, which I mistakenly bought in the summer, thinking I'd take in a ton of shows and that it'd totally be worth it. Wrong. When I looked at the pricing of the shows I actually wanted to see, as well as be able to physically attend, I would've been much better off just buying advance tickets to those performances. But whatever, it's my first HPX, and I'll learn for next year. As for why I didn't go to Day 1, featuring California's Crystal Antlers? Midterms. Yay.

But luckily, I only have about 2.5 days of school a week, and booked all my nights off from work so that I could catch as many shows as possible. Last night, that included stops at both craptastic Toothy Moose and the semi-legendary Paragon Theatre (more legitimately legendary as The Marquee Club, which is what it used to be known and run as). Of course, there were acts playing at other places that I also wanted to see, like the above-pictured Got To Get Got at The Seahorse, but even though the proximity of the venues was convenient, the set times certainly weren't. So my night went as follows:

Hannah Georgas | @ The Toothy Moose: I've heard some of Hannah's stuff both on CBC Radio 3 and on her own myspace page as well. She comes off as held-back and acoustic for the most part...both of which certainly weren't on display last night. She had what I soon found out was Said The Whale's backing band playing with her, so her one-woman act fleshed out into an ensemble featuring the pretty Hannah on guitar, as well as the cutest girl on keyboards, a drummer who looked all of 10 years old, and a pretty nondescript bassist (though they usually are, aren't they?). The overall effect was definitely an upgrade over many of the recordings I'd heard of Georgas'.

She has a great voice off the get-go, and an awesome stage presence, commanding attention and exuding confidence. Last night she was rocking an old-school wolf shirt too, so she either has a great sense of irony and humour...or just looks good in a wolf shirt. The set itself felt just long enough, and Hannah kept my interest throughout, changing up tempos and feelings, from the song she literally said was about "dating an asshole" to her huge closer "All I Need," which had the same kind of feeling for me as, dare I say it, Death Cab For Cutie's stunning rendition of "Transatlanticism" earlier this year. It started off slow and delicate, and seemed an odd choice for a set closer...then it kept building, and building, until it seemed the song was filling up the whole room -- and everyone's hearts. Check it out below, and then imagine it twice as loud and passionate towards the end:

Hannah Georgas - "All I Need"

Just a footnote though about this show and The Toothy Moose in general as a venue: it would be a fine punk venue, with the low stage and boxy design...if it wasn't a freaking country and western bar. The crowd seemed totally at odds with the usual frequenters, and if that wasn't enough, I was forced to recall the great crowds at Osheaga in Montreal this summer. The reason? The one really loaded girl and her semi-drunk girlfriends in front of me. It's fine to go nuts if there's a lot of people and they're all moving and shaking...but sadly, the 'Moose last night was far from that, being nearly-empty and all. You guys were just kinda annoying, and somehow already drunk during the first act.

Said The Whale | @ The Toothy Moose: now this Vancouver band started off the set with an a capella start to "False Creek Change," which sounds like as good of a sea shanty as you could whip up right here in Halifax. They played through a melodic if somewhat forgettable set, and I dunno if that's because I had higher expectations from excitable single "Camilo (The Magician)," or because I simply wasn't that familiar with their stuff. Sadly, I probably remembered them more for their funny quips in between songs, though they definitely did quite a number on "Camilo" as well as "This City's A Mess." The tempo of the show just happened to be all over the place for me though, between a few slow and folksy tunes, and my more-favoured rocking songs.

Said The Whale - "Camilo (The Magician)"

Kestrels | @ The Toothy Moose: I was hoping to settle in by this point and enjoy a rocking show, but unfortunately, things didn't get too much better. The crowd severely thinned out once Said The Whale finished their set, and there was maybe one third of the people left to see Kestrels perform. As their lead singer took the mic and said they had 20 minutes to play and that he'd shut up right after this, you could barely hear him above the chatter in the bar. I felt pretty bad for the guys actually.

The show itself was full of droning, feedback, pedal effects and a general warbling tilt to most of the songs. They actually even kept the droning going in between songs, so it almost seemed like Kestrels played one super-long piece of aggressive post-punk. I'm not sure if it was just the acoustics of the place, or the general malaise of the audience towards them and the corresponding effort by the band, but they weren't anything that impressive. Imagine Japandroids, but like two steps down if you can -- more garage-y, but also more jangly, so a bit of a juxtaposition.

Either in response to the audience, or his own pent-up rage during the set, the lead singer and guitarist randomly smashed his instrument to the ground at one point, only to pick it up unharmed...and heave it at the curtain behind the stage, which was only serving to cover a wall, and which consequently sent gyprock spraying when the head of the guitar stuck in and promptly fell out. Confusing series of events to say the least, especially since Kestrels' music doesn't seem particularly...angry. Below is a track they may have played, but which certainly didn't have the same zeal or earnestness to it last night.

Kestrels - "Sailed On"

Sprengjuhollin | @ The Paragon: don't laugh. That's what they're actually called, and it means something like "exploding palace" in Icelandic. Yes, they're the biggest pop sensation from Iceland, and they were playing last night when I wandered over to The Paragon after Kestrels finished their set. I wasn't greatly impressed by their msypace playlist when I was trying to pick what concert to attend last night, but as I got there, what they were lacking in perceived musical talent, they surely made up for in spunk -- and strangely enough, English. Everyone in the band who spoke last night had very good English, and just the slightest accent. Sure, three out of the five of them looked Icelandic...but you'd never be able to tell from speech alone.

The keyboardist seemed to be the band's spokesman, cracking jokes all night long and even offering free t-shirts to whomever was brave enough to stick their face into the sweaty bassist's stomach (again: don't laugh - four girls ended up doing it, and all got shirts for their effort). Just to backtrack though, I got to the venue in between songs, and in time for the keyboardist to point at a sign another band member was carrying, all to help us sound out their seemingly impossible name. "Spreng-you-hok-lean" was what I derived from the group session, but I'll be damned if anyone but the band said it right during any point of the night.

Among the funnier quips during their set was them implying that Iceland was "just to the East" of Canada, and they were "pretty much one of your provinces." This of course was part of their merch pitch, which also included a frank declaration that "as most of you know, our country, Iceland, went broke last year," which elicited a few laughs from the crowd. All that aside, their music fell somewhere between knee-slapping folk, energized dance-pop, melancholy ballads, alt-country and upbeat rock. Overall, the band was certainly faster-paced than (again) their myspace led me to believe. Some of the lyrics were also in Icelandic, as the band is only now in the process of translating their work into English for more widespread consumption.

Sprengjuhollin had at least two very good songs, and their slight lead singer, a boyish fellow with long sideburns and short-cut hair, delivered the lyrics in an almost-precious manner, seemingly unsure of the English footing of his words. They even got the same sweaty bassist to slow it down for a number, handing him a guitar and the mic for a decent tune. Overall, the band was fun, likable, and probably a group I wouldn't mind seeing again, especially once they flesh out their catalogue a little more.

Sprengjuhollin - "Worry 'Til Spring"

Mates Of State | @ The Paragon: at this point I should probably point out just how spread out and sparse the crowd was at The Paragon. I've been to a handful of shows there, and I have to admit every one of them was probably better-attended than last night's HPX exhibition. There were people from front to back, but they all seemed grouped up and most of them not even interested in the acts onstage. This of course led to an easy-to-reach spot in the second row, centre stage (basically the same place I had at the Toothy Moose), but I couldn't help feeling there could have been more passion flowing through the place as the top two acts were playing.

Either way, after what must've been the lengthiest set-up delay since Crystal Castles ended up in Ottawa instead of Montreal this summer, the married couple better known as Mates Of State came out to their drumset and pair of keyboards and synths. You could see the disinterest in their eyes and body language even as the stage was being arranged for them: husband Jason Hammel came out in a khaki trenchcoat and tucked-in scarf, looking like he was more ready for a shopping trip than playing drums. Wife Kori Gardner seemed no more into it either, even when Jason tried to create some between-song banter with her; she was reduced to saying what - thinking back seems a little meanspirited - "my mother always told me if you have nothing good to say, don't say anything at all."

Here, I have to admit that I read The Coast's review after I did up my own notes, and though I made a point even then of Mates Of State's business-like demeanor and general tiredness, I never really equated those to a displeasure the group must've had towards either the crowd or the city in general. Jason even whipped out his Blackberry as he was tuning up his drums, and I was fully afraid that he'd play the entirety of the show in his trenchcoat and scarf. Of course, that may have been influenced by some pretense I had about the group being from Britain, and possibly a ponderance on my part that the duo may have thought themselves "bigger" than a show at the HPX. That was washed away when I could neither hear an accent from the two, nor any mention of a long trip over here. In reality, they're just a couple from Kansas, possibly weary of a long tour and under-attended venue.

The music though was far from lacklustre. I went in thinking I was gonna get lambasted with over-the-top pop melodies and boy-girl harmonies from two lovebugs crafting old-timey tunes. I was quite wrong. Jason plays a mean drum, pinpoint and severely catchy, and also mixed in much higher than you'd hear a drumset this side of Death From Above 1979. That may be a stretch to compare him to such a hard-driving dance-punk group, but the dude can play, and his drumming went a long way to helping impress Mates Of State's live show upon me. Kori's crafty synth work (creating a palpable atmosphere throughout every song) and equally deft keyboard playing even made up for the lack of guitar. I even found it a fun little game to compare them to the only other husband-wife duo I've seen live: Handsome Furs, at this year's Virgin Festival. Whereas the Furs put wife on drum machine/synth and husband on a wall of distorted guitar, Mates took a different approach with the real drums and fake pianos/synth. Vastly different styles of course, but two neat approaches to coping with not having a full band.

Many of the songs were thumping, superbly catchy, upbeat (notice I love that word/style?), and sometimes downright ecstatic. The onstage presence of the duo was business-like as mentioned, to the point where each one basically knew what to do, talked little in between songs, and just played out the show. The audience probably wasn't helping either, as after four acts and two venues I was literally nodding off at some points, and I wasn't the only one from the number of yawns I saw going around The Paragon. If Mates Of State were tired, we were certainly doing no better. Refreshingly, there was only one really drunk guy I saw, as the crowds tend to be a bit better behaved at The Paragon than at other venues.

The rest of the place could've used a drink though thinking back, as I remember that every time a song ended, you could only hear what seemed like the front quarter of the place clapping. Sing-a-longs were few and far between, as I was standing by ostensibly the only four or five people who knew any of the Mates' material. Even our clapping for the encore resembled a forced gesture, with few whoops if any, and moreso a feeling that we owed it to the band as the headliners to ask for an encore, and they owed it in return to give us one.

I'm basically going out on a limb and saying last night's show was like staying in a relationship that's not working for either person, but you keep riding it out because you know that soon enough, it's gonna be over. I was even so hungry and tired that I felt a little microcosm of that myself: once the show was over, I could swing by McDonald's and then pass out on my bed. Is that the feeling you want during a show, let alone the headliners? I'd probably say no.

Some musical notes though before I finish - because there actually was some music being played while all of this was going on. "My Only Offer" was definitely their showstopper, as they performed a rousing rendition. The rest of the tunes definitely had me questioning the point of even putting songs on a band's myspace page, when they sound so little like that live. I mean, they kinda blew my socks off at some points last night, taking me into the rhythm and melody of the tracks with barely a drum kick and a synth stab. For all their laissez-faire attitude up there, they sure can still bang out the songs when need be.

Mates Of State - "My Only Offer"

My overall lesson from last night? Don't trust myspace; bands some bands are better live than you'd think...while others...not so much.

Phantom...Pt. 1

2009-10-18T20:41:00.000-07:00

Walking back home from a night out on Friday, I passed a small bar, and thought I heard the faintest sliver of "Phantom Pt. 1" by Justice. For literally the next twenty minutes I was walking back, I whistled the brain-sticking notes of that electro tune, and didn't tire of it once.

Of course, I stopped for a bit when I waited to see if the guy with alcohol-poisoning across the street was being tended to well enough, but once I was assured of the latter, I went right back to whistling away. I've always been a big fan of Justice - I love their music, I like their remixes, I've watched "A Cross The Universe" - a hilarious and sometimes scary look at their North American tour - a number of times...but given all that, I still never actually had their full album. I've expressed on here before that I'm not really an album guy, but the more time wears on, the more I see the sense in it. Songs are made and arranged in album form - so why not listen to them as such?

So the day after my walk, I got Cross in its entirety. There were really two impetuses (impetuii?...nope) for that; one being "Phantom" embedding itself in my head for the majority of the walk home, and more notably, waiting for the Thunderheist show the other week, the club hosting the event played Cross front to back on their amazing sound system. Between the two, I was more than sold.

Obviously - as always - I'm like two years late with this, but it's just a small slice of what makes Justice so good in my books. From my perspective, mainly from having heard "Phantom Pt. 2" over and over again, "Pt. 1" seems like the slower, choppier and almost backwards-sounding companion to the sequel. Strangely, that's all meant in a complimentary fashion, and if you listen to them back-to-back (album-wise, that's how they're arranged as well), you'll see what I mean.

Justice - Phantom Pt. 1

Pnau - Baby (Breakbot Remix)

2009-10-08T20:46:00.000-07:00

I imagine that picture sucks if you're colour-blind

Little makes me happier musically than listening to this song. It's true. There's an undeniable joy in the Breakbot remix of "Baby," and I bet you anything it comes from that children's choir singing the tune. The production may be another factor, as well as the piano, which I'm always a sucker for...but I'm pretty sure it boils down to those kids. The record shows that using children/children's choirs works to spectacular effect in making a song popular (see: Justice - "D.A.N.C.E."), so it's a wonder more artists don't do it, especially in genres like electro, where very little singing is done by the artists themselves.

PNAU - Baby (Breakbot Remix)

As an interesting aside: part of the duo that's PNAU is Nick Littlemore, currently of Empire Of The Sun - so the man knows his catchy electro/dream-pop. And briefly? This is the remix of "Baby." Guess what? The original sucks. I mean sucks. I'm pretty sure I stopped it before it even finished playing out it was that bad, and it's one of the few songs I know of that's been so totally and pleasingly transformed from the original that it's completely blown it out of the water. Here it is if you wanna compare and contrast, but I personally hated the thing.

White Rabbits - Percussion Gun

2009-10-08T20:22:00.000-07:00

perfect for magic tricks

It's about time to just go back to some good old-fashioned song-postin' fun. "Percussion Gun" by White Rabbits is something that combines a lot of different styles and a few different sounds that I'm a huge fan of. Much of my indie listening is influenced by what I liked early on tuning in to Indie 103.1, a station around Orange County, California that conveniently pops up on iTunes Radio.

"Percussion Gun" to me screams the kind of indie that station plays cuts of, and even more specifically, it has the local feel of the LA-alt-rock scene: a sound mined by the likes of the Smashing Pumpkins, Silversun Pickups, and even lesser-known groups like Darker My Love. When I heard "Percussion Gun" a few weeks ago, it sounded familiar. Now, I don't know if it's the fact I'd heard it on Indie 103.1 before, or if its LA-centric sound was just that strong. However, the singer's voice echoes the impassioned and throaty shouts of groups like The Walkmen and The Rapture, groups more associated with the New York scene. Either way, there's a darkish tone to the song that doesn't really get fleshed out - and to pleasing results.

White Rabbits - Percussion Gun

The track could've been a sombre stroll through melancholy, but the steady strum of the bass, the gaudy piano stabs, and the glintzy guitar work jazz up your regular kiss-off tune. Add in the slightest sliver of a backing choir, and "Percussion Gun" really has everything going for it, as well as going on in it. But above all, it's the lead singer's delivery that really grabs the spotlight; he's standoffish without being specifically mean-spirited - even starting the song off with "Feel Good Inc."-reminiscent laughter - and the strains of "and iiiiiiii know/which way you run, you're a child my love/I feel the same" bely a sense of empathy for whomever the track's directed at.

There's a lot going on in this song, and multiple listens only help to understand and appreciate one of the better tunes this year.

I've immigrated

2009-10-07T18:48:00.000-07:00

it was tough, but I made it safe

I moved the blog's address to www.ialreadytookthat.blogspot.com. It's easier to spell, more digestable...and whatsnottakenyet was already taken, so go figure. I also did it because I might have a chance to get on to hypem if I post actively enough. Dunno if it's gonna affect anything existing on the blog already, but I don't think it should. Cheers.

untitled (?)

2009-10-07T17:41:00.000-07:00

el marqo de questiano

I'm writing this as I take my first listen to track 5 from Wolf Eyes & Black Dice's self-titled album. Two things off the bat: every one of the seven songs on this LP is titled "Untitled," with two of the tracks having "(rough mix)" attached to their non-names; secondly, Wolf Eyes and Black Dice are two separate noise bands who came together halfway through this decade to craft what some believe is the best noise compilation yet.

I've always been interested in noise rock, but not necessarily noise. Even as open-minded as I am, I'll admit I find it quite challenging to listen to, and although there's some variations I enjoy, they tend to be the more upbeat and - dare I say - conventional-sounding compositions. An example here, from the above-mentioned Black Dice:

Black Dice - Glazin'

You see? There's weird noises; blips, scratches, slides, abrupt snippets of real instruments, electro clashes and the chugging backbeat of leathery scale upon leathery scale of...noise. But there's that bouncy element of fun and light-heartedness overshadowing all of that, and I find that's what's really lacking from the Wolf Eyes & Black Dice album. So then, a few particular things I wanted to touch on concerning the Wolf Eyes and Black Dice combination:

1.) It sounds like Halloween. That's right. If you wanted to soundtrack one of those creepy displays the odd person sets up outside their house for that one all-unholy day of the year, there'd be nothing better to throw on than the otherworldy electronic grumblings of this album. 10 minutes into this 15:13 epic that is track 5, there's that perfect balance of old, creaky swingset and percussion tapped just lightly enough, just menacingly enough, that it would scare away any child even considering a candy grab from the front porch.

2.) Like I said, every track is untitled. Now this makes for a really, really interesting activity that it's a real shame more groups haven't thought of in this wholly-technological age, when everyone and their aunt has an iPod and iTunes. You can name the songs whatever the hell you want. I'm aware some bands do gimmicks like this once in a while, but an entire album? It's genius. So right from the start, I loaded the songs into my iTunes, and decided to name each one what I thought was most appropriate as I listened to it. Kind of like that game where you say the first thing that pops in your head when someone else says something. But with music. My results?

You can see there wasn't exactly Fall Out Boy-song-title-level thinking put into this. It's just what those songs sounded like to me. Some of them are quite obvious, as the tinkling noises in "Diamonds" easily lent themselves to that title, the laser sounds in "Spaceships" accenting that selection, the unnatural moans and groans of "Zombies" making that one an easy choice, and "Geese" approximating just well enough the vibe of track 6.

3.) I'm deleting the entire album from my iTunes and from my hard-drive the minute this song ends. Not to say I don't appreciate noise music, but let me put it this way: I wouldn't throw it on, in any situation really. It's too depressing for long drives. It's too discomforting to fall asleep to. There's much better albums to put on doing things around the apartment. All-in-all, this is something you'd have to be seriously tripped out on drugs to fully - I hesitate to say "enjoy" - tolerate.

Tolerate really is the operative word here. The music isn't danceable - some might not even call it "music" at that. It might even be a totally ear-grating experience for others to listen to, though I found it bearable for the most part. Creativity comes in all forms, but real beauty is obviously in the ear of the beholder. For me, noise still isn't really where it's at, at least done in this manner. But enjoy that Black Dice track, and take the Wolf Eyes & Black Dice LP for a spin if you're feeling experimental...and if you wanna try naming the tracks yourself any different.

the xx | album review

2009-10-02T13:04:00.000-07:00

I really can't say anything that hasn't been said about these guys. They're the hottest new thing out of London. They've all only just turned 20 years old. They're seemingly the greatest indie wunderkinds since the Strokes almost a decade ago now. They've been featured everywhere from being named "Best New Music" on Pitchfork, to freakin' sports-centric ESPN. They're the xx (not "double x," just "ex ex").

So I'm not gonna bore you with details about the group. They're young, they're awesome, wise and talented beyond their years, blah blah blah. Guess what? It all comes down to sex appeal, believe it or not. I've been quite averse and wary of the hype surrounding the group for months now, so articles I've read on them are few and far between. The sex appeal may have very well been mentioned (I know for a fact it has on Pitchfork's review, with the site stating that the songs are "mostly about sex"), but maybe moreso as a side effect, than the actual cause of their overall appeal.

Romy Madley Croft, one half of the guy-girl vocalists in the xx, shines as an uninteresting (uninterested?) and disaffected vocalist, flipping between sorry and flirty. She's the mood-swinging girlfriend, who loves you and lusts for you one day, and she's an emotional and apologizing wreck the next. The songs are all so minimal that the vocals are predominant enough so as to give the impression you've simply got the TV turned on to "The OC," but you're in another room. Basically, all you're getting is the dialogue from the show, with some moody music. That's about the easiest way to sum the xx up.

Is that meant disparagingly? Not in the least. I love these guys. Just absolutely head over heels for them. Yes, I was totally wary of the hype in the beginning. Didn't even bother reading the whole review on Pitchfork I don't think. I was sick of hearing that a bunch of minimalist teens were the big thing right now, especially after a summer plagued by minimalist crap being hyped far beyond its expiry date. The problem with all that crap though? The lo-fi aesthetic that seems so necessary nowadays. Barely-heard lyrics. Fuzzed-out guitars. Short and spurt-ish blasts that are gone before you can truly squeeze all the joy out of them.

The greatest thing about the xx? You guessed it: none of the above. When I finally got on their good side, it was from listening to "Heart Skips A Beat" on hypem's Top 20, and then going to the blog featuring that one and hearing "Islands" and "VCR," loving all three. The songs are unequivocally crisp-sounding, the lyrics almost-whispered in many instances, but clearly heard. The guitars and bass are by turns jangling and mood-setting. Aside from the instrumental intro, not a song below 2:30. It's just an impossibly and impeccably good album, especially for a debut, and especially for the age of the curators and performers.

Back to that sex appeal though. It's just oozing here, and it's not in the subtle and sultry ways that older and more mature bands dabble in. This foursome is all about getting it right now, in the most direct way possible. "If you want me/Let me know" is the sentiment echoed so straightforwardly on the most back-and-forth exchange on the disc, "Stars." I read that the xx are influenced by R&B. I unfailingly am unable to pick out hip-hop and R&B when it comes to any form of rock; it all just sounds like good rock music to me, so hell if I think the xx sound like R&B. But I do know nothing makes for betting make-out sessions than throwing on some heartfelt R&B ballads. These kids seem to take that one step further, fleshing out the physical experience over 11 tracks and 38 minutes. It's bedroom rock, if ever such a thing existed.

It's going to be extremely interesting to see where these guys take it from here. They could implode from the pressures and hype and never make another album, let alone one approaching the likable qualities of their eponymous debut. They could add more members, a string section, some industry all-stars, and end up playing the kind of all-encompassing and seizing music that a collective like Broken Social Scene does so effectively. They certainly have the right mindset for that kind of music, and their current tracks certainly have enough quiet space for that kind of arrangement to bring out that little extra in the music.

Final verdict? This may not be a completely awe-inspiring album, or even on the level of some of my favorites. But it's a fun album, in more ways than one. You can throw it on at any time during the day...though it works best at night, whether by yourself and feeling a little lonesome and appreciative of the night, or for those fun nights when you might have someone else with you filling up that lonely space.

Song recommendations? Too many to make. I already mentioned attention-getters "Islands," "VCR" and "Heart Skipped A Beat," but there is actually not one bad song on the album. I mean that. "Basic Space" and "Crystalised" are actually the xx's two singles out right now, and I didn't even mention them yet. That's five really solid tracks up front. I'm on my ninth listen of the album in three days, and nothing's lost its replay value. I mean, just get out and get the whole thing, you can't go wrong. If you're not convinced though, here's the track I initially fell in love with, alongside another standout:

The xx - Islands

The xx - Heart Skips A Beat

what is that song?

2009-10-02T12:21:00.001-07:00

Hopefully the post's title doesn't become a long-running gimmick - I hate not knowing what a piece of music is if I like it. This post however stems from a shopping trip to American Eagle (don't worry, I didn't buy anything) last weekend. It really serves two purposes that I'll elaborate on: 1.) the commercialization of indie music 2.) Wolf Parade

We'll get to Wolf Parade first, as it's ostensibly the easier issue to tackle. The Montreal group, fronted by now-one half of Handsome Furs (looked at here on WNTY here, here and here), Dan Boeckner, and now-Sunset Rubdown band leader (featured here), Spencer Krug, has been around long enough that it's one of those other groups I regret not getting into earlier. I've certainly tried to keep abreast of Handsome Furs and Sunset Rubdown since discovering them, but Wolf Parade's back-catalog is only something I've dabbled in conservatively. Again: mistake.

Wolf Parade is evidently the more exciting, engaging, alt-rock-centric precursor to both (major) offshoot groups it spawned. They mix Spencer and Dan's vocals interchangeably, and it's amazing how two people who are so outwardly different can have two similar and equally pained-sounding voices. When listening to a Handsome Furs or Sunset Rubdown album, it can get tiresome listening to each guy holding his own for a full length, but interspersed with each other, it becomes much more bearable, and even inviting to listen to. It's also striking how aside from slow marches like "Dinner Bells," Wolf Parade is able to consistently contrast the guys' dullish voices with such upbeat instrumentation.

Anyways, I've known about Wolf Parade for over a year now, but I have to admit to just listening to their debut album, Apologies To The Queen Mary this morning. How I got around to that however is where the story lies. Chilling at American Eagle on a shopping trip, I was greeted with the sounds of Spoon and other indie legends, as well as a few up-and-comers I all recognized. That is, until a certain song came on, and the voice sounded extremely familiar, though the song did not. I knew it wasn't Interpol, though the sadness in the voice echoed lead singer Paul Banks' delivery - and of course Joy Division's Ian Curtis if we're playing that game.

Now, most people who I really like, I can pick out their music quite adeptly if I've heard enough of it. Given that I've heard three album's worth of Dan and Spencer's music away from Wolf Parade, it was a bit disheartening that I had to wait for the TV screen announcing American Eagle's playlist to tell me that I was, in fact, listening to "Shine A Light" by Wolf Parade. Upon realizing it was a Wolf Parade song, I was instantly struck by the catchiness and pure feeling captured in the song, even over the speakers at a retail outlet. Now, Handsome Furs and Sunset Rubdown both feature their own share of emotion, but it's sometimes convoluted, and in Sunset Rubdown's case, downright weird and indecipherable. Wolf Parade offered something more palatable, accessible, and ultimately, pop-ish.

(This is the part where I post my own mp3 link, or one from hypem, but as luck would have it, basically every single one of Wolf Parade's songs has been removed from hypem's database, which means Wolf Parade really doesn't want their music being shared that way...regardless, below is a link I got through hypem from a post on hearya.com, so credit goes to them)

Wolf Parade - Shine A Light

Now the second issue at hand. The commercialization and mainstreaming of indie. I'll keep this as short and sweet as possible, though an entire essay could easily be written about the topic. Kids, teens, young adults, and even twentysomethings tend to love indie music. They also tend to shop at the same stores. Maybe it's just that I heard Wolf Parade playing in an American Eagle, which is the poster-store for largely dressing like a trust-fund douchebag, even though you may not be anywhere near that well-off. (Full disclosure: Yes, I have pieces of clothing from American Eagle. I certainly don't shop there regularly though, and I have a certain self-consciousness about me when I am looking for clothes there.)

Back to the music however. It makes perfect sense to play music that your shoppers would like. But when you think about the kind of aesthetic and corporate image American Eagle has, it would seem that getting played there would fulfill every criteria of "selling out," whether by the band's design or not. Where, especially in a realm like indie culture, selling out and authenticity are always at the helm of current issues, you have to consider being irked a little bit by the whole thing. "Indie" itself is derived from "independent," as in the record labels that went their own way and did their own thing, instead of following suit (and suits) with the major record labels. Such a fierce and ingrained sense of independence breeds a mistrust for mainstreaming and selling out, while maintaining an undeniable emphasis on authenticity. Plainly and simply, it just doesn't feel authentic for American Eagle to play Wolf Parade.

Whether or not that's a harsh criticism of American Eagle is up to the individual, but take it for what you will. But like any other company, it will cater to what the majority wants, and that requires constantly changing your stance on something. Indie is "in" right now. If country somehow made a huge leap to the mainstream and dominated in sectors like indie is doing currently, I'm sure American Eagle would be playing the hell out of that too. But for now, indie feels like it's mine and ours, so when you see corporations pimping it out, you have to take it a little personally.

That being said, all thanks to American Eagle for playing that Wolf Parade track and igniting an interest in me for them. So what am I trying to say here? I don't know.

get a drink, have a good time now, welcome to paradise

2009-10-01T15:58:00.000-07:00

I'm just as lost as you

The only reason I even discovered this song was because of Pitchfork's list of the Top 50 Videos of the last decade, where you'll conveniently find "Since I Left You" as the 4th greatest video on that list. I'd greatly recommend watching the video first, because every time after that, whenever you hear this song, you'll be reminded of what goes on in it (I'm not gonna describe it...just go watch it). Usually, a music video would ruin my mental image of a song, and I'm not exactly the biggest fan of music videos in the first place. So "Since I Left You" is definitely an exception.

The song itself is - like the entirety of The Avalanches' work - a combination of dozens of samples, both musical and vocal. Whereas Girl Talk pieces them together while quite obviously keeping the originals intact (mashing if you will), The Avalanches masterfully craft entire new songs using just snippets of ones they'd spent many an hour digging through crates for to find. Eventually, I'm going to get around to listening to the full album of the same name as the single, but I'm a little hesitant right now, given that "Frontier Psychiatry," their only other song I've heard, is basically a mindfuck of juxtaposed vocal samples straight out of 1940's and 50's television and radio ads and shows.

The Avalanches - Since I Left You

"Since I Left You" is then a weird juxtaposition in itself. It's a song where I gladly let the music video "ruin" my impression of it, while I won't chance listening to the rest of the (highly-regarded) album it's featured on, for fear it might sully what's left of my impression of The Avalanches. It's certainly an amazing song in its own right, dream pop mixing tinkling bells, flute, female vocals, an unashamedly disco groove, bouncy keyboards, and even an intro consisting of guitar and shouting you'd expect to hear from an afternoon at a South American weekend market. I just don't know if the rest of the album will be filled with similarly stunning material, or something that just degrades my already fragile impression of the group - this song not withstanding of course.