June 2012
91 posts
88 Days of Fortune: 3rd Anniversary Party featuring THEESatisfaction TONIGHT / Time Travelers Mixtape
If you read this blog regularly, you already know about Stasia Irons and Catherine Harris-White aka Stas and Cat of THEESatisfaction. If you live in the T.Dot/GTA region and you have at all dug what they do, then you need to be at their performance tonight at the Third Anniversary celebration for the local urban progressive artist collective, 88 Days of Fortune. Don’t sleep, NOW magazine knows what’s up and featured the event in this week’s issue that just hit newsstands this morning. Check it:
88DAYS OF FORTUNE 3 YEAR ANNIVERSARY PARTY & PERFORMANCE
FEATURING:
THEESATISFACTION {SUB POP RECORDS}
WITH PERFORMANCES BY:
LES FEMME FATALES
88 DAYS
PROGRESS {REDPILL MUSIC}
HOSTED BY: DAINTY BOX
DJ SUNSUN , DJ CAT & STAS ALL NIGHT LONG!
DATE: THURSDAY JUNE 28TH
TIME: DOORS @9PM SHOW @10PM
PLACE: CINECYCLE 129 SPADINA
PRICE: $12 IN ADVANCE - ticketzone.com [click link to buy tix]
$18 AT THE DOOR
*LIMITED CAPACITY
19+
CLICK HERE for more info at the Facebook event page.
Still not convinced? Then check the 88 Days’ latest Time Travelers mixtape (Side A and B):
[mixtape via Brendan]
A Look at the Polaris Long List: 38. The Weeknd – Echoes of Silence
This is one of the few nominated albums I was already familiar with before the Polaris long list was announced last week. Not to toot my own horn but I was the person largely responsible for getting The Weeknd short-listed last year. But as you know if you read this blog regularly, neither The Weeknd’s Thursday or Echoes Of Silence mixtapes made it onto my Long List ballot for this year.
I think Abel is an important artist, not just for ‘urban’ music in Canada but music in general but if I had to keep it one hunid, I’d say House of Balloons is still his best work to date. That being said, compared to a lot of the albums I’ve been listening to on the Long List this past week, Echoes of Silence might actually be competitive for Short List consideration after all. BTW: not sure what’s going on but the amazing cover of Michael Jackson’s “Dirty Diana” he opened EOS with has been excised from this soundcloud embed for some reason so this is not technically the real, full album posted above.
[via]
A Look at the Polaris Long List: 26. Mares Of Thrace - The Pilgrimage
Look at that picture up top, then hit play on this album. Not to be sexist but yes, those women created this music. Others are raving about this ‘noise-doom’ (read, ‘metal’) duo’s album, The Pilgrimage. Frankly, I found it tough to get through, and even harder to process from a crticial point of view. Did I like it? Was it good??! I wonder if this is how pure rock heads feel when playing hip-hop albums? There’s only been one ‘modern era’ metal album I really was into and I’m not even sure how that happened but that album was The Deftones’ White Pony. This was not that album in terms of how I reacted to it. Maybe Mares Of Thrace’s The Pilgrimage will be a surprise short list nominee but if it is, it won’t be with my vote.
[audio stream via Totally Fuzzy]
A Look at the Polaris Long List: 40. Yukon Blonde - Tiger Talk
This was an interesting one. The songs were very down-the-middle and accessible in sound. Nothing really cool or cutting edge about it. Tiger Talk kicked off with some tracks that reminded me of all those knock-off ‘new wave’ songs that you’d hear in 80s era teen B-movies and then some tracks that reminded me of the post-new wave UK acts who followed that era like Big Country and Tears for Fears that became staples of early alternative radio stations like CFNY and K-ROCK. Speaking of radio stations it me or does the track, “Radio” sound like an unplugged variation on Devo’s “Whip It”?
I will give Yukon Blonde credit though: the songs were catchy, upbeat & fun sounding, the production pretty immaculate and, as someone who grew up on those sounds, I enjoyed hearing a new group use them in a fresh way that didn’t feel like a total pastiche (no gratuitous and slavish use of 80s style synthesizers, for example). By the end, the feel of the songs had become more contemporary but it still held together as a single body of work and a cohesive-sounding album. That being said though, you’d be hard-pressed to convince me this album is really the pinnacle of musical creativity (or artistic integrity, however I’m supposed to gauge that??) in Canada. Fun listen? Yes. Award winner? Not to my ears.
[soundcloud player via Exclaim!]
A Look at the Polaris Long List: 27. Ariane Moffatt - MA
This Quebecois singer’s synth-y flavored, bi-lingual indie pop wasn’t bad. I would term it pleasant and innocuous even (actually kind of liked the steel pan-powered “Too Late”). But music that sounds like it could soundtrack a late 20-something professional women’s kind of hip dinner or cocktail parties in their CB2/West Elm-furnished downtown condo lofts are generally not albums I think of as being serious contenders for winning the Polaris Prize. Just my point of view, of course. Look for this to be on sale in the CD section next time you’re in a Starbucks or soundtracking the next wave of Gap or iPhone commercials (possibly….)
Hit the jump to hear the full album via RDIO [preview snippets only for non-RDIO subscribers]
A Look at the Polaris Long List: 21. Great Lake Swimmers - New Wild Everywhere
Heard this group’s name for while but never really knew much about them or their music. I finally got to hear the music because they headlined a show that Cold Specks opened for them on a few weeks back. Truth be told, I really went to see Cold Specks who blew me away live pretty much just as much, if not more than, she did on record. I stayed for a few songs of GLS’s set but ended up cutting out early, maybe about five songs in. Not that they’re wack but the prospect of yet another album of country/folk-tinged indie pop had me feeling the same way just a few songs into this album. I stuck it out for two runs through but this is just not my thing.
[album stream via AUX-TV]
A Look at the Polaris Long List: 22. Grimes - Visions
Grimes is one of those photogenic buzz artists, popular with critics and hipster fans alike, that you wanna hate. She looks .like an oddball Scarlet Johansson (sort of) and sings like Elizabeth Fraser (Cocteau Twins) mixed with Minnie Ripperton (at least with the aid of studio trickery, she does. IRL? No idea). Her 80’s informed electronic, synth pop sound is heavy on effects and artifice but I can’t front, there’s some substance to it. Visions is worthy follow-up to her should-have-been-nominated-last-year Halfaxa album despite having the lousiest cover art I have seen in a long, long time - just terrible! Dig the track, “Oblivion” above, a stand-out from Visions, though? Then hit the jump to check out the rest of the album via RDIO (non-subscribers will hear preview snippets only).
A Look at the Polaris Long List: 10. Kathryn Calder - Bright And Vivid
I guess the most notable thing about Kathryn Calder is that she pinch hit for Neko Case as replacement vocalist in The New Pornographers when the latter left that acclaimed indie pop powerhouse collective to pursue a solo career.
But almost as notable is that this record was the second of two Calder recorded in her living room within a one year period while caring for her terminally ill mother. I know the amount of studio & outboard effects and recording & processing power most laptops pack nowadays is pretty stupendous but that being said, this album still sounds amazing given how it was recorded. You couldn’t tell me this wasn’t a full-on studio recorded effort. On top of that the songs are accessible full of sharp lyrics and melodies while Calder’s vocals sound great - I mean this in the best possible way: think if Madonna could really actually sing and had decided to go the indie pop route instead of becoming a world-conquering disco/dance-pop megastar instead. This is good stuff for those of you inclined towards big sound indie pop with electronic effects as garnishment. A worthy long list choice. Don’t believe me? Then hit the jump to listen to the entire album via RDIO (preview snippets only for non-RDIO subscribers).
A Look at the Polaris Long List: 25. Dan Mangan - Oh Fortune
Yes, more indie folk sounds! :/ To be fair, Dan Managan’s take on this apparently most favorite genre with Polaris jurors isn’t strictly the same ole’. Many of the tracks have a layered, orchestral feel with horns and instrumentation that lend some of them an anthemic feel. Breaking up what is rapidly becoming a monotonous listening experience for me in this way is appreciated, but it doesn’t quite add to me being excited enough about this album to consider it a real short list contender on my ballot.
[album stream via AUX-TV]
Michael Joseph Jackson: August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009
Still the King and G.O.A.T. “I Want You Back” is my favorite pop song of all time and how I feel. R.I.P. we still miss you three years later, Michael.
A Look at the Polaris Long List: 18. Kathleen Edwards - Voyageur
I won’t lie. it’s hard for me to get into these singer-songwriter type albums with their folk, country or other influences thrown in the mix. Honestly they all kind of sound the same to me unless the vocals or songs are unique or exceptionally stand-out in some way. No disrespect to Ms. Edwards but while I couldn’t honestly say her album Voyageur, a musing on travel from what I’ve read, was terrible or anything like that, it didn’t cut through for me in a way that made me want to play it again or think that it sounded like it was a real contender the title of the best album made in Canada over the past year. I did like the last track, “For the Record” though. Here’s a couple other tracks from it for you to check out too:
Like those? Then hit the jump to hear the entire album via RDIO (preview snippets only will play if you are non-RDIO subscriber).
A Look at the Polaris Long List: 16. Mark Davis - Eliminate the Toxins
Had to sniff around online to get a context for what I was listening to with this one: roots rocks infused with some post-rock influences, huh? OK. I can’t say that this album was bad or anything like that, it just wasn’t the kind of sound that moves me or the kind of record that I would play regularly. Here’s the title track for your perusal though:
Dig that? The hit the jump to check out the entire album via RDIO (preview snippets only for non-RDIO subscribers).
A Look at the Polaris Long List: 7. The Barr Brothers - The Barr Brothers
Part of the delay I had in reviewing this and the Bahamas album which are next to each other on the page of Long List nominees was that I had a bit of a problem distinguishing one from the other when I played them.
I guess after multiple listen to both I would say this album more of an overtly Americana (Canadiana??) feel musically and vocally it has more in the way of harmonies courtesy of group members and brothers, Brad and Andrew Barr and the occasional guest vocals.
This is not the kind of album I tend to listen to or get excited about in general unless the songs are really exceptional or transcendent which they may be for connoisseurs of this style of music but not for me although for some reason I really dug “Give the Devil Back His Heart” with it’s very 70s era Who-like breakdown section. Dig what you heard in the sampler above though? Then hit the jump for a full album stream player via Paste magazine.
A Look at the Polaris Long List: 6. Bahamas - Barchords
A facile description of this album would be to just call it singer-songwriter music with touches of folk and blues. I am not sure that’s really doing it justice though. Vocalist, Afie Jurvanen has an affecting voice that at times reminded me of Coldplay’s Chris Martin when he’s singing ballads and this is a sold collection of music (stream it above) that is a worthy Long List nominee to my ears. I’ve actually played this album a few times just ‘cos I was trying to get my head around it but I’m not sure this is really threatening to make my short list ballot but wouldn’t be surprised or upset if it did make the short list.
[album stream Paste Magazine via the Totally Fuzzy blog]
A Look at the Polaris Long List: 30. Sandro Perri - Impossible Spaces
This is f-cking NICE! Just this side of delicate. Imagine if Kid A-era Radiohead decided to go acoustic and dabble in samba and you’ll get at least some sense of what Sandro Perri is doing here musically. “Futureactive Kid (Part 1)”? Wow! The whole thing is just beautiful though….
