Highly recommended this month: Robert
Plant
Worth your while: The Wooden Sky,
Ventanas, Moonface, Tricky
The following reviews ran in the
Waterloo Record in September.
Hiss Golden Messenger – Lateness of
Dancers (Merge)
M.C. Taylor of Durham, N.C., is,
based on his lyrics, probably the kind of guy who works long hours at his day
job, is a family man at night, leaves his mandolin in the rain and lives for
the moment every week when he and his buds get together for a few smokes and
some epic jams. Taylor has a Dylanesque drawl, not unlike Adam Granduciel of
The War on Drugs—but where that band filters their Americana through driving
Krautrock beats, Taylor and Hiss Golden Messenger slide easily into the grooves
of The Band and Southern rock. The performances are better than any of the
actual songs here; the keyboardist and drummer in particular give these sparse
songs plenty of subtle soul. (Sept. 4)
Download: “Lucia,” “Saturday’s Song,”
“I’m a Raven (Shake Children)”
Vance Joy – Dream Your Life Away
(Warner)
It’s frosh season. Our cities are
overrun with 19-year-olds entering unfamiliar environs, meeting new friends,
missing old ones, and singing songs together at closing time. Once the party
spills back into the dorm rooms, there will be someone with a guitar playing,
among other things, Vance Joy songs.
It’s most likely to be “Riptide,” a
hit earlier this year; it might also be “Mess Is Mine,” the song most likely to
be played at weddings five years down the road by couples meeting this week.
Joy may be riding on a post-Lumineers zeitgeist moment, with his slightly
Celtic melodies and largely acoustic instrumentation, but his songs are less
gimmicky. There’s nothing in a Vance Joy song that could possibly ruffle any
feather (sample titles: “All I Ever Wanted,” “Best That I Can,” “We All Die
Trying to Get It Right”); he’s an everyman making pleasant music that never
descends into the treacly. Just because this is the kind of music that surfers
might play around campfires in Joy’s native Australia doesn’t make him a new
Jack Johnson. It makes him a lot better. For the frosh today, he’s probably
going to be the soundtrack of their lives. (Sept. 18)
Download: “Mess is Mine,” “Riptide,” “First
Time”
Lowell – We Loved Her Dearly (Arts
and Crafts)
A 23-year-old, globetrotting
Calgarian who dropped out of the University of Toronto’s music school to write
songs for the likes of the Backstreet Boys (yes, in 2013), Lowell comes with an
impressive resumé even before this, her debut album. She’s every bit the modern
girl: part Tegan and Sara, part Lykke Li, part, um, Bananarama. A sunnier and
peppier Cat Power, slave to no genre, writing occasionally candid personal
songs to upbeat poppy beats. It’s smarter than (what’s presumed to be) teen pop;
it’s too juvenile for anyone over 30 (i.e., the chorus that goes, “Money, hey!
Money, woo!”). One of the catchiest songs is “LGBT”: a simple, sing-songy
trifle with the chorus: “Hello my name is LGBT / don’t take out your misery on
me / I’m happy, I’m happy and free.” It all sounds tailor-made for a spot on
the Girls soundtrack. As a bold new artist, Lowell is one to watch. And while
half of all frosh students will be learning Vance Joy songs on guitar, the
other half is probably dancing to Lowell. (Sept. 18)
Download: “Cloud 69,” “LGBT,” “Words
Were the Wars”
Moonface is the most recent moniker
for Spencer Krug, late of Wolf Parade and Sunset Rubdown. It’s supposed to be a
catch-all name where every record sounds different from the last—until now,
where this EP follows lockstep behind 2013’s Polaris long-listed Julia With
Blue Jeans On, in its stripped-down piano-and-voice arrangements. Krug has gone
full-on piano lounge, except this lounge is in a run-down hotel in smalltown
Finland, where a misplaced Anglophone is pouring his heart out over minor
chords. The title track is as personal as Krug has ever been, speaking frankly
about why he left Montreal for Helsinki several years back (he recently
relocated again, to Vancouver Island). “We all know safety is a blessing and a
curse,” he sings. Which is why he is unafraid to sing whatever’s on his mind:
even when the lyrics fall flat or he’s uncomfortably frank, his piano playing
is beautiful—despite odd, ham-fisted outbreaks that shatter the mood—and he’s
singing better than he ever has. Moonface is confounding, deliberately so, it
seems. It’s raw. It’s honest. And Spencer Krug is making some of the best music
of his storied career. (Sept. 18)
Download: “City Wrecker,” “Running in
Place With Everyone,” “Daughter of a Dove”
Karen O – Crush Songs (Sony)
The debut solo album from Yeah Yeah
Yeahs singer Karen O is not new. She says she wrote and recorded these songs
when she was 27, when she “crushed a lot. I wasn’t sure I’d ever fall in love
again.” There’s no official word on whether this has anything to do with a
leaked demo CD (stolen from a suitcase misplaced by
TV on the Radio’s Dave Sitek) made in 2006—the year Ms. O was 27. Either way,
why is she choosing to release this time capsule now?
Crush Songs is a lo-fi affair,
seemingly recorded on a four-track tape deck, featuring just O (and her own
backing vocals) and a guitar, not unlike “Modern Romance” or “Subway” or any
time the Yeah Yeah Yeahs have included a hushed, Lou Barlow-ish bedroom
recording amidst their usual rock’n’roll maelstrom. The only difference is that
the Yeah Yeah Yeahs are a three-headed songwriting partnership; O on her own
can offer only half-baked ideas. Being the charismatic vocalist she is, of
course, she doesn’t have to do much more than show up; she’s a compelling
presence no matter the circumstance. Sadly, this serves more as a historical
curiosity rather than a statement from a major artist. It’s no Nebraska. (Sept. 18)
Download: “Ooo,” “Body King,” “Sing
Along”
Never mind Led Zeppelin. Or even
Alison Krauss. Remember the Afro-Celt Soundsystem? Robert Plant sang on a 2001 track
by that cross-cultural experiment—the template for 1,001 folk festival
workshops ever since—and it informs much of this new album, where African
blues, Celtic banjos and fiddles (actually a Gambian riti), and electronic
beats dominate the sound. It could easily fall flat on its face—and sometimes
it does. But Robert Plant is a classy guy these days (see also: his excellent
2010 album Band of Joy), and here he’s assembled an impeccable band—featuring
collaborators of Jah Wobble and Portishead—to execute his plan. (Reassembled,
actually; many of them were part of his Strange Sensation band in the early
2000s, including guitarist Justin Adams.)
There is more lullaby here than
ceaseless roar: Plant is a zen state, even if his recent divorce from Patty Griffin
finds him singing about “the breaking of two hearts” on “House of Love (Is
Burning Down).” The only time he attempts to pick up the tempo is on “Turn It
Up,” a track about as imaginative as its title; it’s the only clunker on this
remarkably consistent record, which channels its intensity in much more subtle
ways—especially on the stark piano ballad “A Stolen Kiss,” where the
66-year-old singer delivers one of his loveliest vocals, perhaps ever. (Sept.
11)
Download: “Little Maggie,” “A Stolen
Kiss,” “Up on the Hollow Hill”
Sloan – Commonwealth (Yep Roc)
Sloan titled their 2008 album
Parallel Play, a term for toddlers who have yet to learn how to interact, who
play side by side. It was a self-deprecating dig at the fact that Sloan’s four
members were increasingly working in isolation, developing their own individual
visions independent of each other while still in the same band. On 2011’s The
Double Cross, however, Sloan had never sounded so collaborative and coherent;
it was a hands-down highlight in their 20-year discography.
Here, they’re back to their old ways.
Parallel Play was not a great Sloan album; neither is this one, where each
member is given one side of a vinyl record with which they can do whatever they
please. Jay Ferguson and Chris Murphy opt for five songs each. Master of
concision Patrick Pentland offers four. Oddball drummer Andrew Scott delivers
an 18-minute Syd Barrett-ish suite that’s easily the strangest thing in the
Sloan catalogue (it involves barking dogs and a children’s choir).
Ferguson is first up to bat, followed
by Murphy, Pentland and Scott—was this an alphabetical decision? Or maybe some outside
mediator decided to order the album by quality: Ferguson’s songs are all
lovely, rich with classic Sloan harmonies, and likely to be the most enduring.
Murphy opens his set with one of his best, “Carried Away”; the rest don’t rise
to that standard, though in “So Far So Good” he does score the album’s best
lyric: “Don’t be surprised when we elect another liar / did you learn
nothing from five seasons of The Wire?” Pentland can usually be counted on for
surefire rockers; this time, only the amusing “13 (Under a Bad Sign)” is likely
to raise any fists. Meanwhile, his clunky rock ballad has the unfortunately
accurate chorus: “What’s inside is dead.” Scott’s suite, for all its
obtuseness, is not a solo act: it at least sounds like the band is capable of
working together and pushing their creative boundaries, even if it doesn’t
always work. (Sept. 11)
Download: “You Got a Lot On Your
Mind,” “Carried Away,” “13 (Under a Bad Sign)”
Trip-hop pioneer Tricky’s golden
period was in the mid- to late ’90s, when he put out five albums in six years
and helped define the era’s sound—one that’s now back in vogue as mainstream
hip-hop and R&B have taken turns into darker, downtempo material (see:
Drake, The Weeknd, Frank Ocean). Then came a decade of diminishing returns. Now
he’s on his own label, answering to no one, and this is his second album in 18
months. He claimed that 2013’s False Idols was his best work since his 1995
debut: he was right. This album, titled after his birth name, is just as
strong. The man is on a roll once again.
As usual, he does so with the help of
powerful ladies: newcomers Tirzah and Francesca Belmonte, and MC Bella Gotti,
who spits furious verses on “Why Don’t You” (chorus: “Why dontcha come and get
f--ked?”) and a cover of an obscure 1990 single by London Posse (“Gangster
Chronicle”), which Tricky cites as a life-changing influence. Even more
powerful are Tricky’s forays into house music, notably on the single “Nicotine
Love,” which counteract the delicate, sensual downtempo tracks, the likes of
which he made his name—but, as evidenced by this album’s breadth, no longer
define him. (Sept. 11)
Download: “Sundown” (feat. Tirzah), “Nicotine
Girl” (feat. Francesca Belmonte), “Right Here” (feat. Oh Land)
Ventanas – s/t (Fedora Upside Down)
Jewish music in North America is
often marketed as klezmer. That’s only half the story, as klezmer is the
exclusive domain of the Ashkenazi Jews of Europe. For Sephardic Jews of Iberia,
North Africa and the Middle East, there’s an entirely different musical
tradition, and that’s what Toronto quintet Ventanas tap into. With some players
borrowed from raucous East European party band Lemon Bucket Orchestra, Ventanas
is led by flamenco student Tamar Ilana, the daughter of an ethnomusicologist:
clearly she knows her material well. These are not dabblers. Ilana is a strong
vocalist, and the percussion shares equal space with virtuosic performances on
violin and clarinet; the production is superb. If anyone can carve out some
space for Sephardic music in folk and jazz festivals in this country, it should
be Ventanas. (Sept. 18)
Download: “Tha Spaso Kupes,” “Gusta
Mi Magla,” “Oy Que Buena”
Toronto’s The Wooden Sky is full of
piss and vinegar on this, their fifth album. They’ve always juggled rootsy
instrumentation and epic stadium rock, but never as effectively as they do
here: hushed ballads one minute, Tom Petty rockers the next, Radiohead-esque
guitar textures the next. Sometimes the influences are too obvious: “Maybe It’s
No Secret” sounds suspiciously like the Constantines’ “Young Lions” as covered
by Blue Rodeo. No matter; it works. Singer/songwriter Gavin Gardiner has been
moonlighting as a producer for other local acts; he also works as a mastering
engineer at one of Canada’s top facilities. Listening to this, it’s clear he
saves his best work for his own band: the whole record sounds like a million
bucks. His voice is a commanding instrument, one that quivers and quakes at all
the right moments; the rest of the band’s backing vocals, especially on the
call-and-response closer “Don’t You Worry About a Thing,” provide extra colour.
This band has played second banana to many of their more successful peers over
the years, but now it’s time to light up The Wooden Sky. (Sept. 4)
Download: Saturday Night, Maybe It’s
No Secret, Our Hearts Were Young
Zeus – Classic Zeus (Arts and Crafts)
They don’t make bands like Zeus
anymore. Childhood friends who grew up learning how to play and sing together,
their chemistry—and harmony—is impeccable. They later cut their teeth as
sidemen for Jason Collett; their ear for arrangements is egoless. If their
first two albums saw them indulging the classic rock influences of their youth,
Classic Zeus finds them tinkering more in the studio, toying more with
structure and dynamics. Even though there are fewer riffs and hooks this time
out, the attention to detail and craft make this a far more rewarding album
than if it had shot for the obvious. They sing about someone who is “old enough
to make a difference but young enough not to care,” but it’s clear that they do
care—a lot. (Sept. 4)
Download: “Straight Through the
Light,” “Miss My Friends,” “Old Enough To Know”
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