Pre-Polaris 2017 Day Three: Feist, Lisa LeBlanc

The 12th Polaris Music Prize gala is being held on Sept. 18, at the Carlu in Toronto, where 11 jurors locked in a room will decide which one of 10 shortlisted artists will get $50,000. All other nominees receive $3,000.

Every day this week I’ll look at two of the shortlisted albums, assess their chances, and celebrate two albums that didn’t make the shortlist—or, in some cases, even the long list.

On day one I discussed A Tribe Called Red, BadBadNotGood, and should've beens Phillipe B and Japandroids. Day two was Leonard Cohen, Gord Downie, and should’ve beens by Loscil and Tami Neilson.

Onward:

Feist - Pleasure (Universal)

The album (reviewed April 22, 2016):

“That’s what we’re here for! Pleasure!” That’s a strange lyric, song title and album title considering the songs Feist is offering on her fifth album. The songwriter has always been a merchant of melancholy, but here she is audibly emerging from a thick fog, something that she herself terms “a dark night of the soul”—a cliché uncharacteristic of the subtle poetry that informs the rest of the album (and the rest of her discography).

Gone are the many collaborators and instrumentalists: this is a solitary journey consisting of just the guitarist and her old friend Mocky on drums, with longtime engineer Renaud Letang rounding out what Feist calls this albums “peer-o-mid.” The sound is decidedly sparse, as emotionally bare as the lyrics. Such is her skill as a writer that none of it seems particularly personal; she spares us the gory details and tells us, “A man is not his song / and I am not a story.”

Musically, it’s easier to appreciate what Pleasure represents rather than appreciating the album itself—not unlike PJ Harvey’s White Chalk, or Thom Yorke’s The Eraser; one can applaud Feist’s bravery without loving the actual music. It’s best, of course, to leave expectations at the door and discover Pleasure on your own terms.

Later thoughts: As I expected, this album grew on me considerably. Feist has always been more compelling solo than when she performs with a full band; this gives someone who’s never seen her live to hear why that is. She’s at her strongest in the quietest moments; her voice never wavers or whispers or backs down from emotional intensity, no matter the volume. There are moments that work perfectly, and some not so much: the Jarvis Cocker spoken-word cameo on “Century,” or the invasion of Choir Choir Choir on “A Man is Not His Song,” or the man choir on “Any Party”--the latter two embellishments much more likely to work live than on record. But, as with the 2012 Polaris-winning Metals, Feist succeeds by planting plenty of sharp edges in her inherently beautiful music. These are not songs for product placement or latte listening. This is another step forward for an artist who never disappoints, an artist who keeps evolving, and, as I discovered while writing this Exclaim! cover story, an artist who’s more than prepared to walk away from it all if she’s anything less than satisfied.

The chances: Minuscule. No one has ever won Polaris twice, and it would take a really game-changing record to do it. Though this album certainly has enough fans to have landed it on the shortlist, reviews were decidedly mixed, and it’s a hard sell to someone who isn’t already a fan.

Lisa LeBlanc - Why You Wanna Leave, Runway Queen? (Bonsound)

The album: LeBlanc is an appealing performer, no doubt, with a gutsy voice and a delight in both foot-stompin’, banjo-driven two-steps as well as grungy breakup songs, with a bluegrassy blast through a Motorhead cover for kicks. This album captures that energy. But it also places a clear focus on her lyrics, which I’m sure are cathartic if you’ve been through a recent break-up (“Could You At Least Wait Until I’ve Had My Coffee,” “Dump the Guy ASAP,” “5748 km”). Otherwise, her candour comes off full of clunky punchlines and juvenilia (to be fair, the same could be said of Drake--and he appears to be doing rather well). “I won’t say it to your face, so I’ll write a song about it,” goes one line. I kind of wish she wouldn’t. Runway Queen mostly makes me want to reach for old Lucinda Williams records--or the Tami Neilson album (see yesterday’s post).

LeBlanc is an Acadian Montrealer from New Brunswick who only recently started singing in English. This album is very much a breakthrough for her in the rest of Canada, so more power to her--and to her label, Bonsound, whose predominantly francophone roster could use a signal boost.

The chances: Slim. The competition is far too stiff, and I’ll be shocked the day anything remotely rootsy wins the Polaris.

Le Couleur - P.O.P. (Lisbon Lux)

The album: (reviewed June 15, 2017)

Montreal’s Le Couleur have crafted a glorious and at times grandiose record largely rooted in electro-disco and rich in pop melodies that should perk up ears in English Canada and everywhere else.

“Our chief concern is making things sexy, chic and moody,” they told the magazine Noisey. Mission accomplished. With debts to Air, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Pulp and St. Etienne, they offer a modern update on the turn-of-the-century revisionist take on late 60s/early 70s Europop, something that looks even better with more refracting mirrors involved. The tradeoff between female and male lead vocalists is merely one more effective texture in an album that draws you in closer with every subtle detail. The production is warm and retro; the synths are always on the safe side of cheese; the live rhythm section gives it all some muscle. This is a debut album following several EPs; Le Couleur prove well worthy of longer attention spans. This will go down well with daiquiris this summer.

Later thoughts: The single reason I didn’t play this album more often this summer is that the weather sucked. No daiquiris for me. But this album is fantastic. And in a year when everyone dumped on the disco turn by Arcade Fire (I’m in the minority in preferring it to Reflektor), maybe no one was in the mood for more Montrealers in the same ballpark--but nowhere near the stadiums.

Why it didn’t make it: I honestly thought it would. Of all the franco acts on the long list, I thought this had the biggest chance to reach a wider listenership than the few anglo freaks who listen to franco music.

Jessie Reyez - Kiddo (Universal)

The album: It’s an EP, actually. As such, it’s more of an introduction--but this is one hell of an opening argument. Reyez is a 26-year-old Colombian-Canadian who can rap like (vintage) Nicki Minaj and sing a bluesy waltz like Amy Winehouse, and specializes in fiery diss tracks like “Fuck It” and the particularly pointed “Gatekeeper.” (Reyez’s plain-spokenness works considerably better in her chosen genre than Lisa LeBlanc’s.) One track might echo the so-called “Toronto sound” of chilly, sparse beats; the next sounds like an electro-Brazilian Carnival rave-up (“Blue Ribbon”). Reyez covers a lot of bases in a short amount of time, with more personality than the entire OVO posse combined.  

Here is but one side of her:

Why it didn’t make it: It’s a debut EP. Reyez is new enough that most people probably see more potential here than someone who arrives with the complete package. And Polaris being an album prize that only recently relaxed its rules to include EPs, some jurors feel that six three-minute songs are not enough to make a major artistic statement. Finally, hip-hop will always face an uphill climb in this country if it hasn’t been validated elsewhere first, especially if it’s decidedly modern. But make no mistake: Jessie Reyez will be here next year, and likely for many years after that.

And here's the rather Feist-y side of her, on the Tonight Show:

2011 Year in Review

1. tUnE-yArDs – Whokill (4AD). This is the one. No other record in 2011 was this inventive, this exuberance, this powerful, this stimulating, this much fun—and sounded so current, so unlike anything else either in her current peer group or comparison points. Merrill Garbus plays ukulele, percussion and sings her ass off, doing each in various layers that she loops together live. On Whokill, she fully embraces the studio and paints vivid moving pictures with the help of bassist Nate Brenner, a horn section and every conceivable percussion instrument she can find. In a year when everyone seemed excited about sexless wonders like Bon Iver and M83, Garbus reached out to all the mopey wallflowers of indie rock and dragged them by the hand onto the dancefloor. Garbus is nothing if not gutsy; she doesn’t half-step anything here, even the quieter lullabies, but she also knows when to tone down the bluster. For all the bells and whistles on Whokill, however, these songs would work just as well with only drums and voice. Elemental, in more ways than one.

2. Mark Davis – Eliminate the Toxins (Saved By Radio). This Edmonton songwriter successfully combines the comfort food of Canadiana roots rock with spooky sonic spellcasting in ways that few artists other than Daniel Lanois even attempt. (Plenty of credit should also go to producer/instrumentalist Lorrie Matheson.) Davis manages to pull off pop melodies worthy of Fleetwood Mac, folk songs that could come from Lightfoot, overtones of doom ala Nick Cave, Eno-esque production, and some twang mixed into to the chunky rock songs and pop hooks. Lyrically, Eliminate the Toxins may be full of ghosts, but you’ll want these songs to haunt you for a long, long time. The most underrated Canadian album this year is also the best.

3. Gillian Welch – The Harrow & the Harvest (Acony). “Hard times ain’t gonna rule my mind”—if that’s not an anthemic line for 2011, what is? Like Tom Waits, Welch and her partner David Rawlings took a long break from recording until she felt she had something to say, and it was worth the eight-year wait: 10 songs that are pure, perfect portraits and directly to the point, performed on little more than acoustic guitar and banjo that sounds like the duo is in your living room. It’s haunting, powerful, and impossible not to sing harmonies to. The simplest pleasure was also the strongest.

4. Feist – Metals (Arts and Crafts). Leslie Feist always had too much talent to be reduced to a one-hit wonder, and Metals is the record she’s been building toward for the past decade. This album is note-perfect without being slick; it’s deceptively heavy for such a featherweight sound; and it’s far more musically inventive than Feist gets credit for, being as she is an easily digestible artist commonly associated with coffee shops. The songwriting, arrangements, performance and production are all vivid and top-notch on every track, making Metals one of the most satisfying albums of the year, not merely one of the best.

5. Destroyer – Kaputt (Merge). A lot of people have trouble getting past the unabashedly ’80s lounge-lizard production here—apparently, this kind of homage is the last retro crime worth committing. Thankfully, there are a lot more people who made this Destroyer’s most commercially successful record to date, who cottoned on to the fact that bandleader Dan Bejar was writing his strongest melodies in years, and doesn’t seem like he’s in a hurry to get each verse over with (unusual for him). The lovely, lush arrangements were too intricate and inventive to be some kind of ironic joke—full credit is due to guitarist Nicolas Bragg and trumpeter JP Carter, who weave stunning textures—and it’s also the first Destroyer album one could imagine dancing to.

6. The Weeknd – House of Balloons (independent). 2011 was full of creeps: Tyler the Creator, Kanye West sinking to new lows, and, arguably Drake. But none of them sounded creepy like The Weeknd does, and none of them were able to express the complex combo of self-lacerating doubt mixed with aggression the way that Abel Tesfaye can; a gifted singer, he successfully navigates the ambiguity of drugged-out moral relativism without getting too uncomfortably literal (or, um, stupid: see above examples). Everything that Drake gets credit for, Tesfaye does far, far better. House of Balloons was also a musical game-changer for the way it approached the dark side of R&B. The fact that it’s still only available as a free download, and that Tesfaye spurned all media at every turn, was a zeitgeist story that helped define the year.

7. Wye Oak – Civilian (Merge). The Baltimore duo Wye Oak don’t sound like a rock band. They sound like a force of nature: a rushing river, a towering mountain range, an expansive Montana plain. Not that they sound natural: there’s nothing acoustic about Civilian, their third album, which is full of raging electric guitars and distorted sounds. But the way this duo conjure the elements at their disposal is magical, the way a sonic gust suddenly slaps you like a gale-force wind, the way dub textures stratify the sonic layers, the way Andy Stack’s drums gallop and lurch, following the push and pull of Jenn Wasner’s guitars, the way Wasner’s calm and understated vocals anchor everything like the eye of a hurricane.

8. Lykke Li – Wounded Rhymes (Warner). This is the sound of an awakening, of this Swedish singer getting her heart broken, getting her hands dirty and embracing the big sounds of ’60s Phil Spector pop (quite directly: she sounds like Ronnie Spector on much of this record) with extra amplification given to huge backing vocals and thundering percussion—every other instrument, other than her lead vocal, is secondary. Recorded in California, it’s not a sunny sound—there’s a goth melancholy barely beneath the surface throughout—but it’s joyous, cathartic, and incredibly catchy. It’s also 10 times better than her wisp of a debut record.

9. Nick Lowe – The Old Magic (Yep Roc). This 61-year-old performer reminds you what magical songwriting spells an old coot like him can still cast. Sure, the entire album has a ’50s supper-club vibe that sounds like rock’n’roll never happened, but that's just Lowe acting his age. He often croons with a gentle wink, but there's nothing ironic about anything here. Clever, yes, but Lowe never sounds anything less than completely sincere. This old magician is a guy you can trust to never let you down.

10. Kathryn Calder – Bright and Vivid (File Under: Music). The second solo album by this New Pornographer finds her embracing a wider sonic palette (with help of new husband Colin Stewart, one of the finest sonic architects on the West Coast) and writing more complex prog-pop songs that owe more to the Rheostatics or early Peter Gabriel than they do the bubblegum rush of her regular gig, or the type of safe music that most women with a voice as gorgeous as hers end up making. Calder is in a class of her own.

11. Grace Jones – Hurricane (Pias). This is not technically a 2011 album; it came out in the U.K. in 2008, and was inexplicably unavailable in North America until this past September, where it was packaged with a dub remix record. Jones reunites with the musicians who made her classic early ’80s recordings, filters that sound through late ’90s trip-hop and writes her most personal and powerful songs to date. Jones was always much more than a fashion freak and a b-movie actress, traits that unfortunately comprise her caricature today. This is a potent reminder of a powerful artist.

12. Geoff Berner – Victory Party (Mint). Berner has long been one of the finest entertainers and songwriters in Canada, but the aptly named Victory Party is a quantum leap forward in his discography. With the help of Montreal producer Socalled, Berner calls in a full band and pumps up the volume on his accordion-driven neo-klezmer arrangements, moving from rousing drinking songs to hipster smackdowns to anti-authoritarian anthems to plaintive political ballads—and then there’s the deranged electro retelling of the Golem legend, which only someone with Berner’s sharp sense of humour (and dread) could pull off.

13. Booker T. Jones – The Road From Memphis (Anti). The 57-year-old keyboardist and soul legend delivered one of his career highs with the help of the Roots’ ?uestlove, Daptones engineer Gabe Roth, Motown guitarist Dennis Coffey and vocalists including Sharon Jones, My Morning Jacket’s Jim James, and The National’s Matt Berninger. The Road From Memphis must lead to New Orleans, because this sounds like a dream collaboration between Booker T.’s MGs and the funkiest band of all time, the Meters.

14. Shabazz Palaces – Black Up (Sub Pop). Anyone who still thinks Kanye West is a hip-hop innovator needs to spend time in Shabazz Palaces. On Black Up, grooves pulse on distorted bass with nary a snare drum in sight, tempos are pushed and pulled apart, old-school soul meets 21^st century clicks and cuts, and wiggy synths set everything just off-centre. Main man Ishmael Butler made a splash in the ’90s with Digable Planets, but this trippy project, where anything and everything seems possible, doesn’t seem to belong to any particular trajectory—unless early George Clinton and Black Album-era Prince dropped acid with Trent Reznor and Burial.

15. Seun Kuti – From Africa With Fury: Rise (Knitting Factory). In the year when a Fela Kuti musical was the toast of Broadway, the Nigerian legend’s youngest son released a firecracker of a record with his father’s old band and Brian Eno behind the boards. Modern African dance music rarely sounds this good—it’s usually either stuck in a retro groove or is full of unwelcome cheeseball synths. This sounds entirely modern while capturing the frenetic energy of a seasoned band, and perhaps needless to say, Kuti himself is more than a commanding frontman—one who’s nonetheless happy to take a backseat to the beat.

16. Sloan – The Double Cross (Outside). The best rock albums are always front-loaded with a group’s best songs. But after the strong “Follow the Leader” opens Sloan’s tenth album, they take their own advice and deliver gem after gem, making this milestone of an album sound more like a greatest hits compilation. All four members are writing at the top of their game, and one has to wonder if they have been purposely been saving their best songs for 2011 to celebrate their 20^th anniversary.

17. Tom Waits – Bad As Me (Anti). What’s the definition of timeless? A 62-year-old who is weirder and more wonderful than he was when he was 20, writing songs that could be from the 1950s filtered through various distortions of the past five decades and with lyrics that, when they’re not about satisfaction and lives lived and eternal love, could just as easily be about the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street: “It’s hard times for some, but for others it’s sweet / someone makes money when there’s blood in the street.” And while it’s true that Waits’s eccentricities have become encoded and somewhat predictable, he convincingly begs you to “kiss me like a stranger once again.” Yeah, okay, why not? This may be his best album since 1992’s Bone Machine.

18. Rich Aucoin – We’re All Dying To Live (Sonic). Every other album that made this list is fairly consistent and easy to peg. Halifax multimedia adventurer Rich Aucoin, on the other hand, does it all: disco, psychedelia, rock numbers, rousing pop songs, piano concertos and contemplative neo-classical pieces. For such an epic record, Aucoin makes it all flow seamlessly, with interstitial segues that ease the incongruity with the skill of a pro DJ. It’s not slick, however; Aucoin maintains an earthy feel throughout, and engages 500 musicians (not an exaggeration) to help him out. One song is titled “We Must Imagine Sisyphus,” a nod perhaps to the enormity of Aucoin’s ambition, but there’s nothing world-weary about the joyous celebration in these grooves.

19. Colin Stetson – New History Warfare Vol. 2: Judges (Constellation). When discussing what is by far the strangest album to get major attention in 2011 (including a Polaris Prize shortlist position), it’s easy to talk only of Stetson’s methodology: solo saxophone performed with circular breathing and incorporating every possible element of the instrument for both melodic and rhythmic ends, all recorded in one take. But Stetson’s mood and melodic sense—along with lovely cameos from Laurie Anderson and Shara Worden—are the main reasons Judges broke through the usual avant-garde circles in which albums like this are usually ghettoized.

20. Beastie Boys – Hot Sauce Committee Part 2 (EMI). Yes, “grandpa’s been rapping since ’83,” as the Beastie Boys admit here, but no one who’s been in hip-hop that long has ever released an album this good this far into their career. The last 10 years have been rather creatively fallow for the Beasties, which is why it’s so rewarding to hear them come back swinging as they do here, to say nothing of Adam Yauch’s recovery from cancer. The videos were hilarious as always, the ska single “Don’t Play No Game” (featuring Santigold) was their finest pop song ever, and the entire record was full of life.

Runners-up:

A Hawk and a Hacksaw – Cervantine (LM Dupli-cation)

Dennis Coffey – s/t (Strut)

Couer de Pirate – Blonde (Gross Boite)

Crooked Fingers – Breaks in the Armor (Merge)

The Dirtbombs – Party Store (In the Red)

Tim Hecker – Ravedeath 1972 (Kranky)

Iron and Wine – Kiss Each Other Clean (Warner)

J Rocc – Some Cold Rock Stuff (Stones Throw)

My Morning Jacket – Circuital (ATO)

Rural Alberta Advantage – Departing (Paper Bag)

October '11 reviews

The following reviews ran in the Guelph Mercury and Kitchener-Waterloo record last month


Bjork – Biophilia (Warner)

Biophilia is not an album; it’s an iPad app—or rather, a series of them, one for each of the album’s 10 tracks. Only the most devoted Bjork fans are likely to fully immerse themselves in that intricate and involved experience. The rest of us are left with just the music, which involves unique instruments (a Tesla coil, a combination of a celeste and a gamelan, a “gravity harp”) employed as much for their theoretical relevance to the project—which has something to do with astrophysics, string theory, neurology and the nature of the universe, of course—as they are for their musical properties.

It’s more fascinating to read about than it is to experience. Bjork takes this all very seriously, and it shows. In the 10 years since her last great album, Vespertine, Bjork has become increasingly impenetrable, her musical output succeeding neither as pop music nor art project (a few standout tracks notwithstanding). Some would blame her hubby, the equally talented and obtuse filmmaker Matthew Barney. On Biophilia she doesn’t sound as adrift as she did on 2005’s Drawing Restraint 9 soundtrack (for a Barney film) or on the weaker tracks of 2007’s Volta, but her intellectual approach to this material is ultimately off-putting; it’s great that each track was designed to be an interactive iPad app, because there’s certainly no emotional engagement with the listener.

I say this as someone who thought she could do no wrong during the first 10 years of her solo career. It therefore pains me to say that while there is much to respect during many moments on Biophilia, there is precious little to love. (October 13)

Download: “Moon,” “Crystalline,” “Dark Matter”

Kathryn Calder - Bright and Vivid (File Under: Music)

At the end of 2010, I was convinced that Kathryn Calder’s album Are You My Mother? Was one of the finest Canadian albums of that year, behind only Arcade Fire’s The Suburbs, and that its obscurity was downright criminal—especially considering Calder’s role as a supporting player in the not-unpopular band New Pornographers. Her second album is every bit as rewarding as that debut, though more richly layered, not as easy to pin down and, for better or worse, without as many anthemic choruses. On her debut, Calder had mastered the art of the pop song, no doubt from hanging out with the Pornographers for so many years. Now she’s ready to take her songcraft somewhere deeper.

At the centre is Calder’s choirgirl voice, which is lovely without being precious, clear and confident without sacrificing emotion. And she has a stellar cast of session players to help her out, although seeing how she handles keyboards, guitars, vibraphone and percussion herself, she hardly needs any assistance at all. She creates the kind of music that the young Sarah McLachlan who debuted with Touch would have gone on to make if she hadn’t embraced easy listening. It sounds like what innovative 2011 Polaris shortlist nominees Braids would make if they knew how to make pop music instead of swimming in abstraction. It owes a small debt to fellow Vancouverite Veda Hille, of whose more accessible moments this album shares several traits (including guitar work by CanRock MVP Ford Pier). It could well be Canada’s answer to new European arthouse chanteuses like Bat For Lashes, Lykke Li and Fever Ray.

But Calder is definitely her own woman forging her own path, and no amount of facile comparisons does justice to her talent. Bright and Vivid is an album that more than lives up to its billing; let’s hope Calder doesn’t get slept on a second time. (October 27)

Download: “Turn a Light On,” “Walking in My Sleep,” “Who Are You?”

Cowboy Junkies – Sing in My Meadows: The Nomad Series Vol. 3 (Latent)

It’s safe to say that most people don’t associate Cowboy Junkies with raging electric guitars. And yet that’s been a big part of their sound for at least the last 15 years, co-existing with the quieter, folkie elements and dark pop songs they’ve built their career on. So if the loud electric moments were a distraction on some previous records, Sing in My Meadows consists of nothing but. If you think that side of the Junkies usually brings out the worst of them, then feel free to ignore this album entirely.

However, any longtime fan is advised to at least listen first to “Continental Drift,” with its Zeppelinesque drums and searing distorted harmonica work by Jeff Bird; it gives modern bands like Black Mountain and the Besnard Lakes a run for their money. And, like their recent high-water-mark album Renmin Park (the first in this four-part Nomad series), the material is strong: here it is biting, both musical—allowing plenty of room for improvisation between Bird and guitarist/songwriter Michael Timmins—and topical (“3rd Crusade” is the only song in the last 10 years I’m aware of that mentions Kandahar, which is odd considering how long Canada has been at war there).

For a band best known for its mellow moments, this band is not mellowing in their old age; this is heavier than they’ve ever been, in more ways than one. (October 20)

Download: “Continental Drift,” “Hunted,” “3rd Crusade”

Crooked Fingers – Breaks in the Armor (Merge)

Over 20 years and 12 albums, Crooked Fingers’ Eric Bachmann has nothing left to prove to anyone: especially after his slick 2008 masterpiece Forfeit/Fortune (a perfect album that’s easily one of the most underrated albums of the last five years) and this year’s triumphant reunion of his ’90s indie rock band Archers of Loaf, the legacy of which overshadowed his singer/songwriter work as Crooked Fingers for far too long.

So rather than return to past glories, Breaks in the Armor sounds like Bachmann starting fresh, alone in the studio (except for female vocal harmonies by longtime bandmate Liz Durrett) and feeling his way around a drum kit with a primal pounding that brings a refreshingly raw amateur feel to otherwise carefully constructed and arranged songs. Despite its solitary nature, Breaks in the Armor is not a quiet affair; Bachmann belts it out throughout, even when tempos dip. He plays with your expectations; the catchiest rock song on the album (“The Counterfeiters”) is played mostly on just bass and drums.

Bachmann has a rich and deep discography; newcomers will be surprised to learn that Breaks in the Armor is just the tip of the iceberg. (October 20)

Download: “The Counterfeiters,” “Went to the City,” “Your Apocalypse”

DJ Shadow – The Less You Know The Better (Universal)

A DJ’s primary job—whether it’s at a wedding, in a club, or as part of a band—is to make a perfect mix, to blend different elements into a seamless flow. It’s odd, then, that one of the greatest DJ artists of the last 20 years has made an album that, for all its various strengths, almost entirely lacks flow.

Ever since making arguably the first landmark DJ-as-artist album, 1996’s Endtroducing, Shadow’s output has been sporadic and spotty; this album is one of his most diverse and consistently strong, despite some ill-advised forays into clunky heavy metal/hip-hop hybrids (Shadow of all people should know better). “Sad and Lonely” is a beatless piano ballad, and “I’ve Been Trying” sounds like a languorous Pink Floyd song sung by a soul singer and featuring synth bass and a martial snare drum underneath it all. Closing track “Give Me Back the Nights” is an increasingly unhinged spoken-word rant set to little more than a Black Sabbath bass line an spacy keyboards. In between are pop songs, folk songs, and cinematic instrumentals akin to Endtroducing’s high points.

And yet while Shadow does it all well, it rarely works well together. This is a DJ album where the DJ can’t be trusted; hit shuffle instead. (October 13)

Download: “I’ve Been Trying,” “Redeemed,” “Stay the Course (feat. Posdnuos and Talib Kweli)”

Eccodek – Remixstasy (independent)

Ten years ago, Andrew McPherson probably didn’t envision that his world-music fusion project Eccodek would be an internationally acclaimed outfit and popular live act on the festival circuit, never mind exchanging remix favours with the likes of genre leaders Transglobal Underground. But listening to Remixstasy, it’s easy to see why: McPherson isn’t content to make massage-table music with easy synth washes and vaguely “exotic” elements scattered over limp beats. McPherson focuses on the funk first and foremost, and these remixes bring the tougher edges of Eccodek into the open. In some respects, these tracks are better the originals, and are an ideal way to mark the project’s anniversary. (October 13)

Download: “Calling the Rain (Eccodek Afrodisiac mix),” “From the Flames dub (Transglobal Underground mix),” “Red White and Mali (Adham Shaikh Wobble Tip mix)”

Feist – Metals (Arts and Crafts)

After taking on a full-on break from making music, Feist returns singing: “Makes me remember the things that I forgot / it’s as much what it is as what it is not.”

What Metals is not is obvious. It is not an album with a peppy hit single like “1234” or “Mushaboom.” It is not an album that gives away all its goods on first listen. Though it is rich in melody and harmony, it is not a pop album. Though there are many intimate moments featuring only Feist and her guitar, it is not a singer/songwriter album. Though it has supple grooves borrowed from the slowest, sexiest side of Al Green, it is not a soul album. And though it contains elements of The Reminder’s quieter moments and the majesty of her long-unavailable debut album Monarch, Metals marks new territory for Feist.

Many songs start from a bluesy base, something very simple and primal, built around a tension of delicate but forceful instrumentation; but from there, a song can easily move from a solitary guitar motif before erupting with a strident choir, electric guitars crashing in a loping waltz time, and punctuated by clanging chain percussion. Few songs here fall into a steady template; they wait to be pulled or pushed apart, to have their meter toyed with, suspended while a string section or the sound of scraping metal sneaks into the background scene.

Then of course there is Feist’s calm, steadying, pitch-perfect voice, one that’s almost devoid of emotion, conveying everything and nothing at the same time. What is she singing about? Who cares? It’s “true life in haiku,” she sings, but whatever you’re looking for in these songs—either love or loss, comfort or concern—you’ll find them.

That tabula rasa extends to the music. While Feist was the undisputed star of earlier Feist records, Metals is much more communal. The various accompanying ensembles are one reason: string sections, brass sections, and choirs all transform the most intimate moments into something larger and yet still tender. But even though Feist’s voice is front and centre, it’s just as important as every piano chord, bass drum kick, or subtle sonic shading; together, every carefully arranged element establishes the tenor of the album, which works remarkably well as a whole. The only odd duck is “A Commotion,” pushed along by pulsing cellos and a man choir shouting the chorus; it’s curious, joyous, sparse and somewhat unsettling, the closest Feist gets to rocking out here, and it’s one of the most captivating tracks she’s ever recorded.

Metals also sounds like the most honest album since her debut: if Let It Die was her role-playing as a pretty pop star, and The Reminder found her trying to reconcile several different sides of her musical personality, Metals is its own world entirely—a world where Feist roams freely, devoid of expectation or constraint, a world with plenty for all to explore. (October 6)

Download: “Bittersweet Melodies,” “A Commotion,” “The Circle Married the Line”

Peter Gabriel – New Blood (Universal)

When Peter Gabriel resurfaced last year with a covers album, Scratch My Back, it was disappointing on several levels: not just because there was no original material, but because the dirge-like tempos and his belaboured vocal delivery didn’t help matters. When he went out to tour the album with an orchestra, he decided to rearrange an hour’s worth of older material to suit the occasion.

Thank God he did, because if Scratch My Back made fans wonder if Gabriel still had any charisma left in him, New Blood finds him revisiting his back catalogue with an entirely fresh approach. Gabriel doesn’t just add strings to existing arrangements; he takes all rock instruments out of the equation altogether (except piano), but loses none of the force and rhythmic thrust of the originals—no small feat considering the polyrhythms going on in something like “Red Rain” or “The Rhythm of the Heat.” The result is an orchestral tour de force that finds Gabriel as creative as ever, despite the fact that he’s working with well-trod material. Not that this is just a greatest hits set list: many classic tracks don’t appear here, while lesser-known ones like “Darkness,” “Intruder,” and “Wallflower” provide some of the most intriguing moments. Guest vocalist Ane Brun shines on “Don’t Give Up” and “Mercy Street”; her quivering vibrato could easily be mistaken for Mary Margaret O’Hara.

At 61 years old, Gabriel’s heyday may well be behind him, but New Blood is a classy move—not just a classical one. (October 20)

Download: “Red Rain,” “Intruder,” “Mercy Street”

Mayer Hawthorne – How Do You Do (Universal)

Is Mayer Hawthorne really a 32-year-old guy from Michigan who stumbled into singing soul music after starting as a hip-hop instrumentalist? Or is this Daryl Hall in disguise, staging a covert comeback?

In fact, Hawthorne and the Hall & Oates singer have been seen in the same place at the same time (on Hall’s TV show), so that theory doesn’t hold water. But listening to “A Long Time,” the second track on Hawthorne’s major label debut, with its “Maneater” drums and Hawthorne’s butter-smooth blue-eyed soul voice, he stakes his claim as Hall’s heir apparent. (Not only does he sound great, he looks great, too—like a dorky, cuter version of Tobey Maguire—thereby guaranteeing him some mainstream success. Touring with Bruno Mars helps, too.)

Hawthorne first appeared with a decent though paint-by-numbers indie debut, but How Do You Do marks a major move into territory ruled over by Raphael Saddiq, Sharon Jones and the ghost of Amy Winehouse. The songwriting has taken several steps up, and though the lyrical content rarely strays from affairs of the heart, he does manage to pen a few zingers: on lead single “The Walk,” he sings one of the most biting kiss-offs since Cee-Lo Green’s F--- You, likewise set to a bouncy, major-key melody: “You heart is like a black piece of coal / and I doubt you ever had a soul.” (October 20)

Download: “Dreaming,” “The Walk,” “No Strings”

Mighty Popo – Gakondo (Borealis)

Ottawa’s Mighty Popo has been an integral part of Canada’s African music community for 15 years, as a solo artist and as one third of the acclaimed African Guitar Summit, known mostly for his approach to blues. On Gakondo, his first all-acoustic album, Popo explores his Rwandan roots, adapting traditional songs and exploring the inanga, a nine-stringed instrument. Though it’s largely a lilting, gentle album, it’s on the quietest moments of all that Popo sounds downright magical, singing haunting lullabies and odes to family tradition set to sparse solo arrangements.

This album came out in 2010 and was nominated for a Juno, but is deservedly getting a wider release now through one of Canada’s foremost folk music labels. (October 13)

Download: “Ngire Nte,” “Uw’lbuhoro,” “Rwatsinda”

William Shatner - Seeking Major Tom (Cleopatra)

In his liner notes for this, a pseudo-concept album about David Bowie’s Major Tom character (which is actually just a collection of almost every sci-fi space-themed pop song ever written), William Shatner admits to sitting with his producer and both of them asking themselves, “Is this absurd or is this awesome or is it absurdly awesome?”

For starters, it’s rarely, if ever, awesome. It’s certainly absurd, and intentionally so. Shatner has been in on his own joke for years; his classic debut album The Transformed Man, released in the ’60s at the height of his Star Trek fame, was funny only because Shatner seemed outright oblivious to the absurdity of his Shakespearian spoken-word delivery of hippie-dippie lyrics of the day. Now the 80-year-old (!) has decades of self-awareness behind him, which makes his deadpan delivery here of Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” not funny at all, just sad. The same is true of at least half of the tracks here, from Deep Purple’s “Space Trucking” to to Steve Miller’s “Space Cowboy” to The Police’s “Walking on the Moon” to Pink Floyd’s “Learning to Fly.” And what is The Tea Party’s “Empty Glass” doing here? Who knows.

And yet amidst the 20 tracks on this ridiculously long double album are some real moments of beauty, albeit underscored by the perpetual strangeness that is the Shat. Elton John’s “Rocket Man,” a song Shatner has actually been performing since 1978, is oddly poignant, with Shatner sounding like a lonely, delusional raconteur at closing time in a hotel bar. U2’s latter-era ballad “In a Little While” is uncharacteristically subtle, with Lyle Lovett helping out with parts that require an actual melody (which of course the Shat is unable to sing). And when Shatner sets out to be absolutely, unabashedly ridiculous—there is no other way to describe his performance alongside Bootsy Collins on Thomas Dolby’s “She Blinded Me With Science”—it’s a giddy delight.

But most of Seeking Major Tom just sounds like bad karaoke—Shatner’s soliloquies over faithful arrangements—with one notable exception: it’s not hard to show up Simon LeBon, and so Shatner’s monotone makeover of Duran Duran’s “Planet Earth” (featuring Steve Howe of Yes) is actually an improvement on the original.

Ultimately, however, this is a 90-minute album that, at best, can hope to provide one or two Internet memes for a week or so. (October 27)

Download: “Rocket Man,” “She Blinded Me With Science,” “Planet Earth”

Yukon Blonde – Fire/Water (Nevado)

The sweetest sounding rock band from Kamloops, B.C., since the Grapes of Wrath, Yukon Blonde have been touring relentlessly since the release of their debut album—and it shows. On this four-song EP, they show how quickly they’ve progressed from one of the most promising bands in Canada to one of the best. Expertly recorded by Colin Stewart (Black Mountain), the lead track “Fire” features distant atmospheric guitars swirling around a rolling bass line, straight-up countrified acoustic guitars and rich harmonies applied to every line, including the infectious, wordless chorus. The two songs on the b-side (or last two tracks on the CD) explore their slightly more abstract side, sounding not unlike their equally luscious West Coast peers, Fleet Foxes; closing track “Choices” features an almost entirely choral opening, before the Neil Young-ish electric backing track kicks in. A full-length culled from the same recording session is expected early next year, while this tease of an EP keeps them on the road in the meantime. (October 13)