March 2017 reviews

Highly recommended this month: Aimee Mann, Orchestra Baobab

Highly recommended this month, reviewed earlier: Old 97s, Spoon

Well worth your while: Duotang, Ibibio Sound Machine

As always, these reviews ran in the Waterloo Record.

Streaming is great for sampling purposes, but please find a way to directly support your favourite artists financially.

Louise Burns – Young Mopes (Light Organ)

Vancouver never tires of rainy-day new wave music, and they seem to have plenty of people like Louise Burns who are this good at it. Burns, 31, is a 20-year veteran of the music biz (yes, you read that right) whose confidence buoys her third album through detours into Sheryl Crow-esque California country and psychedelic pop (“Dig” has a direct reference to the Beatles’ “Tomorrow Never Knows”), all informed by a mid-’80s aesthetic that recalls the best of Echo and the Bunnymen and the Cure. She’s also rocking a bit of a Stevie Nicks vibrato these days, and the verses of “Pharoah” are not dissimilar to the Fleetwood Mac classic “Dreams.” Burns’s songs are strong enough that all those obvious comparisons fade away once her melodies—given extra muscle by bandmates Darcy Hancock and Ryan Peters, on loan from Ladyhawk) get stuck in your head. And judging by the album title, she’s got enough of a sense of humour about herself: she reclaimed it from a bad review in the Globe and Mail. (March 9)

Stream: “Who’s the Madman,” “Pharoah,” “Storms”

Duotang – New Occupation (Stomp)

After weathering the tough times for Canadian indie rock in the late ’90s, this Winnipeg duo called it quits—or a hiatus, at least—in 2002, just as this country’s scene started to get international attention. But with a comeback album as strong as this, there is no time for neuroses of the coulda-woulda-shoulda variety. Bassist Rod Slaughter and drummer Sean Allum romp through a dozen tracks that sound like a greatest hits package—culled, of course, from four or five unreleased albums that only existed in Slaughter’s head in the past 15 years. Opening track “Nostalgia is a Vice” is a self-conscious nod to any band on the comeback trail, but this doesn’t sound like a band trying desperately to relive the glories of the youth. This is a band that sounds better than they ever did, playing with every bit of the energy that always propelled their powerful performances. Duotang were one of the most underrated bands of that time period; they don’t deserve that fate this time around, either. (March 23)

Stream: “Nostalgia’s a Vice,” “Karma Needs to Come Around,” “New Occupation”

Her Harbour – Go Gently Into the Night (E-Tron)

Ottawa singer/songwriter Gabrielle Giguere sounds like the last person left in a harbour town, singing her songs on piano and autoharp to the vast ocean before her. Surely this siren would soon summon some kind of audience across the water; her hypnotic voice draws the listener in to revel in its intimacy. Her accompaniment is appropriate sparse, though she does employ subtle help from violinist Mika Posen (Forest City Lovers, Merganzer) and vibraphonist Olivier Fairfield (Last Ex, Timber Timbre). Veteran engineer Dave Draves (Wooden Stars, Jim Bryson) makes it sound like Giguere has set up in an empty Massey Hall, rich with natural reverb and haunted by history. (I’m sure it’s just an effects rack, but still.) (March 13)

Stream: “Below Breaths,” “In Nude in Fog and River,” “Death Mask”

Ibibio Sound Machine – Uyai (Merge)

If there was one song that could have got you through the doldrums of February 2017, it was “Give Me a Reason,” an Afro-electro dance track by Ibibio Sound Machine, which sounded like LCD Soundsystem in Lagos with synths borrowed from the “Ghostbusters” theme, brash horns, and a delirious percussion breakdown in the bridge.

A few months ago, Soundway Records put out a revelatory compilation of Nigerian “boogie” from the 1980s, called Doing It in Lagos, on which West African funk grooves of the ’70s adapted to electro-pop and disco. It’s a sound that leads directly to this joyous British octet, fronted by London-born, Nigerian-raised singer Emo Williams, who sings in her parents’ Ibibio tongue.

Uyai is their second record, and the first to have a domestic North American release (as the odd band out even on the eclectic Merge Records). The fiery summer songs are in abundance, but the band also dials down the ebullience and slows the tempo on occasion, displaying more depth and range.

There are no North American dates announced yet, but this is one tour you won’t want to miss. (March 2)

Stream: “Give Me a Reason,” “The Pot is on Fire,” “Lullaby”

King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard – Flying Microtonal Banana (ATO)

Well, it’s going to be hard to beat that album title. Even if your band name is King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard. Even if it is one of five albums you’re threatening to release this year. (This doesn’t appear to be an idle threat: they’ve released eight albums in the last four years.)

This Australian septet is a psychedelic powerhouse that rides metronomic Krautrock beats that would make the late Jaki Liebezeit of Can proud. Each album has some kind of conceptual conceit; this time out, they were outfitted with guitars capable of playing microtones not found on conventional Western instruments, but which are quite common in many types of Asian music (and entirely natural for a band from Oceania to pick up on, even if just for geographical reasons). The difference on most of the album will be subtle to most, other than guitar solos that sound a bit odd to North American ears. But occasionally the band will foreground the difference by modulating a riff by using a microtonal harmony—which, if you’re not aware what’s happening, sounds like the entire band is pitch-shifting out of key.

All of that may be of little interest to anyone but the Lizard Wizard themselves and ethnomusicologists. The greater appeal is hearing this fine-tuned engine operating at full force, especially drumming duo Eric Moore and Michael Cavanagh. And unlike last year’s relentless Nonagon Infinity, which introduced them to North America, Flying Microtonal Banana shows off some softer sides of the band—in terms of volume and textural colours, if not tempo. (March 2)

King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard invade the Danforth Music Hall in Toronto—a venue three times the size of the last one they played here—on April 5.

Stream: “Rattlesnake,” “Melting,” “Sleep Drifter”

Aimee Mann – Mental Illness (SuperEgo)

Aimee Mann knows exactly how the public perceives her: that of a smart but sullen songwriter specializing in the sorrows and disappointments of life, delivered in somewhat sluggish songs that barely break a sweat. Even diehard fans might find her eight previous solo studio albums to be interchangeable; Mann has a formula that makes her easy to pigeonhole.

So why not embrace it? Here, Mann has assembled another collection of misfits, malcontents and broken people—all worthy of an ennui-filled graphic novel—and named her new album Mental Illness. Which is kind of like Kanye West calling an album Ego. In her own press release, she says, “If [people] thought that my songs were very down-tempo, very depressing, very sad, and very acoustic, I thought I’d just give myself permission to write the saddest, slowest, most acoustic, if-they’re-all-waltzes-so-be-it record I could.”

It works. Just as 2014’s collaboration with punk rocker Ted Leo, The Both, was so refreshing because she was playing much louder, much faster and in a collaborative fashion, likewise it’s a revelation now to hear her strip away so many of the sonic layers that defined her approach to adult-pop perfection in the last 20 years. She mostly plays acoustic guitar and piano here; drummer Jay Bellerose is barely noticeable, as is the rest of her band. Subtle string sections colour around the edges, as do layers of California vocal harmonies. This is Aimee Mann the folk singer, although her typically complex chord progressions still place her closer to the Brill Building than, say, Billy Bragg.

None of that suggests that Mann is reinventing herself—in some cases, she even seems to be recycling, especially when “Rollercoasters” sounds a bit too similar to her 1999 Oscar-nominated hit “Save Me.” But this album is easily one of the best collections of her career: her razor-sharp wit and powers of observation in full focus, her unadorned voice sounding crystal clear and lovelier than ever. (March 30)

Stream: “Goose Snow Cone,” “Patient Zero,” “Good For Me”

Orchestra Baobab – Tribute To Ndiouga Dieng (World Circuit/Nonesuch)

Of all the African artists of the 1970s who had career resurrections in the last 15 years, Senegal’s Orchestra Baobab has been one of the most magical. Formed in 1970 as the house band at an upscale club in Dakar—playing five hours a night, five nights a week—they combined local traditions with modern Cuban styles (those styles themselves descendant from Africa, of course). As new styles became more popular, Baobab became less relevant and broke up in 1987. In 2001, Buena Vista Social club producer Nick Gold reissued the 1982 Baobab album Pirate’s Gold to great acclaim; the band then reformed and recorded two new studio albums in the next 10 years, one—the excellent 2002 Specialist in All Styles—produced by Senegalese superstar Youssou N’Dour.

Though Baobab’s reunion hasn’t sparked many new recordings, they continue to tour. Last year, they lost one of their long-time vocalists, 69-year-old Ndiouga Dieng, to a long illness. Though the lineup has fluctuated over the years, original vocalist Balla Sidibe is still at the helm, and original saxophonist Issa Cissokho still takes most of the leads. They’re joined here by young kora player Abdouleye Cissoko, who sparkles throughout.

There are few sweeter sounds in the world than the Afro-Cuban hybrid, and Orchestra Baobab are the undisputed masters. It’s sad that it takes a tragic occasion to bring them back to the studio, but we are all richer for it. (March 30)

Stream: “Natalia,” “Woulinewa,” “Douga”

Preoccupations – s/t (Flemish Eye)

The band formerly known as Viet Cong—the name was changed after protests following their appearance on the 2015 Polaris Music Prize shortlist—needed to reinvent themselves. The name change may be cosmetic, but the rebirth—and no doubt the maturity of the hard-touring band in general—has paid musical dividend as well.

Whereas the self-titled Viet Cong album was morose and, more important, mind-numbingly dull, Preoccupations take their goth-influenced, ’80s post-punk brooding and scrape away the unnecessary walls of noise. It’s still noisy—but now it’s carefully sculpted rather than merely drowning in sound. Hell, there are even pretty moments (“Sense”). With producer Graham Walsh (Holy F--k, Etiquette) again at the helm, Preoccupations focus more on groove, all rumbling bass and Joy Division-esque drums, while the guitars alternate between textural washes, brittle shards of sound and twangy leads. Singer/bassist Matt Flegel’s baritone is suitably menacing while he sings at-times laughable lines of misanthropy: “all of consciousness is completely intolerable!”

Too bad the T2: Trainspotting soundtrack producers didn’t catch wind of this record before padding out their track list with acts from 35 years ago. (March 9)

Stream: “Anxiety,” “Memory,” “Stimulation”

T2: Trainspotting OST – Various Artists (Universal)

In 2017, rare is the film soundtrack by various artists (as opposed to original music, like Frozen) that makes any kind of impact. But in 1996, the Trainspotting soundtrack was bigger than the film itself. Almost a year and a half after it came out, it spawned its own sequel.

Now Danny Boyle and company have delivered a long-awaited sequel to the film. Some familiar names are back: Underworld and Iggy Pop—the latter in a completely unnecessary remix of “Lust for Life” by… the Prodigy? Surely this ’90s revival has gone too far. Counting Iggy, six of the 15 tracks here go back even further: The Clash, Blondie, Queen, Run-DMC, Frankie Goes to Hollywood—natural choices considering the demographic of the film’s characters, but hardly inspiring as any kind of modern benchmark. Thankfully, with the exception of Frankie and Iggy, the compilers went with less obvious choices for all other geezer acts.

The sound of the new falls primarily to Young Fathers, the Mercury Prize-winning hip-hop trio from Edinburgh. It’s an inspired choice, and proof that the project isn’t entirely a nostalgia trip; the other new acts—Wolf Alice, the Rubberbandits, Fat White Family, High Contrast (who has the best line here: “Last night I dreamed I went to Woodstock but I only saw Sha-Na-Na”)—do the job of simultaneously sounding contemporary and classic. (March 9)

Stream: “Shotgun Mouthwash” by High Contrast, “Silk” by Wolf Alice, “Get Up” by Young Fathers

July '13 reviews

These reviews ran in the Waterloo Record and Guelph Mercury this month. Some of these records are not exactly new releases, but were reviewed because of either their appearance at the Hillside Festival this weekend or their appearance on the Polaris Prize shortlist—or both.

There was a mean, extended heat wave this month, which may have made me grumpier than usual. But I’ll still highly recommend the following: Los Piranas, Family Atlantica, Mavis Staples, A Hawk and a Hacksaw, Pierre Lapointe.

I stand by my assertion, however, that Purity Ring has made the worst album ever shortlisted for the Polaris Prize.

Boards of Canada – Tomorrow’s Harvest (Warp)

Gold Panda – Half of Where You Live (Ghostly International)

Now that electronic dance music (EDM) means stadium-sized raves and soundtracks a movie like Spring Breakers, the Scottish duo Boards of Canada—one of the most beloved electronic acts to survive the ecstasy era, named after nature documentaries by the National Film Board of Canada—return to get mysterious and downright eerie. There used to be a comforting—weird, but comforting—element to their chilled-out analog-synth sounds. Not unlike, say, watching Teletubbies as the sun rises to end a very long night at a rural rave outside Glasgow (which they used to host).

Here, however, on their first album in eight years, they’ve ditched the more simplistic and repetitive elements of their music and become much stronger composers. They’re still chill, but slightly on edge, like they’re revelling in the calm during a brief respite from impending chaos. Tomorrow’s Harvest is lovely yet ominous; there’s a tension throughout that never explodes. You could throw this on to relax, but you might end up looking over your shoulder every few minutes, paranoid about every bump in the night.

Equally evocative is Gold Panda, whose second album is considerably more buoyant than BoC—obviously a big influence on the dreamy, warm and organic sounds that colour the soundscapes and beats here, which also recall early Caribou and early 2000s poptronica acts like Lali Puna. Gold Panda functions better when he’s not playing for the club—the more beat-driven the track here, the less successful it is, for home listening, at least. But his equally melodic and textural approach spins a lot of charm. (July 18)

Download Boards of Canada: “White Cyclosa,” “Cold Earth,” “Reach for the Dead”

Download Gold Panda: “Flintron,” “Junk City II,” “The Most Livable City”

Louise Burns – The Midnight Mass (Light Organ)

Goth girls on the beach—who knew that would be the trend in Canadian music this summer? First Toronto’s Austra took their witchy ways and went disco, and now Vancouver’s Louise Burns writes lovely, major-key pop songs that nonetheless exist in shadows and veils of reverb, where ’50s songwriting is paired with ’80s production (big synths, thunderous drums)—not unlike what her key collaborator here, Danish producer/guitarist Sune Rose Wagner, does in his band the Raveonettes. She’s devoted to dated aesthetics from 25 years ago, but her songs—and her captivating voice—more than pull her through. (July 18)

Download: “Emerald’s Shatter,” “I Don’t Like Sunny Days,” “Mother of Earth”

Chloe Charles – Break the Balance (Independent)

This new Toronto artist throws us a curveball on the opening track of her debut album, with a doo-wop song in 6/8 time featuring pizzicato strings and a hiccupping vocal. From there, Charles dazzles with jazzy, soul-tinged folk songs that are fully formed and complex—not to mention expertly arranged (she’s a classical guitar player, and puts a cello to good use throughout) and impeccably sung (in her mellower moments, she’s part Nick Drake, part Cassandra Wilson). This is not what you’d expect from a debut album; this woman is following her own path, and it’s that unique vision that will set her far apart from other pop, soul and folkie singer/songwriter, here or anywhere else. (July 4)

Download: “Business,” “Refrain from Fire,” “Amulet”

Louis-Jean Cormier – Le Treizieme Etage (Simone)

Quebecois band Karkwa went on hiatus after their fourth album won the 2010 Polaris Prize and made major inroads into English Canada. As someone who didn’t care for it in the least, it’s been a pleasant shock to fall in love with not one, but two solo records by Karkwa alumni: first the twisted cabaret of Sagot’s 2012 album Piano Mal, and now the debut from main songwriter Cormier, who sounds much more alive and full of possibility on these songs. His melodic hooks are more direct, there’s more swing and swagger in the arrangements, and though he’s largely playing acoustic guitar, he’s still left-field enough to avoid more mainstream comparisons. “J’hais les happy ends,” he claims, but Le Treizieme Etage suggests that the end of one successful stage of his career has only meant even greater possibilities. (July 18)

Download: “La Cassette,” “Tout le Monde En Meme Temps,” “Un Refrain Trop Long”

Family Atlantica – s/t (Soundway)

In 2001, the Senegalese band Orchestre Baobob was resurrected from ’70s obscurity to reveal that Afro-Cuban rhythms didn’t develop exclusively in the Caribbean, but that in fact there had been plenty of cross-Atlantic pollination ever since sailors brought Cuban records to Dakar in the 1940s. Like African funk bands imitating James Brown, cultural lines blurred effortlessly and creating exciting, enduring music.

Family Atlantica is a new band based in London, founded by a British multi-instrumentalist, Jack Yglesias of the Heliocentrics, and his Venezuelan wife, Luzmira Zerpa. Even more so than with Orchestre Baobob, it’s impossible to place where any given track is coming from: a Malian n’goni can be heard over a cumbia beat, a full-throated South American folk singer sings over what sound like Nigerian rhythms; an Ethiopian jazz legend plays some straight-up Afro-Cuban grooves. Every so often the action slows down for an exploratory, psychedelic side trip or a steel-pan interlude. Perhaps a plaintive cello accompanies a downtempo vocal-percussion performance, or a desert-blues guitar sizzles over a simmering rumba. Whatever gets thrown into the mix, it all works. And for that reason, it might be the only “world music” album you need to hear this summer (that is, outside of Kobo Town’s neo-calypso Jumbie in the Jukebox). (July 18)

Download: “Cumbacutiri,” “Pescador Saharawi,” “Manicero”

A Hawk and a Hacksaw – You Have Already Gone to the Other World (LM Dupli-Cation)

Which other world? For Jeremy Barnes and Heather Trost, the married duo from New Mexico who comprise A Hawk and a Hacksaw, they’ve been deeply immersed in eastern European folk music for the last decade (before that, Barnes drummed with Neutral Milk Hotel; both have also played with Beirut). But even aficionados of that music may find themselves in another world listening to this album, which is simultaneously rich with tradition and yet, in both production and approach, wonderfully alien.

Dulcimers and cimbaloms are distorted and played at rapid-fire tempos; percussion can be thunderous and calamitous; ghostly voices appear and haunting piano ballads interrupt the action; psychedelic touches abound; the intense accordion and violin of Barnes and Trost bind everything together with swirling melodies in tricky time signatures.

This music is based on the 1964 Soviet film Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, set in western Ukraine, incorporating some of that film’s original score, but featuring mostly new material (hence the different title); they’ve performed the album with screenings of the film. Though A Hawk and a Hacksaw’s discography is consistently strong, this is one of their best: at the very least, it’s their most diverse and most accomplished. Drawing direct inspiration from a 50-year-old film has, ironically, broadened their already expansive boundaries. (July 4)

Download: “You Have Already Gone to the Other World,” “Witch’s Theme,” “Hora Pa Bataie”

Jay-Z – Magna Carta… Holy Grail (Universal)

Judging by the title, this is obviously a Historically Important Album. (Since when was Jay-Z a modest man?) This time, however, unlike most of his post-Black Album career in the last 10 years, Jay-Z has reason to be boastful. The beats and production here are fantastic: not as deliberately provocative (read: difficult) as Kanye West’s Yeezus, but the equal of Justin Timberlake’s 20/20 Experience, which, like this, was also helmed by Timbaland (who talked Jay-Z into making this record).

Lyrically, he’s got more fire than he’s had for years; which is really weird, considering that he’s largely talking about his art collection, his clothes and his European vacations, with a few asides about being a new parent (“Baby need Pampers! / Daddy need at least three weeks in the Hamptons!”). He’s far more engaging than he has a right to be at this point.

Ultimately, however, this is—like the 20/20 Experience—a serious comeback for Timbaland, who’s been in a creative wilderness since he ruled the pop universe in 2006. Here, he makes stadium-sized, futuristic hip-hop that’s seriously creative, with subtlety and sass; an instrumental mix of this record would challenge any underground EDM record. And yet it’s not all Timbaland all the time: Pharrell Williams helms some of the best tracks here—including the Frank Ocean feature and the all-hands-on-deck track “BBC,” with Nas, Beyoncé, Timberlake, Swizz Beatz and Timbaland—and Toronto’s Boi 1da guides Rick Ross through an ominous, noir-ish electro excursion, “F*ckwithmeyouknowigotit.”

Usually new dads don’t suddenly roar back to recording sounding like they have something to prove, but Jay-Z—who has nothing to prove to anyone, with 11 #1 albums to his credit, second only to the Beatles—has clearly decided to stop coasting on his rep. Check the exec. (July 11)

Download: “Tom Ford,” “Oceans (feat. Frank Ocean),” “Somewhereinamerica”

 Pierre Lapointe – Punkt (Audiogram)

Lapointe is a platinum-selling Quebecois star who has won every major prize in that province, as well as a few in France. Naturally, the rest of Canada has no idea who he is, but this latest album—his fifth—landed on the Polaris Prize long list. As it should. It’s a sprawling, messy, ambitious epic that is to French chanson what Fucked Up is to hardcore punk. Lapointe is a Euro cabaret singer with swagger and orchestration to back him up—including clarinets, trumpets, harps, honky-tonk pianos, pipe organs, fuzzy electric guitars and even a female MC. Lapointe largely keeps the mood buoyant and playful, with the occasional gorgeous Patrick Watson-style piano ballad in the mix, but he also gets downright strange on sombre and disturbing mood pieces like “Barbara,” or the mix of Mike Oldfield and James Bond-theme pomp on “Les Ministeres” (which also features backing singers seemingly borrowed from the Star Trek theme). It’s a tour de force, as the French say, and Lapointe is too brilliant to remain a provincial concern. (July 4)

Download: “L’étrange Route Des Amoureux,” “La Sexualité,” “Monsieur”

Los Piranas -  Toma Tu Jabón Kapax (VampiSoul)

One of my favourite records of 2012 was by the Meridian Brothers, a Colombian group from Bogota doing a deliciously weird, digital and psychedelic take on cumbia music. This side trio for that band’s guitarist, Eblis Álvarez, is even more outré and mindblowing—even more so for the fact that it was recorded live.

Álvarez runs his guitar through a laptop and conjures saxophones and silicon-driven bleeps and blurps, pitch bending every note and still retaining a sense of soul while sounding like the pure expression of a truly unhinged mind. The intent is crazy; the execution is Hendrixian. The rhythm section of Mario Galeano on bass and Pedro Ojeda on drums do more than keep pace; each dances delicately around the guitar while never losing track of the jazzy Latin groove, which is often kicked into overdrive. Los Piranas are the rare band that melts your mind, freak you out and still keep you dancing. The only real parallel is those early Moog exotica records by Jean-Jacques Perry and Gershon Kingsley (The In Sound From Way Out)—except transplanted to South America with a rock trio and 10 times more insane. (July 11)

Download: “Lambada de Oceania,” “Africa y America,” “Champeta de la Corrupcion y la Desgana”

July Talk – s/t (White Girl)

Tom Waits and Amy Millan fronting a band that alternates between punk rockabilly and post-Arcade Fire modern rock? Why not, says this Toronto duo, whose sugar-and-salt vocal duets are only the beginning of the appeal. They’re a whip-tight band that writes great hooks, play with dynamics, and develop bona fide tension with the help of a powerhouse rhythm section. Word is that their live show is even more explosive than what they get up to in the recording studio. (July 25)

Download: “Guns and Ammunition,” “I’ve Rationed Well,” “The Garden”

METZ - s/t (Sub Pop)

METZ IS A TORONTO BAND WHOSE NAME ALWAYS APPEARS ALL IN UPPER-CASE, EVEN THOUGH IT IS NOT AN ACRONYM.

THIS IS PROBABLY BECAUSE, JUST LIKE READING A PARAGRAPH ENTIRELY IN CAPITAL LETTERS, LISTENING TO METZ IS ASSAULTIVE, THEIR OVERALL ABRASION AND LACK OF RIFFS OR SONGS MADE UP FOR BY THE FACT THAT THEY PLAY TOGETHER MORE AS A FORCE OF NATURE THAN A TYPICAL ROCK TRIO.

THE PRODUCTION BY GRAHAM WALSH OF HOLY FUCK GIVES YOU SOME IDEA WHAT TO EXPECT LIVE; THE DRUMS ON “KNIFE IN THE WATER” SOUND LIKE THEY COLLAPSED THE WALLS OF THE STUDIO.

WHILE THE CONSISTENCY AND THE POWER IS ADMIRABLE, THE MATERIAL IS ALSO INSTANTLY FORGETTABLE, DEVOID OF MELODY AND RIFFS OR AN INCH OF SUBTLETY. METZ GET COMPARED TO NIRVANA SEVERAL THOUSAND TIMES A DAY—AND INDEED, IF YOU ALWAYS THOUGHT COBAIN’S BEATLES FETISH WAS A WEAKNESS, THEN METZ IS THE BAND FOR YOU. (July 25)

Download: “Headache,” “Wasted,” “Negative Space”

Purity Ring – s/t (4AD)

This duo take their name from an object meant to signify virginity until marriage. I’ll grant them truth in advertising: Purity Ring, the band, sound like sexless, prepubescent naifs who’ve been locked in their basement with Xboxes and haven't ever exercised a sweat gland in their life: on the dance floor, in a rock club, hauling gear, or even, I don't know, mowing the lawn.

It’s hard to believe they’re twentysomethings who had the gumption to move from Edmonton to Montreal, because they can’t seem to find more than one preset on their drum machine. At least now that they’ve had some inexplicable success, they're touring and seeing the world; in a few years' time they'll be as embarrassed listening to this record as I am for them now.

If you find Grimes, last year’s buzz act spawned from the same Montreal scene, to be fey, juvenile and annoying (I don’t, but many do), then Purity Ring takes the worst of Grimes and amplifies it by 10. In the eight years of the Polaris Prize, a lot of great music has been brought to wider attention; this atrocity, on the other hand, discredits everyone else on this year’s otherwise worthy shortlist. Let’s pretend this never happened. (July 25)

Download: “Crawlersout,” “Obedear,” “Belispeak”

Daniel Romano – Come Cry With Me (Normaltown)

Don’t tell Daniel Romano there’s a tear in his beer—he’s well aware. Romano doesn’t do his Hank Williams homage in a half-assed manner: he’s got the reedy voice (albeit deeper than Williams); the period-specific arrangements; the three-part-harmony, wordless backing vocalists; even the Nudie Cohn-style suit (made by local designer Wendy Rohife of Golden West). And then there’s the Nashville drawl that doesn’t seem native to either the Niagara Region, where Romano grew up, nor the Maritimes, where his grandparents came from. (It’s a good thing Geoff Berner isn’t playing Hillside this year, or he might have been slotted in a workshop with Romano where he could play his song “Phony Drawl.”) Romano is the type of artist who drives critics crazy debating so-called authenticity—there’s undoubtedly an element of theatre here. Whether it works for you depends entirely on whether you find his songs emotionally engaging or downright corn pone. (July 25)

Download: “He Let Her Memory Go (Wild),” “Just Before the Moment,” “Where No One Else Will Find It”

Sing Me the Songs That Say I Love You: A Concert for Kate McGarrigle – Various Artists (Nonesuch)

Beloved Quebecois singer/songwriter Kate McGarrigle died from cancer in 2010. The last 10 years of her life were buoyed by the success of her children, Rufus and Martha Wainwright, who frequently talked up the legacy of their mother and their aunt, Anna; the family—and their extended family, as well as old family friends like Emmylou Harris—performed together frequently in those years.

So it’s no surprise that the clan still sticks together and responded to producer Joe Boyd’s invitation to stage three tribute concerts in London, New York and Toronto; a documentary was made and this soundtrack released. The guest list includes all the usual suspects as well as Norah Jones, Antony, a reunited Richard and Linda Thompson (!), Robert Charlebois and, um, Jimmy Fallon (who does Loudon Wainwright’s “Swimming Song”). With a wealth of talent, beautiful songs and two discs’ worth of material, it’s more than a fitting tribute. The love and reverence every performer here has for the late, great Kate is evident in every note—particularly in Martha’s show-stopping “I Am a Diamond.”

And yet—this sounds like the longest wake you’ve ever been to. The McGarrigles had always written about family and melancholy (or both), so the set list is full of titles like “Kiss and Say Goodbye,” “Tell My Sister,” “Go Leave,” “Mother Mother,” “I Cried For Us,” “Go Leave” and “Travelling On For Jesus.” There are jubilant moments, certainly—and the song performed by members of Broken Social Scene and AroarA is a welcome change of pace, as well as a stunning reinvention—but it’s hard to shake the morbidity. It doesn’t help that it all concludes with a home demo Kate recorded before she died, of a song called “I Just Want to Make It Last,” which opens with her saying, “I’d like to thank everyone for coming to my party.” (July 11)

Download: “I Am a Diamond” (Martha and Rufus Wainwright), “Mother Mother” (Kevin Drew, Amy Millan, Andrew Whiteman, Ariel Engle), “As Fast As My Feet Can Carry Me” (Emmylou Harris and Norah Jones)

Mavis Staples – One True Vine (Anti)

The gospel/pop legend of Staples Singers fame (“I’ll Take You There,” “Respect Yourself”) has been on the comeback trail ever since Barack Obama campaigned for president in 2007. One True Vine is the second album she’s made collaborating with Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy; he not only produces, but plays every instrument here except drums (handled by his 17-year-old son, Spencer). It’s an intimate affair that suits Staples even better than the more robust, bluesy bands she tours with. It also matches the tenor of the material, like the spiritual “What Are They Doing in Heaven Today,” or lead-off track “Holy Ghost” (written by the band Low, from their most recent album, which Tweedy also produced): “Some holy ghost … feeds my passion for transcendence / turns my water into wine / makes me wish I was empty.”

This is not entirely a mournful, reflective album, however. Spencer Tweedy brings a laid-back groove to a cover of Funkadelic’s “Can You Get to That?”, as well as the Staples Singers classic “I Like the Things About Me (That I Once Despised),” which features primarily just a fuzzed-out bass, drums, and Staples with backing singers. Papa Jeff knows that you don’t need to do much to dress up Mavis Staples—her voice on its own has more character than a roomful of musicians—and his minimalist approach pays off on every song. (July 4)

Download: “Holy Ghost,” “Can You Get to That,” “Far Celestial Shores”

Young Galaxy – Ultramarine (Paper Bag)

If Metric lost their sex appeal, their guitars and their finely honed songwriting skills and moved to Sweden, they’d sound a lot like Young Galaxy. This Vancouver duo play carefully quantized synth pop with icy delivery and minimal sparks. “Outside I am diamond / inside I am plain,” sings Catherine McCandless: no kidding. Neither particularly melodic nor progressive nor remotely interesting—which makes three fatal strikes against a synth record—it sounds especially redundant in a year that’s seen new records from both The Knife and Austra; it also has the counterintuitive effect of making me wistfully nostalgic for Anna Domino records, if that means anything to you. Either way, it’s a miracle Young Galaxy teleported its way onto the Polaris Prize shortlist this year. (July 25)

Download: “Sleepwalk With Me,” “What We Want,” “Fever”