March 2015 reviews

Petite Noir

Highly recommended this month: Petite Noir, Pierre Kwenders

Well worth your while: Kronos Quartet featuring Tanya Tagaq, Michael Feuerstack, Will Butler, Buena Vista Social Club

Also this month: I wrote this feature on Will Butler for Maclean’s.

Bright Lights Social Hour – Space is Still the Place (Frenchkiss/Maple)

Five years is a long time wait between your first two albums, especially if you’re an active touring unit. Why it took this psychedelic Austin band so long to hustle back into the studio barely matters: these guys clearly live and die by their live show, and you can hear the years of sweat and blood in every note of this album. The rich harmonies are impeccable, the guitar solos and textures always tasteful without sacrificing any driving energy, and the synths set them apart from other jam bands.

Thankfully, this isn’t just a bar band wandering into the studio: “Space is Still the Place” (apologies to Sun Ra) is drenched in reverb and effects and carefully sequenced, with songs bleeding into each other seamlessly. Bright Lights Social Hour shares sonic space with the War on Drugs or a southern take on Broken Social Scene, but their closest comrades might be My Morning Jacket: only with more slide guitar, way more Hendrix, and a few more CDs by ’70s German bands in the tour van.

Once this album blows up after a slow-building buzz, expect them to be headlining every festival in the summer of 2016. (March 12)

The Bright Lights Social Hour play the Horseshoe in Toronto on April 15.

Download: “Infinite Cities,” “Sweet Madelene,” “Sea of the Edge”

Buena Vista Social Club – Lost and Found (World Circuit/Warner)

Along with the Pops Staples record last month, this is the least expected album of 2015. The Buena Vista Social Club sensation is now almost 20 years old, dating back to when Ry Cooder corralled many of Cuba’s top players and singers to showcase traditional “son” music, resulting in a multi-million-selling album, tour, live album and a Wim Wenders-directed documentary.

Now five of the original members are deceased—not surprising, as many were, at the very least, 70 years old when the original album was recorded. Gone are Ibrahim Ferrer, Compay Segundo, pianist Ruben Gonzalez, percussionist Miguel Diaz (whose daughters just released their debut album as Ibeyi), and bassist Orlando Lopez. All live on in these recordings. The five remaining members (wait a minute, who’s left?!) are going on tour to mark the anniversary, and this collects various outtakes and live tracks.

On paper, Lost and Found sounds like it could be cash grab. It isn’t.

Instead, it’s a reminder of how potent and polished that original lineup was, what rich traditions from which they were drawing, how impeccably placed was every note, every rhythmic accent. Every player here is given room to showcase, without showing off; Gonzalez in particular is a quiet master of restraint.

During the first wave of Buena Vista mania, the World Circuit label was more than eager to satiate demand with plenty of spinoff recordings. At the time, it seemed too many. Now it doesn’t seem like enough. (March 26)

Download: “Brunca Manugua,” “Habanera,” “Black Chicken 37”

Will Butler – Policy (Merge)

If Reflektor and 2010’s The Suburbs were high-concept and over an hour long each, Policy—the debut release from Arcade Fire’s Will Butler (younger brother of frontman Win) is decidedly low-concept and concise: eight songs in 28 minutes. The first single, “Anna,” was written during the last two hours Butler had in the studio with Arcade Fire drummer Jeremy Gara. Another track, “Something’s Coming,” was salvaged from the soundtrack for a TIFF-commissioned short film by New York-via-Winnipeg artist Marcel Dzama, Une danse des bouffons; it features Dzama himself on synths (as well as Gara and Arcade Fire’s Tim Kingsbury).

Policy is light-hearted and even goofy—though these are no more novelty songs than, say, the Rolling Stones’ “Shattered,” or Jonathan Richman’s “Roadrunner,” or any other rock’n’roll classic clearly born from either improvisation or carefree creation. Lyrics include: “If you come and take my hand, I will buy you a pony / we can cook it for supper / I know a great recipe for pony macaroni.” (It’s a play on “Bony Maronie,” the ’50s R&B hit covered by Joni Mitchell, John Lennon, the Who, and referenced in songs by Wilson Pickett, Patti Smith and Echo and the Bunnymen—which sums up Butler’s pop influences almost perfectly).

Don’t mistake this for a lark, however: the simplicity is deceptive, and Butler sneaks a lot of subtle treats into these tiny, perfect pop songs. (March 5)

  

Download: “Anna,” “Something’s Coming,” “Son of God”

Etiquette – Reminisce (Hand Drawn Dracula)

You know this band already. At the very least, you’ve seen Julie Fader sing with Sarah Harmer, Great Lake Swimmers, Blue Rodeo or Chad Van Gaalen. And you’ve seen her main man Graham Walsh with Holy Fuck, or heard records he’s made for Metz, Hannah Georgas or Alvvays. Together, they make lazy, hazy dream pop, laden with synths, drum machines and new wave guitars; fans of Beach House, Air and Saint Etienne should get on board. Fader’s voice is perfect for this sound; she last explored these areas in the later days of her old Hamilton band, Flux A.D., circa late ’90s, early 2000s; that’s also where she first met Walsh. It’s full circle, in a way, to the sounds that united them in the first place. Walsh is no slouch as a producer, of course, but this material sounds even better live. (March 26)

Download: “Pleasantries,” “Attention Seeker,” “Twinkling Stars”

Michael Feuerstack – The Forgettable Truth (Forward)

Writing about a new Michael Feuerstack album is hard. What to say? He’s been writing music for 25 years. He keeps getting better. He’s oblivious to trends. He has lot of influential friends. He ditched the albatross of his long-running stage name, Snailhouse, and reverted to his birth name. None of it ever seems to add to an increased profile, not even last year’s Singer Songer album, in which he enlisted the Weakerthans’ John K. Samson, the Constantines’ Bry Webb, Jim Bryson and others to sing songs he wrote with them in mind. Many of those people were quoted in a recent, glowing Globe and Mail profile of Feuerstack written by Giller prize-winning author Sean Michaels, the kind of tribute that usually only appears after an artist has died—not for somebody with a new record to promote.

And so here we are: another fantastic record, and some more collaborators one degree removed from Arcade Fire (Pietro Amato of Bell Orchestre and the Luyas—Feuerstack also plays in both bands—and Laurel Sprengelmeyer of Little Scream). Feuerstack’s fatal flaw is that his mannered music often seems too polite, too stuck the same mid-tempo favoured by most sensitive singer/songwriters, and there’s plenty of that again here. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.) But there are also tracks like “The Devil,” which features the noisiest, most raucous guitar solo heard on any recordings he’s made outside the Wooden Stars, his ’90s band.

There’s never a bad time to discover Michael Feuerstack. Might as well do it now. Apparently, some people have already: his recent Toronto show was sold out. (March 26)

Download: “Receiver,” “I Wanted More,” “The Devil”

Kronos Quartet featuring Tanya Tagaq – Tundra Songs: Music by Derek Charke (Centrediscs)

The Kronos Quaret: is there anything they can’t do? The iconic string quartet has adapted Jimi Hendrix, flamenco, African folk songs, Chinese opera, Bollywood pop, and commissions from every corner of the world, while also appearing on pop albums by everyone from Nelly Furtado to Nine Inch Nails. Here they take on yet another seemingly impossible task: adapting Inuit throat singing to stringed instruments.

This music, by Nova Scotian composer Derek Charke, has been performed for almost a decade now; why it took so long to make it into the studio is anyone’s guess—for starters, Kronos is unbelievably busy, and this probably doesn’t rank among the most commercial of projects for them to prioritize (not that that’s ever been a concern). Now that Tanya Tagaq is more of a mainstream name—following her 2014 Polaris Prize win for Animism, and profiles in Chatelaine and The New Yorker—this music has added marquee value.

To emulate the guttural vocal sounds of throat singing for a string quartet, Charke developed techniques called circle bowing and vertical bowing (the liner notes here are extensive and helpful). Kronos, of course, is up for any challenge, and they make this material more than just a curiosity; it’s entirely engrossing even when you forget what it is you’re listening to.

Charke doesn’t want you to forget, however: both the main pieces here feature audio gathered in the North, both sounds from nature and storytelling. Tagaq features on the title track, both vocalizing and reading a version of the Inuit legend of Sedna written by Laakuluk Williamson Bathory (apparently used without direct permission, for which Tagaq has apologized), a harrowing tale matched in intensity by the swirling strings around her. It’s incredibly powerful and unforgettable—not, of course, unlike anything else Tagaq is involved in. But here the renowned improviser proves she can successfully fit into someone else’s vision; together with Charke and Kronos, they all bring out the best and most challenging in each other. (March 19)

Download: “Cercle du Nord III,” “Throat Song,” “Tundra Songs”

Pierre Kwenders – Le dernier empereur bantou (Bonsound)

Montreal has Canada’s best African music scene and its best electro scene. Naturally, it’s also the city most likely to witness fusion between the two. Kwenders was born in Kinshasa and came to Canada from the Congo at 16; his fellow Montreal producers hail from Mozambique (Samito) and New Brunswick (Alexandre Bilodeau of Radio Radio, whose bizarro Acadian take on hip-hop landed them on the Polaris Prize shortlist a few years back). One track here, “Mardi Gras,” featuring a lilting, distorted violin track, is perhaps the only Cajun-Congolese electro track ever made (see below). That’s only the beginning of the successful cross-pollination happening here: dancehall, South African rhythms, cumbia, Bollywood vocals, rock guitars and hip-hop all help colour Kwenders’s tracks. If Manu Chao or Bran Van 3000 had kept pushing their sonic explorations further, they’d likely end up in a similar place to Kwenders. Whatever you do, the man who sings in four languages told the Montreal Gazette, don’t call it world music: this is polyglot pop, and it’s a matter of time before Santigold or Rihanna starts ringing him up. (March 19)

Download: “Popolipo,” “Mardi Gras,” “Ani Kuni”

Madonna – Rebel Heart (Warner)

Yes: Madonna is 56. Yes: ageism is bad, and Madonna’s career still doesn’t demand the same kind of respect that Mick Jagger or David Bowie’s does, even though it should. That’s not what we should all be upset about with all the kerfuffle surrounding her 13^th album. What’s really offensive here is how terrible Rebel Heart is, musically and lyrically. This would be embarrassing if 23-year-old Miley Cyrus made it; age has nothing to do with it.

Rebel Heart starts out well enough. “Living for Love,” “Devil Pray” and “Ghosttown” are decent late-period Madonna singles: the former hearkens back to the early ’90s, which puts the legend in the unusual position of chasing an imitator 30 years younger like Kiesza, who rode this sound to the top of the charts last year.

From there, however, she transforms into “Unapologetic Bitch” (followed shortly by “Bitch, I’m Madonna”) and various other braggadocio numbers that sound sad, not sassy. Then the woman who once—more than 20 years ago—published a book called Sex has a song called “S.E.X.,” which is easily one of the least sexiest songs she’s ever done. There are unintentionally hilarious, faux-provocative songs called “Messiah” and “Holy Water.” Apropos of nothing, Mike Tyson shows up on a track, alongside Chance the Rapper.

Madonna has always craved our attention, no question—but she’s always commanded it just by showing up. Here she’s all crass, no brass. Considering her current pop competitors, is that her fault? Maybe. She once changed cultural conversations and helped North America shed its prudishness; now she has to shout to be heard.

What’s worse: Rebel Heart is interminable: 19 songs in 75 minutes, featuring a faded icon grasping at straws. It’s been 10 years since her last strong single, at least 15 years since an album worth hearing all the way through, but she’s always at least been somewhat interesting. It’s hard to recall a time when Madonna has sunk lower than this. (March 19)

Download: “Living for Love,” “Rebel Heart,” “Ghosttown”

Meligrove Band – Bones of Things (We Are Busy Bodies)

Golden Dogs – 3½ (independent)

The Elwins – Play for Keeps (Hidden Pony)

“Don’t Wanna Say Goodbye,” sing Toronto’s Meligrove Band on their fifth album in 15 years. After a career of ups and downs, this band gave up on reaching the top a while ago—but that hasn’t changed their approach to power pop, which they attack with the same enthusiasm and exuberance they did when they were teenagers. Sure, there are now a few mandolins and psychedelic detours thrown in for good measure, but this is a band who sees no good reason to slow down—and offers no audible evidence why they should, either.

Likewise, the Toronto-via-Thunder Bay Golden Dogs have been silent for the past five years, but return with keyboardist Jessica Grassia moving behind the drum kit and taking more vocals from her partner, singer/guitarist Dave Azzolini. With two new bandmates on board, the Golden Dogs sound young and hungry and ready to push out in all directions, sounding louder and wilder than ever before. Opening track “Decided” begins with shades of ’70s funk and falsetto before shifting into a heavy-metal spy-movie theme. All the more impressive—it was recorded entirely live off the floor at Toronto’s Revolution Recording. Everything here sounds like a band falling in love with music all over again, jamming in the studio with no expectations, for pure pleasure.

On the heels of both these geezers are the Elwins, a young band from the shores of Lake Simcoe whose second album is full of big, bright hooks that should rule the summer of 2015—starting with soaring lead single “So Down Low.” There are times when they sound like they’re trying a bit too hard, like the cloying opener “Bubble”—much better suited to, say, Katy Perry—but this is a band who is nothing if not eager to please. Seeing how their tour schedule finds them spending most of the spring in Germany and China, catch them in a small local venue now while you can. (March 5)

Download Elwins: “So Down Low,” “You Have Me,” “Sexual Intellectual”

Download Meligrove Band: “Tortaruga,” “Don’t Wanna Say Goodbye,” “Disappointed Mothers”

Download Golden Dogs: “Decided,” “Do It For You,” “MK Ultra”

 Zeynep Ozbilen – Zee (independent)

Let me get this straight: a Turkish woman fronting a Latino band singing an American classic by a Canadian songwriter? Zeynep Ozbilen’s cover of “Spinning Wheel”—by Torontonian David Clayton-Thomas, of Blood Sweat and Tears—transcends any obvious novelty factor and comes out swinging, in more ways than one. She takes a well-worn standard and makes it entirely her own. Listening to the rest of this fantastic album, it’s indicative of only a portion of her talents.

I couldn’t make up this woman’s bio if I tried. Born and raised in Istanbul, for 10 years this classically trained singer led what was apparently Turkey’s pre-eminent Latin band. She now lives in Toronto, where she puts her M.B.A. to work in a corporate career while also owning a gallery and creating sculpture when she’s not busy singing jazz or melding Arabic and Latin influences into her own songs, all expertly arranged by pianist and producer Roberto Linares Brown.

How good is this album? She turns the soggy chestnut that is Phantom of the Opera’s signature song, “Memory,” into a salsa barnburner—and it works. That takes serious chutzpah—and talent. (March 26)

Download: “Spinning Wheel,” “Alufte,” “Icin Icin Yaniyor”

Petite Noir – The King of Anxiety EP (Domino)

Lapsley – Understudy EP (XL)

New wave? Nope—“noir wave,” according to 24-year-old Yannick Ilunga of Cape Town, South Africa, a.k.a. Petite Noir. It’s like Daniel Lanois producing Joy Division with Fela Kuti’s Tony Allen on drums, and it’s pure magic. Much like another Cape Town resident, Canadian expat Zaki Ibrahim, Illunga combines great melodies with forward-thinking production that embraces electronics with elements of traditional rhythms. Opener “Come Inside” has a loping drone not unlike Malian desert blues; “Chess” is the kind of subtle, pulsing pop song that U2 gave up trying to write after Zooropa; “Shadows” would sound right at home delivered by Santigold or TV on the Radio. All this from a guy who spent his teen years playing in metal bands and claims to have had a life-changing experience after Kanye West’s 808s & Heartbreak came out. Production and songwriting aside, it’s Illunga’s multi-octave range that’s the real star here, and what is most likely to push him ahead of the pack. Expect even bigger things when his full-length drops later this year.

On a similar wavelength is 18-year-old Liverpool singer/producer Lapsley, who draws more from torch-song balladry and sets her songs to late-night, downtempo electronics. She’s young enough to be heavily influenced by James Blake and Drake, but as with Petite Noir, it’s her soulful voice that sets her apart from every other bedroom shut-in thinking they can be a pop star. She’s signed to the same label as The XX; don’t be surprised if she becomes just as big. Lapsley plays the Drake Hotel in Toronto on May 5. (March 5)

Download Petite Noir: “Come Inside,” “Shadows,” “Chess”

Download Lapsley: “Falling Short,” “Brownlow,” “8896”

Joel Plaskett – The Park Avenue Sobriety Test (Pheromone)

What’s the definition of “dad rock,” exactly? Never mind Wilco, I’d offer this eighth album by Joel Plaskett as Exhibit A. Plaskett’s always been a bit of a freestyling cornball, but here he can be heard singing: “I’ve got a little boy and all my songs are silly / if I have another son, I might name him Philly.” So-called “mom music” is often mocked—largely for entirely sexist reasons—but surely even the worst mom music doesn’t sink this low, does it?

There are plenty of references to whisky, and in more than one song, we’re privy to Plaskett asking a mysterious man named Thomas if, in fact, the tape is rolling (it is). I don’t know exactly what a Park Avenue sobriety test is, but this album sounds like it was made during a bender of a weekend with a bunch of fellow dad dudes in the basement. “Dear Lord, I’m meandering I don’t how to stop it,” Plaskett sings. “If you buy my compact disc, this song might be on it.” Yeesh.

If this were almost anyone else, we’d have little reason to care. But this is one of the finest Canadian songwriters of his generation, something he proves yet again on about half the songs here—particularly three ballads in the middle of the record. One of which is the head-scratcher “Captains of Industry,” a country ballad set to a drum machine and lyrics that appear to be written by Naomi Klein. (“The captains of industry are driving us home / selling us lies and tapping our phones / shaking us down and we don’t even know it / if you want real love, show it.”) No matter, it works—and also features one of the finest guitar solos ever heard on a Plaskett record.

Largely, however, Park Avenue Sobriety Test sounds like Plaskett letting all guards down and jamming with his extended musical community. His role as East Coast musical ambassador is cemented in the album’s first full-band song, “On a Dime,” a fiddle-driven road song. “Alright/OK” is tailor-made for the live show, a chance to show off his band and engage in some rap swagger, complete with a shout-out to Nova Scotian pride. I’d love to hear it live; I never want to hear the recorded version again.

The Park Avenue Sobriety Test is Plaskett on autopilot, tailor-made for CBC Radio 2, rowdy folk festivals and Canada Day concerts. He’s (east) coasting, but he’s entitled. (March 12)

Download: “Alright/OK,” “When I Close My Eyes,” “Captains of Industry”

Alana Yorke – Dream Magic (independent)

Who is Alana Yorke, and why are she and musical partner Ian Bent dressed in black posing with falcons on the back of this Halifax artist’s debut album? The mystery only deepens when one hears the majestic, cinematic art-pop that results from a magical connection between Yorke and Bent—friends, apparently, since they were five years old. Much like Toronto’s Lydia Ainsworth, Yorke is a disciple of Kate Bush, but doesn’t let that influence overshadow her many strengths. Recorded by Charles Austin (Super Friendz) and mixed by Mark Lawson (Arcade Fire), Yorke’s debut is not likely to remain an East Coast secret. (March 12)

Download: “The Wichita Years,” “Time Revisited,” “Anthem”

April 2014 reviews

Recommended this month: The Both, Doomsquad

The following reviews appeared, as always, in the Waterloo Record and Guelph Mercury.

 The Both - s/t (SuperEgo)

Aimee Mann almost never makes a bad album—even if they all pretty much sound identical: same impeccable production, same mid-tempo pace. If her lyrics weren’t so smart and incisive and even biting, you could accuse her records of being too polite.

Which is why it’s a tad shocking here, on a full-length collaboration with punk songwriter Ted Leo, that the first time we hear her voice it’s accompanied by a shriek of feedback underneath it. Leo, who is 10 years Mann’s junior, shakes her out of a rut—and not just because of his dirty guitar tone. Unlike a lot of high-profile pairings, The Both sounds like a 50/50 partnership that plays to both artists’ strengths. Even if you didn’t know anything about each performer’s history, it’s evident when every song features not just perfect harmony, but vocals traded off like actual duets—the likes of which barely any pop act other than Stars bothers to write anymore. Both Mann and Leo sound like they’re having fun, discovering the magic they share and raising each other’s game. (April 17)

Download: “Milwaukee,” “Volunteers of America,” “The Hummingbird”

Mac DeMarco - Salad Days (Captured Tracks) 

The term “salad days” goes back to Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra, where the heroine says, “My salad days,
When I was green in judgment: cold in blood.” The 24-year-old Mac DeMarco—an Edmonton native who bounced around Vancouver and Montreal before landing in Brooklyn and becoming a buzz act—is definitely in his salad days. His blood, though, is anything but cold. On this, his third full-length (second under his own name), he sounds like nothing at all could possibly raise his blood pressure: indeed, one imagines him sprawled out on a couch, guitar in hand, microphone stand carefully arranged to reach his reclined position, his rhythm section craning their necks to try and intuit changes.

Basing this book on its cover, I had every reason to hate Mac DeMarco. Go ahead: do a Google image search. He comes off as a slacker dressed for a day at the beach in ironic retro-ugly fashion—which seems to go hand in hand with his ’80s guitar chorus pedals that make a god-awful approximation of Pat Metheny slumming with the lo-fi home recording crowd. At times it sounds like the Cocteau Twins’ Robin Guthrie trying to play with Pavement, or the British cloudgazing band The Clientele detuning their guitars in the middle of a song. He almost seems to intentionally be going for the weirdo vote by replicating those strange but beautiful private-press albums from the ’70s, obscurities that existed only in runs of 500 before being reissued in the 2000s with extensively researched liner notes (see: Donnie & Joe Emerson’s album Dreamin’ Wild, on Light in the Attic Records).

If you can get past that—and it might take a while—it becomes clear that DeMarco puts a lot of effort into making music that sounds this effortless, if not, well, bad. He’s a much better guitar player than his crappy sound would suggest, and he occasionally employs unconventional harmonies (or dissonance) in otherwise dreamy (albeit slight) melodies. Every song sounds more or less the same—does that make him lazy or consistent? (April 10)

Download: “Salad Days,” “Brother,” “Johnny’s Odyssey”

Doomsquad – Kalaboogie (Hand Drawn Dracula)

Bewitching beatsmithery from the dark woods of Algonquin Park, created by three siblings who like to filter their worldly influences through a dark haze: sludgy guitars burble up from underneath electronic pulses and looped marimbas, with haunting female vocals chanting throughout. Sometimes a funk groove or a pop song might emerge; sometimes it sounds like you’ve stumbled into a rural rave with a bunch of hippie goths. Kalaboogie isn’t just a silly name for an album; it’s named after Calabogie Lake, just west of Ottawa, where much of this album was recorded with engineer Leon Taheny (Owen Pallett, Bruce Peninsula). Fever Ray meets King Cobb Steelie? Stranger things have happened—and many of them do, here. (April 17)

Download: “When the Dead Become Infants,” “Waka Waka,” “Eternal Return”

Eccodek – Singing in Tongues (Black Swan Sounds)

This is the fifth original album by Guelph’s Andrew McPherson as Eccodek, and never has his global reach sounded so coherent. He’s long dabbled in African and Indian grooves; the fusion of the two is seamless here, even with Balkan vocals and Mediterranean oud and an American hip-hop MC entering into the mix. It sounds much better on headphones than it does on paper. McPherson built the tracks from raw material by his occasional collaborator, Jah Youssef, recorded by Lewis Melville in Youssef’s native Mali. Many other artists try to make music like this, thinking if they throw enough ingredients in the pot and slap a beat underneath it, that they’ll magically achieve musical nirvana. That’s not McPherson. There’s a good reason why this small-town guy has built a formidable international reputation: one listen to Singing in Tongues will reveal what that is. (April 17)

Download: “In Confidence,” “Singing in Tongues,” “In My Tribe”

Michael Feuerstack & Associates – Singer Songer (Headless Owl)

Montreal “singer/songer” Mike Feuerstack is easily an MVP of Canada’s musical underground. He plays or has played with the Wooden Stars, Bell Orchestre, the Luyas, Bry Webb (Constantines), Julie Doiron, Islands, and more. Here, he calls in some favours, writing nine songs for his peers to sing; the guest list includes the Weakerthans’ John K. Samson, Bry Webb, Jim Bryson, reclusive Montreal country singer Angela Desveaux, Mathias Kom (The Burning Hell), Jessie Stein (the Luyas), Little Scream, and Llewyn Davis—whoops, I mean, Leif Vollebekk. Longtime Feuerstack fan and collaborator Jeremy Gara, of Arcade Fire, is on drums. What could go wrong? Nothing, of course. Granted, it doesn’t pack the same wallop that these same singers might have covering the greatest non-hits of Feuerstack’s entire career, as opposed to entirely new material. There’s plenty of time for that—and no shortage of admirers likely to step up to the plate. (April 10)

Download: “Did I?” (feat. Bry Webb), “Stories” (feat. Jessie Stein), “Lost & Found” (feat. Jim Bryson)

Ibibio Sound Machine – s/t (Soundway)

The number of record labels devoted to reissuing African music from the ’70s has recently discovered a rich treasure of contemporary African acts in London, notably KonKoma and Owiny Sigoma Band. Ibibio Sound Machine is fronted by British-Nigerian vocalist Eno Williams, singing in her mother’s native tongue, backed by three producers and KonKoma’s Ghanaian guitarist Alfred Bannerman. They have more in common with early ’80s post-disco dance music than they do ’70s Afrobeat or highlife, favouring synth bass and modern digital production, albeit with a real horn section; at times there is also the distorted kalimba, a futuristic ghetto sound popularized by the Congolese Konono No. 1. Ibibio Sound Machine’s drumming is anything but straight-ahead, filled with tricky syncopation; between that and Williams’s non-English lyrics, it’s clear this is a band thoroughly enjoying itself straddled between two times, two places. (April 3)

Download: “Let’s Dance,” “Prodigal Son,” “I’m Running”

Justin Rutledge - Daredevil (Outside)

What a disappointing month for Tragically Hip fans. First Gord Downie’s much anticipated collaboration with the Sadies turned out largely to be a letdown, and now Justin Rutledge shows up to dump on the legacy of one of the greatest rock bands this country has ever produced.

Sure, The Tragically Hip are songwriters responsible for venerable favourites that deserve to be reinterpreted and rediscovered, and Downie’s lyrics leap off the page as poetry independent of the music. But The Tragically Hip are also a rock band first and foremost, one whose power depends largely on their internal chemistry. Here, the songs are stripped beyond bare by Rutledge, a sad-sack supreme whose music is hard to appreciate from anything but a horizontal position. Even then it can be a cumbersome chore (unusual for easy listening music), despite the high calibre of players he consistently manages to attract.

It’s not impossible to cover the Hip, but it requires imagination: compare Selina Martin’s 2011 electronic reimagining of “Grace Too” and compare it to Rutledge’s limp, somnambulant rendition heard here. Taking one Hip song and dragging it to a dead stop is not a terrible idea—once. And Sarah Polley (of all people) already did that with “Courage,” for The Sweet Hereafter soundtrack more than 15 years ago. Gord Downie’s melodies on their own rarely provide hooks: the Hip’s success has everything to do with his snarling delivery and the riffs and energy behind him. Obviously, none of that is here; oddly enough, Rutledge even seems to avoid the more melodic material available in the catalogue, and gives the best song here, “Fiddler’s Green,” to Jenn Grant to sing.

Nothing about these versions make me rethink the originals or shed new light on their merits; everything about these versions make me want to listen to the originals—or, in fact, anything else at all.

Is there an Anti-Polaris Music Prize for worst Canadian album of the year? If so, there’s no contest. I’ll grant Rutledge this about Daredevil: it’s daring, all right. (April 24)

Download: “Looking For a Place to Happen,” “Escape is at Hand For the Travellin’ Man,” “Fiddler’s Green”

Thus Owls – Turning Rocks (Secret City)

Canada and Sweden: two countries that punch above their global weight when it comes to musical talent. Surely, however, Thus Owls is the first half-Canadian, half-Swede collaboration. Singer Erika Angell (née Alexandersson) met Patrick Watson’s delightfully unconventional guitarist, Simon Angell, on tour in Europe; shortly after, they got married and started Thus Owls, with Swedish bassist Martin Höper and endlessly inventive Montreal drummer Stefan Schneider (Bell Orchestre, Luyas); organist Parker Shper rounds out the lineup. Together, they exist outside of genre or easy comparisons—even to Watson’s particular brand of art-rock. Vocal harmonies recall early Joni Mitchell, while the fearless songwriting, which plays with structure and meter, rarely ventures toward obvious hooks. The music works better on an intellectual level than on a gut one, though Erika’s vocals are more than capable of holding anyone’s attention. (April 10)

Download: “As Long As We Try a Little,” “Bloody War,” “A Windful of Screams”

Tycho – Awake (Ghostly International)

It’s amazing the difference it makes to electronic musicians when they actually form a live band and hit the road. Just ask Nicholas Jaar, who hired guitarist Dave Harrington to help him tour Jaar’s solo project, and their chemistry together led to the collaboration Darkside, arguably the best electronic record of 2013. Here, Tycho, aka San Francisco artist Scott Hansen, invites the live band he toured with to promote 2011’s Dive to join him in the studio. Dive had featured guitar and bass helping to colour the synth-drenched, dreamy, washed-out beats; with a seasoned band in the studio this time, however, Hansen taps into a live energy that steps up his game. Bassist Zac Brown (no, not that Zac Brown, of the Zac Brown Band) is just as melodic as Hansen’s U2-ish guitar lines, while drummer Rory O’Connor ensures that no one will ever again accuse Tycho of being an ambient electronic act. (April 3)

Download: “Awake,” “Plains,” “See”

Whoop-Szo – Qallunaat/Odemin (Out of Sound)

Here’s the pitch: a bunch of freaky noisemakers from Guelph travel to the second-northernmost community in Quebec to run a screen-printing program for Inuit youth, and wind up recording a double album there full of psychedelic jams, field recordings, hushed pop songs, raging prog-rock monstrosities, and anything else the landscape and the -50 temperatures inspired them to do. Even without the backstory, the music itself would inspire you to play it at your next basement party, field rave—or maybe your five-day festival of independent music and arts programming with a special focus on the weird and wonderful (i.e. Guelph’s magnificent Kazoo fest, which took place April 9-13). (April 10)

Download: “Dark Light,” “Has It Been So Long,” “Whale Songs”