April '11 reviews

These reviews ran in the K-W Record and Guelph Mercury this month.

Chancha Via Circuito – Rio Arriba (ZZK)

ZZK is a club and label in Buenos Aires that specializes in a digital take on South American cumbia music. Pedro Canale started out as the merch guy at the back of the club, but with his second album as Chancha Via Circuito, he finds himself at the forefront of the movement. That’s because there’s nothing gimmicky about what he does: he’s not simply playing cumbia rhythms that he’s spliced together on his laptop. His tempos get pitched around at will, making him sound more like an avant-garde turntablist at times, and yet he also brings in a breadth of traditional acoustic sounds that give his project much more warmth than his entirely digitally dependent peers. Guitars, cellos, percussion that sounds like pebbles, marimbas and pan flutes abound. Most of Rio Arriba is comprised of his original tracks, but his remixes for other artists contained here are just as revealing, especially his work with Miriam Garcia and Alicia Solans, who are obviously South American but sound Balkan—proof once again that cultural cross-pollination comes alive on the digital dance floor. (Apr 14)

Download: Jose Arride – “Quimey Neuquen Remix,” Miriam Garcia and Alicia Solans – “Pintar el Sol Remix,” “Puente”

Galaxie – Tigre et diesel (C4)

Anyone who finds Malajube too odd, who finds Karkwa too bland, or in general has yet to hear any francophone Quebecois music that kicks their ass, then this record by Galaxie should not be so far, far away.

If Gordie Johnson of Big Sugar wrote songs with Beck for Black Mountain to perform with Stereolab—in French, no less—then you’d have the third album by this Quebecois band (who unfortunately used to have “500” affixed to their name, causing much confusion with the influential cult band Galaxie 500). Fuzzy, somewhat blusey guitar riffs are given a lo-fi glam treatment with fluttering synthesizers in the background, all of which demands to be played at maximum volume, ideally with a bottle of Maudite in hand.

Galaxie love their ’70s sounds, but don’t get lost in retro reverence. Olivier Langevin is the rare guitarist who noodles effectively, and his band, which includes acclaimed solo artist Fred Fortin on bass and two members each on female vocals and keyboards (not all the equipment are 30 years old—there are some definite modern electro moments here) sound massive with merely the simplest arrangements. Unlike most franco rock bands, there’s nothing clunky about the cadence here; Langevin knows how to write a hook in the universal language. And on “Jusqu’a la fin,” he writes a perfect cliché acoustic ballad that hits all the right chords, readymade for campfires and high school slow dances everywhere.

Other Quebecois bands will get more hype in the anglo press, but this is the one that the rest of Canada—especially our rock radio stations—really needs to hear. (Apr 28)

Download: “Camouflar,” “Jusqu’a la fin,” “Diesel 2”

Jim Guthrie - Sword and Sworcery EP (Dark Flute)

If you’re an avid Twitter user, you may have noticed the hashtag #sworcery pop up in your feed, especially if you have particularly geeky gaming friends. It refers to a new video game by a Toronto design team that’s climbing the iPad app sales charts—almost overcoming the ubiquitous Angry Birds. Guelph’s Jim Guthrie has been an integral part of the game’s development since the beginning.

If this video game’s upward ascension continues—and it’s only been out for a couple of weeks—Sword and Sworcery may soon become the main calling card of Guthrie’s prolific career, which includes a stint with Royal City (who got a shout-out from Arcade Fire on the Junos), acclaimd solo albums, film soundtracks and ubiquitous ad jingles. And because video games—even nerdfests like this one—reach an infinitely larger audience than oddball Canadian indie records, it’s likely to be the most lucrative as well.

Like any video game music, Guthrie wrote this with loops in mind—how long the player stays in a certain mode determines how long they hear a particular passage of music. And yet for the album versions, he’s edited them into cinematic songs that have elements of ’70s horror films, ’80s Asian action movies, and fantasy narrative video games of the ’90s. It’s easily the most ambitious thing he’s attempted, and Guthrie is more than up to the challenge, producing an album that succeeds entirely independently of the game it was commissioned for.

Guthrie has a “normal” album due later this year, but anyone who’s been waiting for him to follow up 2003’s Juno-nominated Now More Than Ever shouldn’t hesitate to get their game on with Sword and Sworcery. (Apr 7)

Download: “Lone Star,” “The Ballad of the Space Babies,” “Bones McCoy”

Hauschka – Salon des Amateurs (Fat Cat)

The concept of “prepared piano”—which means inserting various objects between the strings of the piano, creating percussive sounds—is rarely employed outside avant-garde music circles. And that’s a realm where German pianist Hauschka, aka Volker Bertelmann, is certainly comfortable, as his sublime 2005 album simply called The Prepared Piano illustrated. Since then he’s made some records that are poppier than others, exploring orchestration and electronics along the way. Here, however, he returns to the prepared piano and applies it to pulsing rhythms—courtesy of guest musicians Joey Burns and John Convertino of Calexico and drummer Samuli Kosminem of Mum—that employ the repetition, build-up and release of techno music without ever using four-on-the-floor drums that would make the link all too explicit. Instead, Salon des Amateurs is a delicately orchestrated, peppy and percussive piano suite that serves as a perfect summation of this prolific composer’s oeuvre to date. Granted, there is not much variation to be found here, and after a while all the plinkety-plink sounds like a soundtrack for a clockmakers documentary or a Jean-Pierre Jeunet film—if you’re into that kind of thing. (Apr 28)

Download: “TwoAM,” “Girls,” “Subconscious”

Johnny – s/t (Merge)

Not many people know that Norman Blake, of ’90s Glaswegian rock band Teenage Fanclub, has been residing here in Waterloo for the past several years. That in part explains why that band has only put out two albums in the past 10 years, but it doesn’t explain how Blake continues his transatlantic connections with this new project, a collaboration with Welsh weirdo Euros Childs, of the offbeat psychedelic band Gorky’s Zygotic Minci.

Fans of both bands will not be surprised: Childs’s playful sense of pop meets Blake’s more muscular arrangements in the middle, and the result is rich with sunny harmonies, piano pop, country leanings, and odes to, um, bread. Everything is economical and under three minutes, except “Cave Dance,” which starts out as a goofy two-minute dance song before beginning eight minutes of droning space rock. No matter—the indulgence is perfectly excusable, given the pure pleasure that colours every other corner of this debut from two veterans who don’t feel like they have any time to mess around. (Apr 14)

Download: “You Was Me,” “Bread,” “I’ll Make Her My Best Friend”

k.d. lang and the Siss Boom Bang – Sing It Loud (Nonesuch)

The cover image is promising: k.d. lang, one of the greatest singers of the last half-century, beaming and holding a megaphone. The name of her backing band is also promising: for the first time since disbanding her country outfit the Reclines over 20 years ago, lang is collaborating with a real band, one whose moniker hints at swing and sass and verve. Perhaps lang will finally have an album of original material that matches her unearthly talent, yes?

No. Not since 1992’s Ingenue has lang managed to pen material that suggested she was doing so as anything more than an exercise. Sing It Loud is the closest she’s come to that transformative time, but it pales in comparison. The title track is the nadir; ironically, absolutely nothing about it makes you want to sing it loud. The lone cover here is of the Talking Heads’ song “Heaven”: “Heaven is a place where nothing ever happens,” a sentiment that sums up the approach to songwriting here.

Of course, lang is in fine voice—when is she not?—but the band, while capable of dreamy torch-song textures, don’t have much personality of their own; they certainly can’t breathe life into the material. Despite the cover art, there is very little bounce to lang’s step here. We know we’ll never again hear the irreverent cowpunk of her youth, but still, one longs to hear her belt out something other than a mid-tempo ballad.

On “Inglewood,” she sings: “Take me to a place where music sounds good again / the place where I could’ve been / the place where I should’ve been.” Hear, hear. (Apr 14)

Download: “I Confess,” “Asleep With No Dreams,” “Heaven”

Malajube – La Caverne (Dare to Care)

Despite their many strengths, Malajube always seemed to be hiding behind something. (For most anglophones, that would start with their French lyrics, but if that’s a stumbling block for you, then you can’t be helped anyway.) The band’s 2006 breakthrough Trompe l’oeil buried their pop hooks under layers of grunge; the 2009 follow-up Labyrinthes found them taking some fascinating prog-rock turns, as, of course, Quebecois bands are prone to do. La Caverne, on the other hand, aims for the gut on the opening track and first single “Synesthesie,” which captures all their strengths in under three minutes, stuffed full of melodic guitar rock over a disco beat. (It’s a formula they repeat on another Caverne cut, “Le Blizzard.”)

From there, Malajube continue to strip away the layers and focus on spacious, atmospheric rock that is equal parts Modest Mouse and Pink Floyd (“Mon Oeil” sounds suspiciously like Pink Floyd’s “Us and Them”). Their sense of arrangement, which they pushed to the limit of Labyrinthes, is much more focused on brevity and clarity throughout La Caverne—which, building on their previous successes, will undoubtedly continue their winning streak as the international torchbearers of Quebec’s criminally neglected francophone rock scene. (Apr 28)

Download: “Synesthesie,” “Sangsues,” “Le Blizzard”

Miracle Fortress – Was I The Wave? (Secret City)

This dreamy one-man band’s debut album, Five Roses, combined Beach Boys pop, ’80s new wave and ’90s psychedelic shoegaze music in a way that sounded entirely fresh, despite the obvious touchstones. This time out, Miracle Fortress main man Graham Van Pelt is stuck primarily in the ’80s, with this album’s best tracks sounding like a subdued take on New Order or even Men Without Hats. There’s less to distinguish Miracle Fortress from dozens of similar acts on the scene.

What’s more—or, more accurately, what’s less—is that of the 10 tracks here, four are short instrumentals. That leaves about three songs for Van Pelt to prove himself—which he does, thankfully. The once-hyped, now-forgotten Junior Boys, for example, would kill to write songs like “Spectre,” “Everything Works” and “Miscalculations.”

The Fortress has been breached, but there is still some treasure hidden inside. (Apr 28)

Download: “Spectre,” “Everything Works,” “Miscalculations”

Robbie Robertson – How to Become Clairvoyant (Fontana North)

The older he gets, the more apparent it is that Robbie Robertson is a musical sponge. He may have written the classic songs by The Band (though drummer Levon Helm has a thing or two to say about that), but without his Band-mates Robertson has often sounded lost—with the sole exception of his 1988 solo debut, which was more of a Daniel Lanois album with a lot of helpful guests.

Here, Robertson invites Trent Reznor, Robert Randolph, Tom Morello and other people who are more talented than he is these days, as well as Eric Clapton—and yet he still comes up short with a boring boomer record in which he sits around and reminisces about more creative times. Granted, it may be the first time he’s written so autobiographically—but who cares? I’d rather read his upcoming book.

It’s telling that one of the best tracks here, “Madame X,” sounds like telephone hold music with a melody cribbed from a Big Chill favourite, Smokey Robinson’s “Tracks of My Tears.” (Apr 7)

Download: “He Don’t Live Here No More,” “Madame X,” “Fear of Falling”

Paul Simon – So Beautiful or So What? (Concord)

Veteran performers are either ignored as irrelevant or lauded for being on the comeback trail; there doesn’t seem to be any in-between for an artist like Paul Simon. His last album, the excellent 2006 Surprise, produced by Brian Eno, was his most impressive collection of songs—as well as his most fascinating production job—since 1990’s Rhythm of the Saints, and yet it vanished without a trace. Now, everyone is tripping over themselves to praise this new album, which offers mixed results at best.

Simon is at his best when he’s crossing cultures, like the West African guitar atop tabla in “Dazzling Blue,” or the Malian kora that dances around the fine folkie fingerpicking of “Rewrite.” “Love is Eternal Sacred Light” is a blues stomp, which is crying out for someone less polite that Simon to do a rip-roarin’ version.

Perhaps not coincidentally, those tracks also inspire the better lyrics on this release: the tepid, straightforward acoustic ballad “Love & Hard Times,” on the other hand, inexplicably shifts from a tale about God and Jesus visiting Earth to a story of a long-time romance (did he get distracted halfway through writing it?). The title track tries to use his recipe for chicken gumbo as a metaphor for a “life’s what you make of it” lesson—needless to say, to no avail.

Simon does deserve credit for not standing still, however. Much of his discography bears little sonic resemblance to each other, even if lyrically he consistently plays the part of the slightly bumbling and bewildered philosophical fuddy-duddy astutely observing the modern world that’s leaving him behind. As on Surprise, there are themes of mortality and spirituality—particularly on "Afterlife," which envisions heaven as just another bureaucracy to endure. But mostly, unlike the music, his lyrics sound like a caricature of himself—which, as the self-deprecating title hints, he may well be aware. (Apr 21)

Download: “Dazzling Blue,” “Rewrite,” “Love is Eternal Sacred Light”

Timber Timbre – Creep On Creepin’ On (Arts and Crafts)

The album title, while funny and appropriate for the spooky sounds of Timber Timbre, is undeniably campy—and, unfortunately, so is some of this third album by Toronto’s Taylor Kirk, augmented here by a new band that includes quivering saxophones, droning violins and plinking piano.

The band’s 2009 self-titled sophomore record was a masterpiece of mood, of tiny terrors and tension; here, those eighth-note piano pulses and Kirk’s Elvis impersonation start to sound like crutches, even if the arrangements are otherwise inspired, the work of violinist Mika Posen in particular adding equally eerie and lovely textures.

Of the 10 songs here, three are incidental instrumentals, experimental pieces that offset the album’s more conventional creep and provide welcome left turns. The result is an album that puts Timber Timbre in the paradoxically purgatorial situation of both spinning its wheels and stretching its legs; its brevity suggests that Kirk himself is unsure which direction he wants to be pulled. (Apr 7)

Download: “Bad Ritual,” “Woman,” “Too Old To Die Young”

TuneYards – Whokill (4AD/Beggars)

In a release week where Paul Simon sounds old and tired and TV on the Radio are stuck in a rut, along comes a new TuneYards album that makes both of those artists sound like conservative fogeys.

TuneYards is Merrill Garber, a Vermont native who started her musical career in Montreal and now lives in Oakland, California. Previously a solo performer who made lo-fi bedroom recordings, she now collaborates with bassist Nate Brenner, invited other guests and takes advantage of the possibilities in a real studio. While she used to come across as a ukulele player that sounded like Joni Mitchell immersed in post-punk dance music and African rhythms, now she explores all those sides at once, creating a unique fusion that makes this one of the most fascinating albums this year.

Whokill is as dense as an early Public Enemy album, as joyous and melodic as a Vampire Weekend record, as natural as birdsong and as wonderfully weird as Mary Margaret O’Hara or Kate Bush all at once. Though those may be comparison points, her music doesn’t actually sound like any of these people at all, yet it effortlessly evokes their adventurous spirit.

She front-loads the album with the most in-your-face aspects of her performance: full-throated hollers, pounding drums, distorted sounds, syncopated rhythms. But there’s a lovely and tender side to her as well, and when she doesn’t feel like throwing everything at the wall at once—though she’s one of the few artists than can do so effectively without looking like a show-off—she can be delicate and haunting.

Whereas her contemporaries like Animal Collective and Dirty Projectors wear their weirdness with a sense of self-conscious pride, TuneYards puts on no airs at all: as oddball as she is, Garber is entirely intuitive, earthy and visceral. This music comes from her gut, and it’s sure to hit you in yours. (Apr 21)

Download: “My Country,” “Bizness,” “Doorstep”

TV on the Radio – Nine Types of Light (Universal)

You can take the band out of New York City, but you can’t… oh wait, maybe you can take the New York City out of the band. Since their inception a decade ago, TV on the Radio have captured the sound of post-9/11 New York, with all its beauty and paranoia, isolation and hopefulness all wrapped up in gospel-tinged vocals on top of one of the few rock bands whose use of electronics weren’t rooted in retro ’80s trappings, marking them as one of the most original bands of the new century.

Here, after their triumphant 2008 album Dear Science and pursuing side projects, they decamped to L.A., and appear to have been sapped of any and all inspiration. There’s no drastic change in sound, just 13 largely flat tracks that sound like they’re punching the clock—something one would never before accuse this band of doing. A song with the chorus, “My repetition, my repetition is this” may pay homage to Toronto’s Dream Warriors and their “My Definition” single, but it wears out its welcome rather quickly. “Caffeinated Consciousness” bears an odd and uncanny resemblance to INXS’s lugheaded “Guns in the Sky”—which, if you’re going to pick an INXS song to rip off, that should be last on your list.

Despite the material, vocalist Tunde Adebimpe remains compelling, pulling off some convincing Al Green turns here. The rhythm section—featuring bassist Gerard Smith, who passed away from lung cancer shortly after the album’s release—is inventive and unpredictable, never settling into a straightforward rock or funk groove, which works both for and against them. David Sitek is a guitar hero ala The Edge, less about showy technique than he is about texture. TV on the Radio are no less a great band than they were before, and so while the sound of them sleepwalking is less than commendable, it’s still better than most groups’ A-game. (Apr 21)

Download: “Killer Crane,” “Forgotten,” “Second Song”

Polaris predictions

Polaris Prize ceremonies are tonight, and host Grant Lawrence is trying his best to prepare jokes that won’t offend the corporate sponsors, the artists, or last year’s host Jian Ghomeshi. It’s a thankless job. Buns will be thrown.

It's no secret I'm rooting for Miracle Fortress, the one and only album on the list that I find consistently rewarding. The rest of the list, for me, consists of either of great artists with several weak tracks, or of people I never would have considered in the first place. Five Roses is a gem from beginning to end, no qualifying statements necessary. Read my review here.

Because I can't resist, this is how I would argue it in the jury room:

Arcade Fire: When it's good, it's great, and the best material here will outlast most other records released in the past year. But though successful on many levels, there are still a couple of tracks here (namely the first two) that are mediocre at best. See interviews starting here. See review here.

Besnard Lakes: I realise that there's a "critical consensus" about how great this band is (according to Brad Wheeler in today's Metacritic-combing Globe and Mail article), but other than the opening track I don't hear anything but sludgy shoegazey guitars, pretty vocals singing no melodies, monotonous and soulless rhythm, and repetitively dull lyrics. I know they're nice people. I know Jace Lacek is a great producer. But this band leaves me stone cold.

Dears: I've always found this band hot and cold, but even this skeptic thought No Cities Left was a grand achievement. This, on the other hand, had me pressing 'skip' halfway through every plodding track. I'm glad Mr. Lightburn claims to be feeling more optimistic these days, but you'd never guess that from the tepid music found here.

Julie Doiron: Great record, her best since Love Tara. See interview here.

Feist: Lots of great songs, but there's a reserve here that keeps me at a distance. Plus, a couple of weaker tracks derail the album's overall strengths. Hear my pre-Reminder interview here.

Joel Plaskett Emergency: Musically, this is the most fun album on the list, and is tailor-made for anyone who grew up loving rock'n'roll on AM radio. "Fashionable People" is a candidate for single of the year, and elsewhere Plaskett covers all his favourite genre bases easily. Lyrically, however, he doesn't always hit his mark, and it's the only thing that stops me from loving this album outright. See interview here.

Junior Boys: Occasionally they have great songs, but have never struck me as a great band and this is by no means a great album. At least half of it puts me to sleep. Which is too bad--seeing as how they're the only act on the list to break the indie rock hegemony.

Miracle Fortress: Practically flawless. See Helen Spitzer's interview here.

Chad VanGaalen: A truly great artist, but this is not his best work--and apparently he doesn't think so either, judging by reports of comments he's made at live shows. I think he got this nod because it took a long time for most jurists to discover the far superior debut Infiniheart.

Patrick Watson: There's no question that the guy--and his band--is infinitely talented, but his music occupies the muddy ground between songwriting and soundscape experimentalism, often failing at the former while the more abstract moments are the ones that succeed. Either way, it doesn't add up to a coherent record. Watson is still stuck in the "most promising" department rather than deserving this prize. Read my Eye piece here.

Who will take it? Looking at the final jury, I haven’t the slightest idea. That’s a decidedly mixed bag of people—hell, we might even have a hung jury. One thing is for sure, however: unlike last year’s Toronto-heavy jury selecting a Toronto artist from a list dominated by Torontonians, there won’t be any of the usual catty Canadian behaviour calling out the winner’s geography as a principal political factor in the prize. Still, it’s always a challenge to keep politics out of a decision like that: let’s hope the best album (on that list) wins.

Which, of course, is Miracle Fortress.

And if you want an award you can vote on yourself, head over to SOCAN's Echo Songwriting Prize and vote for either Nathan, Feuermusik, Abdominal, Besnard Lakes or Chad VanGaalen. Winner gets 5000 clams.

Miracle Fortress

The Polaris Prize nominees were announced on Tuesday, and amidst no small share of grumbling about inclusions or exclusions (Apostle of Hustle was robbed!), the one item that made me the happiest was the inclusion of Five Roses by Montreal's Miracle Fortress. Though I like several of the albums on the list, there are few that I love as a song cycle, a sustained mood, a real album--which is the whole point of Polaris in the first place.

This record snuck out quietly a little more than a month ago to zero expectations--especially among anyone unimpressed by Think About Life, the other project for the 23-year old Miracle Fortress mainman Graham Van Pelt. Yet Five Roses has quickly captured the attention and imagination of many with its delicate and dreamy pop songs set to a hazy soundscape of indeterminate origin, sounding like the ultimate 70s summit between Brians Wilson and Eno. I've been smitten from the first time I heard it--when it showed up unannounced on a multi-disc player on an early summer Scrabble evening with my beloved, who has since become its biggest and earliest champion.

Here, guest poster Helen Spitzer (the aforementioned beloved) talks to Van Pelt for this article in Eye Weekly about living and creating in Friendship Cove, the (soon-to-be-shuttered) loft/living/studio and performance space he shares with poster artist Jack Dylan and others in Griffintown, a historic English-speaking working class factory district in Montreal. He also explains how he's always been a solitary man since growing up in the Shakespearian small town of Stratford, Ontario, and how attached he is to the album format--something that is evident in everything that went into the minor masterpiece that is Five Roses.

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Miracle Fortress, Graham Van Pelt
Interview by Helen Spitzer
June 13, 2007
Locale: phone interview from the Friendship Cove in Griffintown, Montreal

Helen Spitzer: What does your Miracle Fortress look like?

That’s privileged information. I don’t want to give that out on the phone. Especially to a journalist.

HS: Good point. But really, where does that name come from?

Actually the Miracle Fortress looks like a big pile of equipment that is arranged in a circle, that I used to get into and play onstage when I did solo shows. I climbed in behind this drum set and three amplifiers and a whole bunch of keyboards and samplers and tried to play everything at once. It was a glorified one-man band.

HS: You don’t do that anymore?

I’m still doing a little of that at the beginning of sets that I play, but now I’ve got a backing band that helps me [for the rest of the set].

HS: Who’s in the band?

Jordan Robson-Cramer plays in Sunset Rubdown and Magic Weapon, and Adam from Telefauna and Jessie from SS Cardiacs.

HS: To me, this seems to be a really joyful record.

Yeah, that’s weird. I guess it kind of is. It just kind of happened that way. Some of the lyrics are pretty personal and kind of dark. The songs that ended up being keepers were these really fluffy pop washes that I ended up really liking. It wasn’t something that I had planned on. There was no blueprint for it.

HS: I wasn’t suggesting it was unrelentingly happy or anything. For the most part, the lyrics seem to be an internal conversation and I’m curious what that’s about.

Well, a lot of it is private. Issues I’ve always dealt with, that I ended up writing lyrics about because I wanted to deal with. There are songs about the inability to express myself and songs about troubles with religion. And then songs about goofy relationships in the sun: sunshiny summertime flings or whatever.

HS: What are your issues with religion?

Not even religion, but just weird spiritual experiences that I’ve felt, or had growing up. Not really being able to interpret them and not really wanting to tag it as religion, or anything, but I don’t know what to do with it.

HS: What were those?

Oh, I dunno, a lot of pretty private stuff. But there were definitely moments when I … I don’t know how to go into this, but just like sort of confusing awakenings and stuff like that.

HS: Like being aware of a presence?

Yeah, stuff like that. It was more psychedelic experiences. I would be really bad at describing it here, though. That’s a tough question

HS: The record is also really sentimental. And I don’t mean that in a negative way at all; it’s something I connected with immediately.

I wanted to try something that was less ironic, and kind of grandiose, and try to do something that was a little more personal. If you abandon irony you end up with sentiment, and then you either try to mask it for the sake of your own decorum, or you just subtly deal with it. The sentimentality in the songs is scary or personal but I left them there instead of trying to hide or something.

HS: So what’s your motivation for abandoning irony?

At the time I had been doing a lot of really tongue in cheek music and doing things that were really intentionally over the top. And fans were acting over the top and ironic and I wasn’t really relating to it very much anymore. I guess I wanted to see if I could be one of these artists who could revive a bit of seriousness.

HS: Or just sincerity.

Yeah exactly. I don’t know if I was particularly successful, but I think I’d admired those artists most, the ones who could put themselves out there in an honest way. And there’s tons of great stuff that comes out of being silly and goofy.

HS: So how would you characterize Think About Life?

It’s changing a lot but it definitely started out as a joke band that became serious. And now we’re actually writing songs and treating it with some respect, instead of this recklessness that we used to approach it with.

HS: So you continue to be involved.

Oh yeah. We’re recording new stuff and have an EP coming out at the end of the summer. It’s in a transitional phase right now because it’s going away from being totally non-serious and almost like ironically sentimental or childish to [something else]. We’re trying to keep some of that childish awe but actually take the project seriously. Which is weird.

HS: My first impression of Five Roses was that it was the sound of someone falling in love.

I did write a lot of the songs in one of those sweeping, early periods of a relationship, so it was very exciting. That was where most of the songs came from. There was definitely that kind of sweetness that came from experiences coming from very early in a relationship.

HS: Alluding to what you were saying earlier about an internal monologue, you seem to be cautioning yourself to be careful with your heart.

It’s true. It’s clearly a biographical piece of work. And working solo in the studio for three months or whatever, not having any outside input, you spend your time with your inner demons. I was just talking to myself the whole time, singing to myself. It was weird putting this character into a record that was actually me. Sometimes it’s very awkward to listen to.

HS: Did cautioning yourself work, though? Was that good advice?

[Laughs] Like I said, it was stuff that was written in a very early phase of a relationship, and the relationship itself didn’t end up working out. But I can still treasure the instances and experiences that were happening.

HS: The real sentimentalist in me was really rooting for you. When I listened to the record, I thought, “This is the love of his life!”

[Laughs] That’s how it felt at the time, yeah.

HS: Tell me about when you came to Montreal. You moved directly from Stratford, Ontario?

Three years I’ve been here.

HS: Who were the first people you connected with musically in Montreal?

The first people I met were the AIDS Wolf guys and this band called Les Angles Morts. I went and saw Torngat the first weekend I was here. AIDS Wolf started practicing at the house I was living in, which was totally obscene and pretty terrible to have to endure as far as volume was concerned, but great. But they were big influences from the get-go, just being really gung-ho and putting on a great show. Eventually you meet everyone because it’s a pretty small little community.

HS: It’s just like a small town.

The English-speaking community is all concentrated into two neighbourhoods that aren’t really bigger than your average small southern Ontario town. Every second person is a musician or promoter or label guy.

HS: The longer I was in Montreal the more unrealistic perception I had of the rest of the world.

Yeah, totally. It’s kinda heaven.

HS: What do you think of Griffintown?

It’s okay. It kind of forces a certain lifestyle on you that you either adapt to or resent. It’s very, very boring and quiet here, as opposed to anywhere else in Montreal. You have to either immerse yourself in your work, or go completely crazy. It’s good if you have a project on the go or a deadline or something. But when you’re not really doing anything it can be a pretty big drag. I have to like vacation out to the Mile End and crash on everyone’s couches just to socialize,

HS: Really?! You’ll take a break from Griffintown and go sleep somewhere else?

Yeah, you have to. There’s nobody here and there’s nowhere to go and as far as business, there’s no street [life] here.

HS: I had a sense there had been people moving there recently.

Yeah, people are moving here but they just stay up in their condos on the 17th floor or get into their underground parking garages.

HS: So tell me about your sordid past in Stratford!

There wasn’t a lot going on there. I just was doing music on my own. It’s actually how I learned to do a lot of the studio stuff that I do.

HS: What were your musical beginnings?

My parents got me a guitar. I wasn’t into it initially, but after a while I started getting obsessive started reading a lot and really wanted to test myself, and try out every genre that I heard. And see if I could create the same genre I was hearing and listening to.

HS: I’m dying to know how you achieved the sound on this record. Certainly, there are elements that you can point to as being derivative, but at the same time that it’s so bright and sunny it also has this detached, icy feeling. It’s a very consistent sound, yet it evolves over the course of the record. It’s constantly surprising.

There’s no one trick or one piece of equipment that I ran everything through to achieve the effect that I was looking for. I was very into a lot of recordings from the 60s or early 70s, solo pop musicians that I was really admiring at the time: people like Harry Nilsson and John Cale and Brian Eno, especially early John Cale records. I was listening to the tone and the way the instruments used to sing back then, the carefulness with how engineers back then would record instruments.

I tried to impose the kind of restrictions that they would have had. Like if you want to get a reverb sound, don’t just record whatever and then throw a reverb plug-in or something. I wanted to really use the sound of a big room, and record things naturally. I was trying to find the subtlety that engineers used back then, as opposed to recording a bunch of instruments and then fixing it in mixing.

It was all about taking care to get the right tone out of the instrument you were using, or finding two or three instruments that blended really well together and then play them really carefully so that they all kind of sit with one another and form this kind of chorus. Brian Wilson did this on Pet Sounds, blending two or three different instruments very carefully in time so that what you get is this new instrument, like an accordion and a chime and a saxophone or something, coming together and creating this voice that’s totally new and different. Instead of EQing or compressing your sounds, try changing them by blending them in an interesting way.

HS: You were talking about going for natural reverb and using the space that you were recording in. Did you record everything at Friendship Cove?

Yeah. I have a big room that’s really dry and dead sounding, and a big room that’s totally drywall and concrete and really live. I use the “live” room just to get a lot of the big singing reverb and I use the “dead” room to give the keyboards some air without making them too washed out.

HS: Tell me about Friendship Cove.

I had my bed in one of the rooms and I’d roll out of bed in the morning and have it all there in front of me.

HS: How many people live there?

There are four of us that live here. And a few more bands use it as a practice space.

HS: I understand you spent a lot of time sequencing the album.

Definitely. We came up with a lot of sequences and finally arrived at one. During mastering I was moving all the songs around, dramatically. It feels like one piece of music to me now. Even if I’m not listening to it, I imagine it in the order that it got sequenced. I always do this to any album. I never listen on random. I never do anything like that.

HS: I hate random. It’s just wrong.

Oh, completely. It is an art form. Albums are arranged as pieces of music too. I mean, you wouldn’t put a song on random?! You wouldn’t like, hear the chorus first and then want to go to the breakdown and then hear the first verse or something.

HS: Well, unless you’re Venetian Snares. I am now wondering if they’re working on iPods that do exactly that.

So shuffle up a song in 10 second segments? (laughs)

HS: Do you think that the iPod’s kind of messed with how people listen to albums?

Not having first hand experience, I don’t really know. I’ve never been able to afford one. I get this certain joy out of holding a record and taking it out and putting it on, and looking at the artwork while it plays and reading the lyric sheet. I really notice it missing when I’m just throwing an MP3 on. And the fidelity, actually. I didn’t used to notice it but I really do now. I’ve really started to feel the high register missing. It messes with reverb and it messes with cymbals, and I find the bass gets mushy too.

HS: So you enjoy the entire tactical and visual experience of an album.

I guess because I was getting into music just before all the IPod and MP3 stuff started to happen, so I was trained on albums, and going into a CD store and flipping through everything.

HS: Were there other people who played on the record?

No, I played everything on the record, for better or for worse. It’s just easier if you can do it. I’m just too impatient to call up a drummer friend and schedule a day and have him over. Especially when you’re doing pop music where the playing is pretty basic. I do like playing with other musicians and I really like collaborating when I’m improvising, but on the recording end of things, if I’m writing a pop song and arranging it, it makes so much less sense to have to schedule around other people. I like to do things really fast.

HS: So you’re self-taught in all the other instruments you play, like drums?

No, I took about four or five drum lessons when I was in high school. Same thing with guitar. I did try. I should have stayed in them longer. I did all of my improvement during those lessons and it’s been kind of frozen since then.

HS: Do you have any difficulty translating this to a live show??

Plenty! [Laughs] For one thing, doing stuff with other musicians who have different playing styles, you have to get used to hearing what someone else’s guitar technique is gonna be compared to your guitar line. Which is often better than what you did, but it’s all different. Also doing stuff that electronic stuff in the studio and then trying to get a live act to do it, you have no control over the very subtle tone changes, for example, that you can do to a kick drum sample. Having the songs come to life can be a bit jarring at first.

HS: And you have to consider the live setting itself. As a member of the audience you’re not going to hear the subtlety, regardless.

I’m more just worried that they’re gonna be terribly bored if I’m playing these slow, cerebral songs with very particular and precious arrangements. I’d much rather turn it into some kind of rocking thing that people actually want to stand there and watch.

-end-

June review round-up 07

It's the long weekend with plenty of live action in Toronto, including two great shows around the corner from each other tonight at the Tranzac and Lee's Palace.

The Tranzac is holding a fundraiser to improve the venue's soundproofing--it currently shares a wall with its residential neighbour, which puts the kaibosh on late night activities. On the bill are Bruce Peninsula (which you might remember from this) and two all-star soul cover bands: Steel Door and Secret Recipe, the latter featuring the knockout vocals of Anne Rust d'Eye from Jon Rae's River, along with other Riverdwellers and local lights.

If for whatever reason that kind of community event isn't your thing, then I'd highly recommend the Brooklyn/Boston pop band Bishop Allen at Lee's, whose brilliant new album The Broken String (out in July) is highly recommended for anyone who spent 1996 listening to Wilco's Being There and the first Ben Folds Five album. Amazing songs and great production; hopefully they can do it live as well.

Some things that ran in Eye this month that I've neglected to mention:

This interview with We're Marching On, the gentlemen who organized the Track and Field festival. I'll post this transcript sometime in the future. In the meantime, they're playing the Tiger Bar in Toronto on Friday, June 29.

This CD review of The Ghost is Dancing, who are playing a release show on Friday, June 29 at the Drake Hotel in Toronto. Western Canadian dates in July.

This CD review of the new disc from Raising the Fawn, the main band of occasional Broken Social Scenester John Crossingham. It's the first thing I've liked from this band since their 2001 debut, which I wrote about here. Their CD release show is not until August 2 at the Rivoli.

And finally, one of my favourite new discs from the always-fertile Black Mountain posse, which is by Lightning Dust, the duo of Amber Webber and Josh Wells.
[Speaking of that crew, I'm currently reading Blood Meridian and can't say I'm getting much out of it at all other than colourful writing about desert sunsets and unspeakable gore. What am I missing?]

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Here are some reviews written for the mainstream daily paper the Kitchener-Waterloo Record.
For scrolling ease, the order of appearance is: Mavis Staples, Patrick Wolf, Antibalas, Keren Ann, Rihanna, Cowboy Troy, Big & Rich, Betty Davis, Miracle Fortress, Metric, Abdominal.



Mavis Staples – We’ll Never Turn Back (Anti/Epitaph)

How quaint—an album of civil rights anthems. Isn’t segregation, like, so ’60s?

Not exactly. When the idea was first pitched to gospel and soul singer Mavis Staples, she thought these songs belonged in the past. After all, as part of the Staples Singers family, she had sung many of these songs countless times back when black children still needed armed guards to escort them into white schools. But as Katrina illustrated, double standards still abound, which is as good enough a reason as any to breathe new life into them.

With the help of guitarist/producer Ry Cooder, Staples sounds downright fiery on standards such as "Eyes on the Prize" (also covered by Springsteen recently), "On My Way" and "Down in Mississippi." These aren’t rendered as feel-good inspirationals, either; they’re recorded with a powerful sense of conviction and urgency. Cooder finds the funk in each one of them, while Staples is still as commanding as ever, her luxurious voice investing every line with divine grace.

That gift comes in handy during the four and a half minutes of "We Shall Not Be Moved," which might be fine at a rally, but it seems like an eternity here. And some tracks feature Staples giving a roll call of civil rights leaders, which threaten to make the whole album seem like civics lessons with grandma.

But as much as this is intentionally a living museum piece, Staples is still connected to the present day, where there’s still much work to be done. On the album’s finest, funkiest and most ferocious track, she tells us frankly: “Ninety-nine and a half just won’t do.” (June 7, 2007) Staples plays the Toronto Jazz Festival at Nathan Phillips Square this Sunday, July 1, with the Rebirth Brass Band.

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Patrick Wolf – The Magic Position (Universal)

It’s like the last two decades never happened. Patrick Wolf was born in 1983, and if an artist gets their formative influences from childhood, it sounds like his parents stopped buying records the day his mom gave birth.

Wolf is a dandy drama queen drawn to lush, romantic pop, with ridiculously colourful fashion and devoid of doubt as to his own greatness. He’s the kind of eccentric pop star that decades of irony and cookie cutter corporatism have sought to erode, which is why The Magic Position sounds like such an artifact.

It would be embarrassing if Wolf wasn’t actually as good as he thinks he is. But he not only writes captivating cabaret melodies, but plays most of the instruments, including viola, ukeleles, and a cavalcade of keyboards with sufficient virtuosity. As a singer, he adopts a shameless swagger; his vocals send you scrambling to your New Romantic reference book to look up everyone from Martin Fry of ABC to Holly Johnson of Frankie Goes to Hollywood. Meanwhile, he even convinces Marianne Faithfull to sing a duet with him.

There more than enough moments here that reek of self-conscious affectation, but the songs manage to rise above all of that. Lucky for him, lucky for us. (June 7, 2007)

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Antibalas – Security (Anti/Epitaph)

What started out as a tribute band to Afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti has evolved to incorporate a wealth of other influences, with the focus remaining on the tightly wound grooves and the punchy horn section. Security is the fourth full-length for Antibalas, and easily the most well-rounded and rewarding.

Producer John McEntire strikes a fine balance between the vintage sound of Antibalas’s forefathers, and a crisp digital sound more akin to his own work in Tortoise. The five-piece horn section takes centre stage here, offering majestic melodies and funky fanfares for the rhythm section to dance around. As always, heavily charged politics play a part in the fleeting vocal moments, but they never distract from the party vibe.

Though Afrobeat is still the dominant influence, most of the grooves here have more in common with Herbie Hancock’s Headhunters—a high water mark in futuristic jazz funk that only a band like Antibalas could hope to surpass. (June 7, 2007) Antibalas play the Opera House in Toronto on Friday, June 29.

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Keren Ann – s/t (EMI)

No wonder Keren Ann’s music sounds like a disembodied dreamstate. Born to Russian/Javanese/Israeli/Dutch parents, she was raised in Paris and relocated to New York City to record her 2005 masterstroke, Nolita. This time out, she records on three continents as well as in Iceland.

When she actually does sit still to record music, she has a sleepy, calming croon that invites you to “lay your head down in my arms,” and invites easy comparisons to Mazzy Starr and Suzanne Vega.

But don’t get too comfortable. Just as Nolita was adorned with sinister synths and eerie trumpet lines, this self-titled album has an unsettling undercurrent to it. Lyrically, there are many details of how her heart “died a slow weary death,” likely at the hands of a troubled artist. Underneath, a Lou Reed-ish electric guitar chugs alongside the deceptively delicate Euro folk-pop shadings; at the album’s halfway point, on "It Ain’t No Crime," the electric guitar suddenly breaks free from lullaby land into a skronky blues solo to jolt the unsuspecting listener awake.

While she still loves her synths to add textures to the cocktail piano and acoustic guitar base of much of this material, this time she also employs an Icelandic choir to add otherworldly harmonies when they’re least expected. Most of the time they’re barely recognizable, though they do come to the forefront on "Liberty," where their angelic qualities are on full display.

It’s these elements that set Keren Ann far apart from Norah Jones or even Feist, even though she likely has the same appeal for latte listeners. Don’t let the stark black and white album cover, simple title or surface beauty fool you: this is a multi-layered, dense delight. (June 14, 2007) [My live review of Keren Ann's show at the Rivoli is here.]

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Rihanna – Good Girl Gone Bad (DefJam/Universal)

Barbadian singer Rihanna is barely 19 years old and this is her third album in three years—and the cracks are starting to show. “I don’t know who wants to be my friend for who I really am,” she intones on the confessional "Question Existing." “Who am I living for? Is this my limit? Can I endure some more?”

That awkward teenage moment aside, Rihanna comes out swinging on the first half of the album, with raunchy guitars on "Shut Up and Drive," a disco throwdown on "Don’t Stop the Music," and the vivid imagery when she sings: “I’m breakin’ dishes up in here all night/ I ain’t stoppin’ ‘til I see police lights.”

Even though her vocals put most of her moppet peers to shame, she might be understandably insecure that hired heavyweights like Timbaland, Jay-Z, Ne-Yo and Justin Timberlake threaten to steal the spotlight. Some of these older men have fond memories of the 80s, which is why there are subtle sampling nods to Lionel Richie, Michael Jackson, New Order and Art of Noise—all of whom were in their prime before Rihanna was even born. But the end result is that Good Girl Gone Bad manages to merge the best of 80s pop with modern R&B, not unlike Nelly Furtado (who can no doubt relate to the title).

Furtado’s hitmaker Timbaland shows up on three tracks, though it’s telling that these aren’t even the strongest moments here. He pulls out a New Orleans marching band on "Lemme Get That," but the song "Rehab" not only pales in comparison to Amy Winehouse’s song of the same name, but co-writer Justin Timberlake shamelessly rips off his own "What Goes Around."

Otherwise, Rihanna sounds like she has the summer hits sewn up. And if it does well enough, maybe she can even afford to take a year off. (June 14, 2007)

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Cowboy Troy – Black in the Saddle (Warner)

His hick-hop 2005 debut album Loco Motive qualified for comedy album of the year, but Cowboy Troy is ready to be taken seriously—by going metal.

That’s right, if his main influences Garth Brooks and Run DMC already seemed like an odd combination, Cowboy Troy invites metal band Avenged Sevenfold to guest on the opening track, while the rest of Black in the Saddle features crunching guitars to add to the cartoonish genre mashing that he likes to call "Blackneck Boogie."

Producer J. Money (aka John Rich of Big & Rich) returns to sing smooth choruses and make sure tracks like "Hick Chicks" get the slick new country sound they deserve, always making room for a pedal steel and fiddle alongside the drum machines and stadium rock flourishes.

The Nashville Star co-host himself raps about Rambo and Sambo, sneaks in references to the Trail of Tears, and talks about how “People I’ve never met wanna take me body surfing behind a pick-up.” He knows that as only the second black artist ever invited to perform at the Country Music Association Awards, he’s always going to be the odd man out in Nashville, hence songs like "Take Your Best Shot Now," "Paranoid Like Me" and "How Can You Hate Me?"

And really, how can you hate Cowboy Troy? The more ridiculous he gets—and much of this album is nothing if not ridiculous—it’s hard not to admire the guy for his gumption. And hell, if the trashy freak show that is Kid Rock is allowed to get away with this, so should Cowboy Troy, who is just so gosh darn wholesome. (June 21, 2007)

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Big & Rich – Between Raising Hell and Amazing Grace (Warner)

Cowboy Troy’s mentors Big & Rich are also looking to be taken a bit more seriously, ever since their single "Save a Horse (Ride a Cowboy)" pegged them as a novelty act.

Sadly, there’s no fun to be had on this album at all, as much of this mid-tempo material drips with saccharine platitudes that sound like they were written in rehab, including the title track.
Gimmicky guests don’t help matters. Wyclef Jean proves once again to be the most embarrassing man in hip-hop with his cameo on "Please Man," while R&B singer John Legend is invisible on "Eternity."

Finally, if Big & Rich can’t even pull off a countrified cover of AC/DC’s "You Shook Me All Night Long," one has to wonder if they’ll still be able to maintain their credibility as producers on other people’s records. (June 21, 2007)

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Betty Davis – s/t (Light in the Attic/Koch)

Betty Davis – They Say I’m Different (Light in the Attic/Koch)

In the early 70s, Betty Davis was a snarling, sly and sexually brazen soul queen who specialized in raw and nasty funk, driven by electric guitars and clavinets that rode one-chord vamps that gave Davis plenty of room to strut.

On her first solo album in 1973, Davis had members of Sly and the Family Stone (including bassist Larry Graham) and Santana, and backing vocals from the Pointer Sisters and Sylvester. Hearing her slink her way through the caustic "Anti Love Song"—possibly written about abusive ex-husband Miles Davis—is to witness one of the most captivating vocal performances in the history of soul music.

She produced the follow-up herself, They Say I’m Different, where her funky vision comes into clearer focus. Though, really, nothing prepares you for the sound of her screaming, “He was a big frrrreak! I used to whip him with a turquoise chain!”

Both albums come with fascinating liner notes by Oliver Wang that document Davis’s mysterious life. But ultimately, the real story comes alive when you crank the volume and realize that this makes Amy Winehouse sound like Sarah McLachlan. (June 21, 2007)

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Miracle Fortress – Five Roses (Secret City/Fusion 3)

The lazy, hazy days of summer are upon us, the ones where the heat leads to hallucination, the heart skips a beat at the sight of skin and sunglasses, and some days it’s hard to be motivated to do anything but drive out of town, lie in the grass and stare at the sky.

It’s the time of Brian Eno’s “blue August moon” and Brian Wilson’s “endless summer,” and a time that Montreal’s Miracle Fortress knows well, combining the best of both Brians to create a summery sonic landscape where guitars and synths melt into one another to create indeterminate textures, basslines sound like they’ve been borrowed from soul classics, layered vocal harmonies sing sweet melodies, and various sunbaked sounds conjure images of lapping waves and crying birds.

Indeed, it’s a miracle that this all works together, but Five Roses announces mainman Graham Van Pelt as a wildly creative producer and songwriter, one with a distinctive aesthetic that should sound just as sweet no matter what season in which it finds you. (June 28, 2007)

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Metric – Grow Up and Blow Away (Last Gang/Universal)

Eventually Metric would grow up and blow everyone away, but this previously unreleased 1999 debut album clearly denotes baby steps. Here they toy with trip-hop synths and textures, sounding more like a pretentious version of Sneaker Pimps than the trashy new wave rock band they’d evolve into. Some fans might appreciate the chilled out middle ground between vocalist Emily Haines’s brooding solo work and the frantic sound of current Metric, but mostly this sounds dated and very much like a work in progress, made by a Toronto band trying hard to fit into the London/ New York/ L.A. axis (it was made in all three cities). In Haines’s own words, “You are everything/ you are nothing at all.” (June 28, 2007)

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Abdominal – Escape From the Pigeon Hole (Do Right/Outside)

Why is it that the finest old school hip-hop is usually accompanied by a hokier-than-thou MC? Abdominal employs some fine beatmasters, including Jurassic 5’s Cut Chemist, the UK’s DJ Format and his fellow Torontonians in Circle Research, Notes to Self and DJ Fase, all of whom mine vintage soul tracks to create a funky backdrop for his nerdcore musings.

At times, it works brilliantly, as on the the bicyclist anthem "Pedal Pusher," the ultimate Toronto shout-out "T.Ode" and the breakneck breath-deficient "Abdominal Workout" and "Breathe Later," where the motormouth MC comes out swinging at rappers who can’t cut it live.

But more often than not, Abdominal sounds downright juvenile, like when he tries to drop as many f-bombs as possible in "Radio Friendly," or when writing horribly dorky sex rhymes like "Open Relationship" or the ridiculous "Sex With Girls."

Despite the skills of everyone involved, it’s tracks like these that leave a bad taste in the mouth. Unlike his equally nerdy Toronto neighbour and old school aficionado More or Les, Abdominal might pack more rhymes into each verse, but he doesn’t have enough to sustain a whole album. (June 28, 2007)

Polaris, preliminary

Critics across the country are busy assembling their ballots for the second Polaris Prize, which are due this Friday, June 22. The shortlist will be announced on July 10; the award will be given out on September 24, chosen by a jury of 10 that same night.

Last year, you may recall, Final Fantasy scored a so-called “upset” win over Broken Social Scene, Metric, New Pornographers, Wolf Parade, Sarah Harmer, and fellow underdogs Deadly Snakes, Malajube, Cadence Weapon and K’naan.

In preparing my own ballot this year, I easily came up with a shortlist of 20. I was somewhat surprised by the number of roots-related releases on my ballot; while Canada has always excelled in this genre, my own love for this music has waned in recent years—which means that the artists I love in this genre all surprised me with either the depth of their songwriting or slight twists on anticipated arrangements.

Sadly, I’m not surprised by the lack of hip-hop and electronic music on my own ballot. Much more often than not, my own love for those artists doesn’t extend to an entire album—and the whole point of Polaris is to reward the complete album as a listening experience: not scene politics, not the live show, not commercial status.

I do fear, however, that many critics in the pool will feel the same way, and that this year’s final list will be entirely devoid of anything outside the loose parameters of pop and rock. There are myriad reasons for this, among them the fact that this is what dominates the musical taste of editors and writers in this country (I can count on one hand the number of Canadian writers I trust to write about hip-hop), and by extension the publicity machines. The only Canadian hip-hop most critics hear is the stuff that shows up in their mailbox unsolicited, and I’m as guilty as anyone else.

IMPORTANT UPDATE: I have no idea why I hadn't found this excellent Canadian hip-hop site before, but it looks like a great read.

Without a major label hip-hop contender other than K-OS (whose reviews were decidedly mixed on his last album) and Brassmunk (again, mixed reviews), will we see No Luck Club, Omnikrom, Ghettosocks, Politiclive, Birdapres, Marco Polo or Isis in the final Polaris Top 10? Highly unlikely. None of them, except maybe No Luck Club, physically got to as many Canadian critics as Cadence Weapon did last year. I’d argue that credit for his Polaris nod last year was due as much to Upper Class Recording’s mailing list as the album itself.

I’d be equally shocked if a single electronic release squeaks in there. Ditto for anything that could be termed world music, jazz, or roots music that doesn’t have a foot in the indie rock world. I think we should all be paying more attention to David Dacks.

Again, however, I live in a glass house, as my shortlist of 20 will demonstrate.

Unlike Mr. Zoilus and Mr. Chromewaves, I don’t feel like announcing my final choices, but here’s the list I was working with. Five of these made my ballot. Some were disqualified for reasons of length (albums must be either eight tracks or over half an hour), citizenship, or previously released material.


Acorn – Tin Fist EP (Paper Bag). Review here.

Apostle of Hustle – National Anthem of Nowhere (Arts and Crafts). Reviewed here and here.

Arcade Fire – Neon Bible (Merge). Reviewed here. Transcripts here, here and here.

Awkward Stage – Heaven Is For Easy Girls (Mint). Article here. Full interview here.

Blood Meridian – Kick Up the Dust (Outside). Review here. Article here. Full interview here.

Mark Davis – Don’t You Think We Should Be Closer? (Saved By Radio). Reviewed here.

Angela Desveaux – Wandering Eyes (Thrill Jockey). Review here. Article here.

Julie Doiron – Woke Myself Up (Endearing). Interview here.

Feuermusik – Goodbye, Lucille (independent). Will saxophone and buckets be this year’s looped violin? A very dark horse that just might rally enough support from Toronto critics to squeak on the list.

Great Lake Swimmers – Ongiara (Nettwerk). Interview here.

Hylozoists – La Fin du Monde (Boompa).

Greg Keelor – Aphrodite Rose (Warner). Review here. (scroll way down)

Miracle Fortress – Five Roses (Secret City). A very late entry, but entirely captivating, dreamy pop that sounds like Caribou with better melodic smarts. Review forthcoming.

Phonemes – There’s Something We’ve Been Meaning To Do (Blocks Recording Club). Years in the works and well worth the wait. Though because it snuck out last month with zero promotional muscle, very few critics even know it exists.

Secret Mommy – Plays (Ache). Not sure it’s his best work, but Andy Dixon is certainly this country’s most playful electronic innovator.

Amon Tobin – Foley Room (Ninja Tune). Review here. Article here. Full interview here.

Various – Friends in Bellwoods (Out of This Spark). Interview here.

Various – Jamaica to Toronto (Light in the Attic). Gushing review of live show here.

Rufus Wainwright – Release the Stars (Geffen). Interview in the new issue of Magnet.

You Say Party! We Say Die! – Lose All Time (Paper Bag). Review here. (scroll way down)


I’m going to go out on a limb and predict what the shortlist will be. Votes have yet to be even counted, so to be absolutely clear, this is entirely conjecture on my part, based on big hunches about what will be a middle-of-the-road critical consensus.

Apostle of Hustle – National Anthem of Nowhere (Arts and Crafts)
Arcade Fire – Neon Bible (Merge)
Jim Bryson – Where the Bungalows Roam (Kelp)
Julie Doiron – Woke Myself Up (Endearing)
Feist – The Reminder (Arts and Crafts)
Great Lake Swimmers – Ongiara (Nettwerk)
Junior Boys – So This Is Goodbye (Domino)
Joel Plaskett – Ashtray Rock (Maple)
Shout Out Out Out – Not Saying Just Saying (Normals Welcome)
Sloan – Never Hear the End of It (Murder)

Trainspotters, take note: this would mean four from Toronto, two from other Ontario cities (Ottawa and Hamilton), three with strong ties to the East Coast (as opposed to none last year), none from Vancouver, one from Edmonton, two female solo artists, two pop acts that use mostly electronics but are still decidedly rockist, two albums that debuted in the top three of Soundscan, two acts signed directly to international deals. No hip-hop or francophones this year.

But I look forward to being pleasantly surprised on July 10.