Best of 2000, 20 years later

My friend Aaron Brophy likes to revisit his year-end lists from at least a decade back, and alternately either boast about his amazing, timeless taste, or wonder what the heck he was thinking.

20 years ago I was hired by Philip Bast at the Kitchener-Waterloo Record to write a weekly CD review column. I did that until 2019, reviewing three to six albums a week.

In 2000, I was living in Guelph, working at Exclaim, writing for Eye Weekly, and working on a book called Have Not Been the Same. 

In 2020, I'm writing a book about events 20 years ago, so I've been living in a bit of a time warp.

Here’s the 10 albums I submitted to Eye Weekly’s year-end poll in 2000. Commentary is new.


1. Sarah Harmer – You Were Here (Cold Snap)
A classic record, to this day. I knew that the day I heard it, after buying a copy from her after a show at Ted’s Wrecking Yard on College Street, a copy that was a CD-R with a hand-drawn cover. I was a huge Weeping Tile fan and was thrilled that Harmer finally got her due. Is it the best album of 2000? It’s one of my favourite albums of all time, so there’s that. Will have a lot more to say about this in the book.


2. The Weakerthans – Left and Leaving (G7). O hell yes. I first saw this band a couple of months before this album came out, at Exclaim’s anniversary party, and these songs blew me away. So did songs from 1997’s Fallow, which everyone in the room but me seemed to know by heart. I bought a copy from Soundscapes before my own band played a show at… Ted’s Wrecking Yard. The year 2000 was very much about Ted’s Wrecking Yard for me. I wrote an essay about this album’s anniversary here.


3. Yo La Tengo – And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out (Matador). I listened to this album more in 2020 than I had since the year it came out. That had nothing to do with its anniversary, and everything to do with therapeutic listening during enforced isolation. 

4. Bettie Serveert – Private Suit (Parasol). I have a lot to say about this, one of the most underrated rock records of the last 30 years, and one I revisit annually. I’m pretty sure I’m the only person in the world who feels that way. Wrote about this here.


5. Sleater-Kinney – All Hands on the Bad One (Kill Rock Stars). This isn’t even among my top three favourite S-K records now, but it sure sounded great in 2000—in part because so much other rock music was terrible. “You’re No Rock’n’Roll Fun” still gives me chills. I have never seen this video!

6. PJ Harvey – Stories From the City, Stories From The Sea (Island). I had some kind of hipster hang-up at the time about whether this was the best PJ Harvey record to date or whether it was just the PJ Harvey record you were most likely to put on when other people come over for dinner. Does it matter? Still sounds amazing, top to bottom.


7. Neko Case – Furnace Room Lullaby; Carolyn Mark – Party Girl; The Corn Sisters – The Other Women (Mint). It’s amazing to me that these three albums came out the same year as New Pornographers’ Mass Romantic. I still know every lyric to each of these songs. In the political climate of 2020, I re-latched on to Neko’s “Mood to Burn Bridges.” Feeling disconnected, I found solace in “someone singing my life back to me” in “Guided by Wire.” For 20 years leading up to my midlife crisis, I’ve had a Corn Sisters lyric by Mark in my head: “Is it a groove? Or is it a rut?” In April, I watched an online hootenanny hosted in isolation by the incredibly social Carolyn Mark, during which she played Party Girl’s “Don’t Come Over, Baby.” It was perfect.


8. Crooked Fingers – s/t (Sonic Unyon). Much like Sleater-Kinney, this is nowhere near my favourite album by one of my favourite artists of all time. But again, like Yo La Tengo, this one sounded particularly good in 2020: “Crowned in Chrome,” “New Drink for the Old Drunk,” “Broken Man,” “Black Black Ocean,” “Under Sad Stars”—because it was just that kind of year.

9. Jess Klein – Draw Them Near (Slow River/Ryko). This is the one album on this list where I thought: really? I remember liking it, but I don’t remember loving it and I definitely haven’t listened to it in 20 years. But guess what? It’s pretty great. Really solid songs, great voice, great band. In the same vein as Harmer, but American. 2000 might have been the last year I listened to a lot of roots rock, which is why Klein would have fallen off my radar. She’s still active, and new stuff sounds pretty good.


10. The Gruesomes – Cave In (Tyrant). This might have been the first of my favourite bands from my high school years to reunite and not suck, and so the surprise element no doubt vaulted this onto my top 10. Listening to it now for likely the first time in 20 years, it is a great record, and probably even the Gruesomes’ best. The songs and performances are all killer (and there’s finally a studio version of “You Were Not Using Your Head”). I just don’t listen to garage rock anymore; I barely did in 2000, either. But if you do, and/or if you were ever a Gruesomes fan and have somehow never heard this, I highly recommend it.



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Other favourites I wrote about in my year-end column for the K-W Record:


Asian Dub Foundation – Community Music (London/Polygram). I’d totally forgot this band until two years ago when I wrote a book about the Tragically Hip—which is a weird connection, but I read an article where drummer Johnny Fay talks about rocking this record on the tour bus. It also came to mind when I dug the Melt Yourself Down record this year. In many ways this record sounds either of the moment or incredibly dated, depending on your POV. I still think it sounds great. I had no idea they were still active; they put out a new record this year, and haven’t changed a bit. If Rage Against the Machine can have a revival, this band sure as hell can—and should. It’s not like what they were singing about has improved one iota. 

 

 

Bjork – Selmasongs (Warner). I was in a deep Bjork period of my life. Does this oft-forgotten soundtrack to Dancer in the Dark hold up? Probably much better than the movie, I’m guessing. After hearing about the antagonistic working relationship she had with notorious sadist Lars Von Trier, I reconsidered all portrayals of extreme suffering on film (not the first or last time in my life Bjork changed my worldview). The production is a delightful blend of the digital clicks and cuts she’d soon dive into and the orchestration heard on much of Post. I often forget that in the same year Kid A came out, Thom Yorke duetted with both PJ Harvey and Bjork on their albums, both of which are better than Kid A.

Blue Rodeo – The Days in Between (Warner). I loved this band for about 10 years of my life (1987-97), but have followed only from a respectful distance since. This album was probably the last one I enjoyed—or listened to more than thrice—and revisiting now I can see why. Was this the last time Keelor and Cuddy brought their best work to the band instead of their solo records? Trina Shoemaker’s production brings just the right amount of atmospherics. It sounds great today. Still: best of 2020? This was a nostalgia vote for me.


Deltron 3030 – s/t (75 Ark). The sound of the future? Nope, but definitely the sound of 2000, when Dan the Automator seemed to be everywhere (Gorillaz, Primal Scream, Handsome Boy Modeling School). Del the Funky Homosapien has great flow as always, though I don’t know about this as a concept album: the main appeal for me, then and now, is the music. (And yet: I’ve never listened to the accompanying instrumental album.) Kid Koala features prominently. His own Carpal Tunnel Syndrome is not on this list; it baffled me at the time. Now it’s clear he was charting his own path. I don’t think I’ve listened to a new Dan the Automator record since 2001, though I had a soft spot for his 2006 Mike Patton collab Peeping Tom (which I haven’t listened to since).


DJ Serious – Dim Sum (Sound King). This was a Toronto DJ whose debut featured MCs Brass Munk, D-Sisive, Arcee, Asicks and Lil Jaz. This being Canada, with a woeful hip-hop infrastructure, it came out on the same label that put out rock bands Danko Jones and Bionic and promptly got lost. Musically, it’s on the same wavelength as California’s Quannum crew, a mix of ’80s electro funk and early ’90s jazz-influenced tracks. It was definitely out of step with the Choclair and Kardinal crowd, and is now out of print and unavailable to stream except on this YouTube rip. I’m sure I haven’t listened to this in 20 years; it totally holds up. DJ Serious released a follow-up, Cold Tea, in 2005; I’ve never heard it. His studio output has been silent since.


Steve Earle – Transcendental Blues (Artemis). I don’t think Steve Earle gets enough credit for his five-album run between 1995-2000: Train a Comin’, I Feel Alright, El Corazon, The Mountain and finally this one. It’s flawless. Dozens of killer songs in that run. Where’s the box set? It should be mentioned in the same breath as the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Stevie Wonder, Prince, you name it. He’s released at least nine albums of original material since, but I’ve only paid sporadic attention—maybe because it’s hard to measure up to this, which still sounds fabulous, especially loud. “All of My Life”—what a goddam anthem. “Another Town” is the greatest song the Pogues never wrote (see also: “The Galway Girl”). There’s too many more here to list. I’m not sure Earle’s production skills have ever sounded better. No idea why this wasn’t in my top 10.


International Noise Conspiracy – Survival Sickness (Epitaph). I put “Smash It Up” on so many mix CDs for years, but did I ever like this whole record? None of these other songs sound remotely familiar—although the title track certainly hits home these days. Garage rock was not my thing; I was posing, craving a political rock band so much that I imagined this was this one for me. It wasn’t. Little did I know at the time that this band’s predecessor, Refused, would prove to be so influential on a lot of the aughts’ aggressive music. 

Jurassic 5 – Quality Control (Interscope). I saw this band open for Femi Kuti’s North American debut at the Roxy in New York City in 1999: one of the most unforgettable nights of music in my life. This band was maligned at the time, considered some kind of retro hip-hop Sha Na Na or some bullshit, at the time of Timbaland and Jay-Z, but I loved it. Still do: I’m a sucker for genuine interplay between MCs, which is all but unheard of in this day of one-off collabs. (Quick: try to name one modern rap act with more than two MCs and not named Migos.) Related: Cut Chemist put out a good record a couple of years ago that I only just discovered.


King Cobb Steelie – Mayday (Ryko). One of my favourite bands of the ’90s, for both musical and personal reasons. This was a final bid for glory on Rykodisc, with pop songs and guest vocalists (Michelle McAdorey, Tamara Williamson), before they resurfaced four years later with an indie instrumental album before fading away. Produced by Laika’s Guy Fixsen, Mayday sounds amazing—though definitely dated. There’s something textbook turn-of-the-millenium in the drum machine sounds here, as heard on the title track; it’s a post-triphop groove that was ubiquitous for a while with the KCRW crowd and then vanished. There’s an entirely unnecessary scratch solo (by DJ Serious! see above) on “Below the Stars”—remember when rock bands felt they needed turntable solos to be somehow relevant? “Home” is still a great single, with a synth bass squiggle that now reminds me of Charanjit Singh’s Ten Ragas to a Disco Beat. Weirder moments like “Fast Money Blessing” have aged very well. This is an album ripe for rediscovery—or at least half of it. This band’s discography would be served well by a collection of greatest non-hits. And there have been rumours of a reunion.


Paul Macleod – Close and Play (independent). This one hurts. Paul Macleod was one of the most brilliant performers and songwriters I’ve ever known; he was a staple in the Kitchener-Waterloo and Guelph area, where he was never short a weekly gig. He performed often with Danny Michel, collaborated with the Rheostatics, and joined the Skydiggers as a sideman (at a time when he was writing better songs than they were). He always seemed poised for great things, which never materialized—a common story for hometown heroes everywhere, but I truly believe Macleod was exceptional. This was his first of only three proper studio records that I’m aware of (2007’s Bright Eyes Fade came out on Busted Flat; I’ve never heard 2014’s Gauge). He made it with Hawksley Workman, and it’s full of the same energy Workman brought to his own material as well as early records by John Southworth, Serena Ryder and Tegan and Sara. The songs are perfect Beatle-y pop. Macleod was an amazing singer. But no one heard this record unless you bought it from Macleod at a show. That’s not as big a tragedy as the fact that the Macleod I knew is no longer with us. I only knew him as an acquaintance and have very fond memories; I didn’t know his demons, which eventually took hold of him, hurt someone else, and landed him in court shortly before he died by suicide in 2016. It’s an awful story. I wish I could listen to his music now without thinking about it. I can’t. Hopefully someone can.

Listen to “Cruelty.” I mean, holy shit, what a song. 

 

Or “Giants.” 




New Pornographers – Mass Romantic (Mint). Kind of shocked this didn’t make my top 10, though it was released in November so maybe hadn’t fully sunk in. I was definitely in love with “Letter From an Occupant,” because who wasn’t? I wrote about this anniversary here.

Outkast – Stankonia (BMG). 2000 might have been the last year I felt remotely connected to mainstream hip-hop. I do love Outkast because they’re genre-busters, game-changers and genuinely odd. I also can’t love Outkast because I’m too much of a white Toronto prude. But this album is bloated: way too long, populated by skits, and dragged down by tracks like “We Luv Deez Hoez.” And as much as “B.O.B.” still slams (musically), the chorus is downright gross: “bombs over Baghdad” is not a great metaphor in any context, least of all as a pre-9/11 sentiment for not finishing a fight or not following through on a challenge.

Radiohead – Kid A (EMI). I don’t know that I ever loved this album—but not for the reasons people hated it. I like it just fine. If anything, it wasn’t weird enough. The fact that it was remotely divisive speaks to the intense conservatism of the time. (I’m debating whether I even care enough to read Steven Hyden’s new book about it.) I probably put it on my list so that I wouldn’t seem out of touch. Total posturing on my part.

The Salteens – Short Term Memories (Endearing). This was when I still had great affection for peppy indie pop populated by handclaps, trumpets and bop-ba-da’s. Come to think of it, I was in a band not unlike this one at the time. This Vancouver band had really catchy songs, heavily influenced by Sloan, and a really strong rhythm section. This is a really good record, better than most of its peers other than the New Pornographers. Not one I’d listen to today, though given the chance I’d probably join a band like this in a heartbeat.


Amon Tobin – Supermodified (Ninja Tune). Pretty sure I was a complete poser when I put this on my year-end list. Some of it is great and totally holds up—sexy, even; some of it sounds like a dial-up connection.


Travis – The Man Who (Sony). Woof. Really? I’m glad working for Brave New Waves saved me from becoming a guy who likes Travis.



Records that should be on this list that I got into shortly afterwards:

Belle and Sebastian – Fold Your Hands…

Destroyer – Thief

Be Good Tanyas – Blue Horse

Gonzales – Uber Alles

White Stripes – De Stijl


And Royal City’s At Rush Hour the Cars, made by some good friends of mine, and which I might have left off the list for nepotistic reasons.

Albums I should have appreciated more at the time, relevant to current research:

Dears – End of a Hollywood Bedtime Story

Godspeed You Black Emperor – Lift Your Skinny Fists...

Peaches – The Teaches Of 

 
Album all my friends loved and I still don’t get: 

Blonde Redhead – Melody of Certain Damaged Lemons.

April 2016 reviews

The following reviews ran in the Waterloo Record in April. Posting these a bit late.

Highly recommended (both are several months old, just hearing them now): Khruangbin; Shye Ben Tzur, Jonny Greenwood and the Rajasthan Express

Well worth your while: Colin Stetson, Venetian Snares, Tim Hecker, Danny Michel (one of those is not at all like the others)

Streaming is great for sample purposes, but please support your favourite artists financially.

Jean-Michel Blais – Il (Arts & Crafts)

Montreal guy plays piano in his apartment. That’s pretty much it. (April 7)

Stream: "Dada," “Nostos,” “Budapest”

PJ Harvey – The Hope Six Demolition Project (Island/Universal)

New records by the beloved PJ Harvey are a rarity. So when lead single “The Community of Hope” first appeared online, its approachable guitar pop reminiscent of Harvey’s 2000 commercial breakthrough Stories From the City Stories From the Sea, expectations were high, especially after the difficult listening (though award-winning) Let England Shake in 2011, an album largely about the First World War. Yet all that quickly dissipated after the story behind the single unravelled: the lyrics are taken almost verbatim from a Washington Post reporter who took Harvey on a cab ride around a derelict neighbourhood in his city, and residents were none too happy about the bleak portrait painted by Harvey, who didn’t bother talking to any of them. One early review said, correctly, that the song is “literally poverty tourism.” Closing track “Dollar Dollar” only reinforces that concept, with sounds from a Third World street scene underpinning Harvey’s lyrics about ignoring a street beggar.

The rest of The Hope Six Demolition Project doesn’t fare much better, lyrically. For an artist who once excelled at imagistic poetry, there’s a lot of mundane reportage: “I saw some Arabic graffiti”; “I saw a woman eat something unhealthy” (not actual quotes, but close). One song attempts to spin a chorus out of the endlessly repeated phrase, “Near the Memorials to Vietnam and Lincoln.”

It’s distracting. Thankfully, the music fares much better. Harvey is in a buoyant mood, her guitars are front and centre, and she whips out her saxophone whenever she sees fit. The louder the track, the more likely she is to explore her somewhat creepy upper register. Her all-man band provides a backing choir when necessary. Long-time collaborator John Parish is, as always, a key component of the sound.

Were it not for the lyrics, this would easily be the best PJ Harvey record in at least 12 years. (April 21)

Stream: “The Ministry of Defence,” “The Orange Monkey,” “The Ministry of Social Affairs”

Tim Hecker – Love Streams (Paper Bag)

The clouds have parted in Tim Hecker’s sonic world. The Montreal ambient musician has built a career on strangely captivating sound of largely indeterminate origin. Since Ravedeath 1972, five years ago, he’s been playing a pipe organ found in an Icelandic church, and then digitally deconstructing his performance. On Love Streams, he’s back at the church and employing woodwinds and a local choir, with results that sound typically—well, glacial, to use a geographically obvious descriptor for such mysterious, slow-moving music.

Provocatively, Hecker bills this new music as “liturgical aesthetics after Yeezus.” Weird thing is, he’s not entirely off the mark. Tracks like “Voice Crack” and “Black Phase” feature a choir singing what seem like medieval dirges while crackling, distorted sounds seize control of the melody.

Love Streams also finds Hecker making clearer distinctions in his sonic choices, with sounds that obviously stem from somewhat recognizable synth sounds, as opposed to shifting washes of sound. The result is downright lively compared to the bulk of Hecker’s output; it’s certainly the most human. (April 7)

Stream: “Obisidian Counterpoint,” “Music of the Air,” “Voice Crack”

Khruangbin – The Universe Smiles Upon You (Night Time Stories)

This instrumental trio came out of nowhere—specifically Burton, Texas, a one-stoplight town between Austin and Houston—with an intoxicating mix of Motown grooves, jazzy guitar leads and psychedelic textures, with an ear open to Thai, Ethiopian, French and gospel music. Everyone’s playing here is masterful and gorgeous; it might make you feel hazy and lazy, but there’s nothing lazy about the musicianship at work here. The album was recorded in a barn, and you can easily visualize the big Texas skies influencing the vibe—this is music for cloud-gazing and starwatching, or, you know, any other time The Universe Smiles Upon You. (April 7)

Stream: “Mr. White,” “Little Joe & Mary,” “People Everywhere (Still Alive)”

Roxanne Potvin – For Dreaming (independent)

Potvin started her career as a Colin Linden-endorsed guitar slinger with a seriously soulful side. She’s still all those things, of course, but she’s taken a serious left turn on For Dreaming after becoming enchanted with the intimacy and songcraft of Afie Jurvanen’s recordings as Bahamas. That band’s Christine Bougie joins Potvin here, but despite having two guitar wizards in the same room, For Dreaming is very much a subdued folk-pop record, recorded largely in Potvin’s living room, with lovely little moments and subtle touches. Lyrically, Potvin oscillates between outright cheese (“Love makes us want to help each other out!”) and kind of sweet (“You still smile when I kiss you in your sleep”). It’d be nice to hear some of her former fireworks, which are hinted at on “Figuring It Out,” but she sounds more than comfortable in this new skin. (April 21)

Stream: “Figuring It Out,” “Prairie Sunrise,” “I Wouldn’t Tell You That”

Danny Michel – Matadora (Six Shooter)

The last time we heard from Waterloo favourite Danny Michel, on perhaps the most acclaimed album of his career, Black Birds Are Dancing Over Me, he was performing with the percussion-heavy Central American band Garifuna Collective, from Belize. It was his Paul Simon moment, and it worked. Now he’s back recording in Canada on his own, but the sunny ways are still evident in every groove here, on his 10^th album. “I had a dream that I stole the maps / erased the borders and that was that,” he sings on the sure-to-be hippie anthem “Click Click,” which also asks, “Are you too cool for love?” Michel is too old now to care about being cool, and more power to him. Not an ounce of his talent or curiosity or songwriting has faded in the least. “These are the good old days,” he sings. Doesn’t sound like they’re coming to an end any time soon. (April 21)

Stream: “Paris Las Vegas,” “Get Lost,” “Click Click”

Shye Ben Tzur, Jonny Greenwood and the Rajasthan Express – Junjun (Nonesuch)

Going to take a wild guess here that of the three names to whom this album is credited, Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood is the only one that stands out to you. His contribution to this collaboration is the least audible, but, from a marketing standpoint, it’s certainly obvious why he would get equal billing with the Israeli composer and the Indian ensemble who play Sufi devotional music. Tzur has lived in India for years, and writes in Hindi, Urdu and his native Hebrew. The Rajasthan Express is a large band with full brass and percussion. The music on Junjun blurs lines between Indian and Arabic music, between modern and traditional (there’s a heavy Brian Eno influence on many pieces, presumably Greenwood’s doing), between the meditational and the ecstatic (some of the brass and percussion arrangements here wouldn’t sound out of place in New Orleans). There’s an acclaimed, accompanying documentary by P.T. Anderson, for whom Greenwood is the soundtrack composer of choice (The Master, There Will Be Blood), but you don’t need to know the story to be moved by this powerful music. (April 21)

Stream: “Junjun,” “Roked,” “Allah Elohim”

Colin Stetson – Sorrow: A Reimagining of Gorecki’s 3^rd Symphony (52Hz)

How many rock bands set out to cover Dark Side of the Moon? How many jazz artists cover Kind of Blue? That takes a certain amount of chutzpah.

As does this move by Colin Stetson, the superhuman saxophonist of the avant-garde, in which he tackles the only modern classical composition to sell a million copies while its composer was still alive (he died in 2010). Symphony No. 3 was written in 1977 and made famous by a 1992 Nonesuch recording by the London Sinfonietta, ruling the classical charts for years. Hearing it was a revelatory experience for the young Stetson, and after his New History of Warfare trilogy snapped up spots on Polaris Prize shortlists and introduced large audiences to the concept of circular breathing and Philip Glass minimalism applied to solo saxophone performance, he felt he was up for this challenge.

Adapting it to a small ensemble—three winds, three strings (including his partner, Sarah Neufeld), two guitarists, two keyboards, drums and mezzo-soprano (his sister, Megan)—Stetson is faithful to the emotional tenor and tempo of the original, if not the instrumentation. Surely Gorecki never imagined the end of the first movement collapsing into maelstrom of white noise, or crescendo-ing guitars ala Godspeed You Black Emperor accelerating the emotional intensity, or a drummer from a death metal band called Liturgy providing some extra punch. None of this is gimmicky or irreverent; it enhances the original work, just as anything billing itself as a “reimagining” ideally should.

Stetson’s own role appears to be that of arranger; anyone expecting to hear the arpeggios or howling vocalizations that defined the New History trilogy will not find them here. For such a distinctive performer, Stetson is more than happy to surrender to his solo persona to the greater ensemble here.

Colin Stetson has never been an artist to back away from ambition—and to fulfill it. Which is exactly what he’s done here. (April 14)

Venetian Snares – Traditional Synthesizer Music (Planet Mu)

No, the album title is not a new category at the Grammys or the Junos. That’s not to say it couldn’t be some day. Winnipeg’s Aaron Funk, a.k.a. Venetian Snares, has made frenetic electronic music for almost two decades now, but this is the first time he’s made an album entirely with old analog modular synths: instruments that don’t come with preset sounds, instruments that don’t always behave in predictable manners—much like Funk himself. If we believe the man (which we shouldn’t necessarily do; he has a reputation as a prankster), it was all recorded live, complete with shifting tempos that defy the crutch of “quantizing,” the technical trick that imposed rhythmic uniformity on the world in the 1980s. As always with Venetian Snares, the avalanche of ideas can be exhausting, but there’s no denying the man’s genius, and this foray into “traditional” music could serve as a welcome entry point for the uninitiated. I’d also love to hear someone score this for a live band, perhaps the first time I’ve felt that way about a Venetian Snares record. (April 7)

Stream: “Everything About You is Special,” “Magnificent Stumble v2,” “Health Card10”

Feb '11 reviews

The following reviews appeared in the Kitchener-Waterloo Record and Guelph Mercury this month.

James Blake – s/t (Universal)

Over the course of 2010, James Blake went from being an obscure British bedroom electronic artist to appearing on dozens of year-end lists for three EPs he squeezed into that calendar year. Those EPs were fascinating fractures of the genre known as dubstep, the definition of which gets more dubious every day (especially now that teen emo metal bands are putting out dubstep remixes). Loosely put, it’s a sparse electronic subgenre reliant on subsonic bass, with elements of dub reggae and icy goth.

Blake wants to add another element to the mix: Bill Withers. Unlike his EPs—which were mostly instrumental, or used only cut-up vocal phrases rather than an actual performance—Blake’s self-titled debut portrays him as an R&B singer/songwriter trapped in some digital vortex, like D’Angelo on downers.

Occasionally, it works for him, like on the album’s key gateway drug, an acoustic piano treatment of Feist’s “Limit To Your Love” that finds Blake actually delivering a solid vocal and letting a rumbling bass sound set the whole thing delightfully off-kilter. The mysteriously titled “The Wilhelm Scream” fulfills all the promise of the entire project: a fragile, soulful vocal set to syncopated bass drum sounds, echo-drenched percussion and patiently percolating staccato synths.

But those two tracks aside, Blake sounds like he couldn’t be bothered to get out of bed. The listener gets fair warning right from the opening track: “Unluck” unfolds over no discernible time signature, with beats tripping over each other and Blake singing like he’s buried beneath blankets. The lyrics are often maudlin, and the arrangements sound like a career artist who’s already coasting on an established rep and using an old bag of tricks to do all the heavy lifting.

This is Blake’s first album—as good as 2010 was to him, he doesn’t have that much critical capital to waste. He’d better step up his game soon. (Feb. 24)

Download: “The Wilhelm Scream,” “Limit To Your Love,” “To Care (Like You)”

Buck 65 – 20 Odd Years (Warner)

The duets record is a tired cliché, usually put out by a veteran performer trying to prove to a new audience how young and hip s/he is. For Buck 65, who is only pushing 40 and yet is celebrating 20 years in the business called show, he long ago gave up on trying to prove anything to anyone. And yet 20 Odd Years find him in, well, an odd position: as iconoclastic as ever, and yet also attempting to straitjacket himself into pop music formulas.

As a hip-hop outsider—one who made his mark with a deeply personal album written partially about the death of his mother (1999’s Man Overboard), who signed to a major label and released four 15-minute collages as his debut for them (2002’s Square), who explored folk and country textures on 2003’s Talkin’ Honky Blues and paid homage to subversive art of the 1950s on 2007’s Situation—Buck 65 has always allowed audiences to find him on their own terms.

Now his mainstream day job (using his given name, Rich Terfry) is as a CBC Radio host on a show where he has little control over the programming; there are no rough edges on his Drive show, which is stuffed with mostly decent but overwhelmingly earnest and accessible folk pop.

And so 20 Odd Years finds him playing to every side, and not always successfully. When left alone, Buck 65 returns to the lyrically dextrous and playful terrain he built his career on. The four tracks without guests are among the strongest: “Superstars Don’t Love,” “Lights Out,” the reflective and romantic “She Said Yes” and the intentionally ridiculous “Zombie Delight.”

When he teams up with French pop singer Olivia Ruiz (for whom he co-wrote a chart-topper in France), The Tragically Hip’s Gord Downie (on surely one of the only hip-hop songs set to a 6/8 blues), or Maritime singer/songwriter Jenn Grant (who is an intriguing foil for him on four tracks here, including an unrecognizable Leonard Cohen cover), the results are inspired. Yet when he joins with Vancouver songwriter Hannah Georgas or Gaspé singer Marie-Pierre Arthur, Buck 65 sounds like he’s making a bad Metric album, or constructing singles just to please the major label that’s bankrolled him for the better part of a decade with no commercial payoff.

If 20 Odd Years is meant to represent the arc of his career, perhaps it’s inevitable that would include both the highs and the lows—and to be fair, the lows can only be defined as such based on Buck 65’s own high standards. (Feb. 10)

Download: “Tears of Your Heart,” “Who By Fire,” “Zombie Delight”

Cowboy Junkies ­— Demons: Nomad Series Volume 2 (Latent)

Last year the Cowboy Junkies released their finest album in over a decade, Renmin Park, based on songwriter Michael Timmins’s experiences in China, and the first of what the band is calling its “Nomad Series.” The second installment is different in almost every way: it’s a tribute album to recently departed songwriter Vic Chesnutt, and features a return to the more maximalist side of the Cowboy Junkies from which Renmin Park provided such a breath of relief.

With few exceptions, the Junkies take an often heavy-handed approach to the material, bringing out neither the best in the band or in the songs. The brink-of-suicide song “Flirting With You All My Life”—the “you” being suicide—is given an upbeat rock treatment, which despite the chorus of “Oh death, really I am not ready,” still comes off as exceedingly weird considering that Chesnutt did end up taking his own life on Christmas Day, 2009.

Chesnutt’s death looms large over this recording; though many of his songs deal with frayed personalities who run the gamut between broken and beyond broken, Timmins’s selections here seem determined to remind us of Chesnutt’s own tragedy. “Square Room” contains the line “last night I nearly killed myself,” while “See You Around” is as fitting an epitaph as any.

Not that this could never have worked; Vic Chesnutt’s music was often as sparse as the best Cowboy Junkies recordings, which one would think would make this album a perfect match. But Chesnutt was such an idiosyncratic writer that he’s a hard man to cover; his unique use of vocabulary and phrasing are not easy for any singer to interpret effectively, and though she tries her determined best, Margo Timmins isn’t entirely up to the job here. (Feb. 10)

Download: “Betty Lonely,” “See You Around,” “Supernatural”

The Dears — Degeneration Street (Maple)

Wrong title—this should be called Regeneration Street. It’s the most engaged and exciting this Montreal band has sounded in years, and is as good or better than their 2003 masterpiece, No Cities Left. Every element that has ever defined this band’s shining moments—epic rock guitars, new wave keyboards, Murray Lightburn’s impassioned vocals and large doses of dramatic flair—are front and centre here; every song is buoyed by the confidence of this latest lineup in the band (which features returning members from earlier incarnations, along with new powerhouse drummer Jeff Luciani), but the songwriting is strong enough that this material would likely be just as effective if Lightburn and keyboardist were the only Dears left standing.

But most importantly, the Dears sound, well, happy—which has never been an adjective used to describe this often-dour group of mopes. They haven’t exactly turned into shiny, happy people, but there is clearly a shot of optimism and uplift that runs through that makes all the difference in the world. The orgasmic rock crescendos no longer sound oppressive and ominous; they’re exhilarating, even the wonderfully ridiculous harmonized guitar leads from Robert Benvie and Patrick Krief. The grungier moments are not a mask or a crutch; they carry serious weight.

And while the Dears have always been credited with having a soul influence—which was dubious at best, and more likely a cheap critical cliché because Lightburn is black—this time it’s actually true, as proven by the uncharacteristic jaunty Motown influence on “Yesteryear” and the slow-burning “Tiny Man,” which sounds like an oddball mashup of Pink Floyd and Al Green.

After 10 years filled with plenty of promise, upheaval, strife and stumbles, this is a stunning comeback record. No wonder the band can be spotted smiling onstage these days. (Feb. 17)

Download: “5 Chords,” “Blood,” “Tiny Man”

Deerhoof – Deerhoof vs. Evil (Polyvinyl)

Anything can happen in a Deerhoof song, and it often does. Tempos lurch, speed up, or change on a dime. Delicate beauty smashes up against thundering drums and metallic guitars. Bassist Satomi Matzusaki’s singing voice is that of an innocent, wide-eyed naïf taking in and anchoring the sonic splendour and possibility around her. It’s equally absurdist, complex, simple—and almost always fascinating.

There are also times when Deerhoof can easily get lost in its own labyrinth (see 2005’s The Runners Four). But as its triumphant title might suggest, Deerhoof vs. Evil is one of the most joyous discs in its 10-deep discography, finding them exploring even more so than usual. As always, there are pop hooks to help guide listeners who aren’t sure what they’re in for. And Matzusaki makes it a bit easier this time out, more likely to sing a lyric asking “what is this thing called love?” than she is to invite you to “Come see the duck!” (as one older live favourite does repeatedly).

There’s a much lighter touch here: far more acoustic guitars than ever before, and touches of Brazilian tropicalia and ’60s film soundtracks. Their aggressive side can appear at any given moment—as can any other bump in the road Deerhoof decide to throw in the mix, while they all maintain a firm grip on the steering wheel. Working with even more colours on their palette plate, Deerhoof’s sense of possibility is greater than ever. (Feb. 3)

Download: “Behold a Marvel in the Darkness,” “Let’s Dance the Jet,” “I Did Crimes For You”

East River Pipe – We Live in Rented Rooms (Merge)

East River Pipe is Fred Cornog, who lives in suburban New Jersey with his family and has a day job at Home Depot. While that sounds like a half-decent existence, it’s actually palatial living compared to the depths of addiction he sunk to in the mid-’90s before his music career and his marriage managed to steer him on to a new path.

Cornog’s music tends to stick to a similar, plodding tempo, with a metronomic drum machine, dreamy electric guitars and synths padding out the remaining corners of the sound. It’s as laid-back and idyllic as suburbia is supposed to be—only it rarely is in Cornog’s songs. His characters are either conmen who make backroom deals, or they’re the type who suffer for the sins of the aforementioned while saying to themselves: “I swore I’d never live on my knees,” or “I’m living in the twilight every day / I know the deck is stacked.”

But neither Cornog’s music nor his lyrics cast stones or get riled up with indignation. Instead, East River Pipe exists in its own state of inertia, with an almost easygoing acceptance—if not exactly a resignation—about the way this world and the odd people in it function: “We know most things just don’t work / and it’s not worth the fight.” In “Tommy Makes a Movie,” Tommy doesn’t actually make a movie: he dreams one in his head, afraid that if he were to try to make a reality it would only be altered and compromised—and besides, it’s easier to sit at home and immerse yourself in empty pornography.

While the music is comforting, the lyrics most definitely are not: easy listening is rarely so uneasy. And just like suburbia itself, there’s a lot more going on underneath the placid surface of any given East River Pipe song. (Feb. 24)

Download: “Backroom Deals,” “Tommy Made a Movie,” “Three Ships”

PJ Harvey – Let England Shake (Island)

PJ Harvey was one of the most exciting new artists of the ’90s, and has spent the last decade largely in retreat, after achieving her commercial—and some would say her artistic—peak with 2000’s Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea. The two albums she’s released since then were stripped down, dark and intimate affairs, unlikely to appeal to anyone who wasn’t already a hardcore fan. Let England Shake is slightly more extroverted, but it’s ultimately no different, and no less weird.

Of course, PJ Harvey has always been weird—that’s what we loved about her. There are tracks here, however, where she sounds downright batty, and not even in the in-character way she excelled at in the past. Perhaps that’s because there’s an earnestness to Let England Shake that wasn’t even present during her grungy avenged-lover phase on 1993’s Rid of Me.

This time, she’s detailing the conflicted emotions she has for her home and native land—a country that, for no apparent reason, she insists on pronouncing “Eng-a-land.” Take this verse: “Goddam Europeans/ take me back to beautiful England/ and the gray and filthiness of ages/ and battered books/ and fog rolling down behind the mountains/ on the graveyards of dead sea captains.” On another song she asks: “What is the glorious fruit of our land?” The answer: “The fruit is deformed children.”

Themes of decay dominate. “England’s dancing days are done,” she sings on the title track, a song driven by autoharps and marimbas—and a song she somehow found herself performing in front of then-prime minister Gordon Brown last summer. “Let it burn, let it burn,” she chants on the single “Written on the Forehead,” while a sample of reggae classic “Blood and Fire” plays in the background.

While there are elements here of Kate Bush at her most flighty, maybe Harvey is deep into the Sinead O’Connor stage of her career, where the once-formidable and charismatic performer gets progressively strange and erratic, with only flashes of her previous brilliance. We’ll know when she starts ripping up photos of David Cameron on Later With Jools Holland. (Feb. 17)

Download: “Let England Shake,” “The Glorious Rose,” “On Battleship Hill”

Hooded Fang – s/t (independent)

Orchestral peppy pop music full of glockenspiels, handclaps trumpets and synth bass, topped off with deadpan boy-girl vocals: of course it’s cutesy, but Toronto’s Hooded Fang have plenty of personality and melodic hooks that rise above any schtick. The rhythm section is punchy and the trumpet is majestic, and so even if singer Daniel Lee sounds a bit bored at times, the rest of the band has no trouble keeping the energy up and the arrangements simple but never naïve. With the propulsion of early Hidden Cameras and the slight Swedish detachment of Jens Lekman or Peter, Bjorn and John, Hooded Fang sounds like a first teenage kiss on a spring afternoon. (Feb. 24)

Download: “Straight Up the Dial,” “Highway Stream,” “Promise Land”

Iron & Wine – Kiss Each Other Clean (Warner)

It’s been six years since Iron & Wine bred a new generation of neo-folkie fans, via 2004’s astounding Our Endless Numbered Days. But anyone surprised by the expansive sounds heard on Kiss Each Other Clean obviously hasn’t been paying attention—particularly to 2007’s grossly underrated The Shepherd’s Dog. That record’s sometimes disorienting psychedelia didn’t go down as easy for some as singer/songwriter Sam Beam’s acoustic beginnings did, but Kiss Each Other Clean combines the best of both worlds.

Beam unleashes his backing band (comprised mainly of experimental band Califone and the avant-garde jazz of Chicago Underground) anywhere they want to go underneath his straightforward soft-rock melodies, which can guide the listener through all sorts of unusual musical terrain. That’s why a Stevie Wonder-like clavinet burbles throughout the Tom Waits-gone-dub-reggae groove of “Monkeys Uptown,” or why African and Latin percussion, New Orleans saxophone, jazz flute, spacey synthesizers, and extensive use of textural vocal harmonies all surface intermittently without ever throwing the song in question off course.

Things get a bit swampy on “Big Burned Head,” and the climactic “Your Fake Name is Good Enough For Me” eventually falls under its own weight, but those are merely slight missteps on an album that finds Beam in an entirely bewitching mood, proving that easy listening doesn’t have to be so easy, and an artist can be calming without sacrificing creativity. (Feb. 3)

Download: “Glad Man Singing,” “Tree by the River,” “Rabbit Will Run”

Wanda Jackson – The Party Ain’t Over (Nonesuch/Warner)

At 73 years old, the party most certainly is not over for Wanda Jackson. One of the original rockabilly artists of the ’50s—old enough not only to have been a contemporary of Elvis Presley, but to have dated him—has been going strong for years as a live act (with frequent stops in Ontario and Quebec, using London, Ontario’s Rizdales as her backing band). But even though she’s a member of several halls of fame (Rock and Roll, Country, Rockabilly, Oklahoma Music) and a hero to people like Neko Case, she’s not nearly as well known as she should be.

Enter Jack White, who gave Loretta Lynn’s career a late-career high on 2004’s Van Lear Rose. Jackson’s album isn’t nearly as personal—but then again Jackson never was. Her entire discography is stacked full of sass and snarl, and that’s what she delivers here, right from the opening notes of “Shakin’ All Over” (the same song The Guess Who launched their career with), where her growling, still-girlish voice sings about “quivers down her backbone,” while White puts her voice through a freaky flange pedal on the chorus and rips off a fiery guitar solo. It’s over the top and more than a bit campy—but that’s true of most of Jackson’s discography.

White gives her a recent Dylan song to cover—“Thunder on the Mountain,” where Jackson replaces Dylan’s incongruous Alicia Keys reference with one to Jerry Lee Lewis—as well as Amy Winehouse’s “You’re No Good,” which maintains the soul shuffle but adds haunting pedal steel guitar. He also insisted she re-record one of her earliest hits, “Rip It Up,” and lightens things up with the Andrews Sisters’ calypso-tinted “Rum and Coca Cola.” Jackson’s country roots are on full display in a full-band take on Kitty Wells’s “Dust on the Bible,” and a version of Jimmie Rodgers’ “Blue Yodel #6”, accompanied only by White on acoustic guitar.

It’s all good fun, but not quite full of the fireworks one would expect from this pairing. The horn section in particular is heavy-handed, and with the exception of White and keyboardist Joe Gillis, the rest of the house band sounds a bit clunky. But as anyone who has seen Jackson in recent years will attest, the lady still has a lot of life in her, and White deserves full credit for putting her back in the spotlight again. (Feb. 3)

Download: “Shakin’ All Over,” “You’re No Good,” “Dust on the Bible”

Serena Ryder – Live (EMI)

Serena Ryder was six years old when Melissa Etheridge put out her first album; it’s hard not to believe that the young Ryder didn’t spend at least part of her childhood studying Etheridge’s full-throated, bluesy rock’n’roll wail. And so it sounds entirely natural to hear the two of them singing together on Ryder’s new song “Broken Heart Sun”—in fact, you can barely tell them apart when they let loose at full throttle. It matters not that the song is hardly Ryder at her best; the charisma of the two women carries it through. Is it over the top? Of course—if you had a voice like either of these ladies, you’d be over the top, too.

Listening to the rest of this stop-gap EP, however, it’s obvious that Ryder is actually 10 times the singer that Etheridge ever was or could hope to be. Ryder is a unique force of nature, one that’s rarely captured in full on her studio recordings, and one of the most powerful vocalists working today, in Canada or anywhere else. So hearing her captured a cappella here, on bone-chilling versions of “Melancholy Blue” and “Sing Sing,” is as revelatory as the first time you see her live.

Along with the live material and the new single, the EP is padded with two songs recycled from each of her last two studio albums (including her take on Leonard Cohen’s “Sisters of Mercy,” where she shows she’s capable of subtlety as well), making this the ideal introduction for anyone unaware of Ryder’s phenomenal talents. (Feb. 24)

Download: “Broken Heart Sun,” “Melancholy Blue,” “Little Bit of Red”

Spring Breakup — It's Not Me, It's You (Label Fantastic)

If you loved Ellen Page and Michael Cera duetting in Juno, then Spring Breakup is for you. A duo of Yukon songwriter Kim Barlow and Mathias Kom, the singer/songwriter who fronts rollicking Peterborough band The Burning Hell, Spring Breakup is more than a tad too precious. Kom’s baritone and Barlow’s deadpan alto are pleasant foils for each other, and this album works best when they're playing directly off each other, like a twisted take on old Conway Twitty and Loretta Lynn duets, armed with a smart-ass vocabulary. Their self-penned description for MySpace, under the category "Sounds Like," reads: "Laughing on the inside while crying in front of your ex. The awkward end of the third date. A lonely clown crying. Lost puppies." They're not joking: those are actual song subjects.

Things peter out when one of the two of them dominate; those tracks sound like rejects from their other projects, and aren't enhanced much at all by the other player (Barlow plays banjo, Kom the ukulele). They'd be better off guesting on each other's albums than making records like this together, but no doubt the dry wit sparkles when they share a stage. (Feb. 17)

Download: “The Effect I Have On Women,” “It’s Not Me It’s You,” “You Don’t Need a Heart”

Telekinesis – 12 Desperate Straight Lines (Merge)

Michael Benjamin Lerner is one of the only, if not the only, drummers to front a power-pop band. Which probably explains why he writes such catchy melodies, because if a melody doesn’t sound good against just a drum track, it’s probably not worth keeping.

If that were all Telekinesis was, that would be fine. And in fact, it’s not much more; a distorted bass guitar is the lead instrument on most of these songs. Guitars and keyboards are barely noticeable, if in fact they’re there at all. Producer Chris Walla nonetheless creates a broad sonic spectrum to flesh everything out, but the only thing you’re ever paying attention to is Lerner’s propulsive drums and his vocals, which even on a lyric about a “car crash late in the night” is still surrounded by woah-oh-oh’s to keep everything peppy. And never nauseatingly so, either; 12 Desperate Straight Lines is much more dynamic than Telekinesis’s 2009 self-titled sugar rush of a debut, although the songs are less immediate. Lerner is not yet 25; here’s hoping he’s not peaking early. (Feb. 10)

Download: “You Turn Clear in the Sun,” “Please Ask For Help,” “Dirty Thing”