June 2016 reviews

Highly recommended this month: Un Blonde, Fanfare Ciocarlia

Highly recommended, reviewed earlier: Tragically Hip, Allen Toussaint, Paul Simon

Well worth your while: Brandy Clark, Doomsquad

As always, these reviews ran in the Waterloo Record.

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

Un Blonde – Good Will Come to You (Egg Paper)

Perhaps the most obscure artist to vault onto this year’s Polaris Music Prize long list, Jean-Sebastien Audet spent his teenage years in Calgary with a variety of musical projects, which is probably why the latest album by this 19-year-old and recent Montreal transplant sounds so accomplished, even though it’s incredibly bare, featuring little more than acoustic guitar and layers of Audet’s gospel-tinged harmonies. (For anyone, like me, who’s been seeking out Prince demos online since that legend’s death, Un Blonde has further resonance.) One song is called “I Felt the Evening Come Through the Window,” and indeed, Audet retains the sound of falling rain outside his apartment, along with seagulls and other ambient noise. Audet isn’t just a singer-songwriter fond of sparse arrangements; on instrumental tracks like “Exercise A,” he also explores ambient textures (with what’s either a melodica, accordion or harmonium—hard to tell). Good Will Come to You features 21 songs in 46 minutes; tiny perfect sketches that speak volumes about the man’s talent. (June 9)

Stream: “Celebration,” “Brand New,” “Staying in Line”

case/lang/veirs – s/t (Anti)

The first time I ever heard Neko Case, I hadn’t been that electrified by a North American woman’s singing voice since k.d. lang. Twenty years later, the two women have formed a trio with Oregon singer/songwriter Laura Veirs. It sounds amazing—on paper. 

Both lang and Case are powerhouse vocalists who can leave listeners—at least this one—in a weepy mess. Veirs—well, frankly, it’s a bit of a mystery what she’s doing here. (I’m sure she’s a lovely person.) She doesn’t distract from the potential in this recording—she’s certainly a decent singer—but it’s not clear that she adds anything, either.

It starts out with a promise: opening track “Atomic Number” finds all three women trading off lines. That promise quickly evaporates: most tracks are solo turns, with the other two providing backing vocals, the likes of which could really have been performed by any studio professionals (admittedly, a rare occurrence in the age of solo artists multi-tracking their own backups). We’re denied the sublime pleasure of Case and lang exchanging lines, or even singing a lead in two-part harmony.

Much of the collaboration here took place in the songwriting process, which might be the problem: for the last 20 years, k.d. lang has been a masterful interpreter but a middling songwriter; Veirs is perfunctory, but not capable of writing material for a project like this; Case, the strongest songwriter of the three, has an idiosyncratic flair that may not lend itself to surrender. Veirs’s husband, producer/engineer Tucker Martine, dresses up the material in impeccably bland arrangements, with strings and woodwinds and vibraphones that merely clutter up the sonic space that should be left wide open for these voices to roam.

Naturally, there are sublime moments, starting with lang’s

“Honey and Smoke,” which ranks as one of her finest torch songs in the Roy Orbison mode. Case’s “Delirium”—written by all three, an apparently the song with the longest gestation—is the highlight here. Neither are enough, however, to compensate for the squandered potential here. Let’s hope the tour brings out the best in them. (June 23)

Case/lang/veirs play Toronto’s Danforth Music Hall on Aug. 16.

Stream: “Atomic Number,” “Delirium,” “Honey and Smoke”

Brandy Clark – Big Day in a Small Town (Warner)

Still have tears in your beer since ABC cancelled Nashville? Well, cheer up, because there’s a new Brandy Clark album. The 40-year-old songwriter, who’d penned hits for or with Miranda Lambert, Reba McEntire and Kacey Musgraves, was thrust into the spotlight with 2013’s 12 Stories, the kind of album songwriters of every genre study carefully, full of both killer one-liners, developed narratives and astute character sketches.

Here, Clark steps up into the big time, with a major label and a producer, Jay Joyce (Eric Church, Carrie Underwood) who beefs up her (previously predominantly acoustic) sound for radio play. Thankfully, it’s not an unrecognizable makeover: the core of Clark’s charm and songcraft remain. She can be incredibly poignant, as on the examination of faded youth on “Homecoming Queen,” or laugh-out-loud funny, on “Broke”: “Ain’t enough apples for our apple pie / if we had a penny not sure we could spare it / we’re sitting on the porch drinking generic  / Coke / we’re broke.” And she’s got sass to spare, as on the first single, in which she taunts, “If you want the girl next door, go next door.” (June 9)

Stream: “Girl Next Door,” “Broke,” “Homecoming Queen”

Doomsquad – Total Time (Hand Drawn Dracula)

Granted, there are moments here that sound like the soundtrack to a ritual sacrifice at a rave somewhere north of Sudbury. But when it comes to spookier-than-thou psychedelic trance music, it doesn’t get much better than these three Toronto siblings, who recruited Mary Margaret O’Hara to sing backups for them, and whom Wolf Parade picked to open their sold-out reunion shows in New York City. There are elements of dub reggae, hippie jams, plenty of goth angst, and you can practically smell the incense coming out your speakers. It’s certainly divisive, but to these ears, it’s just perfect for summer nights in subversive times. (June 2)

Stream: “Who Owns Noon in Sandusky,” “Pyramids on Mars,” “Farmer’s Almanac”

Fanfare Ciocarlia – Onwards to Mars! (Asphalt Tango)

Did you know one of the best bands in the world is playing the Italian Canadian Centre in Guelph this week? And Maxwell’s in Waterloo shortly after that? (And the major jazz festivals in Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and Quebec City as well.)

Fanfare Ciocarlia are a Balkan brass band from a remote Romanian village, celebrating its 20^th anniversary this year. In 2014 they recorded an album with Guelph guitarist Adrian Raso, owner of the Little Shop of Guitars on Quebec Street. They’ve already toured in Europe; now they’re finally bringing it to major jazz festivals in Canada—and a local wedding hall in Guelph.

Here they’re on their own, doing what they do best: incredibly fast and brash brass lines, frenetic rhythm driven by sousaphones and two percussionists, and occasional vocal forays sung in their Roma language. It’s physically impossible not to dance to this music, the dizzying horn and clarinet lines adding to the euphoria.

The band’s style has evolved over the years, and not just through their work with Raso. Here, the oddball pop entry is a cover of the 1950s slow-grinding classic “I Put a Spell on You,” by Screamin’ Jay Hawkins. Here it’s sung by Iulian Canaf, a comically histrionic soulman who attained notoriety as a contestant on the Romanian version of TV’s The Voice. It has to be heard to be believed—though, truth be told, the original is just as much of an oddball, (literally) snortin’ good time. (June 23)

Fanfare Ciocarlia and Adrian Raso are playing Toronto with the Lemon Bucket Orchestra on June 29 at the Opera House, the Guelph Italian Canadian Club on July 2, and at Maxwell's in Waterloo on July 5.

Stream: “Crayfish Hora,” “Out to Lounge,” “Mista Lobaloba”

The Kills – Ash and Ice (Domino/Outside)

The Kills are a bluesy guitar duo who’ve survived and thrived almost 15 years after forming, with much credit going to attention magnet Alison Mosshart—who also fronts perhaps the finest of all Jack White projects, the Dead Weather. Mosshart and guitarist Jamie Hince claim they wanted to flip the script on this, their fifth album, and even cited hip-hop master Pusha T as a big influence. Which is an interesting ploy to convince people that Ash and Ice is some radical reinvention, when in fact it’s just another Kills record, no better or worse, with slightly more interesting drum programming. It may not be fair to compare, but Mosshart is much better utilized in the Dead Weather, where her howls and snarls and sexual energy is completely captivating; in the Kills, one always gets the sense she’s underplaying her power. That does allow her to sink her teeth into some of the slower material, exploring the torch singer into which she’ll inevitably evolve some day. (June 9)

Stream: “Doing It to Death,” “Hard Habit to Break,” “Days of Why and How”

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard – Nonagon Infinity (ATO)

A nonagon, for the geometrically challenged among us (I looked it up), is a nine-sided figure. This is the eighth album by this seven-piece Australian band in the last four years. All those numbers add up to: infinity?

That’s the intention behind these nine rollicking psychedelic rock songs, which not only flow seamlessly into each other like a 42-minute suite, but the last track also flows back into the first if you (are weird enough to) leave your player on “repeat.” That journey often travels at a breakneck speed, with influences from Led Zeppelin’s “Communication Breakdown” through Deep Purple and Can and Iron Maiden and Stereolab—basically, any band that’s ever strapped themselves to a runaway train. Nonagon Infinity is more than just a thrill ride, however, with a keen sense of dynamics, spacey keyboards and guitar textures balancing the hard-driving riffs and rhythms. (June 9)

Stream: “Evil Death Roll,” “Road Train,” “Robot Stop”

Pantha du Prince – The Triad (Rough Trade)

I played this record in a cabin in the woods one morning, surrounded by a symphony of birds—who fit in seamlessly with the stuttering bells and chimes that have become the trademark sound for this German producer. His rhythms have much more swing in them than you’d expect from minimal techno, and he’s more prone to using major chords than most of his peers. This time out there are more vocalists employed, though not to particularly great effect; his keyboard leads are still the main melodic driver.

The producer has mused that he’ll bury the name after this album, having achieved everything he wants to with this aesthetic. The Triad isn’t as strong as its predecessor, Black Noise—he’s starting to sound like a one-trick pony—so perhaps that decision is wise. In the meantime, the birds in my neighbourhood are more than happy to sing along. (June 2)

Stream: “The Winter Hymn” feat. Queens, “Frau im mond, Sterne laufen,” “Dream Yourself Awake”

Samaris – Black Lights (One Little Indian)

Of Monsters and Men have shifted our perceptions of Icelandic music away from esoteric electronica, avant-garde pop stars and whatever it is Sigur Ros happens to be, and toward catchy yet bland radio rock. Which is why it’s refreshing to encounter Samaris, a Reykjavik trio that draws from ’90s trip hop, dubby electronica and the (relatively) more recent sounds coming from London’s Hyperdub label, including Hamilton’s Jessy Lanza. Breathy female vocals and strong, skittering beats—even at slower tempos—are adorned with equally dreamy and disquieting synths, making for languid, late-night vibes. (June 30)

Stream: “Wanted 2 Say,” “Black Lights,” “3y3”

Sate – Red Black and Blue (independent)

Canada has no shortage of rock bands. What this country is lacking, however, is fantastic rock singers: people who can grab a song by the throat, who can be heard above electric guitars even without a microphone. More howlers, fewer growlers, please.

Enter Sate, a.k.a. Saidah Baba Talibah—daughter of Salome Bey, one of this country’s greatest R&B/jazz voices in the ’70s and ’80s—reinventing herself as a rocker here, after starting her career in a bluesier vein. The blues is still present here, but on opening track “Warrior” she goes for the jugular in ways the Toronto scene probably hasn’t seen since Danko Jones. “You’re gonna know my name / from the Mississippi to the Rhine,” she boasts—and by the end of the track you’re more than inclined to agree. As strong as that song is, in the context of the album it seems like a gimmick to get you to pay attention. Once she’s got you hooked, Sate starts to get serious: right away she delves into the blues of “What Did I Do,” and “Mama Talk to Me” is a poignant, emotional rocker about Bey’s struggles with dementia. For all her fiery delivery, the upbeat tracks here suffer in comparison with the slower numbers, especially the gorgeous, gospel-tinged closer, “Peace.” Red Black and Blue is an uneven record by an artist searching for her sound, but there’s no denying that Sate is a force to be reckoned with. Her talent is too enormous to be denied. (June 30)

Stream: “Warrior,” “Mama Talk to Me,” “Peace”

Andy Shauf – The Party (Arts and Crafts)

One of the most anticipated Canadian albums of the year is by this mild-mannered Regina singer/songwriter, who steps into the big time by signing with Arts and Crafts in Canada and Anti in the U.S., the label that is also home to the new album by k.d. lang, Neko Case and Laura Veirs, with whom Shauf will be touring this summer. Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy is a huge fan, as is novelist Nick Hornby. The hype seems strange for songs of such subtle pleasures; Shauf is on the same wavelength as Beck’s acoustic moods, or Elliott Smith, an early influence. And he’s chosen as his coming-out party a concept album of sorts, connected songs set at a house party, a series of character sketches that highlight Shauf’s eye for nuance. The playing and production are impeccable—all Shauf solo, except for the strings—though Shauf’s sedated vocals drag some of the material down; The Party in question is more than a bit of a bummer. No matter. This record puts plenty of wind in his sails; the after-party promises to be a lot more exciting. (June 2)

Stream: “The Magician,” “To You,” “Martha Sways”

Tegan and Sara – Love You to Death (Universal)

It’s heartening that an act like Tegan and Sara get bigger and bigger with each album—rare in the chart-pop sphere they no longer aspire to, but to which these 36-year-old sisters rightfully belong. Working again with producer Greg Kurstin (Adele), who helmed 2013’s Heartbeat, Tegan and Sara aim for stadiums and come up with a gold rush of hooks and radio-ready melodies—granted, few with the undeniable punch of Hearbeat’s “Closer” or “I Was a Fool,” which would be hard to top. “Boyfriend,” however, is unusually lyrically rich bubblegum, a lesbian love song that will forever erase the memory of Katy Perry’s “I Kissed a Girl.” (June 9)

Stream: “Boyfriend,” “Dying to Know,” “100x”

January 2013 reviews

The following reviews ran in January in the Waterloo Record and Guelph Mercury. Highly recommended: Petra Haden, Kvety, Lee Harvey Osmond, Bob Wiseman.

Petra Haden - At the Movies (Anti)

Roomful of Teeth - s/t (New Amsterdam)

At the Movies is all about choirs and show tunes, but this is definitely not Glee. Petra Haden makes a cappella albums by layering her own voice into orchestras and reinventing the familiar: her last album was an inventive full-length cover of the album The Who Sell Out—which was arguably as good as the original. Here, she takes the familiar trope of tackling famous movie theme songs. Occasionally she dives into campy, novelty territory—how can the James Bond song “Goldfinger” not be campy?—but more often than not she takes what could be a ridiculous notion and turns it into something entirely transformational: the theme from Psycho is actually far more frightening performed entirely by female voices than by piercing strings. 

Haden is mostly dealing with instrumental material, naturally, but the occasional pop song (“It Might Be You,” from Tootsie; “This is Not America,” from The Falcon and the Snowman) sneaks in, as do three key instrumentalists in guest spots: pianist Brad Mehldau, guitarist Bill Frisell and her father, bassist Charlie Haden. The one time she strays close to cliché is “Calling You” from Baghdad Cafe, a torch song staple of the last 25 years. Otherwise, you'd never expect a vocalist to interpret Trent Reznor's score for The Social Network, or to pick the Superman theme from John Williams' endless list of anthems--and Haden has the chutzpah and the talent to reimagine iconic works in her own image. 

Roomful of Teeth are an eight-piece New York City vocal ensemble, in which Petra Haden would fit right in. The group grew out of a circle of modern classical composers revolving around the New Amsterdam label, which in turn is a younger generational offshoot of Bang on a Can, the leading American avant-garde collective of the last 30 years. Madrigals, Meredith Monk weirdness, Broadway, Bulgarian harmonies, yodelling, Inuit and Tuvan throat singing--they cover just about vocal tradition but doo-wop. Though it's often esoteric and edgy, they can go for grandiosity, like on the enormous chorus with the odd lyric that goes: “There is no subtlety in death / It’s like a hurricane / it’s like Farrakhan,” by composer William Brittelle. They also collaborate with Merrill Garbus of Tuneyards, who they've accompanied live, and who pens two key tracks here (though she does not appear on them). 

Should Petra Haden hit the road for At the Movies, Roomful of Teeth would be the obvious choice to be her hired backing band. And I dare your local high school glee club to tackle anything from either of these records. (Jan. 24)

Download Petra Haden: “Superman Theme,” “Psycho Prelude,” “It Might Be You”

Download Roomful of Teeth: “Amid the Minotaurs,” “Montmartre,” “Quizassa”

Kvety – Bile vcely (Indiescope)

This Czech band could never be accused of a one-note shtick. A lot of central and eastern European rock music can be downright baffling to North American ears; while Kvety are enchanting and intriguing: alien, yes (Czech is not a poetic language when sung), but entirely inviting. The male vocalist’s soft delivery helps, as does the dominant role of violin, but Kvety combine melody, old-world mystery and unpredictable arrangements in an entirely original blend that begs easy comparisons: but if pressed, I’d offer Welsh weirdo folk band Gorky’s Zygotic Minci, early Pink Floyd, Swedish psychedelic jazz-rockers Dungen, Camper Van Beethoven’s Key Lime Pie and Radiohead’s The Bends. Do those make sense together? They do here. Considering the incredible 2012 album by Kvety’s labelmates Dva, where are the articles in the international press about the Czech music scene? It’s a matter of time. (Jan. 31)

Download: "Kamosi," "Papousek noci," "My deti ze stanice Bullerbyn"

Lee Harvey Osmond – The Folk Sinner (Latent)

Tom Wilson, of Junkhouse and Blackie and the Rodeo Kings, has been a mainstay in Canadian music for more than 20 years—a career, he often jokes, that has earned him “tens of dollars” over that time. And yet ever since he reinvented himself as Lee Harvey Osmond in 2009, it sounds like he’s just hitting his stride now. This is where he teams up with the Cowboy Junkies’ Michael Timmins, and together they set Wilson’s haunting baritone and bluesy songs to spare and spooky goth-folk arrangements centred around chugging, droning guitars and a healthy dose of rockabilly reverb.

Guest stars lend a hand: Hawksley Workman’s lovely falsetto on “Break Your Body,” a duet with Oh Susanna on “Big Chief,” the haunting harmonica of Paul Reddick, and the unmistakable harmony presence of Margo Timmins. As producer, Michael Timmins is careful never to crowd a song: all extraneous elements—and plenty of excellent electric guitars, courtesy of Colin Cripps, Colin Linden and Timmins—hover around the atmosphere, leaving the focus on the spare rhythms and Wilson’s commanding, though subtle, presence.

It’s Canadiana cottage-country weirdness at its finest, as well as a fine album by two guys who’ve wanted to be wise, old ragged veterans ever since they were 25 years old. Now that they are, they have even more to offer than they did in their supposed prime. It’s far too early to begin compiling a best of 2013 list, but The Folk Sinner is a good start. (Jan. 17)

Download: “Devil’s Load,” “Oh Linda,” “Honey Runnin’”

The Liminanas – Crystal Anis (Hozac)

The Velvet Underground’s debut album and a collection of Serge Gainsbourg’s ’60s hits: two albums that every member of this Parisian band probably had in common growing up. Fuzzy garage-rock guitars, primitive drums, whispered vocals, reedy organs and minor-key menace flip the usually sunny French yé-yé sound on its head, and wouldn’t sound out of place in an early Godard movie featuring reckless boho youth who worship American fashion driving through the Left Bank. It’s a bit of a one-note shtick, but that one note sounds fabulous. (Jan. 31)

Download: “Longanisse,” “Belmondo,” “Betty and Johnny”

Minotaurs – New Believers (Static Clang)

The last time we heard from Guelph songwriter and drummer Nathan Lawr, he had abandoned his singer/songwriter mode to embrace Afrobeat influences; here, on his second album leading a project called Minotaurs, he returns with much of the same band—featuring King Cobb Steelie bassist Kevin Lynn, Toronto’s most valuable saxophone player Jeremy Strachan, pianist Shaw-Han Liem—and vocalists Casey Mecija (Ohbijou) and Sarah Harmer, plus a full horn section and producer Paul Aucoin at the helm. If the first Minotaurs album boasted only a few tracks that burst with Lawr’s new-found confidence in this new territory, here he fully inhabits the swagger necessary to pull this off, and his band—in particular the horn section and the percussionists (Lawr, Aucoin and Jay Anderson)—is firing on all cylinders. The only time he stumbles is when the tempo slows down, on the closing “Windchimes in the Evening”—which is odd for a guy whose solo career started out as a balladeer. Otherwise, he’s got his calling card for summer festival season ready to roll. (Jan. 24)

Download: “Open the Doors,” “New Believers,” “Make Some Noise”

Pantha du Prince & the Bell Laboratory – Elements of Light (Rough Trade)

As an electronic musician, you can spend your whole life working on new patches for your keyboards or ways to manipulate found-sound samples.

Or you could just hire the bell carillon player for Oslo City Hall—who plays a three-tonne instrument with over 60 bronze bells—and collaborate with a local composer and Norwegian jazz players on tubular bells, marimba, xylophone, cymbals and more, while you work subtle manipulations and place subdued beats beneath it all.

Yes, there are moments on Elements of Light when you feel like Quasimodo has taken over a rave in the town square of a small European town. But Pantha du Prince, the German producer whose 2010 album Black Light is one of the finest electronic albums of the past five years, moves this far beyond an aesthetic gimmick and creates one of the few convincing compositions to bring the influence of Steve Reich and Moondog to modern electronic dance music—even if you’re unlikely to hear these tracks in an actual club, as Elements of Light is a much more rewarding headphone experience than anything else. (Jan. 17)

Download: “Particle,” “Photon,” “Spectral Spirit”

Bob Wiseman – Giulietta Masina at the Oscars Crying (Blocks Recording Club)

For much of the last 15 years, singer/songwriter Bob Wiseman has been working on film and theatre projects, while his solo albums—which, in the ’90s, were wildly eclectic Toronto all-star affairs that contained some of the most inventive and politically provocative music of the era—became withdrawn, solitary and somewhat humourless. For whatever reason, Wiseman has let the world back in to his songs: not just in the studio, where he once again corrals his ideal harmony vocalist Mary Margaret O’Hara and others, but in his songs. As the obtuse title suggests, this is a collection of character sketches, with songs about Fellini’s wife, former Haitian presidents, Neil Young and RCMP tasering victims.

Wiseman is the rare political songwriter who, at his best, can write extremely specific, name-calling songs, and have them stand the test of time--as songs from his first two proper solo albums, about government plots against native activists and Greenpeace campaigners, have done so well. Here, he's back in that mode, most successfully skewering anti-science conservative ideology in “The Reform Party at Burning Man,” where he gets Serena Ryder to do a powerful rap in the middle, notes with a sinister scowl about suppression of governmental information that "what's especially perverse is that this all feels rehearsed," and concludes the song by repeating: “We didn't vote so / you could make a joke out / of people that are broke.” 

He's not all piss and vinegar—far from it. What makes this return to form so enjoyable is Wiseman's playful musicality, his skittery keyboards, his '50s-inspired vocal arrangements, the inspired drumming of Mark Hundevad and the spot-on saxophones of Shuffle Demon Richard Underhill. A touching ode to Wiseman's late friend, actress Tracy Wright, is disguised in a song about a distrusted mutual friend set to a “Whiter Shade of Pale” chord progression. The title track is one of Wiseman's loveliest melodies ever, and “Neil Young at the Junos” is, for Wiseman, an oddly reverent song about a mainstream icon.

Together with the recent success of his solo autobiographical theatrical piece, Actionable, this is a welcome reminder of Wiseman's songwriting legacy, and proof that his best work is far from behind him. (Jan. 31)

Download: “mothface@yahoo.com,” “The Reform Party at Burning Man,” “Aristide at the Press Conference”

Yo La Tengo - Fade (Matador)

When Yo La Tengo was the subject of a biography last year, many people—starting with the band members themselves—wondered how such an artistically consistent, mild-mannered group could possibly provide a compelling narrative for a book. Indeed, the author instead used Yo La Tengo’s career as a way to explore the ebbs and flows of alternative music in general in the last 25 years.

And so what does one say about Yo La Tengo’s new album, their 13^th proper record, which is interchangeable with any of their albums from the last 15 years? Not that their well is dry: from the outset, this musically insatiable trio have drawn from dream pop, country, R&B, free jazz, hardcore punk, funk, ambient, squalls of feedback, avant-garde soundtracks and just about everything else, all filtered through their generally soft-spoken, reverent personas.

Yo La Tengo rarely makes a wrong move, but much of Fade sounds like the band on lithium: there is no standout track, the likes of which even their weakest album can be counted on to provide; there is little variation in tempo; and even the quietest moments (with the exception of the stunning "Cornelia and Jane") often sound limp rather than softly powerful, which is normally Yo La Tengo’s forte. Maybe it’s the introduction of producer John McEntire (Tortoise), which marks the first time in 20 years the band has not worked with longtime collaborator Roger Moutenot; maybe Moutenot brought more to Yo La Tengo than anyone realized until now. (Jan. 17)

Download: “Well You Better,” “Cornelia and Jane,” “Ohm”