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”

Crown of Love

What Sidney Crosby’s Olympic goal was to many, last night’s Arcade Fire win was to me.

The Olympics and the Grammys are two institutions I’ve never cared about. And of the two, the Olympics have a better track record of rewarding excellence.

So why do I care about Arcade Fire nabbing the Album of the Year award in an upset win?

Part of me doesn’t, really. It’s one more laughable WTF moment, the type that has been happening to the band ever since they ran out of copies of Funeral in the week of its release. Shortly after, they were being feted by their musical heroes and everybody wanted a piece of them. To their credit, they kept their feet on the ground, chose their collaborators carefully, and stayed true to who they were.

For whatever reason, this is the year Arcade Fire started saying yes. American Express wants to sponsor a live webcast of our Madison Square Gardens show? Sure, if it means we can get Terry Gilliam to do it. Google wants to help launch its new Chrome browser by collaborating on a mind-blowing video for “We Used to Wait”? Why not, if it means redefining what a music video can be. You mean the Grammys, the Junos and the Brit Awards all want us to play on television? Could be funny. And so with zero expectations other than to amuse themselves, everyone in the Arcade Fire camp headed to L.A., where they were up for three awards.

The Grammys are a notorious shitshow. The last time there was a Canadian upset, it was 1970, when David Clayton-Thomas and Blood, Sweat and Tears won Album of the Year over the Beatles’ Abbey Road and Johnny Cash’s At San Quentin. Legions of legendary musicians have never won a Grammy; last night Neil Young won his first one (for music, because a box set won a couple of years ago). Conversely, unworthy elder statesmen regularly get token nods for weak work; why else would Tom Petty be noticed for that wretched blues album he put out last year? Meanwhile, Grammy nights have been full of bizarre moments: Jethro Tull beating out Metallica for the first metal Grammy, Steely Dan winning Album of the Year—in 2001; various duets and unplugged albums taking home the big prize.

And so there was Arcade Fire, up against Lady Gaga (fascinating commercial superstar), Eminem (redemption/comeback story, second only to Gaga in terms of sales), Lady Antebellum (zzzzzzzz), and Katy Perry (entirely inexplicable in this category). What do all these acts have in common? They’re all part of the ancient starmaking system, nurtured along by industry veterans, massively successful on radio. Arcade Fire became popular before they even had a manager, they own their own music, which they lease to an independent label, they get nominal radio play at best, and are never seen in celebrity magazines—which might be why both Rosie O’Donnell and Dog the Bounty Hunter tweeted “never heard of ’em” after the win.

But you know all that.

Arcade Fire’s Grammy win means everything and nothing. It could be a triumphant victory for the underdog, one who dared to close the ceremonies by singing about an emperor with no clothes and “businessmen [who] drink my blood.” Or it could be just another weird blip in the rise of Arcade Fire, one that will be quickly forgotten by the celebrity culture the band disdains.

More than anything, it’s a laugh—as you can see in the band’s faces when Barbra Streisand stuttered over the name of their album, and as you can see in their press conference afterwards (both clips are available here; the press conference is priceless, and shows what the band is really like behind their all-too-serious public profile). “This is from outer space” said Win, when asked about the prize. “We will joke a lot about it. We’re just getting warmed up. I think the jokes we can make about this are endless.”

But for me, like Crosby’s goal, this was an exhilarating adrenalin boost and point of pride, even if it’s an ultimately meaningless, ephemeral and random moment that merely affirms something we knew already. Even though this band had nothing to prove to anyone—the album and the live show have already done that in the past six months—this small victory felt so right only because it was in the belly of the beast of all that is so wrong about the music industry.

“How will you be celebrating tonight?” asked one reporter. “You’re looking at it,” laughed Richie, surveying a room full of people who have to explain to their bewildered readers and viewers who Arcade FIre are. “Questions. Celebrating with a lot of questions.”

Now: will Winter’s Bone take home the Oscar?

Crown myself the prince of buzz
Can't wait until you, can't wait 'til you unsubscribe
I'll be a lonely scribe

But: what if they like it?
And lock us in a cannery with your accordion
Until we canned our love?

-Owen Pallett, “This is the Dream of Win and Regine,” 2005

Dec '10 & Jan '11 reviews

The following reviews ran in the Kitchener-Waterloo Record and Guelph Mercury in December 2010 and January 2011.

Bonjay – Broughtupsy (Mysteries of Sound)

Sometimes it pays not to rush your debut. Bonjay got no shortage of hype when they first arrived in Toronto from Ottawa, thanks to the powerful voice and undeniable stage presence of singer Alanna Stewart and the beats by DJ Pho. That was over three years ago, but no amount of anticipation and praise managed to rush them into releasing their first proper EP until now. And by waiting, they outlasted the remnants of electroclash that they were slotted into at the beginning (like their peers Thunderheist, who turned out to be little more than a really exciting one-night stand). Bonjay also developed their songwriting; the highlights of their early shows were their covers of TV on the Radio’s “Staring at the Sun” and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ “Maps.” Here, they’re tapping into Caribbean rhythms run through modern electronic filters, with Stuart’s vocals alternating between seductive and soaring, always filled with confidence and bravado that never descends into showboating. Stuart’s range and command of her voice makes her a class act through and through, like a 21^st century West Indian Annie Lennox. The five songs on Broughtupsy are worth the wait; here’s hoping they can build on this sooner than later. (Dec. 9)

Download: “Stutter,” “Frawdulent,” “Creepin’”

Braids – Native Speaker (Flemish Eye)

Smack dab in the middle of Hillside weekend last summer, after countless folk, rock and country acts, a young band from Montreal via Calgary took the stage in the middle of the afternoon. At a normal show in a club, they might not have stood out so much, but that day Braids was such a delightfully weird relief to the rest of the festival’s lineup that they were one of the weekend’s highlights for this seen-it-all writer.

Mind you, we have seen some of this before, but not for a long time; Braids’ closest comparison points are the Sugarcubes and the Cocteau Twins, both of whom peaked 20 years ago before fizzing out forevermore. No one in the band is over 21, however; Animal Collective is their preferred reference point, and they manage to outshine that overrated band on almost every level. Singer Raphaelle Standell-Preston is far more engaging and less yelp-y than the likes of Avey Tare and his imitators, while her bandmates instrumentation avoids any traditional guitar sounds or cliché keyboard patches.

The music is propulsive and bright, but far removed from any pop music convention. All of this makes Braids a love/hate sort of band, but they’re one of the most creative new bands on the Canadian landscape in 2011, and their immersion in Montreal’s ever-fertile community of weirdoes promises to make these high school friends even better in the future. (Jan. 13)

Download: “Lemonade,” “Lammicken,” “Same Mum”

Brandt Brauer Frick – You Make Me Real (!K7)

Making techno music on live instruments isn’t new; Ontario alone boasts two bands who have done it very well, and very differently: The New Deal and Holy Fuck. While those bands focused on the more visceral elements of house music and psychedelic rock, respectively, Brandt Brauer and Frick is a German trio who are more academic in their approach, and, fitting in with the aesthetic of German electronic music of the last 15 years, much more likely to sound crisp and clean and smooth out any rough edges.

Brandt Brauer and Frick—a pianist, a bassist and a percussionist—claim a background in classical composition and they’re big fans of Steve Reich. So while they’re ultimately aiming for a dance floor, it’s obviously not their home. Prepared pianos, Wurlitzers, tympani and the clicks of the bass strings are all made to sound otherworldly and electronic, while traditional piano provides most of the riffs.

It’s all more interesting in concept and execution than it is a solid album, albeit a promising one. Before its release, Brandt Brauer and Frick were voted one of the top five audience favourites at the 2010 Mutek Festival in Montreal; no doubt much of the thrill is seeing them pull this off live, as this YouTube clip for “Bop” (with 11 musicians involved) easily demonstrates. (Jan. 13)

Download: “Teufelsleiter,” “Bop,” “You Make Me Real”

Come and Get It: The Best of Apple Records – Various Artists (EMI)

So the Beatles are now on iTunes—so what? Was anyone really waiting by now? Instead, turn your attention to this gem of a collection, from the archives of the Beatles’ vanity label, Apple Records, which ran from 1968 to 1972. Most of the artists here were either produced by Beatles, feature Beatles performing, or are covers of Beatles songs. Only the latter category stumbles: especially an identical version of “Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight” by the band Trash (and released the same week as the Beatles’ version on Abbey Road), or a terrible reggae version of “Give Peace a Chance” (by Hot Chocolate Band, of “You Sexy Thing” fame).

Otherwise, it’s a wonderfully mixed bag of weirdoes (Chris Hodge, Brute Force), forgotten pop classics (Badfinger, Mary Hopkin’s “Those Were the Days”), and incongruous indulgences in other genres (Cajun, brass band music, Indian pop). Almost everything has the Beatles’ touch to it—sonically, if nothing else. There’s never a dull moment. Except for maybe James Taylor. (Dec. 9)

Download: Mary Hopkin – “Those Were the Days”; Badfinger – “Day After Day”; Black Dyke Mills Band – “Thingumybob “

The Decemberists - The King is Dead (EMI)

What started out as a folksy, somewhat fey band performing songs about characters and scenarios far removed from modern life evolved had into a prog-rock monster with heavy metal flourishes, heard on 2009’s sprawling The Hazards of Love, which proved to be the Decemberists' most divisive album yet.

On this, their sixth album, frontman Colin Meloy retreats and writes a series of four-minute pop songs that are remarkable not only for their economy—Meloy describes it as “an exercise in restraint”—but how he still refuses to dumb it down; these are complex as anything the Decemberists have ever done, but they pack a far greater punch as pop songs.

Meloy says he was inspired in part by hearing the reissue of R.E.M.’s Reckoning album, and it’s not hard to pick out some similarities (the fact that Peter Buck plays guitar on three tracks doesn’t hurt). It’s part of an overall Americana feel, which is a bit unusual for this group of Anglophiles; other than the Celtic sound of “Rox in the Box” and the nod to the Smiths’ Queen is Dead in the album title, this aims straight at the heart of American music, with traces of Tom Petty, Bruce Springsteen, and plenty of country music—Gillian Welch provides perfect backing vocals on “Down By the Water,” and the album closes with weeping pedal steel on “Dear Avery.”

Aside from surface aesthetics, The King is Dead manages to be the Decemberists’ most accomplished album, merging the muscle of its recent work with the folksy charm of their earliest records. And Meloy is in top form, as a melodicist and lyricist. He may use the phrase “panoply of song” to describe a lover walking in a room, it more than describes The King is Dead as well. (Jan. 20)

Download: “Rox in the Box,” “January Hymn,” “Down by the Water”

K.C. Accidental – Captured Anthems for an Empty Bathtub / Anthems for the Could’ve Been Pills (Arts and Crafts)

Broken Social Scene had a fantastic 2010, with a powerhouse new record, a concert film, and an acclaimed live show. Here, however, is a reissue of the band that sparked the genesis of Broken Social Scene, and, if nothing else, it proves how far they’ve come.

K.C. Accidental was a bedroom-recording collaboration between Kevin Drew and Charles Spearin, with contributions from drummer Justin Peroff and Metric’s James Shaw; when Brendan Canning and others were added, it evolved into Broken Social Scene. But listening to these two albums again now (packaged together), it’s mostly notable for how loose and nebulous the project was.

There are barely any vocals or much songwriting to be found—which would be fine if each instrumental track wasn’t little more than a meandering jam, and not a particularly interesting one, either, unless you happened to be in the room at the time. Later on, their arrangement skills and production quality would be able to elevate even the slightest material, but these merely sound like sketches with no one carrying the weight.

It sounds like guys who probably had amazing record collections, but were only beginning to process how to put it all together. This was music made for guys exactly like themselves, and today it remains for serious collectors only. (Jan. 13)

Download: “Anoxeric He-Man,” “Silverfish Eyelashes,” “Them (Pop Song #3333)”

Gabe Levine – Long Spun Thread (independent)

What would happen if Phillip Glass produced a Bruce Cockburn album? Toronto-via-Montreal songwriter Gabe Levine has the answer. The vocal resemblance to Cockburn is striking, and the largely acoustic songs wouldn’t sound that out of place on any of the Canadian legend’s ’70s recordings. And yet on most of the tracks here—with help from some of Toronto’s finest musicians, including Sandro Perri and members of Timber Timbre, Feuermusik and Steamboat—there is a distinct pulse and reliance on repetitive arpeggios (largely on the keyboards provided by Levine’s brother Jesse) that sets Long Spun Thread apart from dozens of other singer/songwriter records. That said, Levine’s past, as a member of alt-country and experimental klezmer bands on Montreal’s Constellation Records, isn’t noticeable here at all; this is a pleasant, slightly tropical take on Canadian folk (check the calypso of “Nesting Bird”) by a musician making the most conventional, and to date the most rewarding, music of his career. (Jan. 6)

Download: “Believe Me,” “Bitter Wine,” “Honey All the Way Down”

Kate and Anna McGarrigle – Oddities (independent)

Kate McGarrigle passed away a year ago, and there’s no better way to celebrate her life than dipping into this collection of outtakes assembled by her sister, Anna. Despite their stature and fan base, the McGarrigles were never terribly prolific—11 albums over 35 years—and some of this material appeared in different versions elsewhere, notably the four songs by turn-of-the-century American songwriter Stephen Foster that open the album (the sisters had proposed scoring a biopic of him at one point). But there are also originals, like the surprisingly rollicking “As Fast as My Feet,” and the well-loved cover of “The Log Driver’s Waltz,” which was featured in an NFB short much-beloved by anyone who attended elementary school in the late ’70s and early ’80s.

Most haunting, however, is a haunting, lo-fi recording of “A La Claire Fontaine,” an old French folksong that the sisters would always close their encores with. Why it never appeared on a proper album before is a mystery; why it only exists here, in a ghostly and chilling version recorded in 1976 at McGill with only Chaim Tannenbaum’s harmonica and group harmonies from family and friends, we can only guess. It’s a song Kate’s son Rufus Wainwright has also performed live many times, and it’s fitting that it finally appears here—amidst many other treasures that longtime fans and newcomers will cherish. (Jan. 6)

Download: “The Log Driver’s Waltz,” “As Fast as My Feet,” “A La Claire Fontaine”

More or Les – Brunch With a Vengeance (Fuzzy Logic)

And you thought Shad was nerdy? There is no topic too dorky for Toronto MC More or Les, who spends entire songs complaining about the state of public toilets (“The Bathroom Song”), bad fashion (“Busted Gear”), and a 50-year-old man picking his nose on public transit (“Gold Digger Part 3”). But don’t let his often lightweight subject matter distract you from his MC skills and verbal dexterity, both in his flow and as a storyteller. The music is a delightful throwback to 1990 East Coast hip-hop, the playful, occasionally jazzy grooves making a perfect match for More or Les’s rhymes. (When he’s not performing his own material, he hosts a monthly old-school Hip-Hop Karaoke event in Toronto.) Les shares the spotlight with several up and coming Toronto MCs, and British beat specialists The Herbaliser pay him back for guesting on their last studio album by backing him up on “A Lotta Talk.” It’s his bottomless charisma, however, that ties it all together. (Jan. 20)

Download: "Get Back," "Busted Gear (feat. Ambition and the Wordburglar)," "A Lotta Talk (feat. the Herbaliser)"

Nicki Minaj – Pink Island (Universal)

Nicki Minaj is this year’s Drake—o wait, is Drake still this year’s Drake? Or is that so six months ago now? Like Drake, Minaj made her name with mix tapes and guest appearances on high-profile singles by some of the biggest heavyweight MCs in hip-hop—most notably on Kanye West’s single “Monster.” And now, with her debut album, she almost (stress: almost) surpassed the wave of hype that greeted West’s own album this same month. Toronto’s Now magazine called her the “most hyped new MC in hip-hop history”—a phrase that when seen in the headline of a cover story is self-fulfilling, at the very least.

Does she deliver? Minaj is a monstrous MC, when she tries: she has the foul mouth of Lil Kim, the quivering vibrato of Ol’ Dirty Bastard (whom she quotes directly on “Roman’s Revenge”), and she revels in role-playing and adopting various accents. She easily goes head to head with Eminem on the aforementioned “Roman’s Revenge”; he tries to keep up by upping his shock jock shtick, culminating with a line about bondage and golden showers (something that’s not out of character in Minaj’s own raps, as on “Did It On ’Em”).

But if Minaj comes out swinging on the opening three tracks, she spends much of the rest of the album sounding like a watered down Lady Gaga or Robyn, with a series of glossy pop songs that, in some cases, come across like a Europop Sarah McLachlan. Lost in a sea of cheese, where’s that tough street chick now? By the time the shameless sample of the Buggles’ “Video Killed the Radio Star” dominates the single “Check It Out,” Nicki Minaj sounds one step away from the Black-Eyed Peas—whose will.i.am produced that track, naturally.

More power to her for not sticking to one thing, but the galling thing is that Minaj’s formula sounds remarkably familiar. The singer/MC straddling bouncy pop and hardcore hip-hop who got a major career boost from Kanye West? Could be Kid Sister, whose 2009 debut album scored well with critics but was nowhere near the meteoric sensation that Minaj is—and Kid Sister did all of this far, far better. (Dec. 9)

Download: “Here I Am,” “I’m the Best,” “Roman’s Revenge”

No Joy – Ghost Blonde (Mexican Summer)

Montreal’s No Joy are riding the wave of adulation from hot California band Best Coast; that group’s singer, Beth Cosentino, has hailed No Joy as her favourite new band and got them signed to the Mexican Summer label, and they’re now touring together. While the appeal of Best Coast is easy to understand—’50s-style melodies set to fuzzy, lo-fi guitar rock with heavy, heavy reverb, a Californian haze lingering overhead, and dorky bubblegum lyrics—No Joy taps a similar aesthetic, only without the sing-song melodic approach. And hence rarely has a recent band lived up to its name the way No Joy does.

Much of Ghost Blonde merely drifts along: the vocals are indistinguishable, the guitars sound like a mid-level ’90s grunge band run through plenty of reverb, to no particular effect. Much of this kind of music—brought back to life in recent years by the likes of the Vivian Girls, the Dum Dum Girls, and to some degree the Raveonettes—relies on a sweetness and innocence, a pining for days past, with a darkness lurking underneath. In the case of the unfortunately named No Joy, the only thing they seem to be nostalgic for is the time back when they were teenagers still trying to figure out how to be in a band. (Jan. 20)

Download: “Pacific Pride,” “Hawaii,” “You Girls Smoke Cigarettes?”




Querkus – Spaces Between the Leaves Make Way for the Stars (independent)

Querkus describe themselves as “electro art pop noir from the Canadian Prairies”—certainly there is truth in advertising. Singer and keyboardist Karen Asmundson shows off her classical training and love of sombre songs with the help of guitarist Edgar Ozolins. Like many piano chanteuses, Asmundson can lay the affect on fairly thick, but it’s well-suited to the material, which is dramatic by nature. After all, this is a duo who formed after attending an event celebrating David Lynch’s 60th birthday. It’s a bit overcooked, however; the album was four years in the making, and it shows. (Jan. 20)

Download: “Half Acid Lee,” “There Will Always Be,” “I’m Gonna Break You”

John Southworth – Human Cry (Barnyard)

Unheralded Toronto singer/songwriter John Southworth unleashed one of the freakiest albums of 2009, a power pop album named after a subatomic particle accelerator (Mama Tevatron), with suitably fantastical lyrics and driven by rusty old keyboards. This year, Southworth has decided to strip down and play it straight—sort of.

Human Cry was inspired, says Southworth, by a friend telling him that all singing was a form of crying. The album is not an entirely sad sack affair—despite titles like “River of Tears in Everyone,” “Sadness Came Back,” and “Day of the Dead”—but Southworth treads mostly in torch song territory, with gentle acoustic touches from backing band the South Seas (seasoned jazz players Andrew Downing, Justin Haynes and Jean Martin). Backing vocalists Daniela Gesundheit (Snowblink) and Felicity Williams (Thomas, Broken Social Scene) lend a Leonard Cohen-esque air to the recording. Significantly, Southworth’s own voice adapts remarkably well: he sounds much more mature here, his often-boyish voice suddenly rich and resonant, especially on “Tender Mountain Eyes.”

Many people don’t know what to make of John Southworth, but that should change here: there’s nothing mysterious about the simple magic at the core of Human Cry. (Dec. 16)

Download: “River of Tears in Everyone,” “The Kiss,” “Precious Metals”

Suuns – Zeroes QC (Secretly Canadian)

This Montreal band purposely waited three years before recording their debut album. It’s not hard to hear why: Suuns’ music is not about pop hooks—although it occasionally has those—it is about performance. And by amassing three years of live experience behind them, Zeroes QC sounds all the better for it. Suuns love dark, mysterious and moody sounds, whether those are created by massive washes of guitar or entirely electronically. At times they can sound like the distorted pop of The Jesus and Mary Chain, the improv electro dance rhythms of Holy Fuck, the propulsive tension of Clinic, or even the weirder side of Beck (singer Ben Shemie shares a vocal resemblance). But if some of their influences may be easy to spot, Suuns don’t stay in one spot for very long, making Zeroes QC much more rewarding than most rock bands who pick one particular strain of noisy experimental dance music and milk it for an entire album. (Dec. 16)

Download: “Arena,” “Gaze,” “Up Past the Nursery”

Frederick Squire – March 12 (Blue Fog)

Fred Squire makes it sound easy. In the liner notes to this, his debut solo album, he lists the equipment used to make this home recording, including: “Realistic cassette recorder, Maxell high-bias cassette tape, leggings wrapped around a bent coat-hangar frame” and the odd piece of high-end gear from Audio Technica or Sennheiser. And while the bland cover image is of a blank manila envelope against some basement rec-room panelling, the music inside is rich and warm and intimate: the sparseness and haunting quality of ’90s indie singer/songwriters (Smog, early Elliot Smith) with the production values of the best ’70s singer/songwriter records by the likes of Bob Dylan and Tom Waits that Squire also draws inspiration from.

Squire can be a deeply personal songwriter; the verses in the track “Old Times Past New Times” detail a litany of events and non-events in the life of a narrator who lives his life “in only two blocks of a seven-and-a-half-block town”; the chorus simply repeats the line “decisions I have made.” Much of March 12 avoids the confessional, however; “It’s All in the Water” aims to be a unifying gospel song, despite its hushed, low-key delivery.

March 12 proves that it’s high time this Sackville, New Brunswick songwriter made a solo statement: he’s spent the last five years as one half of scrappy indie rock duo Shotgun and Jaybird, appeared with Julie Doiron on the Mt. Eerie album Lost Wisdom, and again with Doiron and Attack in Black’s Daniel Romano as simply Daniel, Fred and Julie. There are no favours called in here, however; Squire plays everything himself, and sings layers of stacked harmonies that Daniel Lanois would be proud of. There are times, in fact, when one is reminded of the missed opportunities of the recent Lanois/Neil Young collaboration; though March 12 and Le Noise bear little resemblance to each other, Squire successfully navigates traditional folk music and roads less travelled, guaranteed to appeal to both Young’s generation and, well, the young generation—and anyone in between who’s ever had a date with 3 a.m. existential angst and old country records. (Jan. 6)

Download: “Old Times Past New Times,” “Pretty Bird,” “The Future of Tradition”

Victoire – Cathedral City (New Amsterdam)

Composer Missy Mazzoli doesn’t wait around for commissions from Carnegie Hall, the Whitney Museum of Art, or for her work to be performed by the Kronos Quartet, the New York City Opera and many more, or for teaching gigs in composition at Yale—although all of those accomplishments already appear on her resumé. Instead, she writes for and performs with Victoire, a New York City quintet with two keyboards, clarinet, violin and double bass, along with a healthy dose of electronics and samples. Mazzoli’s work is largely textural and abstract, at times owing more to experimental electronic dance music than classical tradition—despite the absence of percussion. (Jan. 6)

Download: “Like a Miracle,” “The Diver,” “I Am Coming For My Things”

Joey Wright – Hatch (Black Hen)

Talented instrumentalist Joey Wright is an in-demand session player, having been hired to tour with Sarah Harmer and Amy Millan, and he’s released two previous albums of acoustic music, one of which nabbed him a Juno Award. Four years later, Wright steps up to the mic and introduces vocals to the mix, but he also steps away from traditional folk. Here, he creates dreamy pop music and ragged, slightly psychedelic rock instead. He still draws from bluegrass, folk and country, but the textures are much richer, thanks in part to lap steel player Christine Bougie and a rhythm section borrowed from Stars (Evan Cranley, Pat McGee). His longtime partner Jenny Whiteley co-writes two songs and sings back-up vocals. Where his previous work sounded like an instrumentalist flexing his muscle, the songs here are much more solid, and not just because many of them feature his soft, crooning vocals. Hatch is a low-key, late-night gem that should shine a light on Wright as more than merely a stringmaster. (Jan. 13)

Download: “The Scar,” “Expectations Are the Killer,” “Hives”

Destroyer's Kaputt

Destroyer – Kaputt (Merge)

When looking for sources of musical rejuvenation, it’s rare for anyone to turn to Bryan Ferry solo records. That’s what Dan Bejar, bandleader of Destroyer and contributor the New Pornographers, does here. Kaputt is full of slinky, soft grooves, sax solos, flutes, fretless bass, pillowy synthesizers, and strong female backing vocals—none of which have ever appeared in the Destroyer discography before.

And yet stripped of his usual glam-rock guitars, psychedelic keyboards and ’90s indie slackerdom, Kaputt still sounds very much like Destroyer: an avalanche of elusive poetry framed by melodic instrumental breaks and Bejar battling himself, trying to figure out whether to write simple and catchy ba-da-ba hooks or simply spit out his lyrics as fast as he can.

Except that here he seems less in a hurry to get to the finish line; here, he lingers in every luxurious moment, like a wide-eyed baby staring in wonderment at every new revelation this new sonic landscape presents. It’s also downright sexy at times—and as any fan will know, that’s not a word that anyone has ever used to describe Destroyer.

Kaputt is nothing if not a middle-aged record; between this and 2008’s Trouble in Dreams, Bejar became a father—not an insignificant event for anyone, least of all an artist. This definitely sounds like dad rock, the sound of a man pushing 40, casting aside any final remnants of cool and reliving the musical obsessions of his youth (primarily New Order, along with Ferry and other identifiably ’80s staples), while chilling out with ambient records in the wee hours while he soothes his baby to sleep. Bejar no longer sings like everything is a life-or-death battle anymore; he opines, “Let’s face it, old souls like us are born to die/ it’s not a war until someone loses an eye.”

Bejar has rebelled against his indie-rock-idol status before, on 2004’s criminally underrated Your Blues, which at the time was considered a contrarian career-killer of sorts (an absurd notion for someone like Bejar, who has never had any intention of living up to anyone’s expectations except his own). It also featured fabulous songs, which no one seems to remember (except Owen Pallett, who was an outspoken fan).

But where Your Blues was consciously synthetic, full of faux instrumentation via MIDI patches and with only the occasional “real” instrument, Kaputt is bound to be more confounding: there is magnificent guitar work and the rhythm section is rock solid, but the overall aesthetic is pure cheese. Not in the traditional ’80s revivalist manner, either, where it’s all too easy to add a few retro synths and write songs that sounds like The Cure. Instead, Bejar dives in deep with some acoustic guitar worthy of Sting solo records, plenty of flute, and the sax solos alone will be enough to send many people screaming. The trumpet is another story; it’s textural and haunting, no doubt influenced by frequent Brian Eno collaborator Jon Hassell (their records together were probably part of Bejar's early morning baby-soothing soundtrack—at least they were for me).

When it comes to fromage, of course, there is cheese and then there is fine cheese. And while others from Bejar’s oeuvre might approach this material with irony or mockery—recall the thankfully short-lived “yacht rock” fad a few years back—Bejar sounds dead serious about it. Which he is; this record wouldn’t sound as objectively fantastic from a fidelity standpoint if he wasn’t. (This is the first Destroyer album that deserves to be heard on fine headphones.) His seriousness shines throughout Kaputt, and at one point he even seems to direct a barb at potential fan reaction: “I sent a message in a bottle to the press, saying ‘don’t be ashamed or disgusted with yourselves.’ ” There are no guilty pleasures—only pleasure.

Kaputt is a divisive record, as every Destroyer album should be, but it’s also a joy to listen to, whereas other recent Destroyer albums can sometimes sound like they’re too much effort to even try and enjoy. As all good middle-aged-man music is apt to do, Kaputt does the work for you: Bejar takes a back seat and doesn’t shove his vocals in your face; the arrangements are structured, but the instrumental interplay is all over the place, allowing you to choose what you focus in on at any given time. It’s only easy listening if you let it be; if not, there’s plenty to discover in various well-illuminated corners of the mix.

Recently, Dan Bejar was starting to sound bored with himself. In fact, last year he openly questioned the reasons he bothers making music at all, on an ambient spoken-word piece (“The Making of Grief Point”) he made with Loscil (Scott Morgan, onetime Destroyer keyboardist). In that context, the only joke about Kaputt is its title—the word, of course, means broken or destroyed. And either Bejar has destroyed Destroyer and delivered this strange but wonderful epitaph, or he has scorched his previous comfort zone in order to start entirely anew.

Destroyer is Kaputt; long live Destroyer.

Download: “Poor in Love,” “Savage Night at the Opera,” “Bay of Pigs”