Friday Five : \'frī-(,)dā,-dē 'fīv\ : On the sixth day of every week, I hit the shuffle button on my iTunes, then share the first five tracks and thought for each track. Sometimes there is a playlist involved, occasionally we'll have a guest, but most of the time it's just me. The rest is up to you, our friends and readers! Fire up your media player of choice and share the first five random track of your shuffle in the comments. The Five: How about we take a shuffle through 2011? [...]
The Neighbourhood Mixtape: Love is a Place by BlogTO In case you missed it, check out this week's Valentines edition of The Neighbourhood Mixtape . The collection features songs by Kensington Prairie , Matthew Maaskant , Army Girls , The Runaway Catholics and Shawn Clarke .
So yes, it is Canada Day and it is the yearly ritual of a day off from work the celebration of Canada's birth as a nation. Let's rejoice, shall we? So more and more lately, Canada has been known for great music (especially in certain circles that I frequent in the music blogger world) and ritefully so. But how well do you know Canada? I don't think many of you know too much about the nation of Canada as opposed to it being where half your recent iTunes playlists artists call home. Lets cover some of [...]
Mason Hastie If there's one thing I learned from being on the Grand Jury for last year's Polaris Prize , it's that the duties of being a regular jurist are far, far, far, far less stressful. There's a real burden of responsibility when you're one of the 11 whose duty it is to choose Canada's "best album of the year", forcing you to consider each nominee on the short list objectively, checking as much as possible personal biases towards genre, personality, history, whatever. It's a lot of work. And while in [...]
KENSINGTON PRAIRIE on MySPACE . [Singer REBECCA ROWAN was also the voice of former band MAPLEWOOD LANE . Thus, the bonus track....] From the LP CAPTURED IN STILL LIFE , 2008 >>> [ MP3 ] "Snowflakes and Great Lakes" [ [...]
Here are three for you to consider--all women singer/songwriters with a folk bent. One I have, one I have other albums by but not the one up for discussion here, and one I know nothing about (but am still willing to write about!). First up is the newish album, She Ain't Me , from Carrie Rodriguez--her second, and by all accounts her attempt to shift out of her cowgirl-fiddler image . Now I am new to Rodriguez so I don't come to this album with any comparisons to [...]
(I apologize for this being late. Hopefully I'll get back on track). Haale, " Home Again " (Not a direct link. This goes to the page where you can download the song). I'm a little late on this bandwagon. I'm kind of like a musical savant--I can find these incredible, little-known masterpieces, and then sometimes I "discover" these well-known masterpieces and think I'm the first in line. It's the nature of being stuck in my own world, I guess :) "Home Again" incorporates the purple haze of the mind meld experiments of the [...]
Andrew Bird I received my October issue of Paste Magazine this afternoon. PM is one of my favorite offline publications. They do a great job of covering the indie scene without selling out. The issue features Okkervil River's Will Sheff, Old Crow Medicine Show, Damien Jurado, Wayne Coyne and many others. Each issue includes a CD sampler with at least 20 handpicked new songs. The magazine is worth purchasing for the sampler alone. I picked out several standout tracks from Andrew Bird, Kensington Prairie and [...]
This week, I'm proud to introduce Kensington Prairie to you in the Sunday Spotlight. Although she gets some help on a few of the tracks, for all intensive purposes, Kensington Prairie is the solo project of Rebecca Rowan , the singer / songwriter of Vancouver band Maplewood Lane . She's stepped outside of the group to put together ten tracks that she's written herself and collected together under an album titled Captured In Still Life . Becca was kind enough to take the time to tell me about Crooked Things [...]
Very soon, I'll be moving back to Portland. More details to follow! artist - song - album :: extra info The Charlatans - Oh! Vanity - You Cross My Path ( website | myspace | FREE album download @ XFM ) The 1900s - When I Say Go - Cold & Kind ( website | myspace ) M83 - Graveyard Girl - Saturdays=Youth :: out April 14 ( website | [...]
I can't believe it's already April! We got some new tracks for you. I am ultra busy these days so you might not see as many posts rollin' through around these parts but worry not, we'll be back in full swing soon. In the meantime check out these songs for the weekend! Evan Voytas - The Yellow World of 83 Vicious Vicious - Shake that! Kensington Prairie - Crooked Things Straight The Lovely Sparrows - Department of Forseeable Outcomes Megafun - Find [...]
If I had a choice to make a monetary living out of either being a muse or a manservant, I would most likely go with being a manservant. Sure, being someone's muse is touching and wonderful and exhilarating because all you need to do is do what you do and the person you're the muse for will be able to unlock the innermost reaches of their creativity; all because of you. So it's fulfilling on one of them... whaddaya call them... "spiritual" levels. But being a manservant... hoo! Excellent pay, free room and board, [...]
I wish I could say I was the first person to blog about Kensington Prairie . But I can’t. That would be Ick Music . The band Kensington Prairie is the musical vehicle for Rebecca Rowan , member of Vancouver’s Maplewood Lane . Rebecca writes the songs for Kensington Prairie. Then, she works with producer Jonathan Anderson to make them into dream pop. Her songs and sound remind me a little of another Canadian, Jenn Grant . The album “Captured In Still Life” [...]
[ anniedale records , April 22, 2008] Kensington Prairie is Canadian band which will release their debut at April 22 on Anniedale Records. It's solo project of Rebecca Rowan (singer/songwriter of Vancouver’s indie pop Maplewood Lane), her husband Nate Rowan and producer Jonathan Anderson. The album Captured In Still Life begins with melancholic sweet song Time On Our Side. Rebecca's lead and harmony voice sounds like spring whispering in the cold wind above your head. All ten songs are full of longing and nostalgia. Such feeling surrounds you during whole record. The band [...]
The perfect compliment to a cold and rainy day in New England, the debut record from Canada’s Kensington Prairie is one of the finest slices of Dream Pop I’ve heard since The Sundays Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic . The heart and soul of the group is Rebecca Rowan (singer/songwriter of Vancouver’s Maplewood Lane ) whose voice drifts gently over the lush layers of guitars, mandolins and Rhodes pianos. Simple and emotional the songwriting is first rate with themes of life’s recollections, love, yearning, and lonesomeness. The record opens with the nostalgia of [...]
IckMusic
werenotbroken
Slowcoustic
Chromewaves
a PLAGUE of ANGELS
The Tuning Room
Cerulean's Love of Music
Rollo & Grady
Mainstream Isnt So Bad...Is It
That Sound
BBQCHICKENROBOT.com
A Limerick Ox
The Late Greats
The Quaint Space
Ears Wide Open: Ocha la Rocha
Video: Portugal. The Man – “Atomic Man”
L.A.M.P. “Springtime” [mp3]
