Jerry Leger is a man out of time, to coin a Costello. His recently released, digital-only min LP, The Good Old Days Are Back in Drag , is that rare beast, a temporally disjointed garage rock sound that's as comfortable in 2011 as it would in an earlier era. I guess that's testament to the timelessness of Leger's brand of revved up raw and unrefined rock 'n' roll, but in order to pull something like this off, you need more than just a passing knowledge of genre and style. You need the rock 'n' roll attitude [...]
I Can't Find You - SolarSolar from SolarSolar on Vimeo . Waterloo, ON-based SolarSolar is Dan Drysdale (synths and guitars) and Angela Drysdale (vocals and synths), who'll be releasing their debut LP, Pilot , in 2012. No idea whether Dan and Angela are husband and wife, brother and sister, cousins, or a happy accident where both have the same last name with no relation between them, but judging by the chemistry generated by their blissed out songs, my money is on a marriage union. "Walking [...]
(Vanessa Heins) I just did a quick search through the QBiM archives ( have you ever been? ) to see when I first and last posted about Guelph duo Memoryhouse , and am shocked that in both cases, it was 2010. The buzz building pair of Evan Abeele and Denise Nouvion have really ramped things up for themselves since then: their EP The Years garnered them even more attention and praise before it was re-released by Sub Pop Records, who signed the band earlier this year. Anticipation and expectation [...]
St. Catharines' psychedelic indie rockers Bronx Cheerleader return with some long awaited new music from their forthcoming Real Punks Don't Sing About Girls LP. "Low Man" has a deliciously dirty groove to it and sinister sounding harmonies layered one on top of the other. For more Bronx Cheerleader goodness, be sure to check out IndoorShoes ' Adopted Friends Vol. 2 compilation, celebrating the label's first anniversary. They'll be celebrating for days, actually as the Adopted Friends release party stretches over three nights and four shows. [...]
You can check out the "traditional" video for Arcade Fire 's "Sprawl II Mountains Beyond Mountains)" below, or go to sprawl2.com to dance your arse off with the interactive version.
He's nothing if not prolific. A mere six months have past between the release of Dance Maul and Total Gold, the latest self-released LP from Montreal's Expwy (multi-instrumentalist Matt LeGroulx), and he's already amassed a dozen new tracks. The whole record was written and recorded in only two months, but neither the songwriting nor production sound tossed off or rushed; in actual fact, Total Gold has a tighter, more refined scope of sound and style than its predecessor. At least for the opening half. By the time [...]
(Thom Pilgrim) The other night I saw a shooting star, and then another, and then another. I thought it was a sign from God®, but then I heard Earth was passing through a cosmic dust cloud and that these meteor showers happen every year at this time. Even though the evening news reduced my triple miracle experience into a 20 second sound bite, it was still something special to me. London, Ontario's Sea and City are kind of like my shooting stars: if [...]
I'm going to stop calling Quick Before it Melts a "blog" and start calling it a "blahg". After all, it's been a little blah around here lately, don't you think? All this vanilla indie rock and plain Jane folk-pop, can leave your palette uninspired. The site needs a little something; a new flavour to spice things up a bit, maybe? An injection of Vancouver's Basketball could very well do the trick. The band mix a heady brew of tribal beats, electronic pulses, and chant-shout vocals on Maw , their first attempt at [...]
When I was young, I wanted to be in a rock band, write novels, and be an actor on Broadway. The rock band was always a pipe dream, as I can't play a musical note to save my life, and though I studied acting in university (and was pretty good at it, I might add!), the actor's life was definitely not for me, so that just left the writing novels dream. Thing is, I forget all the great ideas I have for books because I don't write them down at the moment of inspiration. That's why I'm a [...]
When Handsome Furs' Dan Boeckner sang "A thousand lonely kids making noise in the basement" on Sound Kapital , he was talking about all the angst-ridden musicians he encountered in his travels from Bucharest to Beijing, but he could just as easily been talking about my email inbox in 2011. Every day brought a new batch of fresh-from-the-studio records, singles and EPs by even fresher musicians looking for their place in the world. It's been a fascinating year for new music, for sure. When it came time to whittle down the list of my favourite discs [...]
WHO: Yukon Blonde , the Vancouver quartet who had their name dropped in an episode of How I Met Your Mother (not that I watch that show) WHAT: Recently signed with Dine Alone Records, who will release their sophomore LP early in the new year, and are hitting the road after the holidays in support of their recently released EP, Fire//Water , and released a new video for the track "Water" (see above). [...]
We (and by "we", I mean "I", of course) have been busy at QBiM getting ready for the usual end-of-year posts and specials (perhaps you've noticed we're holding a heavenly host of giveaways over yonder?), so forgiveness is being begged if in the next little while, posts are short, sparse, or somewhat suspiciously missing on certain days. The QUiCK HiT posts usually show up on the weekend, but you may be seeing more of them Monday through Friday in the next little bit. Like today, for instance. Still, when I get great stuff like the latest [...]
Alan Cross recently called Thousand Young "the kind of band Steve Albini should record," and I can totally get where he's coming from, because Thousand Young and I come from the same place. You want to talk about economic crisis, come take a drive down King Street, or Main Street, or any street in the heart of downtown Welland. It's enough to make a band of angry young men put out an angry, young record as visceral as Thousand Young , eight loud, raw tracks that sting like a [...]
Honheehonhee - We Only Go from HONHEEHONHEE on Vimeo . Do labels mean anything any more? If I referred to a record as "modern rock", another as "indie pop", and a third as "jazz-punk fusion", would you honestly be able to imagine the differences between each? If I told you that Montreal-based band Honheehonhee plays "schizoid indie-glam" would you even have a clue as to what I was on about? No, you wouldn't, because I hardly know what I mean. You'd have to hear their debut, [...]
And so here it comes: the sudden onslaught of seasonal selections from artists vying for that coveted Christmas #1. Less than a day into December and already my inbox is stuffed fuller than a stocking on the morning of the 25th. The difference between all the rest and Skydiggers ' latest offering is that "November in Ontario" is actually quite good. Emotive and moving, it's not like anything I would have expected from Skydiggers, which goes to show just how out-of-touch with the band I've been. "November in Ontario" is originally from their [...]
Anyone who knows me, I mean really knows me, knows I'm more of a Scrooge than Santa at this time of year. It's not something I'm proud of, but I well aware that the holidays can bring out the worst in me. That's why this year, I'm trying to bring about some inner cheer by spreading some outer love to all QBiM faithful readers. It's been a pretty good year 'round QBiM, don't you think? I have a lot to be happy and proud about (and I am), and I think that I can carry some [...]
I can't imagine what "a psychogeographic map of an invisible city" would actually look like, but I do have a pretty good idea of what it sounds like. The above cartographic encapsulation of Doug Tielli 's new LP, Swan Sky Sea Squirrel , caught my eye when checking out Blocks Recording Club's page about the new record. What you have to know about Swan Sky Sea Squirrel is that it was recorded while Tielli imposed a 3 month solitary stay for himself on Toronto Island, where he wrote and [...]
Singer/songwriter/multi-instru mentalist Jane Gowan moved to Toronto from Vancouver in 2006 and formed Shade with bassist Mary Harmer (Weeping Tile) and drummer Cam Giroux (Oh Susannah, Violet Archers, Holly McNarland). Along the way, Shade picked up part-time band member and producer Tim Vesely of Rheostatics and Violet Archers, and put out last year's Highway LP. For the new EP, One Last Show of Hearts , Vesley returned to the producer's chair, but in lieu of the whole band contributing, Gowan and Vesley worked on the new songs alone on a "series [...]
Quick Before It Melts
Check Out: d’Eon – “Transparency pt. II”
the Weekender ::: New music from Catcall // the National // Summer Camp
KNIFE PARTY – RAGE VALLEY EP
