Frank Yang The nice thing about having written about Swedish duo The Deer Tracks at length over over the past ten months is that rather than bother with any preamble, I can just point you to those past pieces and get right to it. I honestly hadn't expected them to return to town so soon after NXNE last year , not because they didn't want to but because of the economic realities of small international acts trying to tour this continent. But with the [...]
Jonathon Bernstein As I mentioned back in October , in a few years - or even sooner - the late Spiral Beach could well be regarded as an important touchstone in the recent history of the Toronto independent scene. Bassist Dorian Wolf now holds down those same duties in internationally-noted electronic act Austra , guitarist Airick Woodhead is garnering heaps of attention as the circuit-bending Doldrums , and the remaining two members - keyboardist/vocalist Maddy Wilde and drummer Daniel Woodhead - have slowly but surely been turning heads as the dreampop-peddling Moon [...]
Angel Ceballos The serial as a form of structure is hardly uncommon in art these days; it's the standard for television, has been used as long as books have been published, and is increasingly the norm in cinema. In popular music, however, it's almost the complete opposite - the three-minute single - which remains the fundamental unit of currency. But don't tell that to Gävle, Sweden's The Deer Tracks - the duo of David Lehnberg and Elin Lindfors have spent the last two years crafting an epic song cycle they've called The Archer Trilogy , [...]
Jack Featherstone , Max Parsons At long last, Little Boots is finally ready to let the follow-up to 20092s Hands out of the studio and into the world. I don't think anyone - not even Victoria Hesketh - expected it to be almost four years between debut and follow-up, but according to Spin , it took her that long to find the sweet spot between being the "proper songs" she wanted to write and the disco dance floor bangers she was expected to. Still, her fans [...]
Deirdre O'Callaghan Sometimes the best kinds of surprises are the ones you already knew were coming. For example - everyone knew The National was making a new record. High Violet came out way back in Spring 2010, touring behind it wrapped in late 2011, and they've since been posting updates from the studio via Instagram . Everyone knows they've not been idle, and yet it was hard not to feel a shiver when the official press release arrived in the inbox, announcing the album was done and [...]
Frank Yang Solange may have initially garnered attention thanks to her surname, but her recent ascension to the forefront of what's being regarded as a new wave of R&B artists has been almost entirely on the back of her own talent; well, hers and Dev Hynes' . The Lightspeed Champion/Blood Orange producer-songwriter was my gateway drug to the work of Ms. Knowles; obviously, I knew who she was, but I suspect like more than few filling the Danforth Music Hall on Friday night for Solange's Toronto debut, it wasn't until her adoption [...]
Neil Krug On any given night, in this great city of Toronto, you've got no shortage of entertainment options vying for your evenings and dollars, but sometimes there occurs a confluence that simultaneously reminds you of how lucky we are as well as how unfair the universe can be. Case in point, this coming March 4, when the equivalent of a Pitchfork Festival sidestage will descend on Parkdale across two venues, and while you can try to club-hop, realistic logistics will probably force you to make some hard choices. Over at Wrongbar, you've got: Kiwi-American acid-pop [...]
Paolo Calamita He may have migrated habitats from Calgary to Vienna, but Mark Andrew Hamilton - he who is Woodpigeon - remains one of Canada's great, underappreciated musical treasures. Though 20092s Polaris long-listed Treasury Library Canada raised his profile considerably, it may lie with his fourth album (or closer to fortieth, depending on how you count his many interstitial releases) Thumbtacks & Glue to properly elevate his status to where it belongs. Thumbtacks refuses - if you'll excuse the pun - [...]
Frank Yang It seems ages ago, but early 2002 was still an era where the magazine was still a vital medium for music reviews and general discovery; I still clearly recall a live writeup in issue 49 of The Big Takeover wherein editor Jack Rabid gave Ken Stringfellow a glowing review for a show at New York's Mercury Lounge on September 20, 2001, and how it served as a powerful musical anodyne for those in need of some healing just a week after the World Trade Center attacks. It was [...]
Reuben Cox The Toronto Urban Roots Festival has existed under a shroud of mystery since its existence emerged late last month , and even with its grand unveiling last week, it still only had two acts on its opening night - She & Him and Camera Obscura - to its roster. A promising start, but still eliciting more questions than excitement. That balance has arguably skewed in the other direction considerably with yesterday's announcement of Belle & Sebastian as the headlining act on the festival's closing night, July 7. That they're [...]
Jon Shard It's been a while since both Morrissey and Johnny Marr have been in the news simultaneously, and not just issuing denials of Smiths reunions. Moz, unfortunately, is making headlines for his health issues and resulting tour cancellations - though that's probably better than for making outrageously offensive comments - but Marr's press cycle is decidedly more positive as he's now just a week out from the release of his new record The Messenger . It's not entirely clear to me why [...]
Edward Mapplethorpe At least for another night. As exciting as it was when punk/poet/photographer/icon Patti Smith announced two intimate shows as part of the Art Gallery Of Ontario's 1st Thursday series to support her Camera Solo exhibition, you had to know that it was going to be a bit of a scramble - to put it very mildly - to get one of the 800 or so available tickets. Unsurprisingly, it was a mess with the AGO's website crashing some 10 minutes before tickets [...]
Claire Boucher Whereas the Polaris Music Prize already has a seven year track record of honouring the top Canadian album, the Prism Prize is new on the scene - unaffiliated but sharing a similar mandate, but focused on the art of the music video rather than the album. And while some may have assumed the art form was on the decline due to the fact that their traditional medium - broadcast television - no longer plays them, the internet as well as the low cost of entry to powerful high-definition recording equipment [...]
Justin Jay The Strokes has got themselves a nice little racket going. Most bands who've been at it for over a decade would be critically if not commercially pilloried for not changing up their style, but The Strokes get drubbed when they do. Luckily for them, they're very good at doing what they do and they're smart enough to know their business model as a band relies on actually doing just that while releasing a new album (or solo record that doesn't fall too far from the tree) and some fitful, big paycheque touring. [...]
Frank Yang It was an odd thing to realize about a third of the way through The Maccabees' debut Canadian performance at The Mod Club on Monday night, but it dawned on me that I wasn't so much a fan of the band than their excellent latest album , last year's Mercury-shortlisted Given To The Wild . Not that this points to any enmity towards the Brighton-based Brits, but I tend to form longish-term - or at least in-depth - relationships with the bands I like and go and see, [...]
Jamie-James Medina Both The xx and Grizzly Bear have pretty well established their bona fides as a couple of the biggest names in what we colloquially call "indie rock" circa 2013, and while neither are quite at the point where they could headline a top-tier festival, they can sure as heck team up for a pretty impressive standalone bill in a festival setting. En route to New York City to play the Governor's Ball , the two acts - last seen hereabouts in the elegant setting of Massey Hall both - will show [...]
Marino Thorlacius I didn't actually bring back a lot of souvenirs from my trip to Iceland in Fall 2011; a super-warm Kaldi hat (which has served me quite well this Winter), a package of Cronions (though I should have brought back a case), a whackload of photos (ponies!), my first car accident (cars on the inside lane of their roundabouts have the right of way, fyi), and a deep appreciation for the music of Ólafur Arnalds . I didn't even catch the entirety of his set at Iceland Airwaves, [...]
mute English singer-songwriter Polly Scattergood's 2009 self-titled debut may have been an indulgent, precious, and overdramatic work that sounded very much like the diary entries of a 22-year old put to music, but it was also impressively assured for the same reason, assuredly declaring "this is who and what I am right now" and doing it by way of sophisticatedly melodic electro-pop and expressive vocal work. Even if it didn't do it for you, it was hard to deny that it heralded the arrival of a new talent with much potential that merited attention [...]
Cecil Mathieu There are musicians out there with a more impressive alt.rock resume than Ken Stringfellow . Starting out as co-frontman of the criminally under-appreciated Bellingham power-pop outfit The Posies , he was part of the final incarnation of the legendary Big Star , he was an unofficial member of R.E.M. both on stage and in the studio for a number of years in the post-Berry era, is part of the massive rotating cast of The Minus 5 , he fronts a Norwegian garage rock band called The Disciplines , and [...]
Paul Scala Replicating success found overseas in North America has never been a sure thing, but for British electro-soul songstress Jessie Ware , it certainly seems more a case of "when" than "if". The acclaim at home for her debut Devotion couldn't help but get the buzz started in 2012 - I adored it enough to include it as one of my favourites of the year - but it's only in 2013 that the campaign to conquer, or at the very least befriend, America has begun. A short [...]
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