Like many of you, I've been spending a lot of time today digging into Pitchfork's People's List and, while I think the 27,000+ voters got lots of stuff right, there was also plenty of albums I thought were criminally overlooked. So I turned those harbored resentments into a list (because that's just what bloggers do, right?). So, these are my picks of the albums from 1996-2011 that were robbed of their deserved People's List glory by the 88% male, urbanites that voted in this thing. I limited myself to one album per artist (otherwise you'd be getting a [...]
Zuzana Hudackova It's shaping up to be an Autumn of Can-rock double bills high on value. Folks thought that it was a pretty impressive pairing of talent when it was announced last month that Dan Mangan and The Rural Alberta Advantage were teaming up to cross the country in October, or the June announcement that Metric and Stars were hitting the country's arenas together, but that were just the first of a number of impressive double-bills looking to share driving duties across Canada this Fall. [...]
Sebastian Mlynarski I expect there's a lot of interest in drawing parallels between the success of Purity Ring with that of Grimes what with both being based out of Montreal - although Purity Ring's Corin Roddick and Megan James originally hail from Edmonton - and releasing albums of electronic pop that seem to be the perfect soundtracks for the zeitgeist circa 2012, and on the same label outside of Canada, no less - the legendary 4AD . But whereas Claire Boucher's work is rather defined by its technicolor ADD-ness and her [...]
Frank Yang There's a point in the arc of the breakout band where long-time fans who've supported and encouraged the artist through those early days find themselves in the odd position of rubbing elbows not with the faithful but newbs and tourists, interested not in hearing the songs that soundtracked crucial points in their life but that one tune they heard on the radio. For fans of Vancouver duo Japandroids , that time has come and for those in Toronto, that specific moment was Saturday night where on the strength of their second album [...]
Anton Corbijn It only took about six minutes via Twitter to announce the forty albums long-listed for the sixth edition of the Polaris Music Prize , we'll have the next three weeks to argue over their relative merits and come July 6, when the ten record-strong short list is announced, another couple months to hash those out before the September 19 gala in Toronto when a yet-to-be-determined grand jury declares their pick for the best Canadian album of the past year. And there's more at stake this year than in the past, [...]
youarestars.com The promo and touring cycle for Stars' last record The Five Ghosts - released just about a year ago - largely wrapped last Fall, just in time to take a break and allow Amy Millan to have her first child. The Montreal quintet are ready to get back into action, though, and are doing so not with a release of new material but of old. Specifically their previous-to-last album, 20072s In Our Bedroom After The War , or more specifically the demos [...]
Canvas Media There's records that you hear and, regardless of how you personally feel about them, you know that they will be a big thing, that their contents will resonate with the masses and will prove to be game-changers for the artist who created it. Timber Timbre's 2009 self-titled album was not one of these, or at least I didn't hear it. Building swampy textures and tempos around Taylor Kirk's low, drawling Randy Newman-ish vocals, it didn't seem the sort of record with a lot of crossover appeal and yet it did [...]
Joseph Yarmush Despite seeming, on paper at least, as exactly the sort of band I'd like - atmospheric space-rock with male-female vocals - I've never really warmed to Montreal's Young Galaxy . Their self-titled debut made little impression and the most remarkable thing about my live introduction in January 2007 was how singer-guitarist Stephen Ramsay managed to make it through the whole set without falling over, considering how completely glazed-over he looked. Things improved somewhat with their punchier second record Invisible Republic and their more [...]
Welcome to the Annual Vague Space Indie/Alternative Christmas Music Spectacular (TM). I was able to set aside my great urge to say "bah humbug" to this whole season this year and to get into the mood long enough for this post, so hopefully this will get you in the spirit if you are like me and saw Christmas lights glowing in your neighborhood the day after Thanksgiving and said "Are you fucking kidding me? Already?" Anyway, merry happy or something. Enjoy. Download Bishop Allen - "You'll Never Find My [...]
Hiii guuuyys, I just got back from a Dirty Projectors show at The Glass House in Pomona, Ca AND IT RULED. WOW I'm so glad I went. So. Good. THEY'RE SO GOOD. Last year I saw them in San Diego at some random seated local the night before halloween. I remember wanting to wear a costume, but I didn't. I'm glad I didn't, in retrospect. SPEAKING OF, I'm thinking about being a zebra for halloween. You heard it first here. I hope this is okay with everyone. I'm going all out, full body, lots of paint, this mask, [...]
What a decade it's been. 2004 was my first year in the so-called Real World ; jobs, car payments, instability everywhere. Things weren't all happy and seemingly upbeat like the mid 90s. After eight months in Seattle, I found myself unemployed and decided it was time for more education. I moved to the greater Portland area and began prep to enter a Masters in Business Administration program, taking night classes at WSU Vancouver and making a frequent trip out to Pullman, where I'd soon attend graduate school. The overall instability and open-your-eyes wake-up calls [...]
English Version: Cover Me: One artist covering a lot of songs. This time with Owen Pallett better known as Final Fantasy . 8 covers, well in fact he was co-writer of Beirut's Cliquot and Stars' Your Ex-lover is dead is like a "remix"... anyway, this is a good pack of covered songs specially Bloc Party's This Modern Love I like this version more than the original one. MP3s: Final Fantasy - An Actor's Revenge (Destroyer Cover) [...]
photo by: blackbyrd the wrens she sends kisses spoon the ghost of you lingers stars your ex-lover is dead whiskeytown 16 days destroyer painter in your pocket jason collett parry sound mountain goats pet politics the fiery furnaces police [...]
musicforants.com
Chromewaves
VAGUE SPACE
T S U R U R A D I O
Fensepost
Deaf Indie Elephants
*SIXEYES
Willow Beats: Top 5 experimental tracks
Living In A Magazine
DESIGN: VOLKSWAGEN GLASS SILO
