Frank YangI can’t pretend I wasn’t a bit disappointed when Holly Miranda departed The Jealous Girlfriends to strike out on her own – that outfit had a lot of potential that their debut only touched on – but after hearing where she went with The Magician’s Private Library, it’s understandable why it didn’t work. As eclectic as her former band’s stylings were, they were still very much a rock band and it’s hard to imagine there’d have been a place for the hazy, Sitek-scapes that suffuse her debut.

Miranda’s voice is a marvelous instrument; rich and expressive in timbre, soaring and swooping in range, and alternately anxious, smouldering, questioning and knowing. In short, it’s a hell of a thing to hear and for all the sonic busyness that fills the Library, Miranda’s vocals remains front and centre, impossible to overwhelm. The Magician’s Private Library isn’t the most immediate record, relying less on hooks than caresses, but unquestionably a beautiful one and with repeated listens, as the songs sink in, only gets better from there.

After a number of choice supporting engagements, Miranda is finally in the midst of her own headlining tour and having seen her perform at SxSW, I can report that the live experience is many times louder and in your face than the record, yet just as pretty. Don’t ask how, just accept and enjoy. The Toronto show is May 20 at the El Mocambo – tickets are $12.50 in advance but courtesy of Collective Concerts and Beggars Canada, I’ve got three pairs of passes to give away for the show along with three copies of The Magician’s Private Library on vinyl in a fancy gatefold package. To enter, email me at contests AT chromewaves.net with “I want to see Holly Miranda” if you want to go the show and “I want to check out the Magician’s Private Library” if you want the vinyl in the subject line and your full name (and mailing address for the LP) in the body, and get that in to me before midnight, May 17. Contest is open to residents of Canada and you can enter both if you like.

MP3: Holly Miranda – “Waves”
MP3: Holly Miranda – “Forest Green Oh Forest Green”
MySpace: Holly Miranda

Jamie AdamsonOne thing that Phoenix accomplished last year – besides become one of the biggest bands around, at least for the moment – was make the world safe for stadium-sized, unabashedly melodic and utterly danceable guitar pop with an electronic sheen. Whether the world was ever actually unsafe for such is up for debate, but there’s certainly an appetite for it and Northern Ireland’s Two Door Cinema Club are doing their damnedest to satisfy it.

Their debut Tourist History is filled with immediately catchy, uptempo tunes that are designed to get the indie kids dancing. No, it’s not the most lyrically profound material out there, but come on – have you actually listened to what Thomas Mars is singing on Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix? What it is is fast, fun and well-timed for Summer. Two Door Cinema Club will do just fine, thanks.

They just launched their debut North American tour and will wrap it up on May 17 in Toronto at Wrongbar. Tickets are $10 in advance if you can find any – it may be sold out – but courtesy of Embrace, I have two pairs of tickets to give away for the show. To enter, email me at contests AT chromewaves.net with “I want to see Two Door Cinema Club” in the subject line and your full name in the body, and have that in to me before midnight, May 13.

MP3: Two Door Cinema Club – “I Can Talk”
MP3: Two Door Cinema Club – “Something Good Can Work”
Video: Two Door Cinema Club – “I Can Talk”
Video: Two Door Cinema Club – “Undercover Martyn”
Video: Two Door Cinema Club – “Something Good Can Work”

Douglas WilkinsonOkay, so I spent (too) much of yesterday in planes and airports and places, in general, not conducive to blogging so I am essentially taking today (or took last night) off to get my head together a bit, and am going to just toss this up for now.

As announced last week, I’m proudly co-presenting the Toronto stop of the Kelp 16 anniversary tour, marking the fact that the Ottawa-based label is now old enough to drive. To help celebrate, we’re having Cleveland cult hero singer-songwriter Bill Fox, as well as Andrew Vincent, Chris Page and Leif Vollebekk play the Horseshoe on the evening of May 12.

Tickets are $10 in advance and on sale at Soundscapes right now, but since it’s not a birthday party without loot bags – at least not in my estimation – I’ve got a couple of Kelp prize packs to give away. These consist of a pair of passes to the show – natch – a label compilation CD and a Kelp Records t-shirt. To enter, email me at contests AT chromewaves.net with “I want to wish Kelp a happy birthday” in the subject line and your full name and address in the body and get that in to me before midnight, May 10.

Proper bloggage re-commences tomorrow.

FacebookThings move fast at SxSW, and it really doesn’t take long for the buzz around a given act to go from silent to deafening over the course of four days. Case in point, Australians The Middle East, who headed into Austin without any more cachet than most of the thousand-plus other acts also playing the festival. But as each day passed and the question of “who’d you see that was good?” was answered via conversations, news reports, blogs and tweets, The Middle East’s name kept coming up until by week’s end, they were now one of the must-see acts of the festival, if just to see what people were talking about.

I got my chance on the final day of the fest at a chilly Red-Eye Fly, and while the logistics of setting up such a large band cut their set short, it was enough to get a sense of what everyone who’d seen the prior was excited about. Drawing from their debut EP The Recordings Of The Middle East – to be followed up this year with a full-length – they showed their stock in trade to be delicate folk music that was as expansive-sounding as it was intimate, and for something that takes that route over in-your-face antics to impress the ADD throngs at SxSW, well that takes some doing.

The Middle East are embarking on an extensive tour of North America that will see them fit a number of headlining dates between opening slots for Mumford & Sons and Laura Marling and its in that capacity that they’ll be playing The Horseshoe in Toronto on May 5. Tickets are $10.50 in advance but courtesy of Sneak Attack Media, I have a pair of passes to give away to the show. To enter, email me at contests AT chromewaves.net with “I want to visit The Middle East” in the subject line and your full name in the body and get that in to me before midnight, May 3.

MP3: The Middle East – “Blood”
MP3: The Middle East – “Lonely”
MP3: The Middle East – “The Darkest Side”
Video: The Middle East – “Blood”
MySpace: The Middle East

Stian AndersenEveryone knows one a-ha song, or at the very least one video. Many who were around back in the day would probably know at least a second, as the follow-up single – a better song, in my opinion – also did pretty well. And if you’ve seen all the Bond films – including the underappreciated Timothy Dalton ones – then you know a third, as the Norwegian trio composed the theme for The Living Daylights. If your a-ha knowledge drops off precipitously at that point, then you probably live in North America where their popularity declined after their debut Hunting High & Low.

In the rest of the world, however, they remained stars and at their peak, played to crowds numbering in the hundreds of thousands. And while being big doesn’t necessarily make you good, going back and re-assessing their oeuvre reveals that some dated production values aside – the ’80s haven’t aged well for most – they’ve been remarkably consistent in turning out pop music that may lean towards the adult contemporary end of things, but is still impressively crafted and unfailingly melodic. And so they weren’t being ironic when they dubbed they announced they were bringing their career to a close and naming the farewell tour, “Ending On A High Note”, a globe-spanning jaunt that would include their first North American dates (excepting a one-off a few years ago) in decades. So while they’re not nearly as big here as in other places, there’s more than a little pent-up demand on this continent to see a-ha live.

Toronto is one of the four North American cities that will host their farewell shows, with the curtain coming on May 10 at Massey Hall. Tickets are still available from $25 to $55.50 (plus fees, of course) at Ticketmaster but courtesy of AEG Live, I have two pairs of tickets to give away to the show. To enter, email me at contests AT chromewaves.net with “I want to see a-ha” in the subject line and your full name in the body, and have that in to me before midnight, May 5.

Video: a-ha – “Take On Me”
Video: a-ha – “The Sun Always Shines On TV”