Frank Yang Editors have been garnering their share of mediocre reviews for their latest effort In This Light And On This Evening, largely for abandoning their tried-and-tested anthemic post-punk guitar rock for something decidedly synthier – I seem to be more favourably inclined to the record than most, but can certainly see where the criticism comes from.

My bigger concern with the record, however, lies in how it will translate live. For all their faults, Editors are one of the more dynamic acts I’ve seen in recent years. Or more accurately, Tom Smith is a tremendously dynamic frontman, more than making up for his largely immobile bandmates – at least that was the case when I saw them back at V Fest 2007. So with the guitars, on record at least, taking a back seat to keys, how will they manage it on stage? Rearrange the songs? Strap on a keytar? Give up the rock star poses and stay anchored to the synths? I hope not.

Toronto shall find out what it will be come February 16, when they play the Phoenix – tickets are $25 in advance but courtesy of LiveNation, I’ve got three pairs of passes to give away to the show. To enter, email me at contests AT chromewaves.net with “I need an Editor” in the subject line and your full name in the body. Contest closes at midnight, February 11.

MP3: Editors – “Papillon”
Video: Editors – “You Don’t Know Love”
Video: Editors – “Papillon”
MySpace: Editors

Frank YangI did a double-take when English folkie Laura Marling’s upcoming show in Toronto was announced back in December because a) besides being due for a new album, there had been no official news about a release, so I certainly wasn’t expecting any North American touring so soon, and b) the venue announced – the Drake Underground – seemed awfully small. Granted, Marling isn’t an act of the stature of, say, Duffy or Adele, but she is a highly-regarded artist and Mercury Prize finalist who’d almost filled the not-much-smaller Rivoli on her first visit to town back in October 2008. Best I could figure was that they were deliberately doing smaller rooms as part of a pre-release junket to build interest in the new record, and this stop would sell out right fast.

The first part seems to have been on the money – Marling’s North American tour comes a couple months before the April 6 release of her sophomore record I Speak Because I Can and comprises just eight dates on both coasts, mostly in cozier rooms. I was also right about the selling out, as ducats for the show went pretty quickly and as such, it’s been moved to the decidedly larger Lee’s Palace – not as intimate a setting as The Drake, perhaps, but one that should be able to accommodate all her Toronto-based fans.

And if you’re one of those fans, you’re in luck. Tickets for the show are $13.50 in advance but courtesy of Collective Concerts, I’ve got two pairs of passes to give away to the show – to enter, email me at contests AT chromewaves.net with “I enter the Laura Marling contest because I can” in the subject line and your full name in the body. Contest will close at midnight, February 3.

Video: Laura Marling – “Devil’s Spoke”

MySpaceI never played Street Fighter 2. I was all about Mortal Kombat 2, on account of it coming out for the PC when I was in first-year university and it’s effectiveness as a time-waster. I would generally play Raiden, partly as a tribute to the thespian skills of Christopher Lambert, and partly because his torpedo move was by far the easiest to remember. Back-back-forward. I could also teleport fairly consistently but only shoot lightning by accident and never actually knew any of the finishing moves so more often than not, my opponent would just fall down on his own.

The kids of British electro-rap-rock outfit Hadouken! were clearly Street Fighter disciples, having named their band after one of Ryu’s special moves, and it’s probably for the best since naming yourself after Raiden’s nonsensical battle cry would probably limit career prospects. A career which, given the interest surrounding the upcoming release of their frantic, dancey and party-friendly second album For The Masses next Tuesday, February 2, is coming along quite nicely.

They’re playing the El Mocambo on February 9, one of just three North American dates along with New York and Los Angeles to promote the new record before they return in April for Coachella and, presumably, more dates. Tickets are $12 in advance but courtesy of Live Nation, I have three pairs of passes to give away for the show. To enter, email me at contests AT chromewaves.net with “I want to HADOUKEN!” in the subject line and your full name in the body. Get that in to me before midnight, February 3.

There’s interviews with the band at The Daily Record, MTV UK and NME.

MP3: Hadouken! – “M.A.D.”
Video: Hadouken! – “Turn The Lights Out”
Video: Hadouken! – “M.A.D.”

Frank YangBig-voiced frontwomen. Loads of synths. No guitars. This Saturday night at the Horseshoe will come two examples of how differently that same musical recipe can come out. On one hand, you’ve got Everything All The Time, led by Alanna Stuart, and their breezy, vintage-y feel-good synth-pop. On the other, the decidedly heavier and darker Lioness, who back Vanessa Fischer with sounds and attitude befitting their disco-punk roots. And rounding things out is Halifax’s Rich Aucoin, whose keyboard-first, big orchestral dance-pop actually fits quite nicely between the two of them, but being a dude he didn’t really fit into the preceding argument.

Anyways. The takeaway from all this is that it’s a solid, eclectic bill at the ‘Shoe this Saturday night – January 30 – and while admission is $8 at the door, courtesy of contests AT chromewaves.net with “I want to see Everything All The Time” in the subject line and your full name in the body, and get that in to me before midnight, January 28.

MP3: Everything All The Time – “Lazy Days”
MP3: Rich Aucoin – “10,342 Cuts For the US”
Video: Lioness – “What You Do Will Come Back To You”

PolyvinylI’ve easily seen Asobi Seksu live more than a half-dozen times, so I think I can say with some authority that I know what you can expect from one of their shows. Yuki Chikudate will sing angelically in English and Japanese whilst laying down swirling synth lines and whipping her hair around, James Hanna will turn launch walls of heavily-effected, heavily-amplified guitar at the audience without making eye contact, the rhythm section will probably be different from the last time they were in town, strobes will blind everyone and the band will inevitably ask for the stage lights to be turned down to almost nothing. Asobi Seksu have their thing and they do it well.

Except with their last album, they decided to do something else entirely. After taking a slight step away from the shoegazing sturm und drang of their first couple records on last year’s Hush, they followed it up quickly and unexpectedly with a live album of sorts entitled Rewolf. Recorded at London’s Olympic Studios, it featured acoustic reworkings of old material and a cover that managed to make the already dreamy-sounding band even dreamier. More a sidebar than a reinvention, it certainly showcases a different side of the band.

And as such, it’ll certainly be a different sort of show when Asobi Seksu brings their acoustic aesthetic to the Drake Underground on February 1. Somehow I don’t think the strobe lights will quite fit, even when Chikudate is really going to work on the glockenspiel. Tickets for the performance are $10 in advance, $12 at the door, but courtesy of Collective Concerts I’ve got two pairs of passes to give away for the show. To enter, email me at contests AT chromewaves.net with “I want to see Asobi Seksu” in the subject line and your full name in the body, and have that in to me before midnight, January 29.

There’s interviews with Chikudate at the San Francisco Examiner and San Francisco Bay-Guardian. Yeah, I think maybe the band was in San Francisco recently.

MP3: Asobi Seksu – “Thursday” (acoustic)
MP3: Asobi Seksu – “Suzanne”