Jule Brown / Smoke And Mirrors (Enabler) The best way to get my attention with a CD is to put a big sticker on it that says “produced by Dean Wareham” Best way to get me to listen to it immediately is to have a “Dean Wareham – rhythm and lead guitar” credit on the back cover. Canny. Jule Brown is the alter-ego of Mark Holland who made a name for himself as drummer in ’90s Chapel Hill act Jennyanykind and his latest release is a healthy dose of roots/Americana with vocals that sound a lot like Mark Knopfler crossed with Tom Petty (and that will surely send some people running for the exits). The songwriting is solid if unspectacular and a little too genrefied. But Wareham’s distinctive guitar work does indeed grace a lot of this album and while it can sound a bit odd stylistically, it works and makes the record that much interesting. Luna should have used more pedal steel. Smoke And Mirrors comes out September 19. MP3: Jule Brown – “The Losers” MP3: Jule Brown – “Can’t Get It Right”

The Big Sleep / Son Of The Tiger (French Kiss) It’s been a while since I listened to any instrumental music that couldn’t be easily slotted into the post-rock category, but New York’s The Big Sleep have no time to waste in building to the crescendo. They start off running and don’t let up for the duration of the record – even the slower numbers crackle with kinetic energy looking to bust out. Okay, there are some vocal tracks on Son Of The Tiger but while they offer a welcome bit of variety to the record, it’s the instrumentals that really carry this album. Thunderous yet giddy, trippy yet ultra-focused and above all, very melodic. Very nice stuff. No Toronto dates on the calendar but they will be at Pop Montreal playing with Islands at Saints on October 6th. The album is in stores Tuesday. MP3: The Big Sleep – “Murder” MP3: The Big Sleep – “You Can’t Touch The Untouchable” MySpace: The Big Sleep

Bound Stems / Appreciation Night (Flameshovel) I think I’ve actually become allergic to Isaac Brock, or more specifically, anyone who sings like Isaac Brock. And sadly for Chicago’s Bound Stems, guitarist and vocalist Bobby Gallivan fits the bill. I was able to get past it for their debut EP The Logic of Building the Body Plan but over the course of a full-length, well that’s when I reach for my Reactine. But personal prejudices aside, Bound Stems have crafted a densely upbeat slab of prog-pop that stands as an impressive realization of the ambitions evident on Body Plan. I just can’t listen to it. Appreciation Night is out Tuesday. MP3: Bound Stems – “Andover” MP3: Bound Stems – “Western Biographic” MySpace: Bound Stems

np – The Dears / Gang Of Losers

An upside to Serena-Maneesh’s stage-destroying short set on Wednesday was that I was able to hoof it a couple blocks down to the Tranzac to see Early Day Miners. I was exhausted but also really wanted to hear them play their latest album Offshore, which is rapidly becoming one of my favourite albums of the year.

If the album Offshore is described as the “director’s cut” of the song, originally off of Let Us Garlands Bring, then the live show was like the “edited for TV” version – still maintaining all the sex, violence and language as well as the widescreen aspect ratio, just trimmed slightly for length. The fact that they began a fair bit later than their scheduled start time which was a concern, considering the Tranzac has a pretty firm midnight curfew and with the intention being to play the album in its entirety, it’d have been a travesty if they were cut off.

Happily, they were able to get through the whole thing, or at least the important parts – I think they cut maybe five to ten minutes of droning and jamming. As I mentioned earlier this month, the record tends to blur into a singular, epic entity for me. High points were the thundering drums of opener “Land Of Pale Saints” and closer “Hymn Beneath The Pallisades” as well as the majestic centrepiece of “Return Of The Native” with keyboardist Kate Long ably handling Amber Webber’s recorded vocals. I’m pretty sure all points in between were present and accounted for, nothing sounded missing. In fact, it actually sounded better live – the seven-piece band making the compositions even more dynamic than they are on the album without losing any of the rich, mournful ambience. Excellent. I’ve seen a lot of live music over the past week on stages huge and tiny, and this lightly-attended show in a converted community centre was one of the best. I’m very glad that I was able to stick it out.

Only downside was right before they started playing when they said, “you can turn all the lights off – we can pretty much play in the dark”. Le sigh.

Photos: Early Day Miners @ Tranzac – September 13, 2006
MP3: Early Day Miners – “Return Of The Native”
MySpace: Early Day Miners

Bradley’s Almanac comes through again with a live set from Austin’s The New Year, who may well be the last band I have yet to see live and whom I have no great expectation of ever seeing unless I go to them. They never seem to want to cross that ol’ border.

Anyone disappointed with the track selection for the North American edition of The Best Of Luna will be pleased to know that Beggars, the label that handled most of their career in Europe, will be releasing their own two-disc edition on October 9. It’s not perfect either, also criminally overlooking swan song Rendezvous though to be fair, I don’t think they had the rights to that album. But it does have a number of tracks that the US edition is missing and more importantly, is a double-disc set with a CD-version of the covers compilation released in digital-only form over here as Lunafied though again, the tracklist varies slightly. Which is to say that Luna completists had better get their credit cards out…

The Los Angeles Times talks to Starflyer 59’s Jason Martin. Their new album My Island came out on Tuesday.

Radio Free Silver Lake chats with Dirty On Purpose’s Joe Jurewicz. DoP are in town November 9 at Lee’s and have also made a bunch of radio sessions available to download. Nice.

Filter‘s recent cover story on TV On The Radio is now online. Return To Cookie Mountain came out on Tuesday and while I dutifully pre-ordered it, it still hasn’t arrived from Insound. Bastiches! But to compensate (slightly), they’ve got the first single available to download. TVOTR are at the Opera House October 12.

MP3: TV On The Radio – “Wolf Like Me”

Wonderfully breezy New York folk combo Hem are at the Horseshoe on October 16. Their new record Funnel Cloud came out earlier this month.

My second (and last) TIFF film this year was Exiled, a new film from director Johnnie To who apparently is quite the big name back in Hong Kong. I had never heard of him and had basically selected the film blindly – well I guess I got lucky because it was excellent. Ostensibly a gangster flick about five childhood friends double-crossing gang leaders in Macau, it’s really more a buddy flick with lots of stylish gunplay, action sequences and a strong dose of humour. If this film is typical of To’s cinematic output then I really have to investigate further, maybe starting with The Mission, to which Exiled was an unofficial sequel/prequel featuring much of the same cast and some common plot threads. To also had two other films running at the festival – now that’s impressive. Consolation Champs was also in attendance and has a more detailed, equally postive review.

Trailer: Exiled (YouTube)

Has anyone else upgraded to iTunes 7 and found that they have no desktop icons for the shortcuts? Weird.

np – Cat Power / You Are Free

I am going to open this review by stating that Wednesday night was my fifth straight day of concert-going, including the two-day soiree on the islands last weekend. Which is the say that my head was probably not right. Just a caveat.

If any bootlegs of Serena Manesh’s SxSW set exist, they probably sound a little like “KKKCCCHKKKSSSSSSSSGGG”, but with maybe more bass. But despite it being sonically incomprehensible, it was still a spectacle and a half and one of the best things I saw that week. The Norwegian glam-gazers were a whirlwind of scarves, hairs and guitars flung around the stage and a refreshing dose of over-the-top, in-your-face showmanship in a sea of introvert indie rockers. They had originally been slated to make their Canadian debut back in the Spring but had to cancel because of immigration issues related to getting back into the US, but had all that sorted out this time around as they finally rolled into Toronto.

Also in tow were Oklahomans Evangelicals, touring in support of their debut album So Gone (which I reviewed in June). On the record, I found the overriding feeling to be of youthful energy and optimism – live, however, there was something significantly darker going on. In part it was their stage setup, decking everything out with foliage, pillars and a smoke machine and relying on just a pair of green and red floodlights on the floor for illumination. The result was a kind of Hallowe’en funhouse meets haunted forest vibe which turned out to be pretty apt. Musically they were as high-energy as I’d been told, but more anxious and frantic than exuberant and rambunctious and overall a little unsettling. Though the story/cautionary tale about making out with transvestites was pretty funny.

Serena Maneesh’s set may have been short – barely 45 minutes – but what it lacked in duration, it more than made up for in volume, stage destruction and sheer ridiculousness. They often get dismissed as a My Bloody Valentine tribute but what I witnessed was a band channelling the spirit of The Velvet Underground’s “Sister Ray” with the chaos knob turned up to 10. I think the mix was far superior to the one in Austin, but damned if I could make anything out – instead, once again, the band’s physicality counted for as much as their music. Frontman Emil Nikolaisen, resplendant in leather, bandana and frills, was a dervish on guitar while sister and bassist Hilma Nikolaisen was a giantess Nico, bounding about the stage the rhythm of the omnipresent drone.

But curiously, for all the band was putting out on stage, there seemed to be this fundamental disconnect with the audience. It was a reasonable-sized crowd, but for a few exceptions most people seemed to be watching with the eye of the curious and not the converted. Which is fair since they’re not the most immediately accessible act, but it did make the general vibe in the club a little odd – I think for a fully enjoyable experience, you have to be totally into what the band is doing and I didn’t sense that level of buy-in from the audience for much of the show. They were cheering heartily by the end but that may have had much to do with the band’s wanton destruction of their stage setup. Everyone loves a good demolition derby. The fact that drummer Einar Lukerstuen’s kit was strewn all over the stage in many pieces also pretty much guaranteed there would be no encore.

Photos: Serena Maneesh, Evangelicals @ Lee’s Palace – September 13, 2006
MP3: Serena Maneesh – “Un-Deux”
MP3: Evangelicals – “Here Comes Trouble”
MP3: Evangelicals – “Another Day (And Yoor Still Knocked Out)”
Video: Serena Maneesh – “Drain Cosmetics” (YouTube)
MySpace: Serena Maneesh

Pitchfork rounds up the activities of the former members of On! Air! Library!. I’ve talked at length before about Daylight’s For The Birds and their new album Trouble Everywhere out October 31, but Claudia Deheza’s A Cloud Mireya and Alley Deheza’s School Of Seven Bells both seem worth investigating as well. All bands should break up so productively – I just got a copy of the Daylight’s record and it’s so very pretty.

NOW previews Asobi Seksu’s show next Wednesday at the Horseshoe which I’m giving away passes for – go here to enter. There’s also a new remix of one of their songs up for grabs.

MP3: Asobi Seksu – “Strawberries” (Cassettes Won’t Listen remix)

Brooklyn noise-poppers Dirty On Purpose are coming back to town on November 9 in support of The Album Leaf. That show is at Lee’s Palace.

JAM! declares Sloan to be still relevant. Sloan is relieved. Their new album Never Hear The End Of It is out Tuesday.

Beck is at the Ricoh Coliseum on October 16, tickets $42.50 on sale tomorrow at 2PM. Pitchfork has details and full dates. His new album The Information is out October 3.

File under: unexpected. PopMatters bids farewell to The Dance Cave, the dingy club atop Lee’s Palace where I also spent many (many) a wasted night in my twenties. Though I don’t think I ever liked it nearly as much as the author – it was just somewhere to go.

np – Daylight’s For The Birds / Trouble Everywhere

As worn out as I’ve been of late, it didn’t take too much effort to find the energy to see Shearwater at Lee’s Palace Tuesday night. While it was going to be great to see them on the second night of a short jaunt with The Magnolia Electric Co, I was also a little frustrated that while this would be the third time I’d seen them this year (twice at SxSW), none of them were proper full-length sets. But hey, I’ll take what I can get.

Opening was Julie Doiron, once upon a time of Eric’s Trip. I’ve always thought of Doiron’s material as being the epitome of ultra-delicate singer-songwriter-ness, ideal for folks who find Cat Power way too metal. But to my surprise, she came out this night electric and amped up with a four-piece band (including two drummers and a tickle trunk of percussive toys – double drummers is the new black). Her vocals are still frail and wavery, occasionally evidencing only a passing acquaintance with the idea of being in key, but the more forceful musical accompaniment did much to balance out the fragility of her voice and songs, coming across like early Cat Power crossed with electric Neil Young. Unexpectedly good stuff.

I mentioned back in May that Shearwater’s new album Palo Santo was on a shortlist for one of my top records of the year. Well four months and many, many new releases later, I’m still standing by that statement. Interestingly, as I listen to it more, it almost seems to get less accessible and more mysterious but also more engrossing if that makes any sense. But while it’s not a pop record and maybe requires a bit of work on the part of the listener, I make no hesitation about recommending it to anyone and everyone. But anyway, to the show. Jonathan Meiburg had been fighting off a bit of illness that had been affecting his voice, but if you didn’t know I highly doubt you’d have noticed. His vocals still soared where they needed to and the band was electrifying, intense, delicate and affecting throughout.

The 40-minute set drew from many points in Shearwater’s catalog and sounded great – it’s amazing how just four players can create such a rich, textured and wholly organic sound – but I’d also have been happy to hear a Palo Santo-heavier set. Hell, I’d like to hear the whole thing played start to finish though I doubt that’s going to happen anytime soon. Like I said before, it’s frustrating to not be able to see Shearwater perform a full set short of flying down to Austin sometime (besides SxSW). If there’s any justice, they’ll be doing headlining tours of their own before long and while the band is unequivocally Meiburg’s vehicle now, there are some Will Sheff-penned tunes in their repetoire that I’d love to hear live. Oh, and if anyone in attendance was wondering, this is the shark that Meiburg dedicated a song to.

As for the headliners, I had to bow out – I’d already seen them twice before and I was beat. Considering Mr Molina and his company come through town about twice a year now, I’m sure I’ll get my chance to see them again before long.

The Daily Texan previews Meiburg’s other band – Okkervil River – in advance of their performance at the ACL Fest this weekend. Meiburg and co will be in Boston that night instead. But the whole band was assembled for a recent show being recorded for a live DVD – eyewitness accounts at Party Ends.

Photos: Shearwater, Julie Doiron @ Lee’s Palace – September 12, 2006
MP3: Julie Doiron – “Goodnight Nobody”
MP3: Shearwater – “Seventy-Four Seventy-Five”
MP3: Shearwater – “White Waves”
MySpace: Julie Doiron
MySpace: Shearwater

The Boston Globe recounts the true-life love story of Mates Of State. Watch them make lovey-eyes at each other from across the stage at Lee’s Palace on Saturday night.

R.E.M. tell Billboard that on their next album, they’re going to rock. For real. Honest. And to prove it, they a rock show at a tribute night to themselves in Athens. Way to make the other bands (including one fronted by Patterson Hood) feel inadequate.

In case you hadn’t heard, on October 1 there will be a free (free!) show at the Kool Haus to celebrate the UNESCO International Day of Music. Sponsored by CBC Radio 3 and Bande à Part (the Quebec equivalent), it will feature two anglo artists and two francophone – The Joel Plaskett Emergency and Emily Haines & The Soft Skeleton while Quebec is represented by Les Trois Accords and Les Breastfeeders, whose name I suspect means the same thing in both languages. To reserve a ticket, go here and to read about the event go to Chart and to read an interview with Emily, go to Adam Radwanski’s site. The Toronto Star has a review of her recent solo show at the Gladstone – a hint of what you can expect at the upcoming show.

New City Chicago chats with John Darnielle of The Mountain Goats and the second part of his Amoeba Records instore/conversation with Carl Newman is now up on YouTube.

B(oot)log has a Tilly & The Wall radio session from June of this year available for download.

Pitchfork has the tracklist of Pavement’s Wowee Zowee: The Sordid Sentinels Edition, out November 7.

The Arizona Star and The Houston Chronicle talk to John Roderick of The Long Winters. They’re at Lee’s Palace on October 4.

And a couple upcoming shows – Clem Snide frontman Eef Barzalay and Casey Dienel will be at Rancho Relaxo on October 14, Sparta and Sound Team at the Opera House on OCtober 15 and Scritti Politti is at the Opera House November 6. Scritti Politti? The Opera House? Really? That’s… a big venue for a band without a website.

np – Portastatic / Be Still Please

Given the choice, I almost always prefer to see singer-songwriter types in a band setting. Properly and sympathetically arranged, I find extra instrumentation can only benefit good material and add an extra dynamic dimension to live performances. That said, I would cite M Ward as the exception to that rule. His solo show last February was so perfectly suited to the his repetoire at the time (he had just released Transistor Radio) that I couldn’t imagine a band adding anything that he was creating with his guitar, piano, harmonica, looper and voice.

But his latest record Post-War is a considerably more rollicking affair and for this tour, Ward was doing the full band thing including two drummers and a second guitarist. As befit such a powerful rhythm section, they practically galloped through the whole set, leaning heavily on the upbeat end of his repetoire. It’s hard to appreciate just how incredible a musician Ward is without watching him work – whether on acoustic, electric or Wurlitzer he was amazing and terrifying to behold. There’s a lot of focus on his timeless rasp of a voice, but even if he never opened his mouth and let his fingers do the talking, he’d be a legend in the making.

Seeing as how they powered through the main set, it was over (seemingly) very quickly but I felt almost as exhausted having watched it as the band must have been performig it. For the encore, Ward came out solo and acoustic and we got a taste of the wandering troubadour that dazzled at the El Mocambo last year. The band returned for a one-song second encore and that was it. As impressive as the show was, I have to say I preferred Ward solo – there was an intimacy to it that was missing this time out. I also prefer the older albums to the latest one, so that was surely part of it as well. But however Ward chooses to hit the road, he’s always something to see.

Openers were Brooklyn’s Oakley Hall who played a very similar set of psychedelic roadhouse country to the one that I saw in July when they opened for Calexico. The only difference was this time, I had one of their albums – Gypsum Strings – under my belt so I can say with some authority that they’re much better live than on record. The production on the studio product is much thinner and doesn’t capture the on-stage energy of the band. Still very enjoyable to watch as the six of them wreaked some havoc on their cramped stage setup and really a perfect fit for Ward’s audience.

Very small photo gallery this time – there was a strict “no camera” policy in effect and while I got official permission to shoot the first three songs, Ward waved me off after a song and a half and I’m lucky to have gotten what I did. It was fine with me – I shot 6 GB of photos over the weekend, a break suited me fine but I couldn’t help thinking he certainly didn’t mind me shooting him last time, as my photos on his MySpace gallery would attest. Merge has Ward’s recent performance on The Late Late Show Letterman YouTube-d.

Photos: M Ward @ The Mod Club – September 11, 2006
MP3: M Ward – “To Go Home”
MP3: M Ward – “Post-War”
Video: M Ward – “Chinese Translation” (YouTube)
Stream: M Ward / Post-War
MySpace: M Ward

The Macon Telegraph talks to Jason Isbell of the Drive-By Truckers, playing the Phoenix on October 18.

Will Johnson talks about Centro-Matic’s longevity to The Denver Post.

The Guardian plays name that tune with Yo La Tengo. I Am Not Afraid Of You And I Will Beat Your Ass hit stores yesterday and the band hits the Phoenix October 2. So much hitting.

JAM reports that Bob Dylan is happy. Having the #1 record in America will do that for a fellow, I guess.

My Old Kentucky Blog has a couple of new demos from Margot & The Nuclear So And So’s up for grabs. The band is hoping to have their sophomore disc out in Spring of ’07 but in the meantime are hitting the road yet again, this time with The Elected. They say they hope to have a Canadian date on this jaunt to make up for their cancellation back in March, and judging from their itinerary so far, expect to see them here between October 31 and November 2 if they do make it across the border. But in the meantime, there’s a live studio video session thing at Rolling Stone.

The Boston Globe talks to Band Of Horses, who have a new video out:

Video: Band Of Horses – “The Great Salt Lake” (MOV)

Puddlegum reports that a posthumus Elliott Smith album of rare and unreleased materials will be coming out on March 17 of next year.

It’s not Archives but Neil Young has gone vault-digging back to 1970 for a new live album – Live At The Fillmore East – out October 24.

Oh, Merge! reports that the release of Portastatic’s new album Be Still Please on October 10 with a digital-only EP called Sour Shores, available online at the usual outlets this week. Mac offers more details on the Portastatic blog. Intersesting that while Portastatic is confirmed to play Pop Montreal in October, there’s no Toronto date. They were just here a few months ago but usually when an act bothers to cross the border, they maximize their time in Canada. Oh well.

np – Shearwater / The Dissolving Room