Thursday, April 12th, 2012
Review of Rose Cousins’ We Have Made A Spark
Shervin IainezRose Cousins is not a new artist. The Charlottetown by way of Halifax artist has been releasing music for the better part of a decade and I’ve technically heard her before as she’s guested on any number of Maritime-born records including Joel Plaskett’s, but I’d not heard any of her own material until her third full-length album We Have Made A Spark, released at the end of February. And clearly that’s been my loss.
It’s not a record that stops you in your tracks – describe it as singer-songwriter that’d be comfortable at an adult contemporary party and lists towards the rootsy end of things and you wouldn’t be wrong – but that wouldn’t give credit to the emotional richness that Cousins infuses her work with. Her voice has that special blend of wistfulness and resignation that’s put to good use throughout Spark and ably supported by the lean and tasteful arrangements. But the sense of something ineffably special about this record really emerges on the record’s back half, with “For The Best” and “This Light” acting as a particularly powerful one-two punch and the cover of Springsteen’s “If I Should Fall Behind” finishing the listener off. Predominantly slow and sad, yet still standing tall, Spark articulates the sorts of feelings and experiences that everyone has either known or will know soon enough.
Uptown and The Edmonton Journal have feature pieces on Cousins and Southern Souls recently posted a video session with her. She plays The Rivoli on May 3.
MP3: Rose Cousins – “The Darkness”
The Elwins are helping celebrate Record Store Day with an in-store at Soundscapes on the evening of April 21 at 7PM; details over at Facebook. They’ve also been added to the support bill for Zeus at The Phoenix on June 9.
MP3: The Elwins – “Stuck In The Middle”
Sonic Boom is also once again celebrating Record Store Day with their own in-store mini-festival; this year they’ll have Army Girls, The Darcys, Born Ruffians, Plants & Animals, Bloodshot Bill, Fresh Snow, Lioness, Eight And A Half, and Diemonds. Now that’s a lineup and the schedule for the day looks like this.
MP3: Plants & Animals – “Song For Love”
MP3: The Darcys – “Shaking Down The Old Bones”
Video: Diemonds – “Take On The Night”
Video: Eight And A Half – “Scissors”
Video: Lioness – “You’re My Heart”
Though she figures to be around six months pregnant by that time, Coeur de Pirate has made a date at The Opera House for June 1, tickets $22.50 in advance. Rock!
Video: Coeur de Pirate – “Golden Baby”
The 2012 LuminaTO arts festival schedule is out, and from the music end of things, it’s got quite a bit to offer, mostly for free. Highlights include a Rufus Wainwright show on June 10, a Dan Mangan/Kathleen Edwards double-bill on the afternoon of June 16 (hopefully Ms. Edwards’ voice will be back) and an Ohbijou show on the afternoon of June 17; all of these are at David Pecault Square and are free. And yes, that second weekend is the same time as NXNE. So much culture you’re going to choke. The Line Of Best Fit has a video session and interview and Black Cab Sessions do their thing with Wainwright and NPR has a Tiny Desk Concert and Beatroute and The Calgary Herald have feature stories on Kathleen Edwards.
MP3: Kathleen Edwards – “Change The Sheets”
MP3: Dan Mangan – “Oh Fortune”
MP3: Ohbijou – “Anser”
Video: Rufus Wainwright – “Out Of The Game”
The Great Hall gets dark and synthy on July 13 when it hosts a show featuring Toronto’s Trust and New York’s Light Asylum; tickets for that are $12.50 in advance.
MP3: Light Asylum – “A Certain Person”
Video: Trust – “Bulbform”
I don’t remember the last time Little Scream played her own headlining show hereabouts – has she ever? – but she has great luck with opening gigs, having been added as warm-up for Beirut at The Sound Academy on July 19.
MP3: Little Scream – “Cannons”
Kind of an mish-mash of a bill, both in terms of genre and geography, but you’ve got The Sam Roberts Band, Bombay Bicycle Club, and The Jezabels at Echo Beach on July 26 – tickets $39.50 for general admission and $55.00 for VIP.
MP3: The Jezabels – “Try Colour”
Video: Sam Roberts – “I Feel You”
Video: Bombay Bicycle Club – “Shuffle”
Beatroute, The Georgia Straight, and here profile Chains Of Love, who’re in town at The Great Hall opening up for Said The Whale on April 14.
With the release of the new Moonface record With Sinai: Heartbreaking Bravery nigh – it’s out April 17 – it’s time for some premieres; a new video over at Spin and a stream of the whole record at The AV Club.
MP3: Moonface – “Teary Eyes And Bloody Lips”
Video: Moonface – “Teary Eyes And Bloody Lips”
Stream: Moonface / With Siinai: Heartbreaking Bravery
The fourth part of The Wooden Sky’s Grace On A Hill video series has premiered at IFC. They’re at The Opera House on April 20.
Still no specifics on the “why”, if there are any, surrounding the Fucked Up show at The Power Plant on May 1, but the band have announced that it’ll be free. So the “why” now matters that much less than “when do we line up”, yes?
CBC Music has got a video session with PS I Love You wherein they preview material from Death Dreams ahead of its May 8 release. They’re at The Garrison on May 15.
JAM, The Victoria Times-Colonist, Banff Cragg & Canyon, and Beatroute talk to Joel Plaskett. He’s at The Queen Elizabeth Theatre on May 18 and 19.
Spinner and The Globe & Mail chat with Tony Dekker of Great Lake Swimmers, who’ve made a track from New Wild Everywhere available to download and also released a new video. There’s also clips from their performance at the Glenn Gould Studio last month at CBC Music. They play The Music Hall on June 2.
MP3: Great Lake Swimmers – “The Great Exhale”
Video: Great Lake Swimmers – “New Wild Everywhere”
Guelph disco-pop ensemble The Magic are streaming the first single from their debut Ragged Gold, due out June 25.
Stream: The Magic – “Mr. Hollywood”
Feist has released a new video from Metals.
Video: Feist – “Bittersweet Melodies”
NPR serves up a World Cafe session and Planet S an interview with John K Samson.
Daytrotter has posted a new session with Timber Timbre.
Wednesday, April 11th, 2012
Perfume Genius and Parenthetical Girls at The Drake Underground in Toronto
Frank YangIf you thought that any combination of it being a Sunday night and Easter would result in a lightly-attended Perfume Genius show at The Drake on Sunday night, you’d have been wrong. Which is to say that I was wrong; the handful of tickets remaining were snatched up when doors opened and by the time I got there, it was officially sold out. And with good cause – Mike Hadreas’ second album under as Perfume Genius – Put Your Back N 2 It – is a stunning record, giving his emotionally stark songwriting with just enough sonic adornment to make it not just palatable, but delicious.
Perfume Genius weren’t the only draw; supporting them on this tour were fellow Pacific northwesterners Parenthetical Girls from Portland, who’ve garnered their own loyal fanbase over the past decade and added to it locally having been here for two nights in January supporting Los Campesinos. While there were enough similarities that this bill made sense in some ways, in others you couldn’t imagine a more disparate pairing. Fronted by the magnetic Zac Pennington, their set was more musical theatre than conventional concert with his flamboyant yet dry delivery leading the band through what felt like selections from a synth-rock opera, enhanced by some great audience repartee and a few forays into the crowd. Importantly though, for all the theatrics, they still had immediate and hummable tunes underneath it all and their sincerity was never obscured by camp or irony. Even if it had, it’d still have been fun but that it wasn’t was even better.
Irony wasn’t any kind of risk with Perfume Genius; Hadreas is all about raw, unvarnished honesty. Seeing him at Matador 21 in 2010, circa his debut Learning, it was impossible to not be impressed how he silenced the theatre with just two keyboards and his voice. This time, he was again accompanied by Alan Wyffels on synths but also a third player alternating on guitar and drums, and while the extra instrumentation went a long way to filling things out and pushing them forward, the live readings of the Back material still felt more immediate and stripped down than the record, yet still dramatic in their content and often abrupt in their finish – when the songs were done, they were just done.
He played for barely 45 minutes, drawing mainly from Put Your Back N 2 It, including a faux encore that Hadreas distinguished from the main set by ducking under his piano for a few seconds before re-emerging. He commented that the last time he played this room, back in the Fall of 2010, there was maybe a tenth of the people who were here this time but even so, the packed house remained dead silent and respectful throughout the set. Considering how personal and intimate Hadreas’ music is, it’s hard to imagine him having to establish the sort of connection with the audience that was so evident here on a larger scale, but considering how powerful that connection is it’s hard to imagine it not reaching and resonating with more people. What happens next is for the future to tell, I suppose, but this night was near perfect.
The Republican and NOW have interviews with Mike Hadreas while The Montreal Mirror profiles Parenthetical Girls.
Photos: Perfume Genius, Parenthetical Girls @ The Drake Underground – April 8, 2012
MP3: Perfume Genius – “Hood”
MP3: Perfume Genius – “Dark Parts”
MP3: Perfume Genius – “All Waters”
MP3: Perfume Genius – “Learning”
MP3: Parenthetical Girls – “The Pornographer”
MP3: Parenthetical Girls – “A Note To Self”
Video: Perfume Genius – “Hood”
Video: Perfume Genius – “Lookout, Lookout”
Video: Parenthetical Girls – “The Privilege”
Video: Parenthetical Girls – “Careful Who You Dance With”
Video: Parenthetical Girls – “The Pornographer”
Video: Parenthetical Girls – “The Common Touch”
Video: Parenthetical Girls – “Young Throats”
Video: Parenthetical Girls – “Evelyn McHale”
Video: Parenthetical Girls – “A Song For Ellie Greenwich”
I suppose credit where credit is due; The Dandy Warhols have somehow maintained a fanbase that allows them to continue to play a room the size of The Phoenix and collect $30 for the privilege of hearing “Bohemian Like You”; they’re there on June 3 in support of their new record This Machine, which comes out April 24.
MP3: The Dandy Warhols – “Country Leaver”
MP3: The Dandy Warhols – “Sad Vacation”
Also straight out of Portland – Blind Pilot are going to be at The Opera House on July 25, continuing to tour last Fall’s We Are The Tide. Tickets for that are $17.50 in advance.
MP3: Blind Pilot – “Keep You Right”
Straight off of announcing a July 10 release for their new record Swing Lo Magellan, Dirty Projectors have slated an extensive tour that brings them to the Music Hall on July 6 with recent 4AD-signees Purity Ring as support; their own debut album will be out on July 24.
Stream: Dirty Projectors – “Gun Has No Trigger”
Stream: Purity Ring – “Belispeak”
The Head & The Heart stops in at The AV Club to participate in their Undercover series with a Fleetwood Mac cover.
Exclaim, The Georgia Straight, and The National Post talk to Alexis Krauss of Sleigh Bells, who are back in town on April 27 and 28 at the Air Canada Centre warming up for Red Hot Chili Peppers.
Pitchfork talks to the boys of POP ETC – née The Morning Benders – who inaugurate their new identity on June 12 with a self-titled album. I guess the all caps is mandatory, eh? Feh.
Spin and The Daily Texan chat with Bowerbirds.
Kurt Wagner of Lambchop reviews his musical upbringing with Pitchfork.
NPR, The Line Of Best Fit, and The National Post all talk to M. Ward on the occasion of the release of his new record A Wasteland Companion.
The AV Club has posted the second part of their extensive history/salute to R.E.M..
Tuesday, April 10th, 2012
Who: Yukon Blonde
What: Classic rocking Vancouver quartet who know the importance of having a musical portfolio with a good balance of hooks and riffs.
Why: Their second album Tiger Talk was released at the start of March and the reception has been enough to justify a two-night stand in Toronto on their cross-Canada tour.
When: Thursday, April 12, 2012
Where: Lee’s Palace in Toronto (19+)
Who else: Support for the whole tour comes from Saskatchewan’s Library Voices and Great Bloomers round out the bill with some local flavour.
How: Tickets for the show are $15 in advance but courtesy of Collective Concerts, I’ve got two pairs of passes to give away for the Thursday night show as well as a copy of Tiger Talk on LP. To enter, email me at contests AT chromewaves.net with, “I want to see Yukon Blonde” and your full name in the body, and also note if you are equipped to and interested in spinning vinyl – one winner will get the passes and the LP, another will just get the passes. And be quick like bunny, the contest closes tomorrow – April 11 – at 5PM.
What else: The band is featured in pieces at The Telegram, Uptown, Spinner, and here, while DIY has both a complete stream of the album (which only just came out in the UK last week) and track-by-track commentary from the band.
MP3: Yukon Blonde – “Stairway”
MP3: Yukon Blonde – “Fire”
Video: Yukon Blonde – “Stairway”
Stream: Yukon Blonde / Tiger Talk
Tuesday, April 10th, 2012
Review of Lightships’ Electric Cables
Cat StevensloresThe general assumption as to whoy Teenage Fanclub release albums so infrequently – 2010’s Shadows was just their third effort in the 21st century, assuming you count 2000 as part of this millenium – is that despite having three superb songwriters in their ranks, they just work very, very slowly; if this is true, then clearly bassist Gerard Love isn’t the limiting factor. Based on Electric Cables, the debut album from his solo project as Lightships, he has no shortage of songs at the ready and most are as good as anything he’s contributed to the Fannies over the past decade.
Backed by a band of Scottish all-stars recruited from Teenage Fanclub, Belle & Sebastian and The Pastels, Love has crafted a record of gorgeously bucolic pop songs marked by Love’s airy vocals and guitar and flute lines gently bouncing off of one another. The notes aren’t content to simply jangle and decay, but rather hang suspended, shimmering in the air. Cables possesses enough energy and buzz to keep from coming across as too ephemeral, but the prevailing vibe is the return of and a return to nature and given the prevalence of pastoral themes in the song titles – “Photosynthesis”, “Sunlight To The Dawn”, “Muddy Rivers” to name a few – one can only assume that this is deliberate and not just a happy coincidence.
Let this be your soundtrack to Spring, and if it just so happens to linger in your ears through the rest of the seasons, then so be it. Norman Blake may have been first with his breezy Jonny side-project and while he’s not fronting it, it’s good to see Raymond McGinley active extra-circularly in Snowgoose, but Lightships is what every Fannies fan hopes for in a Teenage Fanclub side-project in that it sounds like Teenage Fanclub. Which is to say beautiful.
Video: Lightships – “Sweetness In Her Spark”
Video: Lightships – “Two Lines”
Stream: Lightships / Electric Cables
NPR is streaming the whole of Spiritualized’s Sweet Heart Sweet Light ahead of its release next week. Rolling Stone talks to Jason Pierce about the new album and Pitchfork finds out what he was thinking when he selected the album art. They play The Phoenix on May 5.
Stream: Spiritualized / Sweet Heart Sweet Light
JAM, The Hollywood Reporter, and The Georgia Straight talk to Elvis Costello about busting out the “The Spectacular Spinning Songbook” for his recent tours, though it won’t be in play when he’s at Casino Rama on April 19 – guess they prefer people do their gambling on the casino floor than in the theatre. The Return Of The Spectacular Spinning Songbook live CD/DVD culled from the Summer 2011 leg of the tour came out last week.
Pitchfork points out that Field Music are streaming their contribution to this year’s Record Store Day release schedule; a 7″ featuring a cover of Pet Shop Boys’ “Rent”, which kicked off a mini PSB marathon over these parts; never a bad thing.
Stream: Field Music – “Rent”
Daytrotter has posted a session with Clock Opera, whose debut Ways To Forget was supposed to be out now but has been pushed back until April 23 in the UK.
DIY talks to Mystery Jets about their new album Radlands, due out April 30. They’re at The Sound Academy on June 19 in support of Keane.
Interview talks to Hot Chip about their new record In Our Heads, coming out June 12 and justifying a visit to the Sound Academy on July 15.
Stylist talks fashion with Florence Welch of Florence & The Machine. She’s at the Molson Amphitheatre on August 2.
Loud & Quiet talks to Trailer Trash Tracys.
Django Django have released a new video from their self-titled debut.
Video: Django Django – “Storm”
The Quietus tags along with British Sea Power as the band plays a concert at the CERN project in Switzerland.
Slicing Up Eyeballs has complete video of one of The Wedding Present’s shows at SXSW last month.
In the, “karmic balance for Anglophiles” department: Jarvis Cocker and Kevin Shields, in conversation with Shortlist and Pitchfork respectively, reveal that new material from both Pulp and My Bloody Valentine could be in the works – Pulp were also on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon last night – but Damon Albarn tells The Guardian in very few uncertain terms that Blur – and Gorillaz if you care about Gorillaz – are probably over following a final single and the Hyde Park show this Summer. DIY looks at what the definitive end of Blur would mean for the band’s legacy.
New to my ears lately are Swedish duo The Deer Tracks, whose two mini-albums so far – The Archer Trilogy P1 1 and The Archer Trilogy Pt. 2 (part three is out this Fall) – remind me not a little of early Múm, which is a good thing indeed. Also good is their North American tour this Summer is missing a Toronto date at the moment, but there’s a conspicuous two-day gap between Chicago and Montreal that just happens to fall during NXNE. So yeah.
MP3: The Deer Tracks – “Dark Passenger”
Video: The Deer Tracks – “Ram Ram”
Video: The Deer Tracks – “Fra Ro Raa / Ro Ra Fraa”
Pitchfork reports that another co-ed Swedish duo with a penchant for electronics – jj – will release a new single/EP/something entitled jj n° 4 on May 8, and the first track from it is now available to download.
MP3: jj – “Beautiful Life”
Anna Ternheim has announced the June 5 North American release of her new record The Night Visitor and offered a first sample for downloading and listening purposes.
MP3: Anna Ternheim – “The Longer The Waiting (The Sweeter The Kiss)”
Knox Road, The Boston Herald, Metro, and USA Today speak with Of Monsters & Men, in town at The Phoenix on April 12.
The second video from Ladyhawke’s Anxiety, out May 29, is now available to watch.
Video: Ladyhawke – “Sunday Drive”
Monday, April 9th, 2012
Nada Surf at Sonic Boom in Toronto
Frank YangNada Surf fly under a lot of peoples’ radars, remembered as that “Popular” band if they’re remembered at all, but they really do deserve credit for not only surviving the boom and bust of the ’90s alt-rock scene but putting together a fruitful second act of solidly tuneful albums of sensitive guitar pop while many of their contemporaries called it quits and are only returning to action now via the reunion track.
The seventh of which, The Stars Are Indifferent To Astronomy, was released back in January to follow up their 2010 covers record If I Had A Hi Fi and it follows the aforementioned template though with more volume and velocity than you might expect from them at this point. The band could probably get away with writing strictly sensitive, ballad-y material at this point but Astronomy shows that they can still turn up and rock a bit when they want to.
And just as they did in January 2008 when they were promoting their last album of new material, Lucky, they made time during a visit to Toronto to play an in-store at Sonic Boom. That occasion came during the advance press circuit and not the actual tour, so they were able to play a longer set at the store’s old location; this time, they were at the new Bathurst St. location offering what frontman Matthew Caws described as a condensed version of that evening’s performance at the Opera House. But while this equated to a shorter set, it also meant that the band were fully equipped to play. Sure, Caws still stuck to his acoustic and drummer Ira Elliot again forewent a kit for a rhythm box/stool, this time Daniel Lorca had his bass with him and their two touring players – Calexio’s Martin Wenk and former Guided By Voices guitarist Doug Gillard – were on hand to fill things out in indie rock all-star style.
Their mini-set drew from all their records and they performed with the confidence and ease of a unit with little else to prove, content and grateful to be able to play for themselves and their fans. Some may point at them and declare them a band that’s had its moment and is far from fashionable, but there’s something to be said about no longer be beholden to the machinations of hype. Bands of the moment should count themselves lucky if they can eventually write a brace of songs as good as Nada Surf’s, let along have their longevity.
Hater High has a recording of the in-store to share while The Boston Phoenix and Billboard have feature pieces on the band.
Photos: Nada Surf @ Sonic Boom – April 4, 2012
MP3: Nada Surf – “When I Was Young”
MP3: Nada Surf – “See These Bones”
MP3: Nada Surf – “Do It Again”
MP3: Nada Surf – “Blankest Year”
MP3: Nada Surf – “Blonde On Blonde”
Video: Nada Surf – “When I Was Young”
Video: Nada Surf – “Electrocution”
Video: Nada Surf – “Whose Authority”
Video: Nada Surf – “Weightless”
Video: Nada Surf – “Always Love”
Video: Nada Surf – “Blankest Year”
Video: Nada Surf – “Inside Of Love”
Video: Nada Surf – “The Way You Wear Your Head”
Video: Nada Surf – “Firecracker”
Video: Nada Surf – “Popular”
Video: Nada Surf – “Treehouse”
The June 19 release date of The Idler Wheel is wiser than the Driver of the Screw, and Whipping Cords will serve you more than Ropes will ever do confirmed, the return of Fiona Apple continues with a full North American tour; Pitchfork has the Summer dates, which include a July 4 date at The Sound Academy in Toronto.
Video: Fiona Apple – “Fast As You Can”
Fast Company Create and Pitchfork talk to The Flaming Lips’ Wayne Coyne about their forthcoming collaborations album Flaming Lips & Heady Fwends, due out this Record Store Day, April 21.
Father John Misty has released another track from the forthcoming Fear Fun, due out May 1. He plays The Horseshoe on May 14.
MP3: Father John Misty – “Nancy From Now On”
There’s a new video available from White Rabbits’ latest Milk Famous. They’re interviewed at St. Louis Today, The Columbia Daily Tribune, and College Times.
Video: White Rabbits – “Temporary”
DIY has a feature piece on M. Ward, whose new album A Wasteland Companion is finally out tomorrow.
The Village Voice interviews Stephin Merritt of The Magnetic Fields.
Artrocker checks in quickly with Stephen Malkmus.
The Birmingham News talks to Patterson Hood of Drive-By Truckers.
The Toronto Star interviews Howler.
DIY has a video session with Craig Finn while CBS Sports talks to the Hold Steady frontman about his love of baseball. On a similar note, Rolling Stone talks to other musicians about their affection for America’s pastime.
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