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Monday, February 7th, 2011
Review of Young Galaxy’s Shapeshifting
Joseph YarmushDespite 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 energized performance at the Toronto Islands show opening for Death Cab For Cutie in June 2008, but not quite enough to put me in the ranks of their fandom.
And while their third effort Shapeshifting, out tomorrow, isn’t necessary a Damascene moment for me, it’s a much more interesting and engaging record than I’d have ever thought they’d be capable of. Some have attributed this to the recruitment of Swede Dan Lissvik of Studio to mix the record… and this is where I fess up and admit that I have no idea who Dan Lissvik or Studio are, or why this is important. But if he’s responsible for making this a Young Galaxy record that I feel compelled to listen to out of interest rather than obligation, then credit where credit’s due.
Having the perfect producer, however, means nothing if the band and the material can’t give them something to work with, so ultimately the credit should go to Young Galaxy themselves. There’s a focus in the songwriting that’s new to me, at least, and while Catherine McCandless still has an oddly hard-edge to her phrasing, both her and Ramsay’s vocals have more personality and vitality than I’d heard on past records. That, combined with a distinctive sonic space – tight, clean, dancey and strangely sterile in an otherworldly sort of way – that’s clearly established from the opening notes of “Nth” and thoroughly explored from the pop end to the experimental over the course of eleven songs. Whereas Young Galaxy’s first two records felt like legs of a journey, incomplete when taken on their own, Shapeshifting is very much a destination and one worth revisiting. Welcome.
Young Galaxy’s previously-announced March 4 show at Lee’s Palace was canceled when tourmates You Say Party had to pull out on account of singer Becky Ninkovic’s bronchitis but a new date has been announced as part of Canadian Musicfest; they’ll be anchoring the March 10 showcase at Lee’s with Miracle Fortress and The Wilderness Of Manitoba, amongst others to be announced. Festival wristbands will be admitted, but that’s dependent on capacity – the $16.50 advance ticket is your only guarantee for getting in. Exclaim, Sticky and The National Post have interviews with the band.
MP3: Young Galaxy – “Peripheral Visionaries”
MP3: Young Galaxy – “We Have Everything”
MP3: Young Galaxy – “Cover Your Tracks”
Stream: Young Galaxy / Shapeshifting
Video: Young Galaxy – “We Have Everything”
Stars are all about the video sessions, being featured in a Take-Away Show at Le Blogotheque and Tiny Desk Concert for NPR.
NYC Taper is sharing a recording of Suuns at The Rock Shop in New York a couple weeks ago, and the band have premiered a new video from their debut Zeroes QC. They’ll be at Lee’s Palace on April 14 opening up for The Black Angels.
Video: Suuns – “Pie IX”
Chart talks to Brendan Canning and Spinner to Kevin Drew about Broken Social Scene’s Juno Award nominations.
Paste has premiered a new video from Dan Mangan’s Nice, Nice, Very Nice.
Video: Dan Mangan – “Sold”
Also showing off a shiny new start-studded video – if Jon Wurster, Ted Leo, Donald Glover or John Hodgman are your idea of stars – are The New Pornographers, from last year’s Together.
Video: The New Pornographers – “Moves”
Interview interviews Dan Bejar of Destroyer. He plays Lee’s Palace on March 31.
Beatroute talks to Dallas Good of The Sadies. They’re playing March 11 at The Mod Club as part of Canadian Musicfest with a secret guest headliner who’ll be announced March 8. That usually means it’s someone who’s playing in town on March 7 or thereabouts, but I don’t see any likely candidates. Levon Helm? Lady Gaga? Someone bigger than The Sadies, anyways.
Basia Bulat discusses giving her music the orchestral treatment with Spinner.
And Under The Radar has posted their year-end piece about blogs, hype and blog hype online, including interviews with online peeps Said The Gramophone, Drowned In Sound, My Old Kentucky Blog and yours truly. I’m not as grumpy as I sound in the piece in real life, honestly. Or more accurately I am, but am more charming about it. I think.
Thursday, November 25th, 2010
Review of Manic Street Preachers’ Postcards From A Young Man
Dean ChalkeyMost bands with longevity – if they’re lucky – have a career arc that starts with a good to great debut and trends upwards towards a critical and hopefully commercial peak – simultaneously, if fortune wills it – before entering a decline that’s hopefully gradual enough so as to not really be noticed at the time. Cap it off with a late-career bounce and/or best-of comp and maybe quit while you’re still ahead, overall. Until the reunion, anyways.
Manic Street Preachers threw that out the window before even their first album, declaring their intention to sell 20 million copies of their debut and then break up at the height of their powers. And while this didn’t happen, their narrative did end up considerably twistier than most – release successful debut, endure mandatory difficult second record, rebound with critically acclaimed effort, lose chief songwriter to mysterious circumstances, regroup for their biggest commercial and critical success, release follow-ups of diminishing quality before respectively levelling out and then surprise everyone by deliberately trying to recreate the spirit of album three using lyrics left behind by the departed songwriter and have the results, rather than exploitative, be phenomenal.
This is where the Manics found themselves with last year’s Journal For Plague Lovers, a deliberate revisit to The Holy Bible built around the words of their lost member Richey Edwards. And just as that record deliberately paralleled their third record, its follow-up Postcards From A Young Man looks to album four, the massive in every sense Everything Must Go as a reference. The dry, Albini production values of Journal are traded in for grandiose anthems laden with strings and choirs that offer no apologies for reaching for the stars. It’s a reminder that as good as the Manics were at being emphatically, viciously angry, they were arguably better at being starry-eyed romantics, and it’s that side of them that is on display with this effort. But unlike Everything, which for its widescreen staging was still downcast in tone, what with dealing with Edwards’ disappearance, Postcards casts far fewer shadows. Granted, this also gives it less emotional heft, but it’s far from empty calories. There’s still plenty of dense lyricism, huge choruses, fiery guitar solos, a guest spot/croak from Ian McCulloch and an affirmation that while the Manics took a mid-career breather, they’re once again at the top of their game.
Even though the release of Journal and accompanying tour were supposed to mark the Manics’ return to the North American marketplace, Postcards has yet to receive a domestic release. Until that happens, any hope that the further Stateside shows the band promised last year will materialize remain just wishful thinking. Or maybe they’ll wait for the next record – for all the hubbub surrounding the “last attempt at mass communication” rhetoric that accompanied Postcards and whether it meant it would be the Manics’ final record, according to this interview with Nicky Wire at NME, the band are already writing their next record, have given it a working title of 70 Songs Of Hatred And Failure and are calling it an exercise in “pure indulgence”. So it’s a revisit to Know Your Enemy, then? Bring it on.
Note that the below MP3 does not appear on Postcards, but is a period-correct and was given away in conjunction with the promotion of Postcards.
MP3: Manic Street Preachers – “I’m Leaving You For Solitude”
Video: Manic Street Preachers – “Some Kind Of Nothingness”
Video: Manic Street Preachers – “(It’s Not War) It’s Just The End Of Love”
Digging A Hole, The Bangkok Post and CNNgo check in with Tim Burgess of The Charlatans.
The long wait for a new record from PJ Harvey is almost over – NME reports that Polly Jean’s next record Let England Shake will be out on February 14.
Trip-hop survivors Morcheeba, with original vocalist Sky Edwards back in the fold, will be touring North America next year in support of their latest Blood Like Lemonade and will be at The Phoenix on February 20. Tickets $32.50 in advance.
Video: Morcheeba – “Blood Like Lemonade”
VBS has a video interview with Emmy The Great and producer Gareth Jones, who is working with her on album number two. It’s targeted for a February 2011 release.
Laura Marling has released a video for her Neil Young cover, taken from her recent 7″ release.
Video: Laura Marling – “The Needle & The Damage Done”
NME reports that Noah & The Whale have given their third album a name – Last Night On Earth – and that it’ll be out in March of next year. Presumably before they roll into town for a show at the Mod Club on March 24, tickets $17.50 in advance.
Richard Thompson lists off his favourite covers of his own songs for Spinner and otherwise chats with The Los Angeles Times and The Kansas City Star
Mogwai are offering a free download of “Pano Rano”, the first single from their forthcoming Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will. The album is out February 15 and they play The Phoenix on April 26.
Exclaim reports on the super-fancy and then some 20th anniversary edition of Primal Scream’s Screamadelica, due out on March 7 of next year. For those who want to be free to do what they want to do, who want to be free to ride, and want to be free to ride their machines without being hassled by The Man, and who want to get loaded, and who want to have a good time. And that’s what they’re gonna do. They’re gonna have a good time. They’re gonna have a party!
The Arts Desk and The Quietus converse with Jim Reid of The Jesus And Mary Chain.
State welcomes ex-pat Gemma Hayes back to Ireland; she’s due for a new album sometime in 2011.
Thursday, September 23rd, 2010
Neil Young brings Le Noise
Adam CK VollickWhen it was announced that Neil Young was working with Daniel Lanois on a new record, you couldn’t help but pay attention. Not only did you have two Canadian musical icons working together for the first time, but Lanois was behind records that rejuvenated more than a few legendary careers, including those of Bob Dylan and Emmylou Harris. Whether Young’s career – 40 years old and defined by numerous artistic swerves – needed rejuvenation is another matter but the fruits of his collaboration with Lanois, entitled Le Noise and out next Tuesday, will certainly stand as an interesting addition to his catalog.
It’s a solo record in the purest sense, featuring Young and Young alone on acoustic and electric guitar and perhaps due to the stripped down aesthetic and recording in his own home, it finds him sounding particularly introspective and vulnerable. Lanois mainly makes his presence felt in the post-production, looping Young’s parts over themselves, adding delays and reverbs and generally adding his sonic signature. Initial listens might leave even long-time Young fans used to his twists and turns a bit disoriented – “Angry World” is the most bent track on the record and was, of course, the first released taste – but it doesn’t take long to find one’s footing and appreciate one of the more interesting and revealing works he’s turned out in recent years.
NPR is streaming Le Noise right now, and over the past week, there’s been a number of fittingly lo-fi videos released for some of the songs; I suspect we can expect more before they’re done. The Los Angeles Times has a photo gallery of Neil Young through the years.
Video: Neil Young – “Walk With Me”
Video: Neil Young – “Hitchhiker”
Video: Neil Young – “Angry World”
Stream: Neil Young / Le Noise
Look at What the Light Did Now is a documentary about the making of Feist’s last record The Reminder. It will premiere at Pop Montreal in a couple weeks and then make a circuit of festivals and special screenings; nothing in Toronto yet but you can’t believe that something’s not in the works to run it somewhere hereabouts eventually.
Trailer: Look At What The Light Did Now
NPR is streaming a session with Sarah Harmer; she plays Massey Hall on November 20.
For those still asking “who?” with regards to new Polaris champs Karkwa, aux.tv has assembled a primer on the Montreal quintet.
After a few delays, Woodpigeon’s Balladeer: To All The Guys I’ve Loved Before, released earlier this year as a bonus CD with Die Stadt Muzikanten, should be available on its own in both digital and vinyl editions. Also new for Woodpigeon completists (a futile quest if ever there was one) is a digital EP for “Our Love Is As Tall As The Calgary Tower” and accompanying video. Woodpigeon will play a free noon-hour show at Yonge-Dundas Square on October 6.
Video: Woodpigeon – “Our Love Is As Tall As The Calgary Tower”
Also playing a free show a little sooner than that – as in tonight – are Sloan, Bedouin Soundclash and Great Lake Swimmers as part of a CBC-sponsored event. The live music gets underway around 7:30 PM and goes until 9. A few more details over at Exclaim.
Pitchfork reports that the two-thirds of Sleater-Kinney who are not Corin Tucker have teamed with Mary Timony, ex of Helium, to form a new band called Wild Flag. There’s no fruits of their labours to hear yet but they’ve already signed to Merge and are looking to have a record out in early 2011.
Los Angeles’ Glasser has a date at the Drake Underground on November 11 in support of her debut Ring, out next Tuesday.
MP3: Glasser – “Home”
Following a dust-up in Indianapolis, No Depression reports that Justin Townes Earle has suspended his Fall tour to enter rehab – this includes the October 15 date at the Horseshoe.
Spinner continues to milk an interview with Nick Cave of Grinderman (that link is a two-fer) while Pitchfork talks to Cave and drummer Jim Sclavunos. They play the Phoenix on November 11.
First Aid Kit has a new video from their debut The Big Black & The Blue. They are at The El Mocambo on October 15.
Video: First Aid Kit – “Ghost Town”
Clash talks cultural differences with Phoenix.
Sunday, March 21st, 2010
She & Him cover Neil Young
DominoSeeing as how their career started with a cover – a recording of Richard & Linda Thompson’s “When I Get To The Border” for the independent film The Go-Getter – which M Ward scored and Zooey Deschanel starred in – it’s not surprising that She & Him have a yen for reinterpreting classic tunes. And when your sound is devoted to the recreation of the golden age of pop music, there’s lots of material to draw on.
For the b-side of their first single in the UK, “Why Do You Let Me Stay Here?” from 2008’s Volume One, they turned their attention to Neil Young’s “Lotta Love”, which appeared on his 1978 album Comes A Time, as well as Nicolette Larson’s Nicolette. Larson’s version would become a top ten single; Young’s would only come out as a b-side.
She & Him will release their second album Volume Two this week and play the Phoenix on June 9. Neil Young continues to release material from his Archives and is working on a new album. And is awesome.
MP3: She & Him – “Lotta Love”
Video: Neil Young – “Lotta Love” (live)
Sunday, June 7th, 2009
amazon.comYesterday afternoon at Toronto’s Yonge-Dundas Square, 1623 people gathered to try and break the Guinness World Record for largest guitar ensemble by playing Neil Young’s “Helpless”, en masse, as part of the Luminato arts festival, the song chosen via a poll to determine the festival’s “Great Canadian Tune”. They failed.
Obviously in pure quantitative terms, Nick Cave would have only made the shortfall 178 bodies rather than 179, but in terms of pure cool, Cave would easily have counted for a couple hundred normal people. But then, Nick only sang on his contribution to the 1989 tribute album to Young, The Bridge – it was a couple of now-former Bad Seeds, Kid Congo Powers and Mick Harvey, who handled the instrumentation. Still, Nick knows his way around a guitar and probably could have strummed along with the others.
Neil’s Archives, Volume One finally – at long last – was released last week and implausibly yet inevitably, it appears to have been both worth the wait and the price. Cave is going through a reissue program of his own, the first three of his albums with the Bad Seeds having been remastered and rereleased with bonus goodies back in March and the rest of his catalog to follow in the near future.
MP3: Nick Cave – “Helpless”
Video: Neil Young & The Band – “Helpless”
Video: 1623 would-be world record holders – “Helpless”
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