youarestars.comThe promo and touring cycle for Stars’ last record The Five Ghosts – released just about a year ago – largely wrapped last Fall, just in time to take a break and allow Amy Millan to have her first child. The Montreal quintet are ready to get back into action, though, and are doing so not with a release of new material but of old. Specifically their previous-to-last album, 2007’s In Our Bedroom After The War, or more specifically the demos for said record. That’s what has just been released as The Bedroom Demos, available digitally in compressed or lossless forms. It’s also available to stream in its entirety right now.

No doubt some of these songs will be aired out in their finished forms when the band makes their appearance at Yonge-Dundas Square next Friday night, June 17, as part of NXNE’s centrepiece free shows. And they’ll almost certainly be on the set list when the band plays a secret show at a to-be-announced location in Toronto the following night, June 18. Uncovering the location of the show is a scavenger hunt of sorts with locations of QR codes with clues being teased out via Twitter. And if you don’t figure it out to make it onto the guest list, the show will also be livestreamed on aux.tv that evening, though access to the stream also requires some sleuthing for trivia answers. Hey, no one ever said life was going to be easy.

The Take interviews Torquil Campbell in advance of their NXNE appearance next week.

MP3: Stars – “The Night Starts Here”
Stream: Stars / The Bedroom Demos

Broken Social Scene have released a new, uber-violent video from last year’s Forgiveness Rock Record. They play Downsview Park on Canada Day, July 1.

Video: Broken Social Scene – “The Sweetest Kill”

NOW interviews No Joy, who’re at The Horseshoe on June 16 at 1AM as part of NXNE.

Paste has a series of video performances from The Wilderness Of Manitoba.

The Quietus talks to Fucked Up bassist Sandy Miranda. The band have two NXNE showcases – 8PM on June 16 at Yonge-Dundas Square and 1AM later that night at Wrongbar.

Hero Hill talks to Joel Plaskett about his EMERGENCYs, false alarms, shipwrecks, castaways, fragile creatures, special features, demons and demonstrations rarities comp, out Tuesday. Plaskett plays a free show at Metro Hall tonight at 8PM.

Rock Feedback interviews Dan Bejar of Destroyer.

Interview sends Win Butler of Arcade Fire to interview Alexander Skarsgard of HBO’s True Blood. Because why not, right?

CBC, NOW, Chart and The Montreal Gazette interview the authors of Have Not Been The Same, the Canadian indie rock document which celebrates its return to in-print status with a Weeping Tile show at Lee’s Palace tonight.

With her new record The Harrow & The Harvest set for a June 28 release, Paste reports that Gillian Welch has scheduled an extensive North American tour that includes a July 25 stop at The Phoenix in Toronto. The Press Democrat has an interview with Welch.

Quite pleased to see that Memory Tapes is taking the occasion of the July 5 release of Player Piano to finally tour up to Toronto, having scheduled an August 13 date at Wrongbar. The band which is essentially one Dayve Hawk is a far more engaging live act than you might expect, as I learned at SXSW 2010. There’s both an MP3 and video from the new record kicking around.

MP3: Memory Tapes – “Today Is Our Life”
Video: Memory Tapes – “Yes I Know”

The Sea & Cake will be in town at Lee’s Palace on November 5 in support of their latest effort The Moonlight Butterfly. The Chicago Tribune talks to Sam Prekop.

MP3: The Sea & Cake – “Up On The North Shore”

The Guardian interviews Justin Vernon of Bon Iver, whose new self-titled album is available to stream a couple weeks before its June 21 release. Bon Iver play The Sound Academy on August 9.

Stream: Bon Iver / Bon Iver

Under The Radar talks to Kelly Crisp of The Rosebuds about her comedy career. She and her band open up for Bon Iver at the aforementioned August 9 Sound Academy show.

Pitchfork talks to the director of TV On The Radio’s latest video from Nine Types Of Light.

Video: TV On The Radio – “You”

Mates Of State will release a new album of original material on September 13 and it will be entitled Mountaintops. Adorableness guaranteed.

Shortlist profiles Interpol.

Shortlist has a feature piece on The Strokes, who curiously still have not announced any significant tour dates for this year. I thought they’d be all over the Summer concert circuit.

Creative Loafing and The Tampa Tribune have interviews with Sleepy Vikings.

Norman Wong I never really liked Katie Stelmanis. I am not referring to the person – I don’t know her but I’m sure she’s lovely – but her musical project which, circa 2008 at least, was named simply for herself. In Spring of that year, I saw her twice in the span of a week and a bit and while I acknowledged that she was up to something interesting with her distinctive, operatic voice and skeletal synth-and-percussion backing, but it wasn’t doing it for me and as such, I didn’t pay much heed to her debut album Join Us. I did note, however, that her musical identity continued to publicly morph – for a while she was going just by her surname, and then adopted the guise of Private Life before changing once again to Austra. And while there’d always been a degree of local chatter about what she was up to, that’s when I heard people really begin to talk.

And putting aside past prejudices to give Feel It Break, her debut as Austra, a listen I could understand why. Stelmanis’ most distinctive characteristic has always been her voice but it needed the proper context. Obviously I didn’t think the classical/medieval/gothic atmosphere of her eponymous project worked, unless unsettling was what she was going for, but in giving Austra a sleek, synth-heavy, New Wave/80s-industrial personality, she’s found a winning formula that balances mystery and experimentalism with melody and accessibility.

It’s interesting how so much of what makes Austra was already there three years ago, including percussionist Maya Postepski, but now with the addition of ex-Spiral Beach bassist Dorian Wolf and a greater focus on making the songs danceable and memorable, it all sounds completely fresh and new. Okay, perhaps that’s not the most accurate way of putting it since what Stelmanis’ was doing in her self-titled days was technically far more original, but giving Austra its more familiar-sounding reference points has inarguably made her better. Enough so that you can consider me convinced, which is honestly not something I ever thought I’d be saying. Back in 2008, when people around town were talking about how great Katie Stelmanis was, all I could say was, “really?”. Now, when people everywhere are talking about how great Austra is, all I can say is, “really”.

Feel It Break is out next Tuesday, May 17, and Austra plays a hometown record release show a couple nights later on May 19 at Lee’s Palace.

MP3: Austra – “Lose It”
MP3: Austra – “The Beat And The Pulse”
Video: Austra – “Lose It”
Video: Austra – “The Beat And The Pulse”
Stream: Austra / Feel It Break

Bruce Peninsula have released installment three in their Fire Sale series; a Pentangle cover that you can both listen to and watch. Open Flames is out in the Fall.

MP3: Bruce Peninsula – “Light Flight”
Video: Bruce Peninsula – “Light Flight”

Southern Souls serves up a video session with Woodpigeon, who in turn have made MP3s of a recent show in Turin, Italy available to download.

MP3: Woodpigeon – “Knock Knock” (live in Turin)

Spinner has an interview with The Rural Alberta Advantage’s Nils Edenloff and has also premiered another Southern Souls-produced live video, this one for “Tornado 87”.

Beatroute and The Vancouver Sun talk to Taylor Kirk of Timber Timbre.

Wood & Wires has posted a couple of basement session videos from The Darcys.

Beatroute, The Winnipeg Free Press, Uptown and The Leader-Post talk to Graham Van Pelt of Miracle Fortress, while aux.tv gets him to unplug for a Camera Music performance. He may be similarly unamplified (or not) when he plays an in-store at Soundscapes this Friday, May 13, at 4PM. He’s at The Phoenix with Junior Boys on June 9.

MP3: Miracle Fortress – “Raw Spectacle”

Chart talks to Fucked Up frontman Damian Abraham about the inadvertent bloodletting that occurred at a recent show, which you can watch for yourself thanks to the magic of YouTube. Exclaim also reports that the band have put up a mixed tape – as in an actual cassette – of Fucked Up rarities, tracks from friends and side-projects and whatnot – for sale in their webstore. Their new album David Comes To Life is out June 7.

The Balconies are finally back with some new material; while a release date for their second album is still forthcoming, a new 7″ a-sided by “Kill Count” will be released on June 14, just ahead of their June 18 NXNE showcase at Sneaky Dee’s.

The Fly invites The Dears into their courtyard for an acoustic session. The notoriously self-serious band also paid Funny Or Die a visit.

With the release this week of The Double Cross, the twentieth anniversary of Sloan is well underway. Blurt has a feature interview with the band, Chart has unearthed a bunch of interviews with the band over their long career and the first of ten tribute videos wherein actors, musicians and general celebrities reminisce about what Sloan has meant to them has been released – so far, there’s “First Heard Sloan” and “Favourite Sloan Song”. They play an in-store this Saturday at Sonic Boom at 4PM and the Mod Club on June 22.

Chad Van Gaalen’s new record Diaper Island is streaming in whole at MuchMusic in advance of its official release next week. He plays The Great Hall on June 18 as part of NXNE.

Stream: Chad Van Gaalen / Diaper Island

Pitchfork has more details on the forthcoming Scenes From The Suburbs CD/DVD set from Arcade Fire. It will be out on August 2.

Exclaim talks to Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s Efrim Manuel Manuck about his various ongoing projects, including the Godspeed reunion and his forthcoming solo record High Gospel, out May 24.

Ticket info for the Weeping Tile/King Cobb Steelie/Have Not Been The Same book release I mentioned a couple weeks back has been revealed – advance tickets will be $18, on sale tomorrow, with proceeds going to the Centre for Addiction & Mental Health.

And some Can-con love across the pond; Drowned In Sound takes a look at what’s happening musically in Toronto right now and The Line Of Best Fit have released their sixteenth (16th) Oh! Canada compilation of downloadable goodness.

Joseph YarmushIt’s almost certainly too much to read an excess of meaning into the title of Malajube’s last albums, but when you’ve only got a (very) rudimentary working knowledge of the French language, you do what you can do. That said, there’s something to the fact that 2009’s Labyrinthes was as dark and dense as the title implied – at least relative to the almost giddily carefree nature of 2006’s Trompe L’Oeil (“deceive the eye” in English, if you were wondering) – and a far less immediate listen. Still, it rated highly enough to score the band its second Polaris Prize shortlist placement in as many records and basically confirm the band as the ambassadors of Francophone rock to the rest of Canada, even if it would be Karkwa who would score the first win for French Canada last year.

Those seeking to find similar meaning in the name of their new record, the just-released La caverne, may be disappointed to learn that it comes not from the dark, subterranean underworld of their collective psyches mined for inspiration but more likely the fact that the album was recorded in a house shaped like a geodesic dome. But listening to the new record you wouldn’t have to go very far to imagine that they decked the studio out with lasers and mirror balls, given it’s surprisingly sleek and dance-friendly vibe. Lead track and single “Synesthésie” gives immediate notice that things are different for the band this time out, applying a fresh shimmer to both guitars and synths and mating them with an irresistible rhythm.

While signature elements like Julien Mineau’s smooth/raspy vocals keep things familiar, La caverne is leaner and more focused than either Trompe-l’oeil or Labyrinthes and also possibly their most immediate. So what happens when a band that’s already twice been acclaimed as having made one of the ten best Canadian records in a year makes their big pop move? Three guesses.

Malajube are currently on tour in Quebec and southern Ontario, with a few US dates thrown in, and will be at The Horseshoe Tavern on May 30. JAM, The Montreal Gazette, aux.tv, Montreal Mirror and The National Post have interviews with the band.

And courtesy of the label, I’ve also got three copies of La caverne on vinyl to give away – to enter, email me at contests AT chromewaves.net with “Je veux la caverne” in the subject line and your full name and mailing address in the body. Contest is open to residents of Canada and closes at midnight, April 28.

MP3: Malajube – “Synesthésie”
Video: Malajube – “Synesthésie”

With the April 26 release – in Canada, anyways – of sophomore album Was I The Wave? nigh, check out one the new Miracle Fortress songs. Americans

MP3: Miracle Fortress – “Raw Spectacle”

Sometime Miracle Fortress-er Adam Waito’s own project Adam & The Amethysts have put out a video from their still-forthcoming second album Flickering Flashlight, due out sometime.

Video: Adam & The Amethysts – “Prophecy”

Pitchfork reports that Arcade Fire are going to let their Suburbs sprawl a little more this Summer, by way of a deluxe CD/DVD package due out on June 27. The DVD component will be the Spike Jonze-helmed mini-feature Scenes From The Suburbs and the CD will be their super-hit album with a couple of new songs added on for extra value.

Fucked Up have released the second of four MP3s leading up to the release of David Comes To Life on June 7 via Matablog, who also have details of a “Buy Early Get Now” presale promotion for the record in which you buy early…

MP3: Fucked Up – “A Little Death”

Caribou has elected to give away the complete recordings of the live Vibration Ensemble set from All Tomorrow’s Parties in upstate New York circa September 2009 – just hit their Soundcloud and make with the downloading. And while you wait, maybe refresh your memory as to what the Vibration Ensemble was with the writeup of their performance in Toronto the week prior.

MP3: Caribou Vibration Ensemble – “Every Time She Turns Round It’s Her Birthday”

Planet Notion interviews Stephen Ramsay of Young Galaxy.

Crawdaddy has got a nice live performance video of The Rural Alberta Advantage in a Toronto church. I don’t think it’s an official video, but it’s nice; it could be. They’re playing the Phoenix on April 29.

Spinner, The Vancouver Sun, dose.ca and The Leader-Post, See check in with Tokyo Police Club as they tour across Canada. Their next local gig is Edgefest at Downsview Park on July 9.

And though it’s their eighth birthday, Toronto label Paper Bag Records are the ones offering the gifts – in the form of True Blue, a free compilation of Madonna covers by their artists, including the aforementioned Young Galaxy and Rural Alberta Advantage, PS I Love You and more, but my favourite would be the title track by Montreal’s Winter Gloves and guest vocalist Hannah Georgas. And as a sidenote, I apparently don’t know nearly as much of Madonna’s oeuvre as I thought I did. And am okay with that.

MP3: Winter Gloves w Hannah Georgas – “True Blue”

Frank YangYou would think that my appreciation of a triple-bill of artists familiar and favoured would be of the “comfort food” variety more than anything else, but Saturday night’s lineup at the Horseshoe featuring Jenn Grant, Rae Spoon and Olenka & The Autumn Lovers offered up more than its share of pleasant surprises.

By rights, Olenka’s superb second album And Now We Sing should have gotten a proper writeup hereabouts by now, but having stuck it on my 2010 year-end list without having uttered a word about it beforehand, it felt like that was the more compelling endorsement. I’ll expand a bit now, though, and say that with this record, the London, Ontario outfit has gone from a Balkan-inflected orchestral folk collective to an astonishingly ambitious and versatile band – the core of their sound remains, but their songs are richer, more melodic and dynamic and able to include heretofore foreign elements like a big rock guitar solo or countrified steel twang and make it feel like the most natural thing in the world. Each song on Sing is its own distinct and fully-realized work but fit perfectly alongside each other, strung together on Olenka Krakus’ rich and rangy voice, to make a whole even greater than the sum of its impressive parts. And this, very briefly, is why And Now We Sing was one of my favourite listens to come out of 2010.

Which brings us back to Saturday night; whereas she played her last show at The Horseshoe last November solo, this time Krakus brought along the Autumn Lover ladies string section – Sara Froese on violin, Kelly Wallraff on cello and both on vocals – and a non-lady (read: guy) on upright bass. Yes indeed, there were a lot of f-holes on stage and accordingly, the song selection leaned towards their more old world eastern European roots both in sound and lyrical theme. Now Krakus is a strong solo performer, but it can’t be overstated how much the strings and more crucially, Froese and Wallraff’s harmonies brought to their sound, nor the fact that even though the band configuration meant that most of my favourite songs from Sing were left out of the set, it was still a wholly satisfying performance. Think about that.

Seeing as how Rae Spoon performs solo, it’s more difficult for him to mix things up but even so, it wasn’t the same show as I saw when he play The Rivoli in November 2009. For starters, that show was in support of his mostly-folky and wholly-beautiful Superioryouareinferior and since then, he’s put out the decidedly more electro-dance Love Is A Hunter and picked up an electric guitar. But even plugged in and backed by a laptop, Spoon couldn’t hide his countrified roots and even made the relative failure to completely reinvent himself as a disco maven a recurring joke throughout the set, amongst many other jokes – he had some top-notch comedic material at the ready. That, and a voice of heart-breaking clarity and a brace of great songs were really all he needed for a successful set.

I had been more than a few years since I saw Halifax’s Jenn Grant, celebrating the release of her third album Honeymoon Punch, in a live setting so it’s entirely possible that she’s grown from fronting a basic four-piece band to leading a six-piece keyboard-loaded musical army… but I am guessing not. Nevertheless, she and her bandmates clearly came set to do full justice to the bouncy, synth-heavy pop of her latest effort – a sound which to these ears, at least, suits her the best of the singer-songwriter/adult-contemporary/folk-jazz styles that she’s touched on over the years. The sophisticated flourishes in her singing and songwriting couldn’t be suppressed if you tried, so having them accent big, hooky tunes that match her own natural effervescence sounds like a no-brainer and make for a pretty terrific record.

The show was front-ended with a mix of older and newer material, keeping the dynamic at a fairly steady keel and if anyone in the packed house had not yet heard the new record, it probably would have felt perfectly familiar for the first while. But a solo turn on Punch‘s gentlest moment, the Sarah Harmer-ish “Paradise Mountain”, marked the start of what was basically a recital of the new record; all of it ended up getting aired and that was absolutely fine with me and, it seemed, the rest of the packed house. Care was taken to reproduce as many of the album’s tones and textures as possible – hence the five-part synth orchestra on “Walk Away” and the marching band tom which Grant took great delight in banging around stage for the outro of main set closer “Stars To Waves”. For the encore, there was a cover of Ron Sexsmith’s “Dragonfly On Bay St” and finally her first single “Dreamer”, before calling it a night and capping a performance that affirmed that if Honeymoon Punch makes Jenn Grant a star – as it rightly should – she’s more than ready to take the call.

The Autumn ringers, which is to say local Torontonian musicians, will sit in with Olenka when she opens up for Mark Berube at The Garrison on March 3 and the full and proper Autumn Lovers will be on hand for their Canadian Musicfest showcases, Friday March 11 at 4PM at a venue to be announced and then 8PM that same night at The Drake Underground. The Vancouver Sun, Northern Life and The Georgia Straight have interviews with Rae Spoon. The Waterloo Record and NOW have features on Jenn Grant.

Photos: Jenn Grant, Rae Spoon, Olenka & The Autumn Lovers @ The Horseshoe – February 19, 2011
MP3: Jenn Grant – “Dreamer”
MP3: Rae Spoon – “Death By Elektro”
MP3: Rae Spoon – “You Can Dance”
MP3: Rae Spoon – “Come On Forest Fire” (CPI Remix)
MP3: Rae Spoon – “There Is A Light”
MP3: Rae Spoon – “Come On Forest Fire Burn The Disco Down”
MP3: Olenka & The Autumn Lovers – “Odessa”
Video: Jenn Grant – “Getcha Good”
Video: Jenn Grant – “You’ll Go Far”
Video: Jenn Grant – “Heartbreaker”
Video: Jenn Grant – “Dreamer”
Video: Rae Spoon – “There is a Light (But It’s Not For Everyone)”
Video: Rae Spoon – “Joan”
Video: Rae Spoon – “Love Is A Hunter”

PS I Love You have released a new MP3 that features a little vocal help from compadre Diamond Rings. PS I Love You is at The Garrison on April 7.

MP3: PS I Love You – “Leftovers” (featuring Diamond Rings)

I don’t recall having seen either of these videos by The Besnard Lakes from The Besnard Lakes Are The Roaring Night – maybe you haven’t either.

Video: The Besnard Lakes – “Albatross”
Video: The Besnard Lakes – “And This Is What We Call Progress”

China Shop talks to Stephen Ramsay of Young Galaxy, who are at Lee’s Palace on March 10 and have made a new remix EP available to download for free.

ZIP: Young Galaxy / Cover Your Tracks

The National Post and JAM caught up with members of Arcade Fire in the immediate wake of last week’s big Grammy win, while New York Magazine addresses the whole “never heard of them” reaction that also occurred in the wake of the big Grammy win. The National Post also has an interview with the band about their collaborative short film with Spike Jonze.

DangerbirdThat The Dears never really realized the lofty expectations that accompanied them when they emerged out of Montreal at the turn of the century really isn’t important. Nor is the fact that they turned out to be more foreshadowing of the great Canadian indie renaissance of the past decade rather than leaders of it, or that the drama surrounding the band and its endlessly changing roster often overshadowed their already-quite dramatic music. All that really matters is that they’re still at it and their new record Degeneration Street is, for my money, their best yet.

That should probably be accompanied by the caveat that I’ve never really been a fan of The Dears. Their early albums, for which they were the most feted, had the sort of grandeur that I liked but was lacking in the hooks that would have kept my attention over the course of their sprawling records. 2006’s Gang Of Losers, while hardly perfect, was the first of their releases that I really warmed to. And even though many found it too conventionally “rock” compared to their more expansive efforts, most would agree that 2008’s murkily rambling Missiles, which bore the fingerprints of its difficult birth (most of the band quit or left during its recording), was a low point for the band.

It may have been a necessary nadir, though, as Degeneration Street finds the band – reconstituted with a number of band members from earlier incarnations – striking a lean and focused balance of rock, soul and prog with plenty of pop and just about the right amount of self-indulgence. Tracks like “5 Chords” and “Thrones” are the sort of soaring, guitar-propelled anthems that far too few Canadian acts even attempt, let alone pull off, while opener “Omega Dog” proves that it’s possible for the band to showcase the scope of their ambitions without taking six-plus minutes to do it and the unexpectedly retro bounce of “Yesteryear” shows they’ve still got some surprises up their sleeves. I’m inclined to give veteran producer Tony Hoffer props for helping the band pull it together, though just as much credit must go to Dears leader Murray Lightburn – a man with a bit of a reputation for being artistically controlling – for allowing someone else to take the reins. It might have taken five albums over eleven years, but The Dears may have finally arrived.

Degeneration Street is out tomorrow and currently streaming in its entirety at aux.tv. The Montreal Gazette has a feature piece on the band and the album will be spotlighted in the first Polaris Record Salon, wherein a Polaris juror argues for the record’s inclusion in this year’s longlist/shortlist/ – it takes place Tuesday night at The Drake Underground and will also feature a live interview with Murray Lightburn and Natalia Yanchak. Doors at 7, starts at 8 and will feature a listening party for the album. And if you’d rather hear them play than see them speak, they will play an in-store at Sonic Boom this coming Thursday evening, February 17, at 7PM – admission free with a donation of canned goods.

MP3: The Dears – “Blood”
Video: The Dears – “Omega Dog”
Stream: The Dears / Degeneration Street

The Guardian has a feature interview with Arcade Fire while Pitchfork has details on their upcoming Scenes From The Suburbs short film, helmed by Spike Jonze. And oh yeah congratulations to the band on last night’s “Album Of The Year” Grammy Award. Wait, who?

aux.tv features Young Galaxy in the latest installment of their Camera Music video session series, while Spinner and Chart talk to the band, who will be taking a pregnancy-induced hiatus at the end of April. Best catch them at Lee’s Palace on March 10 while you can.

The Besnard Lakes tell Spinner they’re going back into the studio to work on their next record as soon as this Summer.

Shad has released a new video from TSOL; he’s playing at The Indie Awards during Canadian Musicfest on March 12.

Video: Shad – “Keep Shining”

Self-Titled talks to Tom Scharpling about directing the latest New Pornographers video. You know which one.

Exclaim reports that Destroyer’s Dan Bejar has an impersonator…. and his name is Dan Bejar. For serious. The real(er) Dan Bejar and his Destroyer crew will be at Lee’s Palace on March 31.

With Drums & Colour interviews Mark Hamilton of Woodpigeon.

Forest City Lovers have announced an April 1 show at The Garrison, where they will be accompanied by Slow Down Molasses and Kite Hill. NOW has a feature on Forest City Lovers’ Kat Burns and her artwork-an-hour An Hour Of My Time art project and she’s got a solo show at Holy Oak on March 3.

MP3: Forest City Lovers – “Light You Up”

The Star Phoenix talks to Mike Belitsky and Planet S to Dallas Good of The Sadies. They’ve got a date at The Mod Club on March 11 with a yet-to-be-announced special headliner.