Frank YangIt’s hardly a polished recording, but this rehearsal space recording of Basia Bulat and her bandmates trying – maybe for the first time – a harmony-laden and plucked violin-enhanced cover of The Strokes’ “Someday” has a certain delightful charm that still brings a smile to my face no matter how many times I’ve listened to it.

And I’ve listened to it a lot, seeing as how I think it dates back to if not before her 2007 debut Oh My Darling. After all, I recall them breaking it out live for the album’s record release show at the Music Gallery in September 2007 when they had completely run out of material but the audience kept calling them back for more.

Clearly they’ve no shortage of material these days, what with last year’s Heart Of My Own doubling her recorded repertoire – not that being two albums into a career has stopped the Juno Awards for nominating her this year for “Best New Artist”. Odd, but an honour nonetheless and it allows her to play a smaller-than-normal show at The Great Hall on March 26 as part of Juno Fest.

As for The Strokes, they’re back this week after a half-decade hiatus with album number four, Angles.

MP3: Basia Bulat – “Someday”
Video: The Strokes – “Someday”

Frank YangFact one: The Radio Dept. are not, by any conventional standard, an exciting live band. Fact two: I was terribly excited to see The Radio Dept. make their live Toronto debut on Monday night. The first point I’d gained first-hand knowledge of when I took a pilgrimage to see them in New York City in May 2009 for what I figured would be my only chance to see the band who’d made some of my favourite records of the past decade live, and so the fact that I was wrong about that and they were finally coming to my own hood cemented point two. And I wasn’t the only one who’d been waiting patiently for this day, judging from the other 500 people who sold out Lee’s Palace for the occasion.

Theirs wasn’t the only Toronto debut happening on this evening, though technically Young Prisms took their first Hogtown stage earlier that afternoon across the street at Sonic Boom for an in-store. Still, this was probably the first introduction for most to the group of San Francisco youngsters who just released their debut album Friends For Now and even for those of us who’d heard them in advance, there were still some revelations. For example, so effectively is the album sonically obscured and wrapped in distortion that I didn’t realize their lead singer was a girl until she took the mic. Live, they were less about the fuzz and more about the pummel, the bass and guitar often working in tandem for a unified, full-frequency drone attack with one or the other occasionally breaking formation to contribute some melody. All of which would have been overly dull if not for the fact that they had some solid pop tunes anchoring it all and a pleasantly goofy demeanour – in particular, they seemed really excited about both the concept and execution of poutine.

The Radio Dept. are about their songs. The writing of and the recording of those heartrendingly sublime synth/fuzz pop gems, first and foremost, and not the performing of or heavens forfend the promotion of, hence their taking years upon years to release a new record and reluctance to take it on the road. But because those records and songs are so good, their fans around the world can’t help but clamour to hear them live and when they oblige, as they’ve done so more frequently in the past couple of years, it’s on their terms. I think this is important to appreciating their show, which is stripped-down to say the least. Playing in near-darkness with Martin Larsson on guitar and bass, Daniel Tjäder on keys and laptop and Johan Duncanson on guitar run through a cheap-as-you-get practice guitar amp, they were clearly not about spectacle.

With the simplicity of their presentation and reliance on pre-recorded backing tracks, they often seemed like they were jamming overtop CDs or drum machines in their basements, making music for the joy of making music, never mind anything else. And that was really what it was – rather than recontextualizing their songs for the stage, it was as if they instead invited the audience into their studio to hear them work. And really, though I’m as much pro-live drummer as anyone you’ll ever meet, it would have just been wrong on many of these songs, whose simple, distorted mechanical rhythms are like their beating hearts. All of which is to say that yes, The Radio Dept. are understated performers – almost to a fault – but it’s how it has to be.

Happily, the audience seemed to understand this and there was no restlessness in the house over the course of the set. In fact, the enthusiasm of the packed house was rather at odds with the band’s reservedness – between the hearty applause after every song, each one someone out there’s favourite, and hollered requests or just thanks, their Scandinavian stoicism cracked more than a few times into smiles or even grins. They may not like touring but that doesn’t mean they can’t enjoy it. In return, they played a set that leaned heavily on their breakthrough Clinging To A Scheme and featured only a couple each from Pet Grief and Lesser Matters, but in keeping with the theme of their Passive Aggressive compilation, long-time fans were still rewarded with a good number of non-album singles and b-sides. At an hour including the one-song encore – the soaring “Pulling Our Weight” b-side “The City Limits” – it was far too short a night with too many wonderful songs left unplayed – especially considering that the odds of them returning soon, if ever, are long at best – but that, like expecting rock moves or extended banter, was the wrong perspective to take. That they were here at all was a gift, and a near-perfect one.

Exclaim also has a review of the show while Toronto Star and The Boston Globe have interviews with The Radio Dept. SF Weekly has an interview with Young Prisms, who are back for a show at Parts & Labour on April 21 supporting The Fresh & Onlys.

Photos: The Radio Dept., Young Prisms @ Lee’s Palace – February 7, 2011
MP3: The Radio Dept. – “On Your Side”
MP3: The Radio Dept. – “The One”
MP3: The Radio Dept. – “The New Improved Hypocrisy”
MP3: The Radio Dept. – “Never Follow Suit”
MP3: The Radio Dept. – “Heaven’s On Fire”
MP3: The Radio Dept. – “Freddie & The Trojan Horse”
MP3: The Radio Dept. – “David”
MP3: The Radio Dept. – “The Worst Taste In Music”
MP3: The Radio Dept – “A Window”
MP3: The Radio Dept – “Pulling Our Weight”
MP3: The Radio Dept. – “Why Won’t You Talk About It?”
MP3: Young Prisms – “Sugar”
MP3: Young Prisms – “Weekends And Treehouses”
Video: The Radio Dept. – “Never Follow Suit”
Video: The Radio Dept. – “The Worst Taste In Music”
Video: The Radio Dept. – “Where Damage Isn’t Already Done”
Video: The Radio Dept. – “Pulling Our Weight”

The Fly talks to Lykke Li, whose Wounded Rhymes arrives March 1. She’s at The Phoenix on May 22 and just released a new/alternate video from said record.

Video: Lykke Li – “I Follow Rivers”

Jonsi has released a video from his live album/video Live At The Wiltern, available digitally only.

Video: Jonsi – “Go Do”

A second Jeff Tweedy solo show has been announced for March 23 at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre; ticket presale goes today at 10AM regular on-sale is Friday. Support for both Tweedy shows and his whole solo tour comes from Toronto’s Snowblink, whose debut Long Live is out next Tuesday and who has an in-store at Soundscapes on March 3 and an album release show at The Music Gallery on March 5.

Basia Bulat will play at The Great Hall on March 26 as part of JunoFest; tickets for the show are $17.50 or free with the $30 JunoFest wristband. And who doesn’t want a JunoFest wristband? They’re like the new LiveStrong wristband. Except not.

MP3: Basia Bulat – “Gold Rush”

Titus Andronicus have assembled a Spring tour that includes an April 1 date at The Horseshoe. Tickets are $11.50, medical bills for the bedlam that will ensue are on you.

MP3: Titus Andronicus – “A More Perfect Union”

The Civil Wars, who’ve just released their debut Barton Hollow, will camp out at the El Mocambo for two night across April 5 and 6, tickets for each show $10.50 in advance.

MP3: The Civil Wars – “Barton Hollow”

Liam Finn will be at Lee’s Palace on April 7 with The Luyas as support. Tickets for the show are $15.

MP3: Liam Finn – “Plane Crash”
MP3: The Luyas – “Tiny Head”

Just as they promised last week when opening for The Decemberists, Wye Oak will be back on April 9 for a show at The El Mocambo. Their new record Civilian will have been out a month and a day by that point. Let’s hope Jenn Wasner’s guitar amp survives the duration of the show this time.

MP3: Wye Oak – “Civlian”

Nashville rock-rockers accumulating quite the buzz overseas Mona will be in town for a free show at The Horseshoe on April 19. Advance word likens them to Kings Of Leon so maybe make plans to get there early or stay far far away. Their self-titled debut is out May 16.

Video: Mona – “Teenager”

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.

jenngrant.comJust to be clear – Haligonian songstress Jenn Grant’s upcoming Toronto show would have been pretty much a must-see regardless. Her latest album Honeymoon Punch is just about the record I’ve been hoping she’d make since she arrived with her debut Orchestra For The Moon in 2007. It sheds some of the overly tasteful production choices that held it and 2009’s Echoes back and gets both breezy and scrappy, pushing the electric guitars up, and introducing synths and nimble rhythms to accompany Grant’s splendid voice and accentuate its playful qualities.

In short, it’s a treat and the opportunity to hear these songs live would have made for a great evening unto itself, but Grant’s gone off and stacked the bill meaning that if you’re anywhere but the Horseshoe Tavern from doors to last call on February 19, it can only be because you are crazy. Opening up the evening will be Calgary’s Rae Spoon, whose 2010 hybrid electro-folk effort Love Is A Hunter surprised and impressed and then you’ll have London’s Olenka & The Autumn Lovers, whose second full-length And Now We Sing may have been an 11th hour add to my year-end list but has more than proven that it belongs in the weeks since. Folks, this will be a superb show and there’s not much else to say besides that tickets are $15 in advance and you should get one.

The Chronicle Herald and Chart have interviews with Jenn Grant while Here chats with Rae Spoon.

MP3: Olenka & The Autumn Lovers – “Odessa”
MP3: Rae Spoon – “Death By Elektro”
Video: Jenn Grant – “Getcha Good”

Earlier that day – 5:30PM to be exact – you can see another Canadian buzz band in Braids as they play an in-store at Sonic Boom in advance of their show at the El Mocambo later that evening in support of Baths. They do pretty much nothing for me but their just-released debut Native Speaker is garnering all kinds of praise so I’m betting people will be interested in seeing them for free (well, for the price of a canned good donation). There’s interviews with the band at Culture Bully and Midnight Poutine, and they just released a new video.

MP3: Braids – “Plath Heart”
Video: Braids – “Plath Heart”

It’s a combination of words that I just can’t reconcile – “The Lowest Of The Low” and “Massey Hall” – and yet those two very things will come together when the Low, whose 2007 dissolution clearly hasn’t taken, play the fanciest stage the city has to offer. Tickets are $29.50 and $49.50 plus fees. The Low. Massey Hall. Crazy-pants.

MP3: The Lowest Of The Low – “Bleed A Little While Tonight”
MP3: The Lowest Of The Low – “Subversives”

Basia Bulat performs a Tiny Desk Concert for NPR.

QRO talks to Greg Alsop of Tokyo Police Club. They play Edgefest 2011 at Downsview Park on July 9.

The Sadies have released a new video from Darker Circles, made with a little help from The Hilarious House of Frightenstein.

Video: The Sadies – “Another Day Again”

Also with a new video are Born Ruffians, who’ve just announced a cross-Canada tour that at present doesn’t include a Toronto date. But there’ll be one. They live here for goodness’ sake. They have to come back eventually.

Video: Born Ruffians – “The Ballad Of Moose Bruce”

Gentleman Reg checks in with NOW from the road and discusses how writing is going for his next album.

NPR, The AV Club, Exclaim, American Songwriter and The Vancouver Sun all have interviews with Dan Bejar of Destroyer about his new record Kaputt. He plays Lee’s Palace on March 31.

The Line Of Best Fit has got another “Oh! Canada” compilation of Can-con goodies available to download. That’s fourteen, if you’re counting.

Ted BoisSometimes you just get a hankering for some Dan Bejar, a need to ride that train of thought through station stops no one else’s visit and which moves at that distinctive languid-yet-mile-a-minute cadence. And while it’s possible to get one’s fix via with his mandatory three-songs per New Pornographers record or various side-projects, it’s Destroyer that offers the best, purest hit of Dan. The catch being that like one of his most obvious influences, David Bowie, you never know what form that hit is going to take from one record to the next.

Having made his perhaps most direct and “rock” work – a very relative statement – with 2006’s Destroyer’s Rubies and followed it up with a record that explored similar if denser terrain with Trouble In Dreams, he’s now made a hard – or maybe that should be soft – left on Kaputt. Guitars remain present but take a back seat to billowing synths, soulful backing vox and slinky sax as the listener is invited into an ’80s-vintage discotheque/lounge as such things exist in the Destroyer-verse. In finding the groove, the record is less inclined to wander and even though a few tracks still exceed the five-minute mark and one, the previously-released “Bay Of Pigs” exceeds eleven, it feels like a much more focused record than past efforts.

Lyrically… well let’s be honest – trying to decipher a Destroyer record has always been somewhat an exercise in futility and Kaputt is no less opaque than its predecessors. But while a micro analysis of the words in play only lead to head-scratching, a more macro view reveals a consistently downcast tone and themes of broken romances, accusations and regrets. One is tempted to wonder if casting such motifs against the musical soundtrack more associated with coupling is a deliberate bit of irony on Bejar’s part or perhaps it’s just coincidence. Whatever his intent, with Kaputt Bejar has pulled off the difficult task of making a record that’s completely different from his past works and yet still classic Destroyer. Which is to say unique, fascinating and worth the time and effort it takes to comprehend.

Kaputt is out tomorrow and Destroyer’s North American tour hits Lee’s Palace on March 31. Pitchfork talks to Dawn Garcia, director of the wonderfully bizarre video for the album’s title track.

MP3: Destroyer – “Chinatown”
Video: Destroyer – “Kaputt”

Metric have released a video for their cover of Buffalo Springfield’s “Expecting To Fly” – it had shown up in some of Emily Haines’ solo live sets but I guess they decided to do a version with the rest of the band. And make a video

Video: Metric – “Expecting To Fly”

As The Dears ramp up to the February 15 release of their new record Degeneration Street, they’ve come out with a new MP3, a video and a chat with Spin and scheduled an in-store at Sonic Boom for February 17 at 7PM – admission free with donation of a canned good.

MP3: The Dears – “Blood”
Video: The Dears – “Omega Dog”

Guttersnipe News and The Calgary Herald have interviews with Sarah Harmer and CBC Radio 2 is streaming her show at Massey Hall last Fall.

Bruce Peninsula frontman Neil Haverty discusses his leukemia treatment with Exclaim; the C For Cure benefit show goes January 29 at the Music Gallery.

eye has an interview with Tokyo Police Club while The AV Club is offering a mashup between them and their current tourmates Two Door Cinema Club… because that’s what tourmates do. Mash. Tokyo Police Club will also be playing the just-announced Edgefest ’11 at Downsview Park on July 9 along with Rise Against, A Perfect Circle, The Weakerthans and more.

MP3: Two Door Tokyo Cinema Cub – “Breakneck Speed Can Work”

Exclaim and Spinner talk to Fucked Up frontman Damian Abraham about his new gig as host of The Wedge (premiering this Wednesday) and his band’s new album/musical David Comes To Life, which is targeted for a May release.

Spinner chats with Nils Edenloff and Amy Cole of The Rural Alberta Advantage, whose new record Departing will be out March 1 and which has already yielded this terrific new video.

Video: The Rural Alberta Advantage – “Stamp”

Exclaim reports that Basia Bulat will be teaming up with the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra for a performance at Hamilton Place Studio Theatre on February 3 – though similar in concept to her performance with Symphony Nova Scotia at the Halifax Pop Explosion, Owen Pallett has re-written the arrangements for this show to suit the philharmonic and the venue. Tickets for the show are $23 in advance and $25 at the door.

Clash declares Suuns to be a band to watch in 2011, and you can do just that when they play Sonic Boom on January 29 at 4PM and then open for The Besnard Lakes across the street at Lee’s Palace later that evening. The Concordian also has an interview.

The Toronto Star profiles Diamond Rings, kicking off his tour opening for Robyn at The Sound Academy on January 26.