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.

jmonae.comBack in mid-December, I pointed out that the website for the 2011 edition of Canadian Musicfest had gone live with the first batch of showcasing artists for the festival. And while there was enough in that initial list to get my attention, in the last couple of weeks the information available has really ramped up and, methinks, another round-up of acts who will be filling Toronto clubs from March 9 to 13 is in order.

Perhaps most exciting is the return of cyber-soul firecracker Janelle Monáe, though if you were hoping to see her play a conventional headlining show then “frustrating” might be the more accurate word. She made Canadian debut last Summer on Olympic Island as part of the Arcade Fire mini-fest and this time she’s performing as part of the CMW/CMF-associated Indie Awards, the exact mandate of which I’ve never understood. But whatever the reason, Monáe will top a bill that also includes Shad, Hollerado, Bombay Bicycle Club, Hannah Georgas and Desperate Union. Obviously, it’s an awards ceremony as well as a show, but my understanding is that Monáe, at least, will play a full set so the $30 ticket price would still be worth it; a festival wristband will also get you in. The Indies take place in the Canadian Room of the Royal York on March 12.

Other “big” shows that week: Land Of Talk, Hollerado, Cadence Weapon, Isis (ex. Thunderheist) and Little Scream show at the Opera House on March 10 (already reported I know), admission $18 or with a wristband. For those who like dudes with their hair hanging over their faces while they play guitar, the pairing of J Mascis and Kurt Vile at The Great Hall on March 11 is not to be missed – that one’s limited wristbands, advance tickets $27.50. It won’t get roots-rockier than Dawes and Deer Tick to say nothing of their Voltron-like supergroup Middle Brother (which includes Matt Vasquez of Delta Spirit), all three of whom will be at the Opera House on March 11, all wristbands accepted or $18.50 for advance tickets.

Also noteworthy and festival-related if not necessarily in my wheelhouse – a Big Sugar reunion at the Sound Academy, Good Charlotte at the Phoenix, Melissa Etheridge at Massey Hall – all on the Friday, March 11 – and the can’t miss (with a rocket launcher, ideally) pairing of Buckcherry and Papa Roach at the Sound Academy on March 12. Something for everyone? And less renowned/reviled but of more interest to me – Brits Esben & The Witch (date/place TBA) and Anna Calvi (Wrongbar, March 11), Australians The Jezebels (Lee’s Palace, March 11) and surely many more that still haven’t been announced – they’re expecting some 800 showcasing bands when all’s said and done and the official artist list is only at around 560. Of course, as always, it’s logistics that will ultimately determine what I end up seeing – the schedule has just started going up and already, I’m seeing some tough choices that are going to have to be made about where to be and when.

And let’s not even get started on the fact that SxSW’s showcase listings are slowly coming together.

MP3: Land Of Talk – “Swift Coin”
MP3: Dawes – “Love Is All I Am”
MP3: Esben & The Witch – “Warpath”
MP3: Anna Calvi – “Jezebel”
MP3: The Jezebels – “Mace Spray”
Video: Janelle Monáe – “Tightrope”

I mentioned a little while back that the release of Bruce Peninsula’s second album was on the back burner while frontman Neil Haverty was being treated for acute promyelocytic leukemia; now his friends and bandmates are staging a fundraiser to help mitigate some of the financial burdens of being ill. On January 29, two fundraisers will be held at the Music Gallery – a matinee show with Snowblink, Kith & Kin, The Deep, Steve McKay and Lake Andrew Drowning and an evening show with Timber Timbre, Austra (former BP-er Katie Stelmanis newly signed to Domino) and Evening Hymns. Admission is a $10 suggested donation for the matinee and $20 for the evening show, or if you just want to donate a PayPal account has been set up. More details at the Facebook event.

MP3: Timber Timbre – “Demon Ghost”
MP3: Austra – “The Beat & The Pulse”
MP3: Evening Hymns – “Broken Rifle”
MP3: Snowblink – “Ambergris”

If Do Make Say Think’s show at the Drake Underground during Boxing Week was too big or expensive for you, take heart – they’ll be going smaller, cheaper (free with canned good) and just as below grade with an in-store at Sonic Boom on February 3.

MP3: Do Make Say Think – “Other Truths album mix”

Halifax’s Jenn Grant will be bringing her shiny new record Honeymoon Punch – which finds her going a little less jazzy and a little more poppy with great results – at the Horseshoe on February 19, advance tickets $15. The National Post and aux.tv have features on Grant, who’s just released a new video from the album.

Video: Jenn Grant – “Getcha Good”

Broken Social Scene’s January 18 show at Terminal 5 in New York City will be broadcast live on YouTube starting at 9PM.

QTV has a video interview with Feist.

Volume 1 Brooklyn talks books with Owen Pallett.

eye puts Tokyo Police Club on this week’s cover and solicits their New Year’s resolutions in honour of Saturday’s show at the Kool Haus.

Beatroute has an interviews with Dan Bejar while NOW talks to one of the Toronto-based horn players who’s all over Destroyer’s new record Kaputt. out January 25. They’ll play Lee’s Palace on March 31.

Nils Edenloff of The Rural Alberta Advantage discusses the inspiration behind the song “Tornado ’87” with Spinner. Said song appears on their new album Departing, out March 1.

Fucked Up frontman Damian Abraham talks to eye about his new gig as veejay of MuchMusic’s back-from-the-dead alternative nation show The Wedge which returns to the air on January 26 at 10PM, and to Chart about the new Fucked Up record David Comes To Life, which could be out as soon as May.

Frank YangMost everyone in Toronto has some personal bar for which they’ll swallow their disdain and trek down to the port lands to see a show at the Sound Academy. Some less discerning about where they see a show will accept the logistical hassles and lousy sightlines as a the price that must be paid to see acts who’ve reached that “yeah we can draw 3000 people” plateau, whereas others would probably still hem and haw if you gave them the opportunity to see a reunited (albeit half-zombie) Beatles.

I lean more towards the latter than the former but have still been persuaded to head down three times this year, the latest this past Thursday evening for the first of two nights from Toronto’s own reigning indie rock heroes, Broken Social Scene. Not that they were the draw – I’d seen them three times already this year without even trying and my relationship with the band remains tepid. No, they got me down there the same way they probably got no small number of folks down there – by having Superchunk to open.

Just as when they teamed up with another set of resurrected college rock legends back in the Summer – Pavement on the islands, if you’ll recall – I’m sure that their intentions were noble, hoping to introduce some of today’s indie kids to their musical forebears, even if those who’d been waiting the longest for their return to town would have much preferred a full-length show of their own in comfier environs. But this is what it was and at least there was a good-sized crowd in place when the North Carolinans greeted Toronto for the first time in over nine years (their Mac-and-Jim acoustic in-store earlier that afternoon notwithstanding). And even if some of the kids had already gotten a primer on the band via their most excellent comeback album Majesty Shredding, their opening number was for the oldsters as they reached way back to 1991’s No Pocky For Kitty for “Throwing Things”.

Majesty material would comprise a third of their too-short 50-minute set, the rest coming from all points of their expansive catalog and all delivered with an energy that would have embarrassed bands half their age. It wasn’t the bull-out-of-the-gates performance they gave at Matador 21 in Vegas, wherein they basically stole the weekend and incited a pogo pit for the ages, but it was a great set that – sorry to harp on it – should have gone twice as long. I’d have liked to say that they converted everyone in attendance to ravening fans, but aside from a moderate number of pockets of people freaking out – moreso during “Slack Motherfucker” because everyone likes to swear at the top of their lungs – the response was good but not overwhelming. This was still clearly Broken’s audience and everyone else, no matter how legendary in their own right, was still just support.

There are some parallels between Superchunk and Broken Social Scene – both are revered bands who’ve started successful record labels – and they’re not that far apart in age, there’s some distance between the ‘Chunk’s concise and melodic archetypal college rock and Broken Social Scene’s sprawling kitchen sink jams. It’s like punks versus hippies, and the hippies were going to have themselves a love-in.

BSS opened up relatively small, with “World Sick” from this year’s Forgiveness Rock Record and just the now-core members on stage, but restraint is never in the cards for long at a Broken Social Scene hometown show. By the third song, the sublime “7/4 (Shoreline)” from their 2005 self-titled effort, the number of players had already ballooned into double figures and they’d made good on promises of having the whole family in attendance as Leslie Feist and a very pregnant Stars’ Amy Millan came out to trade verses and Metric’s Jimmy Shaw joined the expansive horn section.

Broken Social Scene’s modus operendi has always been to indulge in the chaos in order to extract the beauty, to throw everything/everyone on stage and let their chemistry do the rest, and the pros and cons of that approach were well on display throughout the night. The set didn’t seem to have been assembled with any particular arc in mind with the momentum building and ebbing from song to song and some recontextualized songs didn’t work as well as they’d probably hoped – “Super Connected” was dragged out to the point that the hooks lost their pointedness and trading the lead guitar on “Forced To Love” for flute was just weird. The sound man was probably living a nightmare trying to keep up with the constant stream of performers grabbing mics at random and while he did a commendable job, there were points when the lead vocalist was inaudible to the house. Also in the con column was Kevin Drew’s between song chatter, which I’ve personally never warmed to, as he rambled aimlessly, emceed the comings and goings of band members and towards the end, announced he was going to crowd surf as though he was about to walk on water. Dude, you just do it.

For all that, though, when Broken got it right, they made it clear why after all these years they still hold the hearts and minds of Toronto music fans so. Though still “the new girl”, Lisa Lobsinger was terrific on her Forgiveness lead turn “All To All” and then teaming with Amy Millan on perpetual BSS high point “Anthems For a Seventeen-Year-Old Girl”, while Feist proved why she’s become the biggest star in the Broken Solar System leading the massive band through a rousing reading of her own “I Feel It All” while making you wish that she’d just rock out once in a while. And for all that they’ve done since 2002, it was still You Forgot It In People that really gave the evening its heart. Songs like “Cause=Time”, “KC Accidental” and “Almost Crimes” continue to dazzle in a way that you just can’t put your finger on and have lost none of their magic, in particular the ability to silence those who’d otherwise criticize and complain at length about Broken Social Scene.

Their set was well past the the 90-minute mark before they closed out with a massive, super-extended, false ending after false ending version of Forgiveness instrumental jam “Meet Me In The Basement” and even though many were clearing out at that point, those who stayed got an extended (of course) encore that took things close to the two and a half hour mark before calling it a night. I’m at peace with the fact that I will probably never love Broken the way that thousands, apparently, still do – which is to say that I am at peace with the fact that it will never be 2003 again – but come for the Superchunk, stay for the Broken Social Scene? I can still do that.

eye, Chart and NOW also have reviews of the show. Spinner talks to Superchunk’s Mac McCaughan about his/their relationship with Broken Social Scene and Toronto. Metro, Centre Town News, aux.tv and Spinner talk to various Broken Socialites.

Photos: Broken Social Scene, Superchunk @ The Sound Academy – December 9, 2010
MP3: Broken Social Scene – “World Sick”
MP3: Broken Social Scene – “Fire Eye’d Boy”
MP3: Broken Social Scene – “Hotel”
MP3: Superchunk – “Digging For Something”
MP3: Superchunk – “Misfits & Mistakes”
MP3: Superchunk – “Never Too Young To Smoke”
MP3: Superchunk – “Rainy Streets”
MP3: Superchunk – “Becoming A Speck”
MP3: Superchunk – “Pink Clouds”
MP3: Superchunk – “Detroit Has A Skyline” (acoustic)
MP3: Superchunk – “Nu Bruises”
MP3: Superchunk – “Skip Steps 1 & 3”
Video: Broken Social Scene – “Texico Bitches”
Video: Broken Social Scene – “Forced To Love”
Video: Broken Social Scene – “Meet Me In The Basement”
Video: Broken Social Scene – “7/4 (Shoreline)”
Video: Broken Social Scene -“Fire Eye’d Boy”
Video: Broken Social Scene – “Ibi Dreams Of Pavement (A Better Day)”
Video: Broken Social Scene – “Her Disappearing Scene”
Video: Broken Social Scene – “Major Label Debut”
Video: Broken Social Scene – “Cause = Time”
Video: Broken Social Scene – “Almost Crimes”
Video: Broken Social Scene – “Anthems For A Seventeen Year-Old Girl”
Video: Broken Social Scene – “Lover’s Spit”
Video: Broken Social Scene – “I’m Still Your Fag”
Video: Superchunk – “Digging For Something”
Video: Superchunk – “Art Class”
Video: Superchunk – “Watery Hands”
Video: Superchunk – “Hyper Enough”
Video: Superchunk – “Driveway To Driveway”
Video: Superchunk – “The First Part”
Video: Superchunk – “Precision Auto”
Video: Superchunk – “Untied”
Video: Superchunk – “Package Thief”
Video: Superchunk – “Mower”
Video: Superchunk – “Throwing Things”
Video: Superchunk – “Fishing”
Myspace: Broken Social Scene
Myspace: Superchunk

Frank YangWho: Broken Social Scene
What: They’re that band from Toronto. You know the one. You probably know someone who’s been in the band. You may have even been in the band yourself. Very few people in this city are more than three degrees removed from Broken Social Scene.
Why: Ostensibly they’re still touring behind this year’s Forgiveness Rock Record but these two-night hometown stands in December are pretty much a tradition now, whether or not there’s a record to promote. Toronto loves Broken and Broken loves Toronto and as Kevin Drew will probably say about 40 times over the course of their set, it’s all about the love.
When: Friday, December 10, 2010
Where: The Sound Academy in Toronto (all-ages)
Who else: Still to be announced
How: Tickets for the show are $31.50 in advance but courtesy of Canvas Media, I’ve got one prize pack to give away consisting of a pair of passes to the show, a Broken Social Scene t-shirt and a copy of their 2004 odds-and-sods compilation Bee Hives on CD. To enter, email me at contests AT chromewaves.net with “I want my Social Scene Broken” in the subject line and your full name, mailing address and t-shirt gender/size in the body and have that in to me before midnight, December 5.

MP3: Broken Social Scene – “World Sick”
Video: Broken Social Scene – “Meet Me In The Basement”

FacebookOf all of the remarkable things that Feist has done in the past few years, one of the most impressive is managing to go from a state of almost complete ubiquity circa The Reminder to one of relative obscurity. Over the last two years, there’ve been the occasional guest appearance on others’ records and even rarer live appearances with Broken Social Scene, but by and large she’s done a fine job of keeping a low profile – presumably working on a new record but no one really knows.

That profile has risen again of late with the upcoming release of Look At What The Light Did Now, a documentary film culled from footage taken during The Reminder tour. Coming out on DVD on December 7 with an accompanying CD of recordings taken from and around the film, it received a hometown screening last night at the Royal Ontario Museum… which probably seemed like a good idea but proved to be an almost disastrous one thanks to the horrible acoustics in the main atrium. But if there was an upside to it, it was that you were forced to pay almost unnatural attention to the film to extract anything comprehensible from the echo- and reverb-drenched audio.

With regards to the film itself, some have questioned if there’s really a need for a Feist documentary when her career isn’t a decade old, and if Light was a biography of any sort, it’d be a valid question. But rather than focus on Leslie Feist the person, it spends most of its running time examining the art around The Reminder – not only the songs and the album itself, but everything surrounding it. The portion focusing on Clea Minaker’s shadow puppet/projections were particularly fascinating; I already regretted not seeing any of The Reminder shows – I last saw Feist perform way back in the Summer of 2005 – and now regret it even more now that I see what I missed.

Other segments recounted the recording of The Reminder in France, the filming of videos for “1, 2, 3, 4”, “I Feel It All” and “Mushaboom”, the last of which is not Reminder period-correct but offered some terrific anecdotes from director Patrick Daughters, and the assemblage of the artwork for The Reminder. Though there were some segments focusing on her early days and ascendancy to stardom, they were kept to a minimum, as were the behind the scenes tour footage that’re typically the bread and butter of musician docs (though the scenes of Feist and her band and crew playing ball hockey was pretty great). Instead, the topic of who she is and how she got where she is was left to be implied by her work, how she approaches her work and how and why she works with others. In focusing on the what and how rather than the who, Look At What The Light Did Now manages to be an engaging and entertaining document of one of Canada’s biggest and brightest musical stars while barely acknowledging that fact.

And in the Q&A with Feist following the screening, the inevitable question of “when is the next record coming” was raised and all that she’d offer in return was that she’d be recording over the Winter – based on that, I wouldn’t expect a new album before next Fall.

Video: Feist & Little Wings – “Look At What The Light Did Now”
Trailer: Look At What The Light Did Now

Kevin Drew of Broken Social Scene talks about the KC Accidental days with Spinner. Broken plays the Sound Academy on December 9 and 10.

Planets profiles Dan Mangan.

The Guardian talks to Dan Snaith of Caribou.

Away from the city for far too long – she played here four times in eight months circa Neptune City – Nicole Atkins returns to Toronto for a show at the Horseshoe on February 26 with support coming from Cotton Jones; tickets $15 in advance. Her new record Mondo Amore arrives January 25.

MP3: Nicole Atkins – “Vultures”
MP3: Cotton Jones – “Gotta Cheer Up”

Keren Ann 101, the new record from, Keren Ann will be out February 21 – the rather divine first single “My Name Is Trouble” is currently streaming at her website.

John Vanderslice has set a Janury 25 release date for his next record, which will bear the title of White Wilderness, a record recorded over three days with the assistance of the Bay Area Magik*Magik Orchestra.

The Depreciation Guild have released a new video from their latest Spirit Youth.

Video: The Depreciation Guild – “Blue Lily”

Prefix and The Toledo Blade chat with Craig Finn of The Hold Steady.