Emily BergerWhile it’s true that Toronto’s days of having a BIG annual music festival out on the islands appear to be over – the locally-grown, Wavelength-affiliated ALL CAPS fest has been more then happy to step in for those needing to combine a ferry crossing with live music to make their Summer worthwhile.
Since their inaugural edition in 2009, they’ve put together bills that have showcased a lot of local and a little bit of imported talent, combined with art and film components and as of last year, overnight camping but this year’s lineup – set to take place on August 11 and 12 at Gibraltar Point – has quite surprised me with its all-out aggressiveness.
The first night is headlined by Montreal’s Yamantaka//Sonic Titan, whom I’m not going to try and find new words to describe but were a real highlight of NXNE, with an eclectic undercard consisting of Maylee Todd, Choir! Choir! Choir!, Tyvek, Wet Hair, and Esther Grey. The Sunday night will be closed out by Brooklyn noise-and-strobe freaks A Place To Bury Strangers, following sets from Lioness, OG Melody, Young Mother, and Canadian Winter. Many/most of these acts are only peripherally known to me – if that – so I suggest checking out the Wavelength site for capsule descriptions, but I will say that they won’t be boring. Unless you’re bored of interesting things.
A limited number of two-day passes including camping on the island are available for $65, two-day passes that force you to go home and sleep in your own bed on Saturday night will run you $30 and single-day tickets are a very reasonable $17; ferry tickets are not included in the price. They go on sale on July 12 but you can also get them now via the IndieGogo fundraising site. And while Gibraltar Point is way on the other end of the islands from the residences at Ward’s Island and faces out into the lake, I can’t help but hope that there’s a southwesterly wind that wafts just a little bit of Oliver Ackermann’s sonic armageddon over their cottages. Just a little.
Guitar World, The Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star, and CultureMob talk to Ackermann about the new APTBS album Worship.
MP3: A Place To Bury Strangers – “You Are The One”
MP3: Lioness – “The Night”
MP3: Choir! Choir! Choir! – “I Want It That Way”
Video: Yamanta//Sonic Titan – “Hoshi Neko”
Video: Maylee Todd – “Heart Throb”
Video: OG Melody – “Change Gon Come”
Interview and The Georgia Straight profile Japandroids, who’ve made another couple track from Celebration Rock available to download.
MP3: Japandroids – “The Nights Of Wine And Roses”
MP3: Japandroids – “Younger Us”
Daytrotter has posted a session with Memoryhouse.
Rolling Stone and NPR profile Metric, bringing it home to the Air Canada Centre on November 14.
Brightest Young Things and The AV Club talk to Spencer Krug of Moonface.
Exclaim gets Brian Borcherdt to discuss the state of Holy Fuck even as he focuses on his new project Dusted, whose debut Total Dust is out on Tuesday, is available to stream now at Chart, and they open up for Chad VanGaalen at The Mod Club on July 26.
MP3: Dusted – “(Into The) Atmosphere”
Stream: Dusted / Total Dust
Beatroute and Chart have interviews with Vancouver’s Chains Of Love.
NPR gets into Americana with Neil Young, adding a World Cafe session on top of the Fresh Air interview.
The Mountain Goats celebrate their 40,000th Twitter follower by giving away an old demo track.
MP3: The Mountain Goats – “All Devils All Devils”
That first preview of the new Antlers EP Undersea is now available to download. It’s out July 24.
MP3: The Antlers – “Drift Dive”
DIY and Prefix have features on Dirty Projectors, in town tonight at the Danforth Music Hall.
Spinner talks to Alexis Krauss of Sleigh Bells.
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