Ryan MarrToronto’s Forest City Lovers began essentially as a pseudonym for singer-songwriter Kat Burns, and while ably assisted by members of Toronto’s burgeoning music community her debut The Sun & The Wind was accordingly spare, but still gave hints to her broader pop ambitions. 2008’s Haunting Moon Sinking found Forest City Lovers no longer a pseudonym but a proper band and accordingly, it was a much fuller and rangier affair with a few moments of pure pop bounce amidst the more contemplative numbers. It made clear that talent-wise, Forest City Lovers had the potential to be one of the city, if not the country’s, finer pop bands though to make the grab for that brass ring seemed at odds with the understated charm that seemed to be such a fundamental part of their appeal. How would they reconcile that, if at all?

The answer comes in the form of Carriage. Their third album, released this week, is the sort of record that you always hope that a band you believe in will make, but don’t really expect for fear of being disappointed. Somehow Forest City Lovers have managed to make a game-changer of an album without actually changing their game – the core of their sound, Burns’ insightful and evocative lyrics delivered with her gentle, hint-of-smoke vocals, are intact and front and centre but this time out they’re cast against type in some big pop arrangements and damn if they don’t more than rise to the challenge.

Bookended by different versions of both sides of last year’s Phodilus and Tyto 7″, Carriage comes with a wealth of fresh ideas and it seems the more unexpected the turn, the more rewarding the outcome. Perhaps the best example of this is the confidently off-kilter “Minneapolis”, whose two minutes and forty seconds boasts one of the most infectious choruses you’re likely to hear anywhere this year. It’s pretty much the sort of song that you’d have thought Forest City Lovers would be great at but never would have expected them to write, and that feeling of both surprise and satisfaction permeates the record. The presence of new drummer Christian Ingelevics is surely a big part of the album’s heightened energy – he’s certainly brought such to their live show – and perhaps the decision to work with an outside producer for the first time is also part of it, though the record still maintains much of the of intimate, unvarnished vibe of the earlier recordings. But I think that most of the growth on Carriage can be attributed to a band that was simply ready to take that next step and decided to make it a huge leap forward. So very, very rewarding.

I Heart Music also has a review of the album and is offering a download of “Minneapolis”, also his pick as the key song on the record. Exclaim couples their review with a quick interview and Soundproof, The National Post and Chart have features on the band. Forest City Lovers start a three-week North American tour this weekend and will play a hometown record release show at the Great Hall on August 12, preceded by an in-store at Soundscapes on August 10, before heading back out on the road in September.

MP3: Forest City Lovers – “Light You Up”
MP3: Forest City Lovers – “If I Were A Tree”
Video: Forest City Lovers – “If I Were A Tree”
MySpace: Forest City Lovers

Left-field Vancouver art-poppers Apollo Ghosts are touring their Polaris Prize-nominated album Mount Benson right across Canada and are making two stops in Toronto – on July 27 for an in-store performance at Criminal Records at 7PM and then after hitting the east coast, will double back and wrap things up on August 6 at Sneaky Dee’s with Dog Day.

MP3: Apollo Ghosts – “Coka Cola Admen”
MP3: Apollo Ghosts – “Things You Go Through”

The Take interviews The Balconies.

Chart talks to The Sadies, who will ring in Canada Day with a free show at Harbourfront Centre tonight.

Great Lake Swimmers have released a new video from last year’s Lost Channels.

Video: Great Lake Swimmers – “River’s Edge”

Also with a new video are Black Mountain, whose Wilderness Heart is out September 14. They’re at the Horseshoe on July 23.

Video: Black Mountain – “Old Fangs”

The Line Of Best Fit talks to Mark Hamilton of Woodpigeon. They’ll be back in town on October 6 to play a free noon-hour show at Yonge-Dundas Square.

Washington City Paper and Philadelphia Weekly talk to Carl Newman of The New Pornographers, whose performance in Washington DC last week is available to stream over at NPR.

Pornographer going solo Kathryn Calder has released another MP3 from her forthcoming debut Are You My Mother?, out August 10.

MP3: Kathryn Calder – “Arrow”

CBC, Chart and Exclaim interview members of Stars. They are at Massey Hall on October 23.

John O’Regan of Diamond Rings offers The Line Of Best Fit a guide to his Toronto.

The Vancouver Sun talks to Shad, who’s at the Kool Haus on October 1.

Clash interviews Emily Haines of Metric. The video for their Twilight theme song is now available to swoon at. They’re at the Molson Amphitheatre on Friday, July 9

Video: Metric – “Twilight (All Yours)”

Supporting Metric on that show are Holy Fuck; hour.ca has an interview.

Rae Spoon will release Love Is A Hunter, the follow up to 2008’s excellent Superioryouareinferior, on August 17 and the first MP3 is available to download.

MP3: Rae Spoon – “You Can Dance”

The Hidden Cameras will play two intimate shows at the Lower Ossington Theatre on August 5 and 6 as part of the Summerworks theatre and film festival. According to Chart, they will be taking the opportunity to reimagine their last album Origin: Orphan as a theatrical work. Tickets for the shows are just $10.

MP3: The Hidden Cameras – “Walk On”

Half of this Take-Away Show with Land Of Talk was posted a couple weeks ago but the second video posted at Le Blogotheque, presumably a track from Cloak & Cipher, is the real jaw-dropper. So very excited for this record, which will be out August 24.

Exclaim talks to members of Wolf Parade.

PunkNews interviews Mike Haliechuk of Fucked Up.

Harbourfront Centre’s Love Saskatchewan festival will feature free performances from Rah Rah and Library Voices on July 23 and July 25, respectively. And with lots of Saskatchewan-related goodness in between.

Tourisme Montreal talks to Basia Bulat, who was there last week for the Montreal Jazz Festival.

Wired interviews Scott Pilgrim director Edgar Wright and star Michael Cera. Hilarity ensues. Pitchfork also talks to Broken Social Scene’s Brendan Canning about their contributions to the film soundtrack.

The National Post examines the state of the Summer concert season.

Happy Canada Day, everyone. I am marking this auspicious occasion by leaving the country. I’m off to New York City for an extended long weekend – I think these are called vacations. We’ll see how it goes.

Christine LimThough not technically related, yesterday afternoon’s announcement of this year’s Polaris Music Prize long list in the midst of all the NXNE hubbub was no coincidence. What better time to reveal the consensus cream of the Can-con crop than in the smack dab in the middle of one of the biggest festivals and conferences in the country? A perusal of the 40 albums that made the cut reveals a lot of the names I’d have expected, based on factors such as public profile, track record and oh yeah, artistic merit, though some others that I thought might have eked onto the list are absent and others that I thought would have been too under the radar to gather sufficient support have moved onto the next round.

Net result? An interesting and diverse list of albums that should provide sufficient grist for acclaim, angst and analysis, at least until the short list when it’s announced on July 6, and then the fun part – endless back and forth about which of the ten finalists should take home the $20,000 cheque – begins and continues until the winner is announced on September 20. For my part, since I was on the Grand Jury in 2008, my duties end this year with submission of my second ballot in a week’s time. And considering that I’ve only got one record from the first ballot that’s not still in the running and a pool of 36 records to choose from, that should be relatively easy. What’s that? What was on my first ballot? Well I’m glad you asked. In order, they were:

1. Shad / TSOL
In a perfect world, my Polaris ballot would write itself. Albums up for the title of “best in Canada” should announce themselves as such and not give you the option to not include it. Not a lot of records do this, but Shad’s third album did. Its blend of heart, humour and hooks are irresistible. TSOL demands its place on the long list, will almost certainly find its way on the short list and I give it good odds of going all the way.

MP3: Shad – “Yaa I Get It”

2. Reverie Sound Revue / Reverie Sound Revue
I knew this album wouldn’t make the long list without some sort of divine intervention, but with each successive listen in the year or so since its release, it has won me over more and more. What it has is understatedly clever wordplay delivered by Lisa Lobsinger’s perfectly matched vocals overtop impeccably conceived and arranged jazzy pop sounds, and the fact that very little out there does what they do this well, from any country. What it doesn’t have is a band able to tour or otherwise promote it as it deserved, and that’s why I’m looking for a new fifth album for ballot #2. But this album should be heard.

MP3: Reverie Sound Revue – “Arrows”

3. Owen Pallett / Heartland
Just five years in, repeat short list nominees are hardly uncommon but we haven’t had a repeat winner yet. And with the name change before this record’s release, pedants could argue it wouldn’t be a repeat, but I digress. Truth is I don’t even know how much I like it – there’s so much going on that even months on I find myself overwhelmed and still haven’t fully absorbed it – but the artistic ambition and achievement of it transcends subjective opinion.

Video: Owen Pallett – “Lewis Takes His Shirt Off”

4. Dan Mangan / Nice, Nice, Very Nice
What I said about the Shad record applies here as well, though not quite as emphatically. Some naysayers have criticized Mangan’s album for being just another indie-folk singer-songwriter record and technically, they’re quite correct. Which is why the degree to which Nice, Nice was able to stick and resonate for so long marks it as noteworthy. There’s unquestionably something going on here above and beyond what you get on paper.

MP3: Dan Mangan – “Road Regrets”

5. Basia Bulat / Heart Of My Own
Any reservations I had about nominating Basia’s second album amounted to it being so similar to Oh, My Darling and not yet being the masterpiece statement that I’m sure she has in her. But then I listened to it – and “The Shore” – again and tossed those reservations out the window. I don’t know that I’d go to the wall for it as best album of the year, but thankfully I don’t have to.

MP3: Basia Bulat – “Gold Rush”

Chart talks basketball and TSOL with Shad, who’s at the Kool Haus with K’Naan on October 1.

The Toronto Star, JAM and Metro interview The Besnard Lakes.

Pitchfork talks to Black Mountain’s Stephen McBean. Their new record Wilderness Heart is out September 14 and they preview it at The Horseshoe on July 23.

Torq Campbell of Stars goes through The Five Ghosts, out next week, song-by-song for The National Post while Amy Milan talks about the new album with Dose.ca.

The Toronto Star and The Globe & Mail and Vancouver Sun talk Twilight with Metric, who recorded an acoustic video session for The Fly. They’re at the Molson Amphitheatre on July 9.

Ca Va Cool interviews The Meligrove Band. Their new record Shimmering Lights is out September 21.

Filter Q&A’s Tokyo Police Club, who’re at the Molson Amphitheatre on July 8.

Check out this Takeaway Show with Land Of Talk, whose new record Cloak & Cipher is out August 24. hour.ca has a conversation with Liz Powell.

Wolf Parade are streaming the whole of their new record Expo 86 at their MySpace in advance of its June 29 release.

Stream: Wolf Parade / Expo 86

Diamond Rings has released the video for his new single – the most elaborate one so far – just in time for the 12″ release at Wrongbar tonight. He’s on at 11 and a certain peacock costume may well be making an appearance. His debut full-length Special Affections will be out in the Fall.

Video: Diamond Rings – “Show Me Your Stuff”

The Balconies have released the first video from their self-titled debut; they play the Wine & Spirits Festival in the Distillery District on Saturday evening.

Video: The Balconies – “Serious Bedtime”

A few show announcements to cap off the week – after first cancelling the Toronto date and then the whole tour back in May, reunited shoegaze forebears Chapterhouse have re-booked their North American tour for this Fall and T.O. is back on the agenda – this time it’s set for October 6 at Lee’s Palace, again with Ulrich Schnauss supporting.

Video: Chapterhouse – “Pearl”

If you look at my schedule for SxSW in March, you will see no less than seven Local Natives shows marked down, some of them flagged as “high priority”. Needless to say, I missed them all. I’ll finally get to make that up on October 19 when the Los Angeles outfit bring Gorilla Manor to town for a show at the Mod Club, tickets $17.50 in advance.

MP3: Local Natives – “Sun Hands”

Matt & Kim have slated a massive Fall tour that will include an October 29 show at The Phoenix. Yeah, they’re that big now.

MP3: Matt & Kim – “Yeah Yea”

Frank YangI’ve already document thoughts in this space about Holly Miranda on record – specifically her debut The Magician’s Private Library – and Holly Miranda live – specifically one of her day shows at SxSW – so I’m a bit short on lead-in thoughts to her show at the El Mocambo in Toronto this past Thursday; her second solo appearance but first headlining.

I do, however, have some thoughts on Montreal’s Braids, who were supporting her on a handful of dates and who have been getting some modest buzz; buzz which played a fairly large part in getting me off the fence about going to the show (on the side of going, if that wasn’t clear). And from the very limited samples they’ve posted on their MySpace – “Lemonade” and “Liver & Tan” – they certainly sound like they’d be worthy of note. Both are fine balancing acts between aural experimentation and pop smarts, where complex vocal and guitar arrangements still resolve into hooks and however far they meander, they don’t lose sight of the melody, and if these songs – which I believe bookended their set – were representative of everything in between, then I’d happily be adding my voice to the chorus of praise. Unfortunately, much of what else went on sounded like the above description but without the pop element – there was plenty of impressive musicianship and four-part vocal chorals, but little in the way of structure. It’s worth noting, however, that I am anything but a card-carrying member of the Dirty Bear Collective into which the Braids aesthetic seems to fall quite squarely, so it’s possible/probable that I just don’t like or get what they’re about. It doesn’t change the fact, however, that there was enough there that I found appealing that the rest of it felt like a disappointment.

There was no such disappointment from the headliner, though it helped that I had a good idea of what to expect. Miranda was touring as the same four-piece that had been in Austin in March, which meant that the leaner and punchier version of The Magician’s Private Library would be in effect. With a low-key but magnetic stage presence, Miranda appeared appreciative of the decent turnout on the eve of a long weekend but obviously preferred to let the music speak for her. Library did a good job of capturing the dreamier side of Miranda’s songs and vocals, but those familiar with her works beyond just the record know that she’s got a grittier, earthier aspect to her that’s just as potent if not more. This was particularly evident in her show-stopping cover of Etta James’ “I’d Rather Go Blind” and main set-closing new song that called for equal rights first with yearning vocals, and then a raging guitar break. If Library was intended to capture the feeling of being asleep and dreaming, then the new material seems very much wide awake – most certainly a good thing.

NOW and Faster Louder have interviews with Holly Miranda. Braids’ debut full-length will be entitled Native Speaker and is due out in the Fall. They’re currently on a Canadian tour that includes another Toronto date at The Piston on May 29 as part of this year’s Pitter Patter Music Fest.

Photos: Holly Miranda, Braids @ The El Mocambo – May 20, 2010
MP3: Holly Miranda – “Waves”
MP3: Holly Miranda – “Forest Green Oh Forest Green”
MP3: Braids – “Lemonade”
MySpace: Holly Miranda

Land Of Talk have announced their second full-length album will be entitled Cloak & Cipher and be released on August 24. Aux.tv talked to Liz Powell a little while ago about making the record with producer Jace Lasek of The Besnard Lakes.

Dose talks to Carl Newman of The New Pornographers, in town at the Sound Academy on June 15.

Blurt has kicked off a multi-part series remembering Jeff Buckley.

Daytrotter has got a session with Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin, who will release their new record Let It Sway on August 17. Grab the first MP3 in exchange fr your email at Polyvinyl.

NPR has an interview with The Hold Steady; they have a date at the Kool Haus on July 16.

NYC Taper is sharing a live recording of Phantogram at the Bowery Ballroom in Manhattan last week and NJ.com has an interview with guitarist/vocalist Josh Carter.

Cincinatti’s WHY? will be at the Horseshoe on July 15, tickets $13.50. Their most recent release was last Fall’s Eskimo Snow

MP3: WHY? – “The Blackest Purse”

With their new record Barbara due out June 15, We Are Scientists will be hitting the road this Summer including a date at the Horseshoe on July 19, advance tickets $15. TwentyFourBit has an interview with the band, who are also blogging over at The Guardian.

Video: We Are Scientists – “Rules Don’t Stop”
Video: We Are Scientists – “Nice Guys”

Much to the delight of people who hate Dave Matthews – which is to say everyone – The Felice Brothers have scheduled their own Toronto show for July 27 at the Horseshoe, following their June 1 date supporting DMB at the Molson Amphitheatre. Tickets for the show are $15. Simone Felice is also appearing solo at NXNE, with a show at the Great Hall on June 18.

MP3: The Felice Brothers – “Run Chicken Run”
MP3: The Felice Brothers – “Frankie’s Gun”
MP3: The Felice Brothers – “Wonderful Life”

Frank YangAnd to think, I almost stayed home to watch The Pacific. What can I say? Some nights I’m just lazy. But thankfully, I managed to haul my ass out of the apartment on Monday night to head down to the Horseshoe for what would turn out to be a pretty special show from Megafaun and Sharon Van Etten.

It was Van Etten who was the main draw for me – her 2009 debut Because I Was In Love is more beguiling with every listen and my first attempt to see her live at SxSW wasn’t satisfactory thanks to an overly chatty crowd and uncooperative guitar amp. Background chatter wasn’t an issue on this night, though, as the crowd at the ‘Shoe was decidedly sparse when Van Etten took the stage armed only with her Gibson ES-135, her songs and her voice.

And oh, what a voice. So powerful and yet so fragile, overtop her fingerpicked guitarwork and wrapped around her sad songs, it pulled everyone in the house – hell, it probably pulled bystanders in off the street – closer and closer, until most were seated on the floor around the stage, enraptured. They’d have had to be under the influence of something to be willing to sit on the Horseshoe floor – have you ever seen that thing under house lights? But kidding aside, Van Etten’s set – her last of this short tour and for the next while as she works on her second album – was a stunner, including both songs from Love and new material, capped off with a finale of “Tornado”, backed up be Megafaun. And as perfectly suited as her material is to solo performance – sadness is a solitary thing, after all – it sounded as good if not better with a band behind it.

Said band also sounded pretty good on their own, as it turned out. I wasn’t especially familiar with Megafaun coming into the night – I think I’d spun their latest album Gather, Form & Fly once or twice – but went in with an open mind and proceeded to have it blown, just a little. As befit their North Carolina roots, the impressively-bearded trio – two brothers and their drummer – crafted folk-rock with a distinctively southern drawl, but beneath that genial, harmony-laden surface there was so much more going on. There was jazz virtuosity in their musicianship, proggish ambitions in the frequently twisty song structures and a jam band’s delight in simply playing. That delight was shared in full by the small but devoted audience, and that gave the show less the feel of a concert than an intimate get-together of friends. Nowhere was this more evident than the encore, which Megafaun seemed almost embarrassed to be taking – climbing down off the stage and playing three more songs amongst their fans. All throughout the night, the band emphasized how much they were enjoying the evening and how exceptionally special this show was. For some acts, this is boilerplate stage banter but it was obvious from the looks on their faces and the hugs exchanged with fans afterwards, that they meant every word and every note. Just marvelous.

The Concordian talks to Megafaun’s Phil Cook and Daytrotter has posted a session with the band. Their North American tour continues through the end of April – do see them if you can. They’re also releasing a new mini-album entitled Heretofore later this Summer – info at Pitchfork.

Photos: Megafaun, Sharon Van Etten @ The Horseshoe – April 5, 2010
MP3: Megafaun – “Volunteers”
MP3: Megafaun – “The Fade”
MP3: Megafaun – “Kaufman’s Ballad”
MP3: Sharon Van Etten – “For You”
MP3: Sharon Van Etten – “Consolation Prize”
MP3: Sharon Van Etten – “Love More”
Video: Megafaun – “Impressions Of The Past”
Video: Sharon Van Etten – “For You”
MySpace: Megafaun
MySpace: Sharon Van Etten

The Boston Globe, Nashville Scene, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and Interview sits down with Midlake, who will be a the Mod Club on May 21.

Delusions Of Adequacy talk to Shearwater’s Jonathan Meiburg.

NYC Taper is sharing a recording of Wilco’s epic three-hour set in Montclair, New Jersey from last weekend. The band just announced they will curate their own festival – the Solid Sound Festival – from August 13 to 15 at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art in North Adams Massachusetts, which if you were wondering is at the border of Mass and New York, about 7 hours from Toronto. The bill will feature Wilco, natch, and most/all of their spin-off acts and other artists to be announced later.

Rawkblog, SF Weekly and CMJ have interviews with Miles Kurosky while The Bay Bridged gets Kurosky back together with some of his Beulah bandmates to play songs from his solo record The Desert Of Shallow Effects, which are available to download.

MP3: Miles Kurosky – “The World Won’t Last The Night” (live at The Bay Bridged)
MP3: Miles Kurosky – “Dead Language Blues” (live at The Bay Bridged)

NOW talks to Liz Powell of Land Of Talk about losing and finding her voice. They’re at Lee’s Palace tonight and their new record is targeted for an August release.

Filter gets to know Mumford & Sons.

For Folks Sake and The New York Times talk to Laura Marling, while La Blogotheque is offering a live track for download. Her new album I Speak Because I Can gets a North American release as of this week.

Hurricane Bells – the new project from Longwave frontman Steve Schlitz – will be at the El Mocambo on May 19. Their debut album, Tonight Is The Ghost, is due out next week.

Video: Hurricane Bells – “This Year”
Video: Hurricane Bells – “Monsters”

Nathaniel Rateliff & The Wheel, who impressed whilst opening for Laura Marling back in February, has a date scheduled for the Drake Underground on May 30. His new record In Memory Of Loss is out April 27.

MP3: Nathaniel Rateliff & The Wheel – “Early Spring Till”

Delta Spirit and Ezra Furman & The Harpoons will be at the Mod Club on June 26. Paste has details on Delta Spirit’s new record, History From Below, due out June 8.

MP3: Delta Spirit – “People C’Mon”
MP3: Ezra Furman & The Harpoons – “Take Off Your Sunglasses”

Fresh off their sold-out gig opening for Miike Snow at The Phoenix, Delorean will be back in town at Wrongbar on July 14.

FacebookThere was welcome and unexpected news in the inbox yesterday morning with the announcement that Sarah Harmer was back. It didn’t seem like she’d been away that long, but now that I think about it, the last time I saw her in any context was at Wolfe Island in 2007 with the reunited Weeping Tile, and it’s been almost five years since the release of her last album I’m A Mountain. So June 22, when her latest effort Oh Little Fire arrives, can’t come soon enough.

Harmer has been a musical constant in my life for what seems like ever, right back to 1995’s Weeping Tile debut Eepee – her voice and songwriting are like the ultimate comfort food or like a warm blanket under a clear, starry Canadian night sky though, to my knowledge, I have never lain in a warm blanket under a clear, starry Canadian night. Advance word has it that this record is more aggressive and direct than the bluegrass-y I’m A Mountain, and the first single “Captive”, streaming on her homepage, certainly seems to bear this out – clearly she’s not forgotten how to plug in and (folk-)rock.

Live dates for the Summer are forthcoming, but she’s already been announced as one of the performers at this year’s Osheaga festival in Montreal, which I suppose should have tipped me off that she had something new in the works. There’s an audio interview with Harmer available over at Canadian Living.

MySpace: Sarah Harmer

Another former Polaris shortlister who’s been out of sight a little while but is planning a big 2010 is Kathleen Edwards. Though not away for as long as Harmer, it has been a while – Edwards’ last record Asking For Flowers came out over two years ago. A recent blog post proves she’s not been idle, though – amongst other things, she’s been working with John Roderick of The Long Winters on a project (detailed by Roderick last December in Paste) and is also gearing up to record album number four. To that end, she’s setting up residence at the Drake Underground in Toronto for three weeks to (sort of) road test the new material; she’ll be there for three nights over three weeks – April 20, April 27 and May 4 – and tickets for the intimate shows are $20 and available for sale at Maple Music.

MP3: Kathleen Edwards – “In State”
MP3: Kathleen Edwards – “Back To Me”

Pitchfork talks to Wolf Parade about their third album, now entitled Expo 86 and out June 29. Here and The Coast also talk to the band, who are at the Phoenix tonight, April 7.

Yours Truly has got a terrific video session with Land Of Talk, recorded last Fall on their US tour. They’re at Lee’s Palace on Thursday night.

Filter Q&As Plants & Animals. Their new record La La Land is out April 20 and they play a free show at the Horseshoe that evening.

Caribou’s new record Swim is now streaming in its entiretly at aux.tv, two weeks in advance of its April 20 release date. Caribou play the Phoenix on May 3.

Stream: Caribou / Swim

Head over to Stereogum to download the first MP3 from Stars’ forthcoming The Five Ghosts, due out June 22. They play The Mod Club on May 5, to which I still have passes to give away. And yes, your odds are pretty bad right now (relative to my usual contests), but someone’s gotta win!

Spinner and Chart chat with Weakerthans guitarist Stephen Carroll. They play the Queen Elizabeth Theatre on May 26.

Aquarium Drunkard catches up with Born Ruffians at SxSW. Their new record Say It is out June 1; they play the Horseshoe on May 28.

Crystal Castles are headlining something called the HARD Summer Tour, and will be causing mayhem at the Kool Haus on August 14. Their second album should be out this Summer.

MP3: Crystal Castles – “Untrust Us”

NME gets on board the Diamond Rings bandwagon, offering up an MP3 of his second single for download.

MP3: Diamond Rings – “Wait And See”

FFWD and JAM get to know Think About Life.

Q-Town talks to Mark Hamilton of Woodpigeon.

The Wilderness Of Manitoba have announced some details of their debut full-length album – it’s entitled When You Left the Fire and should be out this Summer.

The New Yorker puts Neil Young and Jonathan Demme together in a room to discuss the Neil Young Trunk Show live film.

The Line Of Best Fit has posted up their ninth “Oh! Canada” downloadable mix.