Norman WongWe’re going to close out the week with some new and hopefully interesting stuff to listen to, domestic-style. Unless you’re not Canadian in which case this will all be strange and foreign and exotic. Whoooooo!

Last week, Bruce Peninsula were teasing on their website that something big was coming as of April 24 and they weren’t kidding. And it’s literally big – an epic-sized, three-part, almost 14-minute song cycle entitled “Of Songs” that takes the band’s choral gospel-blues sound in unexpectedly experimental directions. It’s available to stream – as below – or buy. It would be interesting to see them try and recreate this live when they play The Great Hall on May 24, but it’s probably a safer bet that you’ll just hear a lot of last year’s Open Flames. Which is also just fine.

Stream: Bruce Peninsula – “Of Songs”

Also out of Toronto but with a lineup the fraction of the size, Army Girls have debuted a new single over at Exclaim which will be made available for free at their Bandcamp starting May 1. And while you’re there, stream (and buy) their excellent debut EP Close To The Bone. They’re at The Garrison tonight supporting Hot Kid and there again the evening of May 15 opening up for PS I Love You.

Stream: Army Girls – “Twice”

The Elwins released a limited edition CD for Record Store Day containing a remix and their cover of Beyonce’s “Countdown” with Born Ruffians singer Luke Lalonde, and for those who didn’t get one of the copies they also promised to make it available for free online – which they have. Dorkshelf has an interview with Feurd from the band.

MP3: The Elwins with Luke Lalonde – “Countdown” (Beyonce cover)
Video: The Elwins with Luke Lalonde – “Countdown” (Beyonce cover)

Edmonton’s Purity Ring dominated the internet this week with the announcement that their debut album Shrines would be out on July 24 and giving away the first MP3 from it. Exclaim has details on it, including Summer tour dates which include two Toronto dates – June 14 at Wrongbar as part of NXNE and July 6 at The Music Hall opening for Dirty Projectors (Exclaim doesn’t actually note that date but it’s legit).

MP3: Purity Ring – “Obedear”

Speaking of PS I Love You (we were earlier, try to pay attention), Chart has posted a video session, a second Paper Bag Sessions vid has been released and a stream of another new song from Death Dreams, out May 8. And as mentioned, they kick off their Summer tour in support of it May 15 at The Garrison.

Stream: PS I Love You – “Don’t Go”
Video: PS I Love You – “Sentimental Dishes” (Paper Bag Sessions)

Rose Cousins has released a first video from her excellent We Have Made A Spark; she’s at The Rivoli on May 3.

Video: Rose Cousins – “Go First”

Patrick Watson talks to CBC Radio 3 about his new album Adventures In Your Own Backyard, from which he’s just released a video. He plays the Music Hall on May 29.

Video: Patrick Watson – “Into Giants”

Cold Specks has released a new video from I Predict A Graceful Expulsion, out May 22, and the Swans cover she had on a Record Store Day release is up to stream. She plays the Music Hall on June 2 opening up for Great Lake Swimmers.

Stream: Cold Specks – “Reeling The Liars In” (Swans cover)
Video: Cold Specks – “Blank Maps”

NYC Taper has shared a recording of Plants & Animals’ show in New York last week. They’ll be back in Toronto for NXNE on June 15 at Yonge-Dundas Square

It seems to be all about the side-project for Toronto musicians of late; Ohbijou’s Casey Mecija is the latest to do a little moonlighting, adopting the name of Warm Myth for her collaboration with Keiran Adams of Everything All The Time; they’ve got some songs up at Soundcloud. Also keeping Mecija busy of late has been The Blot, a monthly collaborative art-music project that pairs images – see the Tumblr above – with sounds – see the Bandcamp. And Ohbijou is still being tended to; they play a free show at Pecault Square on June 17 for LuminaTO.

Stream: Warm Myth – “Working”

The Star-Tribune and The Republic have interviews with Kathleen Edwards, who is also doing a free LuminaTO show at Pecault Square; she’s there the afternoon of June 16.

Her show is part of a double-bill with Dan Mangan, who has a Daytrotter session that’s just gone live as well as an interview at The Oxford Student.

The National Post and Ottawa Citizen chat with Joel Plaskett, coming to town for two shows at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre on May 18 and 19.

New York Magazine profiles Grimes.

Frank YangFriday nights usually find Torontonians spoilt for entertainment options and tonight will be no exception, but if you’re at all unsure of what to do with your evening then consider heading down to Lee’s Palace. It’s hosting a benefit concert for three young Oakville boys whom, following a tragic series of events, were orphaned in January of this year and in addition to all the emotional devastation, were left in a dire financial situation.

Their uncle, however, was a founding member of The Hidden Cameras and has deep connections to the Guelph and Toronto music communities and has organized a benefit show at Lee’s that will feature performances from some of the best this city has to offer, including Owen Pallett, Basia Bulat, Sandro Perri, Bry Webb, Jim Guthrie, Nathan Lawr, Andre Ethier, Ohbijou’s Casey Mecija and Light Fires.

Tickets for the show are $15 in advance and at the door, and proceeds will go to both a trust fund for the boys and Halton Women’s Place. Specifics can be found at the Facebook event and there are feature pieces on the benefit at The Grid and CBC Music. And if you can’t make it and still want to help out, donations can be made at Newman Boys Trust Fund. There’s not really any more worthy cause than this.

MP3: Owen Pallett – “A Man With No Ankles”
MP3: Basia Bulat – “Gold Rush”
MP3: Bry Webb – “Rivers Of Gold”

Saturday is Record Store Day and, while you’ve already been briefed on the day-long in-store festival at the Annex location of Sonic Boom, but that’s not the only place you can enjoy some live music on whilst getting your shopping on – Soundscapes will be hosting Toronto’s next great power-pop hopes The Elwins at 7PM. They’ll surely have copies of their debut And I Thank You for sale – they just debuted a new video from it – but in the spirit of the occasion they’ll also have a limited-edition handmade CD containing a new remix and their cover of Beyonce’s “Countdown”, which will also be available to download free via their Bandcamp.

Video: The Elwins – “Are You Flying With A Different Bird?”

While on the topic of Record Store Day, one of the more sought-after releases is sure to be the Feistadon release – that’s Feist/Mastadon covering each other on either side of a split-7″ – and if you’re not lucky enough to get your hands on one you can at least hear it via stream.

Stream: Feist – “Black Tongue” (Mastadon cover)
Stream: Mastadon – “A Commotion”

The split-7″ between Toronto’s METZ and Fresh Snow is probably one of the more limited releases out there tomorrow – it’s only available at Sonic Boom. METZ contribute a cover of Sparklehorse’s “Pig” and Fresh Snow’s new track continues to establish them as one of the city’s new bands to watch, building on a rock-steady Krautrock foundation with horns and pretty, interesting things. They’re playing a Sonic Boom in-store tomorrow at 6 and are at The Boat on May 9. Both sides of the release are up for stream.

Stream: METZ – “Pig” (Sparklehorse cover)
Stream: Fresh Snow – “BMX-Based Tactics”

And oh, if you’re planning on spending oodles of money on vinyl and are going to listen to them on a turntable you bought at Urban Outfitters… read this New York Times piece on turntables and set a little money aside to save up for a Rega. You’re welcome. There’s also chats with some of Toronto’s record stores about RSD at Plaid and across the pond, The Stool Pigeon has an interview with Martin Mills, head of the Beggars group of independent labels (Matador/4AD/XL) about the annual event.

NOW and Post City talk to Plants & Animals, who are at Sonic Boom tomorrow afternoon before their show at Lee’s Palace that night, and then will be at NXNE in June and are allegedly going to on the bill with Sam Roberts at Echo Beach on July 26. All of which is to say that if you are a Plants & Animals fan, you have no excuse whatsoever for not seeing them play. Unless you’re just lazy. Can’t argue with that.

The Chronicle-Herald talks to Rose Cousins, in town at The Rivoli on May 3.

Exclaim and Spinner chat with Patrick Watson while aux.tv points to a mini-documentary on the making of his latest album Adventures In Your Own Backyard. He plays The Music Hall on May 29.

Spinner collects some more details on the new Metric album Synthetica, due June 12.

Dan Mangan is the subject of a just-released short documentary film. He plays a free show at Pecault Square on the afternoon of June 16 for LuminaTO.

Video: In The Car With Dan Mangan

Hidden Cameras fans wondering why the band’s recently-announced itinerary of eastern Canada dates didn’t include a hometown show in Toronto now have their answer – the band will be playing a free show at Harbourfront Centre on Canada Day, July 1. I remember seeing them on that same stage for the Indie Unlimited festival back in August 2006. And now I feel terribly old.

MP3: The Hidden Cameras = “In The NA”
MP3: The Hidden Cameras – “Walk On”

The big fest announcement hereabouts this week was NXNE, but Guelph’s Hillside Festival also let the world know who would be gathering on the shores of Guelph Lake from July 27 to 29 – Bry Webb, Cold Specks, Kathleen Edwards, Great Lake Swimmers, Memoryhouse, Chad VanGaalen and more.

NPR is streaming a World Cafe session with Grimes and The List has an interview.

Frank YangIf you were to plot out my appreciation for Patrick Watson on a graph versus time and geography, the salient data points would read something like this:

September 2007, Toronto, Ontario – Watson wins the second Polaris Music Prize with his second album Close To Paradise, an album I was almost wholly unfamiliar with despite the fact that, as a juror, I probably should have been. I generally resent him for this because I was sure that Feist was going to take it with The Reminder and now I felt kid of dumb.

September 2009, Toronto, Ontario – Watson is now riding a two-album Polaris shortlist streak although odds of Wooden Arms repeating are long. And while my interest in his music hasn’t really grown over the past couple years, I admit to being won over some by his performance at the gala as he and his band opt to wander through the audience like steampunk troubadours rather than play on the stage.

October 2011, Reykjavik, Iceland – Even though he’s not even performing at the festival, Watson shows up for Esmerine’s set at the Canadian Blast day show for Iceland Airwaves and sings on a couple of songs from their album La Lechuza, dedicated to the memory of Montreal singer Lhasa de Sela. He sounded great, and geez – who the hell just happens to show up in Iceland?

March 2012, Austin, Texas – Failure to get into The Jesus & Mary Chain’s set at SXSW meant that I needed a fallback plan and thanks to a confluence of timing and geography, I ended up at Watson’s show in a small church where he was showcasing his third album Adventures In Your Own Backyard, still not due out for a month at that point. It was beautiful, and I think I began to finally, properly get Patrick Watson.

It’s strange that it should have taken me so long – after all, it’s not as thought what he does is outside of my wheelhouse at all. Pretty, ornate, classical/jazz-pop that doesn’t go out of its way to be difficult or anything besides what it is, you’d be hard-pressed to find an artist more comfortable in his skin and his sound than Watson. It also helps that Adventures is a beautiful record; sonically dense, intimate in feel, thematically opaque enough to intrigue and with a sly sense of playfulness running throughout. There are points where I do wish it were a little less… airy, but those complaints are as minor as they are irrelevant.

One of the things that made that aforementioned SXSW show so great was how Patrick Watson was able to infuse that Austin church sanctuary with the spirit of an impromptu carnival and its attendant sense of wonder. It wasn’t reasonable to expect them to to do the same with the CBC’s Glenn Gould Studio last Wednesday night where they performed for a radio broadcast to go with Adventures‘ release this week, but that didn’t mean they weren’t going to try. The show opened in pitch blackness with the band playing the new record’s opening track “Lighthouse” guided only by small flashlights affixed to their hands before being lit up by the stage lights at the song’s crescendo. It was a dramatic moment, certainly, but notable in being exactly the sort of grand gesture that they don’t need to make to impress.

What I’ve found in my re-examination of what it is that Patrick Watson (the band) excels at is that they’re at their best when making music on a micro scale. The exquisite detail of their compositions seems best appreciated under a magnifying glass, where you can really take in and appreciate how intricately it’s all assembled. You definitely get a sense of that watching the five-piece band onstage, where the meticulous orchestration and sequencing of the performance – to say nothing of their collective musicianship – is astonishing to behold despite the sort of casual, lassiez faire vibe they like to affect. Along those same lines, Patrick Watson (the man) interjected many amusing and occasionally rambling asides and anecdotes into the hour-long set that were both charming and disarming.

They played almost all of the new record and a couple from Wooden Arms that offered a little more punch amidst Adventures‘ dreamier tone, and really if there were any more reservations I had about coming around on Patrick Watson, they were gone by the time they were done. Will this earn them a place on my Polaris ballot? Hard to say, but I also get the feeling that they won’t need my help making a third shortlist appearance.

The entire concert is already available to stream at CBC Music and the whole of Adventures In Your Own Backyard is also available to stream, along with some videos of the performance. If that’s not enough, there’s a studio session for Q available to stream at and “Blackwind” from the new record is available to download for free at iTunes.

The Globe & Mail, hour.ca, The National Post, The Edmonton Journal, JAM, The Ottawa Citizen, The Montreal Mirror, and CBC Radio 3 have interviews with Watson.

Adventures In Your Own Backyard is out today in Canada, April 30 in most other territories and May 1 in the USA. They’ll be back in Toronto for a show at the Music Hall on May 29.

Photos: Patrick Watson @ The Glenn Gould Studio – April 11, 2012
MP3: Patrick Watson – “Into Giants”
Video: Patrick Watson – “Fireweed”
Video: Patrick Watson – “The Storm”
Video: Patrick Watson – “Drifters”
Video: Patrick Watson – “The Great Escape”
Stream: Patrick Watson / Adventures In Your Own Backyard

Paste has premiered the new, Strangeglove-saluting video from Dan Mangan’s Oh Fortune. He’s doing a free show the afternoon of June 16 at Pecault Square as part of Luminato.

Video: Dan Mangan – “Post-War Blues”

McGill Tribune talks to Cold Specks, whose debut I Predict A Graceful Expulsion is out May 22; i-D also has a video session and interview. They play June 2 at the Music Hall opening up for Great Lake Swimmers.

The first Paper Bag Session video for PS I Love You’s forthcoming Death Dreams is now up to watch. They’re at The Garrison on May 15.

Video: PS I Love You – “Princess Towers” (Paper Bag Sessions)

I’d speculated that following his show in support of Metronomy earlier this month that Sandro Perri would be announced as support for Destroyer at The Opera House on June 23 since he was doing so for the other Canadian dates on the tour. That might yet happen, but not before Perri plays a couple shows of his own – he’s at The Tranzac on May 14 and 15.

MP3: Sandro Perri – “Love And Light”

The countdown timer on the Bruce Peninsula website implies that something is coming on April 24 – their Facebook also confirms as much – but it’s not a concert announcement; that’s already here. They’ve slated a May 24 show at The Great Hall, tickets $12 in advance.

MP3: Bruce Peninsula – “In Your Light”

There’s still no precise details on the second Wilderness Of Manitoba record besides that it exists and should be out this Summer, but their next local show will be June 30 on the Toronto Islands as part of the New Traditions Festival… no precise details on that, either.

MP3: The Wilderness Of Manitoba – “Hermit”

Local artist Maggie MacDonald may be better known for her tenure in The Hidden Cameras and fronting Betty Burke, but she also works in theatre and her latest endeavour is a musical collaboration with Stevie Jackson of Belle & Sebastian, and he’ll be on hand – along with a number of other local artists – for their performance of Paper Laced with Gold at Harbourfront Centre on April 28; tickets $15.

Frank YangWhat’s better than hearing a new album on the day that it’s released? How about hearing it live? Okay, the former might have carried a little more weight a decade ago when records weren’t consistently available to stream online well before they were available to buy, but there’s still something special about the latter. So it was pretty nice of Great Lake Swimmers to mark the release of their fifth album New Wild Everywhere this past Tuesday with a full-band, plugged-in in-store performance at Sonic Boom where they showcased ten of the record’s twelve tracks with a one-song encore from their back catalog.

Even if you hadn’t heard the recorded versions, it was pretty clear from the new material that this was far from the same band that recorded their spare, almost spectral self-titled debut in an abandoned grain silo a decade earlier. Each subsequent record has fleshed out their sound a little more, certainly, and Tony Dekker’s songwriting hasn’t changed dramatically over that time but with New Wild Everywhere – the band’s first album recorded in a proper studio – it feels as though the reverberations of that grain silo have finally faded to silence and the fields that surrounded it have been gradually built up to the point that the landscape is no longer recognizable. There’ve been subtle changes from record to record, certainly, but for a band who deals in subtleties it doesn’t necessarily take a lot to effect a dramatic change.

In specifics beyond just the aesthetic, Everywhere seems to complete the transformation into a folk-pop band that their past releases had just flirted with; tempos are zippier and choruses bigger and live, there’s considerably more electric guitar in play. This shift was more pronounced live as there just seemed to be more everything – guitar, banjo, fiddle, vocals – in the mix; whereas previously the space left open was as much a part of their sound as what they played, now it sounded busy almost to the point of distraction. Which is not to say it sounded bad – though initial impressions are that this batch of songs don’t quite measure up to Dekker’s best compositions, they’re solid and the players behind them skilled – but for those who’d followed the band since those early recordings, it’s hard not to feel like something of what made them unique has been buried or left out in a field.

The band performed the whole of the new album for CBC Music and that recording should be available to stream in whole later today; currently they’ve got one song available. NOW has video of one of Tuesday evening’s performances, while aux.tv, The Vancouver Sun, The Montreal Gazette, and The Toronto Star all have features on the band. After touring North America and Europe, they return home for a show at The Music Hall on June 2.

Photos: Great Lake Swimmers @ Sonic Boom – April 3, 2012
MP3: Great Lake Swimmers – “Pulling On A Line”
MP3: Great Lake Swimmers – “Your Rocky Spine”
MP3: Great Lake Swimmers – “I Am A Part Of A Large Family”
Video: Great Lake Swimmers – “Easy Come Easy Go”
Video: Great Lake Swimmers – “River’s Edge”
Video: Great Lake Swimmers – “Stealing Tomorrow”
Video: Great Lake Swimmers – “Palmistry”
Video: Great Lake Swimmers – “Pulling On A Line”
Video: Great Lake Swimmers – “Still”
Video: Great Lake Swimmers – “Back Stage With The Modern Dancers”
Video: Great Lake Swimmers – “Your Rocky Spine”
Video: Great Lake Swimmers – “To Leave It All Behind”
Video: Great Lake Swimmers – “Bodies & Minds”

The Line Of Best Fit is streaming a new track from Cold Specks’ debut album I Predict A Graceful Expulsion, due out May 22, and The Guardian a profile piece. She opens up the aforementioned Great Lake Swimmers show on June 2 at the Music Hall.

Stream: Cold Specks – “Blank Maps”

No longer timely, but prior to last weekend’s Juno awards Spinner ran a number of interviews with nominees – there was this piece with Coeur de Pirate about her appreciation for Drake and The Weeknd, this one with Patrick Pentland and Jay Ferguson of Sloan about their odds of winning and this chat with The Rural Alberta Advantage about what their roles at the awards ceremony might be as well as this one, post-awards. For the record, none of the three won – maybe they should have made a Christmas album.

Rolling Stone has posted up a video session with Patrick Watson recorded at SXSW. His new album Adventures In Your Own Backyard comes out April 17 and they’ve a gig at The Music Hall on May 29, but before that is a special show at the CBC’s Glenn Gould Studio on April 11 which you can win tickets for at CBC Music.

NPR has premiered a video for the title track of Plants & Animals’ latest effort The End Of That. They’re at Lee’s Palace on April 21.

Video: Plants & Animals – “The End Of That”

Tiny Mix Tapes interviews Claire Boucher of Grimes.

Cheers to Herohill, who’s assembled a tribute album to Leonard Cohen featuring artists such as Kathryn Calder and Woodpigeon. The Bard Of Montreal is available to download for freesies.

Frank YangWriteups of all things Bruce and non-Bruce from Thursday night can be found over here.

The Low Anthem
– Rhode Island threesome-become-fivesome who are fluent in folk, blues and pop dialects of the language of Americana; their fourth album Smart Flesh came out in 2011.

MP3: The Low Anthem – “To Ohio”
Video: The Low Anthem – “Ghost Woman Blues”
Video: The Low Anthem – “Boeing 737”
Video: The Low Anthem – “Charlie Darwin”

Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band
– Bruce Springsteen. The Boss. Perhaps you’ve heard of him? He was at the festival to do the conference keynote and, of course, he had to play a show. His new record Wrecking Ball had just come out a couple weeks prior. NPR has got his keynote from earlier in the day available to stream.

Photos: Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band @ ACL Live at The Moody Theater – March 15, 2012
Video: Bruce Springsteen – “We Take Care Of Our Own”
Video: Bruce Springsteen – “Ain’t Good Enough For You”
Video: Bruce Springsteen – “Save My Love”
Video: Bruce Springsteen – “The Wrestler”
Video: Bruce Springsteen – “My Lucky Day”
Video: Bruce Springsteen – “Working On A Dream”
Video: Bruce Springsteen – “A Night With The Jersey Devil”
Video: Bruce Springsteen – “Long Walk Home”
Video: Bruce Springsteen – “Radio Nowhere”
Video: Bruce Springsteen – “O Mary Don’t You Weep”
Video: Bruce Springsteen – “Pay Me My Money Down”
Video: Bruce Springsteen – “Devils & Dust”
Video: Bruce Springsteen – “Waitin’ On A Sunny Day”
Video: Bruce Springsteen – “Lonesome Day”
Video: Bruce Springsteen – “The Ghost Of Tom Joad”
Video: Bruce Springsteen – “Dead Man Walkin'”
Video: Bruce Springsteen – “Secret Garden”
Video: Bruce Springsteen – “Murder Incorporated”
Video: Bruce Springsteen – “Streets Of Philadelphia”
Video: Bruce Springsteen – “Leap Of Faith”
Video: Bruce Springsteen – “57 Channels (And Nothin’ On)”
Video: Bruce Springsteen – “Better Days”
Video: Bruce Springsteen – “Human Touch”
Video: Bruce Springsteen – “Tougher Than The Rest”
Video: Bruce Springsteen – “One Step Up”
Video: Bruce Springsteen – “Brilliant Disguise”
Video: Bruce Springsteen – “War”
Video: Bruce Springsteen – “My Hometown”
Video: Bruce Springsteen – “Glory Days”
Video: Bruce Springsteen – “I’m On Fire”
Video: Bruce Springsteen – “Born In The USA”
Video: Bruce Springsteen – “Dancing In The Dark”
Video: Bruce Springsteen – “Atlantic City”

Patrick Watson
– Montreal-based singer-songwriter/band/perennial Polaris shortlister whose third album Adventures In Your Own Backyard comes out April 17. He/they play The Music Hall in Toronto on May 29.

Photos: Patrick Watson @ St. David’s Historic Sanctuary – March 15, 2012
MP3: Patrick Watson – “Into Giants”
Video: Patrick Watson – “Fireweed”
Video: Patrick Watson – “The Storm”
Video: Patrick Watson – “Drifters”
Video: Patrick Watson – “The Great Escape”