Marc PannozzoIt’s true that Crystal Castles had to push the release of their third album (III) back a week from this past Tuesday to next, but they only barely needed the extra time. The record went up as an advance stream earlier this week at MuchMusic, offering further evidence that the Toronto duo of Alice Glass and Ethan Kath have come a long way since the glitchy, more spectacle than songcraft hype of their 2008 self-titled debut. (III) is still built on bent beats, shrieked vocals, and chopped-up synths, but is far less confrontational, far more melodic and sophisticated, and is arguably more about something – talking points around the record are decidedly social-political – than just acting out. And you can still dance to it like a spaz.

Pitchfork has an interview with the duo. It went better than The Village Voice’s.

MP3: Crystal Castles – “Wrath Of God”
MP3: Crystal Castles – “Plague”
Stream: Crystal Castles / (III)

The 405 meets Japandroids, back in town at The Phoenix on December 11.

Blurt and The Georgia Straight meet METZ.

PS I Love You have released a new video from Death Dreams, and CBC Music has both an interview and video featurette on the making of the clip.

Video: PS I Love You – “Saskatoon”

The Alternate Side has a session, and Beatroute and The Santa Cruz Sentinel interviews with Diamond Rings, back home for a show at The Mod Club on November 29.

The Province, The Globe & Mail, Beatroute talks Metric, headlining the Air Canada Centre on November 24.

Billboard and Beatroute have features on Stars, who are opening up that Metric show at the ACC.

Evening Hymns are giving away an EP of live recordings made on their recent European tour via Facebook; warning – you may have to “like” them. Forewarned. They play The Church Of The Redeemer on December 15.

Daphni have released a video from Jiaolong.

Video: Daphni – “Ahora”

DIY talks to Chains Of Love.

Brasstronaut have released a new video from their latest record Mean Sun.

Video: Brasstronaut – “Mean Sun”

Poster boys for, “never believe us when we say we’re breaking up again”, The Lowest Of the Low are the latest Canadian institutions who’ll be helping The Horseshoe turn 65, setting up shop at the bar for two nights, December 19 and 20, tickets $26.50 in advance.

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

DIY talked to Damian, Jonah, and Sandy of Fucked Up prior to this year’s Polaris Prize gala, while CBC Music gets Mike Haliechuk to talk about his writing process for the band. They play The Great Hall tonight for the first installment of Long Winter.

The Vancouver Sun, Georgia Straight, Beatroute chats with A.C. Newman.

DIY has a video session with Patrick Watson. He plays Massey Hall on December 6.

Beatroute and The Vancouver Sun chat with Rose Cousins.

DIY has an interview with Kathleen Edwards.

Exclaim have got a stream of Have Not Been The Same, the compilation of Canadian indie rock rarities from the likes of Sloan, Weeping Tile, and Doughboys, and companion to Have Not Been The Same: The CanRock Renaissance 1985-1995, due out next week.

Stream: various artists / Have Not Been The Same

Paper Bag RecordsAs previously reported, Toronto’s Paper Bag Records is celebrating its tenth anniversary this year and they’re doing it with a three-night run of shows at The Great Hall featuring performances from much of their active roster. And though it’s their birthday, they’re the ones offering the gifts.

You may have seen the giveaways run at Quick Before It Melts and Soft Signal for prize packs consisting of label goodies and passes to the Thursday and Saturday nights respectively, and wondered where the Friday night one was – well wonder no more, it’s right here.

Courtesy of Paper Bag, I’ve got one prize pack consisting of:

– A pair of tickets to see The Rural Alberta Advantage, Cuff The Duke, PS I Love You, and Slim Twig at The Great Hall on September 28 – note that this is a 19+ show.
– A special PBR10 t-shirt and commemorative poster
– Exercises by CFCF LP
– Days Into Years by Elliott Brood LP
– All Red by Winter Gloves LP
– Contempt! by Slim Twig LP
– PS I Love You/Diamond Rings “Leftovers” 7″ single

Not bad, eh? To enter, leave a comment on this post naming your favourite Paper Bag artist and release from the past decade, and be sure to include your email as that’s how the winners will be contacted. By email. Contest is restricted to folks in the Toronto area – you gots to go to the show – and closes at midnight, September 15.

Tickets for the shows are available from direct from Paper Bag.

MP3: Cuff The Duke – “Standing On The Edge”
MP3: Elliott Brood – “Northern Air”
MP3: PS I Love You w Diamond Rings – “Leftovers”
MP3: The Rural Alberta Advantage – “Stamp”

Norman WongOkay, since I am posting this from the north of Quebec – okay, not really that north, but considerably further north than Bloor St. in Rouyn-Noranda for this year’s Festival de musique émergente – I figure this is as good a time as any to run a pretty sweet giveaway for – wait for it – The North. As in the new record from Stars, out this coming Tuesday.

Thanks to the folks at Universal Music Canada, I have numerous copies of The North to give away in both analog and digital formats – the the former, a pair of LPs on blue vinyl, and to the latter, five silver CDs. To enter, leave a comment below with your email (it will be hidden from prying eyes), album format in order of preference, and tell me the furthest north point in Canada you’ve ever been. If you want to be precise, Google will tell you the latitude of anywhere if you ask nicely. Interestingly, Rouyn-Noranda is one degree further south than Vancouver, making that my northernmost sojourn in our fine country. Anyways, the contest is open to residents of Canada only and winners will be chosen on September 15.

The North was made available to preview via NPR stream at the start of this week, but The National Post has made their hosted stream worth checking out by adding track-by-track commentary from Torq Campbell. Consequence Of Sound also talks to Campbell about the new record.

Stars open up for Metric at The Air Canada Centre on November 24.

MP3: Stars – “Hold On When You Get Love And Let Go When You Give It”
MP3: Stars – “The Theory Of Relativity”
Stream: Stars / The North

The Wilderness Of Manitoba’s second album Island Of Echoes will be coming out on September 18 and they’ve booked a hometown record release show at Trinity-St. Paul’s for October 26. Fancy!

MP3: The Wilderness Of Manitoba – “Morning Sun”

The Wooden Sky have been touring their latest Every Child A Daughter, Every Moon A Sun over hill and through the dale since its release back in February, and they’re bringing it back home for a show at The Phoenix on December 1, tickets $17.50.

MP3: The Wooden Sky – “Child Of The Valley”

Andrew Scott of Sloan lists his five favourite records of the past two decades for CBC Music. Their super-deluxe Twice Removed reissue arrives September 4.

Exclaim has some details on the next album/project/thing from Yamantaka/Sonic Titan. The 33 // 渦 rock opera will debut at Pop Montreal on September 21; no details on encore performances more local to here or a recording release, but we can hope. Their YT//ST gets a re-release on September 11.

Pitchfork talks to Grimes about the making of her latest video for “Genesis”. She plays two nights at Lee’s Palace, September 21 and 22.

How excited is Woodpigeon to be opening for Patrick Wolf on his upcoming North American tour, including September 25 at the Music Gallery? So excited that there’ll be a new, tour-only album entitled Diamonds for sale throughout the journey and they’re giving away a cover of Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney’s “Say Say Say”. That’s pretty excited.

MP3: Woodpigeon – “Say Say Say”

Talk Rock To Me chats with Paul Saulnier of PS I Love You. They play the Friday night of the Paper Bag Records 10th anniversary shows at The Great Hall, September 28.

Toronto Life has an extensive feature piece on Diamond Rings, and Macleans solicits some scholastic advice from John O for those just starting school. The new album Free Dimensional will be out on October 23 and to support that release, he will be on Letterman on October 26. That is bananas. B-a-n-a-n-a-s.

Modern Superstitions’ self-titled debut album finally has a release date – it’ll be out and about on October 23.

Shad has released a video from his recent Melancholy & The Infinite Shadness mixtape.

Video: Shad – “A Milli Vanilli”

MTV lists off some things you may not have known about Coeur de Pirate.

Moonface have a new video from With Siinai: Heartbreaking Bravery.

Video: Moonface – “I’m Not The Phoenix Yet”

They Shoot Music has a video session with Memoryhouse.

FacebookCustom dictates that for tenth anniversaries, the traditional gift is something made from tin and the modern equivalent is aluminum. Or diamond. How on earth do you get from tin to diamond? Happily, Toronto’s Paper Bag Records pays no attention to such convention and to mark their tenth year of releasing great music from both Canada and abroad, they’ve opted to put together three nights of shows at The Great Hall from September 27 to 29 and featuring the best of their current roster as well as a surprise and welcome return – You Say Party.

The Vancouver dance-rock band were riding high on their third album, 2009’s XXXX, when their drummer Devon Clifford suddenly and tragically died onstage in April 2010. They soldiered on for another year and then, promotional duties done, went on indefinite hiatus – a hiatus that would last a year and a half, as they state on their website, “Over the course of the last year, we came to realize a simple truth: that the four of us missed making music together”. Their appearance on the third night of the PBR anniversary shows will mark their first step back and as a four-piece, reconfiguring their old songs to fit and presumably crafting new ones.

Their return will surely be a highlight of that third night, which also features Young Galaxy, The Luyas, and a special guest that you probably don’t need to do too much thinking to guess who it will but all three evenings are pretty stacked. Thursday night features Elliott Brood, Born Ruffians, Woodhands, and The Acorn and Friday brings in The Rural Alberta Advantage, Cuff The Duke, PS I Love You, and Slim Twig.

Tickets for each night are $25 and a three-day pass comes in at $60, on sale now. The Great Hall isn’t that big so if you’re thinking this is something you should be at, turning thought into action soon is recommended.

MP3: The Acorn – “Restoration”
MP3: Born Ruffians – “Sole Brother”
MP3: Cuff The Duke – “Standing On The Edge”
MP3: Elliott Brood – “Northern Air”
MP3: The Luyas – “Too Beautiful To Work”
MP3: PS I Love You – “2012”
MP3: The Rural Alberta Advantage – “Stamp”
MP3: Slim Twig – “Young Hussies”
MP3: Woodhands – “Dissembler”
MP3: You Say Party! – “Laura Palmer’s Prom”
MP3: Young Galaxy – “Peripheral Visionaries”

Under The Radar chats with Torq Campbell of Stars, who released their first albums on Paper Bag and will put their sixth album North out on September 4. They’ve made a new track from said record available to stream and will be at the Air Canada Centre on November 14 supporting Metric.

Stream: Stars – “Hold On When You Get Love And Let Go When You Give It”

The New York Times has a feature piece on Purity Ring, whose much-anticipated debut Shrines is out this week and who’ve made another track from it available to download.

MP3: Purity Ring – “Belispeak”

Damian Abraham of Fucked Up rattles off his favourite records of the past two decades for CBC Music. They’re at Historic Fort York on September 9 as part of Riot Fest.

Melancholy & The Infinite Shadness is the name of a new mixtape from Shad that you need in your life. Get it for free.

ZIP: Shad / Melancholoy & The Infinite Shadness

The Georgia Straight and The Victoria Times-Colonist talks to Kathryn Calder.

CBC Music has five tracks to preview for the forthcoming live Dears album Never Destroy Us, due out this Fall.

Patrick Watson gives Spinner his thoughts on and ambitions for the music video medium; he also chats with Vermont’s Seven Days. He’s at Massey Hall on December 6.

Sonic UnyonWere the magical little elves in charge of categorizing music – be it in record store bins or the meta tags on MP3s – would like to take Halifax trio Kestrels and file them under “shoegaze”, pointing to the heyday of Creation Records in describing their second album A Ghost History. And I’m not necessarily going to argue the point – it definitely owes more than a debt to the sounds of the early ’90s, what with its roaring guitars and liberally reverbed vocals, but those expecting some Maritime take on sonic cathedral construction or hazy dream-pop had best check their expectations.

Kestrels’ record collections may have their shares of of My Bloody Valentine and Slowdive records – “There All the Time Without You” is pretty damn Shields-y in a great way – but those records clearly share shelf space with plenty of college rock from this side of the Atlantic. And from those records, they learned valuable lessons – Superchunk taught them how to channel their energy into pogo-ready punk-pop anthems, Dinosaur Jr taught them how to rip a guitar solo like a mofo, and Sloan… well it might be a bit cliche to cite the proto-Halifax rock band, but there’s more than a little Smeared – both in its fuzzy textures and indelible hooks – in Kestrels’ DNA.

For those of us who grew up with these influences will find Ghost History familiar yet invigorating and those who didn’t, who are perhaps of the same generation as Kestrels themselves, well maybe we should consider this a gateway drug.

The Chronicle Herald and The Telegram have feature pieces on Kestrels, whose North American tour hits Rancho Relaxo in Toronto on July 20.

Stream: Kestrels – “Dumb Angel”
Video: Kestrels – “The Past Rests”
Video: Kestrels – “There All The Time Without You”

Spinner talks to Grimes ahead of her show at Historic Fort York tonight as part of the Full Flex train tour thing.

Radio Free Canuckistan continues to get excited for the Shadowy Men On A Shadowy Planet reunion show at Lee’s Palace on Saturday night by interviewing drummer Don Pyle as well as band patron/friend Bruce McCulloch of Kids In The Hall fame. NOW and The AV Club also have feature pieces and Exclaim also has another video session of the 2012 incarnation of the band playing a tune for St. Alban’s Boys and Girls Club in Toronto.

It was a sad day when Forest City Lovers called it a day back in April, but frontwoman Kat Burns did promise that she’d still have a new record out soon – and indeed she does. Now recording as Kashka and exploring the electro-pop side of things, she’ll release her debut album Vichada on July 17 – stream a track below – and has already begun playing some shows but nothing of the hometown persuasion just yet.

Stream: Kashka – “This Machine”

Spin, Dazed, and The Line Of Best Fit talk to Purity Ring about their debut album Shrines, which is due out July 24 and from which they’ve just released a new video.

Video: Purity Ring – “Fineshrine”

CBC Music sends author Grace O’Connell to ask some questions of Great Lake Swimmers main man Tony Dekker. They’re at The Molson Amphitheatre on August 18 opening for Blue Rodeo.

Like bikes? Like music? Maybe you’ll like the Toronto Bicycle Music Fest which happens at Trinity Bellwoods on September 15. The music side of things will feature performances from Snowblink, Gentleman Reg, and Rae Spoon and the bicycle side of things… well I guess you’re encouraged to bring your bike? Snowblink will be presumably be playing material from their new album Inner Classics which comes out September 11, Reg will showcase his Leisure Life material which is being released incrementally through the Summer and collected into album form in the Fall and Spoon’s I Can’t Keep All Of Our Secrets came out at the start of 2012.

MP3: Snowblink – “Black & White Mountains”
MP3: Gentleman Reg – “We’re In A Thunderstorm”
MP3: Rae Spoon – “Crash Landing”

The Wilderness Of Manitoba have announced a September 18 release date for their second album, Island Of Echoes. Hear – and see – a new song that doesn’t actually appear on the new record in this video session filmed by Southern Souls.

Video: The Wilderness Of Manitoba – “Forest City Love” (live)

METZ has released the first taste of their self-titled debut, due out October 9.

MP3: METZ – “Headache”

DIY and Rolling Stone interview Emily Haines and James Shaw of Metric, playing a show at The Air Canada Centre on November 14.

PopMatters, The Vancouver Sun, and The Georgia Straight profile Patrick Watson, doing his thing at Massey Hall on December 6.

Spin has the new video from PS I Love You, taken from Death Dreams and named for Hogtown!

Video: PS I Love You – “Toronto”

Artrocker has a short interview with and Pitchfork a short documentary film featuring Japandroids.