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.

Frank YangSaturday night was pretty flush with options for Toronto music fans – Edgefest for the kids up at Downsview, the Sarah Harmer-led free War Of 1812 celebrations at Fort York for the CBC Radio 3 crowd – but for those of a certain generation, there was nowhere else to be but Lee’s Palace. Because for one night only, Shadowy Men On A Shadowy Planet were back.

Thanks to being the house band for the Kids In The Hall comedy troupe in the late ’80s and early ’90s, Shadowy Men were arguably the most widely-heard independent Toronto band of that era; remember, this was a time when being an independent Canadian artist didn’t have the same cachet that it does today – it basically meant that you toiled away in obscurity or something close to it. The sort of reach that their distinctive surf-a-billy instrumentals got was rare and impressive, and their accomplishments over the course of three albums and many singles frequently overlooked (though a small panel I was on tried to mitigate that somewhat by electing them to the Zunior Independent Music Hall Of Fame in 2010).

The trio disbanded to pursue other projects in 1996 and when bassist Reid Diamond passed away in 2001, it looked as though that would be it for the Shadowy Men legacy; thankfully it wasn’t. Whether the start of a reissue series for their shamefully out of print catalog precipitated the decision to play some live shows with Dallas Good of The Sadies standing in for Diamond or vice-versa, what matters is that Shadowy Men were again an active concern in 2012, first with a show at Calgary’s Sled Island festival in late June and then this sold-out and sweaty hometown show on Saturday.

The last time I’d seen Daniel Romano was right here at Lee’s Palace, but that was five years ago and he was fronting Welland rock act Attack In Black and opening up for Built To Spill. I knew that he’d gone solo in a different direction since then, but it was still something to see him take the stage in full cowboy regalia – okay, no spurs or chaps – with the songs to match. Johnny Cash and Gram Parsons were obvious reference points and while formidable ones, Romano’s slow, hurting songs didn’t pale for the comparison. He wasn’t quite able to win the full attention of the audience at first, but as their performance went on, the floor steadily filled up and by the time a couple began slow dancing at the foot of the stage, their set could be marked in the ‘win’ column.

catl.’s Twitter bio doesn’t even need 140 characters to accurately describe them – “dirty. sweaty. fun.”. Though something of a Toronto fixture, I’d never actually gotten to see the trio live before and indeed their set was loud, dirty, sweaty, and fun. Their greasy blues-rock shuffles were a combination of John Lee Hooker and Tom Waits – thanks to the guitar and voice of Jamie Fleming – happy to grind along in their groove and then periodically detonating with gloriously grimy energy, often in the form of Sarah Kirkpatrick’s maraca shake (mostly not a metaphor). I generally don’t care for the blues or things directly derived from them, but this was more than alright; disinterest was not an option.

Though I counted myself a fan in their initial run – dubbed cassettes of all their albums and their songs were the perfect length for filling in the ends of sides on mix tapes – I never saw them live. I didn’t go to shows because, well, I was still underage and concert-going wasn’t part of my lifestyle – something I’ve spent the past 15 years making up for, I suppose. All of which is to say that it was pretty exciting to get a chance to see something that I’d never thought about having missed, and for it to be as great as I’d never imagined. Obviously Reid Diamond is irreplaceable, but if you had to get a stand-in, you couldn’t do much better than Dallas Good and equipping him with the man’s original Gibson Thunderbird bass – the perfect instrumental counterpoint to guitarist Brian Connelly’s Gretsch White Falcon if ever there was one.

I’m not even going to try and cite many specific songs performed over the course of their 90-minute, two-encore set, which they dove right into without much fanfare – no dimming of lights or chilling of ham. One of the perks of being an instrumental band is you get to come up with ridiculous names for your compositions – which Shadowy Men surely did – so being able to identify 1- to 2-minute songs after having not even heard any of their albums in many years was nigh on impossible. That said, I was surprised how many of their tunes were so immediately familiar – “You Spin Me Round”, “Theme From TV”, “Run Chicken Run”, “Shadowy Countdown”; in trying to describe their sound, any of surf, spaghetti western, spy themes, mariachi, and rockabilly would be appropriate but one musn’t forget pop – as complex as their stylistic melting pot got, memorable and immediate melodies were almost always the first ingredient, which is a large part of why they remain so beloved so many years on.

Though this should have been a record release show for the repressing of their first album Savvy Show Stoppers, drummer Don Pyle apologized for the lack of merch saying that the records were held up at the border… of Saskatchewan. Nonetheless, they’ll make it out eventually and when they do, hopefully a new generation of fans will be able to bask in the greatness that was Shadowy Men. Me, I’m just happy that I finally got to see Brian Connelly play, “Having An Average Weekend”, and be able to confirm after 20 years of wondering that I was indeed playing it right when my high school band covered it in high school – I just sucked at it.

BlogTO has an interview with Don Pyle about the makings of the Shadowy Men reunion and one fan in attendance managed to record their entire set on video in quite good quality and post it to YouTube, so if you weren’t there on Saturday and wished you were, make with the watching. And if you’re up for a road trip, they’ve announced another show on September 14 in Waterloo at the Starlight.

Photos: Shadowy Men On A Shadowy Planet, catl., Daniel Romano @ Lee’s Palace – July 14, 2012
MP3: Shadowy Men On A Shadowy Planet – “13”
Video: Shadowy Men On A Shadowy Planet – “They Don’t Call Them Chihuahuas Anymore”
Video: Shadowy Men On A Shadowy Planet – “Rover And Rusty”
Video: Shadowy Men On A Shadowy Planet – “Memories Of Gay Paree”
Video: Shadowy Men On A Shadowy Planet – “Musical Interlude”
Video: Shadowy Men On A Shadowy Planet – “Shadowy Countdown”
Video: catl. – “Gold Tooth Shine”
Video: catl. – “A Sun’s Grave”
Video: Daniel Romano – “Time Forgot (To Change My Heart)”

Toronto vibraphone ensemble The Hylozoists come out of hiding next week to play The Piston on July 18th.

Video: The Hylozoists – “Bras D’Or Lakes”

Purity Ring’s debut album Shrines is getting the NPR First Listen treatment, being available to stream a week before its July 24 official release.

MP3: Purity Ring – “Fineshrine”
MP3: Purity Ring – “Obedear”
Stream: Purity Ring / Shrines

I probably shouldn’t need a British newspaper to tip me off to new bands in my own backyard, but The Guardian deserves credit for alerting me to the existence of Diana, a new electro-pop band from the brain of Joseph Shabason – aka Destroyer’s go-to saxophonist – that features Carmen Elle of Army Girls on vocals. Seriously, is there any musician in Toronto without an electro-pop side-project/persona?

Stream: Diana – “Born Again”
Stream: Diana – “Perpetual Surrender”

Ion talks to Joel Plaskett.

Loud & Quiet has an interview with Japandroids.

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.

Frank YangThere’s a point in the arc of the breakout band where long-time fans who’ve supported and encouraged the artist through those early days find themselves in the odd position of rubbing elbows not with the faithful but newbs and tourists, interested not in hearing the songs that soundtracked crucial points in their life but that one tune they heard on the radio. For fans of Vancouver duo Japandroids, that time has come and for those in Toronto, that specific moment was Saturday night where on the strength of their second album Celebration Rock, they not only proved they could play clubs the size of Lee’s Palace, but jam it to the gills. And I report on this not as one of those die-hards but one of the newbs.

It wasn’t quite the top-40 scenario sketched out above, but it is true that while I didn’t care for the duo’s 2009 debut Post-Nothing, I was wholly and unexpectedly taken with Celebration Rock and its righteous classic rockism. And I was hardly the only one as the band’s story has turned from having almost called it quits prior to making this record into being one of the most talked-about rock bands of the moment, to say nothing of a spot on the 2012 Polaris Prize longlist with more than reasonable chances of making the short. Yeah, they’re having a pretty good year.

And if they needed someone to discuss the spotlight with, then they could do worse than their tourmate Rollie Pemberton, aka Cadence Weapon, who had himself made the Polaris long list with his third album Hope In Dirt City and who had previously shortlisted with his 2005 debut Breaking Kayfabe. The bill had just completed tours together in the UK and US and as Japandroids guitarist explained as he took the mic before their set, he’d taken to introducing Cadence Weapon to their audience as a way of explaining why a crowd who’d come to see a white noise rock band was about to be warmed up by a hip-hop artist. He did, however, also acknowledge that this was their first show together in Canada and that Cadence Weapon probably didn’t need any hype man in his home country; indeed, to hear Pemberton tell it on Dirt City, he “don’t need a fuckin’ hype man” at all.

In any case, Pemberton performed as though he was thrilled to be playing to audiences where he didn’t necessarily have to justify his presence. His set was part performance, part conversation where he would offer some backstory, some anecdote or otherwise just chat between songs – good for engagement, not so great for pacing or keeping the momentum going. It did get going though, thanks to the crowd getting more and more into it as the show progressed, and while the spartan beats that work well on the Dirt City recordings sounded a bit thin in the live setting, that was more than offset by the amount of energy and expression that Pemberton threw into the performance.

Building momentum wasn’t any kind of problem for Japandroids’ set. Though some have cited Celebration Rock‘s unrelenting pace as a shortcoming – not unreasonably – it was nothing but a positive for their live show, as after another short introduction by King, he and drummer David Prowse – not David Prowse – burst out of the gates with “The Boys Are Leaving Town” and basically didn’t let up with the fist pumping adrenaline or hand clapping anthemicism for the next 80 minutes or so. This was my first Japandroids show ever – see above about newbiness – and even though I’d seen two-piece acts before, the massiveness of their sound was really impressive. The dual Fender Twins/Marshall full stack/Ampeg SVT backline that King plugs his Telecaster into sound massive and also looks it – perfect for doing guitar hero poses in front of, particularly when you’ve got a fan situated sidestage providing windswept hair effects (and cooling things off, of course) to go with the Springsteen-approved white button-down and blue jeans look.

You couldn’t escape the Springsteen-ness of the music, either. Though the older material still sounded a bit generic to my ears, the Celebration Rock stuff translated as well from record to stage as impressively as you could hope, particularly with hundreds of fans singing along. Sweaty and rank fans, certainly – I had to flee their churning mosh pit after four songs – but absolutely devout and unquestionably enthusiastic. And young. Their new record may be a celebration of rock but it’s also a celebration of youth, and I can appreciate how while it just sounds like a great rock record to me, it can connect on a much deeper level to their demographic. It was quite something see; I just didn’t need to be in the middle of it anymore.

If his emcee role earlier in the evening wasn’t a hint, Brian King made it clear pretty quickly he liked to talk to the audience when he wasn’t rocking their faces off, explaining the songs, recounting tour stories, and thanking the fans. You definitely got the sense that he wasn’t taking their recent successes for granted and was genuinely grateful for it all; I’ve little doubt that this is going to be a momentous couple years for the duo as the record propels them forward – it’s good to see that they’re going into this with the right attitude.

It was amusing to hear him call album closer, “Continuous Thunder” a “slow jam” but I suppose that relative to most everything else in their repertoire, it was the thoughtful, contemplative mid-tempo number. They closed with their cover of The Gun Club’s “For The Love Of Ivy”, warning in advance that there would be no encore as they intended to give it their all. The same could have been said about their entire show and no, they weren’t kidding. Intense.

The National Post was also on hand for a review. The double bill has rightfully been leaving quite a trail of press clippings in their wake. There’s Japandroids features at The Phoenix, Denver Westword, Post City, Vulture, The Montreal Mirror, Cleveland.com, and The New York Times while Pemberton talks to The AV Club, The Grid, The Winnipeg Free Press, The National Post (who also take him shopping in Toronto), The Montreal Gazette, and The Edmonton Journal.

Photos: Japandroids, Cadence Weapon @ Lee’s Palace – June 23, 2012
MP3: Japandroids – “The House That Heaven Built”
MP3: Japandroids – “Young Hearts Spark Fire”
MP3: Japandroids – “Wet Hair”
MP3: Japandroids – “Heavenward Grand Prix”
MP3: Cadence Weapon – “Conditioning”
MP3: Cadence Weapon – “Real Estate”
Video: Cadence Weapon – “Get On Down”
Video: Cadence Weapon – “Conditioning”
Video: Cadence Weapon – “Real Estate”
Video: Cadence Weapon – “Sharks”

Billboard talks to Neil Young and director Jonathan Demme about the Neil Young: Journeys documentary that’s coming out June 29. Young leads Crazy Horse into the ACC on November 24.

And just announced as openers for that Neil Young show and others on the tour – ladies and gentlemen, The Sadies.

MP3: The Sadies – “Another Year Again”

Over at The National Post, Nils Edenloff of The Rural Alberta Advantage explains why opening up for The Tragically Hip at Burl’s Creek on Canada Day next weekend is such a big deal for him. He also talks to The Barrie Advance about the show.

Ragged Gold, the debut album from Guelph disco-pop brother act The Magic is out this week and available to stream in its entirety, along with track-by-track band annotations at DIY. They’re opening up for Hot Chip at The Sound Academy on July 15 and will play their own show at The Theatre Centre on August 10 as part of Summerworks.

MP3: The Magic – “Door To Door”
Stream: The Magic / Ragged Gold

Edmonton’s Purity Ring have released another taste of their forthcoming debut Shrines. They’re at The Music Hall on July 6 supporting Dirty Projectors and are featured by The National Post and Spinner.

MP3: Purity Ring – “Fineshrine”

Macleans has posted the full Q&A of their interview with Don Pyle of Shadowy Men On A Shadowy Planet, whose reunion hits Lee’s Palace on July 14, and Exclaim has a video of one of their comeback gigs at St. Alban’s Boys and Girls Club.

MP3: Shadowy Men On A Shadowy Planet – “13”

DIY has a video session with and aux.tv some video commentary from Al Spx of Cold Specks. She leads her band into The Great Hall on August 8.

Opening up that show is Snowblink and they’ll be previewing material from their just-confirmed new album Inner Classics. It’s due out September 11 and details on the release can be found at Exclaim, and a first track can be downloaded below.

MP3: Snowblink – “Black & White Mountain”

Each Note Secure chats with Great Lake Swimmers, opening up for Blue Rodeo at The Molson Amphitheatre on August 20.

Stars have revealed details of their next album – it will be called The North, be out September 4, and at least one song will sound like this. As for details of their next tour…

MP3: Stars – “The Theory Of Relativity”

…They will be hooking up with Metric for a cross-Canada tour that brings them to the Air Canada Centre on November 24. Not quite stadium love, but arena ain’t bad. The Globe & Mail and eMusic have feature pieces on the band and DIY and The Line Of Best Fit chip in video sessions. And another track from Synthetica has been made available to download.

MP3: Metric – “Clone”
MP3: Metric – “Artificial Nocturne”

Spinner gets a preview on the visual and audio direction that Diamond Rings will be taking with his second album; a video for the first single from it was just released.

Video: Diamond Rings – “I’m Just Me”

The Grid chatted with Dan Bejar of Destroyer ahead of last weekend’s show at The Opera House.

Chains Of Love have released a new video from Strange Grey Days and if you head over to Nylon, you can grab another track from the album to download. Note that it’s uncompressed so have some disk space open…

AIFF: Chains Of Love – “Mistake Lover”
Video: Chains Of Love – “He’s Leaving With Me”

Daytrotter has a session with Kathryn Calder.

CBC Music solicits PS I Love You frontman Paul Saulnier’s five favourite songs of the last 20 years.

The Take chats with The Elwins.

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.