Frank YangAs those of you who have nothing better to do than monitor my Facebook status or Twitter feed know, I was far from home this past weekend. Texas far, to be precise. Thanks to Philips and their UnDiscovered Austin program, I was whisked away to the Tejas capitol along with a handful of other blog folk for an evening at no cost to me, save the physical toll of being flying halfway across the continent and back in a 30-hour period. And that there is my corporate whore disclaimer. Moving on.

The purpose of the trip was essentially to attend a “secret” show at the Mohawk featuring Matt & Kim. This was fortuitous as I’d actually wanted to see them when they came through Toronto last month, but I opted to go see Neil Halstead that night instead. I had absolutely no regrets about that on my part, but was glad for the opportunity to make that up. Getting out of town for a weekend while picking up around 30 degrees centigrade in ambient temperature was just gravy.

Opening the show up were winners of a contest sponsored by the aforementioned UnDiscovered Austin initiative, ostensibly dedicated to discovering the best unsigned acts in Austin. For a city that’s turned out as many sublime acts as ATX has, however, I have to think they could have done better than The Canvas Waiting. Their earnest and rote pop-rock was almost offensively inoffensive and sounded not unlike the Goo Goo Dolls, which you can interpret as either praise or damnation depending on your affection for the Goo Goo Dolls. In the battle for my attention, they quickly lost to an open bar.

Faring decidedly better were middle act The Lemurs and their taut, Anglo-friendly new wave stylings. Though I’d be hard-pressed to pick out a standout song, they put on a good show – equally danceable and rocking – and definitely elevated the energy level for the night and got those in attendance engaged. Or at least me. Their latest release is the Million Little Bits EP.

I can’t say as that I’m that familiar with Matt & Kim’s recorded output, but the one time I saw them last year made me a definite fan of their live show. I can’t think of any other band that seem to be having quite as much pure, unadulterated fun when they play, and this show did nothing to change that impression of the band. At one point, singer/keyboardist Matt Johnson said that they hated being called “cute”, so I’ll go with “adorable”, and there’s naught they can do about it. He’s like a hyperactive kid overdosed on happy pills on stage and drummer Kim Schifino sports a perma-grin as if the last drum hit was the greatest thing in the world, at least until the next one. Their joy is so real and pure, it’s contagious. And the songs are pretty damn catchy too.

Their set was breakneck fast and fun, drawing on their debut self-title and presumably the forthcoming follow-up Grand, due out January 20 of next year. I can’t say for sure as I don’t know the old material well enough to distinguish it from the new, and let’s be fair – a two-piece like them is only capable of so much sonic variety. But what they lack in range, they more than make up for in pop savvy and glee.

And that was the trip. Probably not the most efficient way to see Matt & Kim – they’re setting out on tour this Spring with Cut Copy including a Toronto date at Circa on March 20 – but certainly a fun, if exhausting, one. And I got to have breakfast tacos. I love me some breakfast tacos.

You can download an MP3 of the first single from Grand at Green Label Sound.

Photos: Matt & Kim, The Lemurs, The Canvas Waiting @ The Mohawk, Austin TX – December 13, 2008
MP3: Matt & Kim – “No More Long Years”
MP3: Matt & Kim – “Yea Yeah”
MP3: The Lemurs – “Yours, Mine, Ours”
MP3: The Lemurs – “They Do What They Want”
Video: Matt & Kim – “Daylight”
Video: Matt & Kim – “Yea Yeah”
Video: Matt & Kim – “5K”
MySpace: Matt & Kim
MySpace: The Lemurs
MySpace: The Canvas Waiting

The Globe & Mail has just run an interview conducted with Oasis’ Noel Gallagher pre-assault, while Detroit News got a word with him more recently, prior to their current North American tour. And apparently the dude who used Noel as a tackling dummy at V Fest skipped out on a court appearance yesterday and there’s now an arrest warrant out for him. What a sparkling example of humanity. Oasis fans, I believe you’re now allowed to go all vigilante on his ass.

Stereogum kicks off their new Decomposed video sessions series with School Of Seven Bells.

ANTI-blog has a video interview with Neko Case about the making of her new album Middle Cyclone, out March 3.

Also with the video preview – there may not be a release date for Neil Young’s Archives, Volume 1 but there is now a video trailer… and if you had any doubts before as to whether or not this set would be worth the wait and/or money, put those to rest. This thing looks unbelievable.

Trailer: Neil Young / Archives, Volume 1

Further to yesterday’s announcement of the Blitzen Trapper show at the Horseshoe on February 21, it’s been announced that support for the tour will be folksinger Alela Diane, who was recommended to me a number of times from independent sources in the last couple weeks. I’ll call that a sign. She’s releasing a new album in To Be Still on February 17th, from which you can check an MP3 and there’s also a session she recorded earlier this year for Songs By Toad and going way back to last year, a Daytrotter session.

MP3: Alela Diane – “White As Diamonds”

The lineup for this year’s What’s In The Box? music series taking place at the Drake Hotel the final week of December (five nights, five acts, five bucks) has been announced… and I don’t know who any of these acts are. The first two years had at least one or two performers whom I was excited to see – Mahogany in 2006 and A Place To Bury Strangers last year – but the five acts with top billing this time around leave me scratching my head. Skratch Bastid? Willy Joy? Kap Bambino? Slim Twig? Nosaj Thing? Okay, Slim Twig I know, but anyone care to testify on behalf of any of the others?

Erin Nicholson

2008 has been a curious year. In assembling this obligatory list of my favourite records of the year, I found it a much more difficult task than past years. This was partly because the list of “no-brainer” records that were gimmes for year-end accolades seemed much slimmer than usual, and as such I had to do a lot more thinking about what would make the cut. Not to take anything away from those records who are listed below – all are excellent records that have soundtracked the past twelve months quite nicely – I just usually don’t have to think about things this much.

The other interesting thing is how the records that seem to be topping most everyone else’s lists are conspicuously absent from mine. Your Fleet Foxes, your Bon Ivers, your Vampire Weekends. I spent a goodly amount of time with most of these albums and mostly agree they’re fine albums (Vampire Weekend excepted, that one just bugs me), but they just didn’t move me the way they obviously have others. Curious.

Instead, what I find is a heavy representation from the UK, which doesn’t really surprise me considering this was the year I fully indulged my innate Anglophilia and actually visited London for the first time. I’m surprised there’s only three artists represented that I’d have called myself a fan of prior to this year – hell, six of them I’d never even heard of when 2008 began. The Canadian content is made up of records that were released wholly independently. There’s also a strong folk/roots representation which I should be used to by now, seeing as how it crops up most every year. Maybe my musical tastes aren’t quite as broad as I’d like to think. It really is a bit of a strange list, all things considered, but even though it was assembled a bit hesitantly, I’m very comfortable with how the chips have fallen. So let’s have a look.

And great thanks to Vancouver-based artist and web designer Erin Nicholson, who took my half-assed idea for an artwork meme and turned it into something completely awesome – please do click on all the images to see larger versions. Though I really have no idea how I’m going to top this next year.

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Aubrey EdwardsNever have I claimed to be the fastest to get turned on to something, to be the one who discovers the next big thing. I’m far more tortoise than hare in these sorts of matters, but even then there’s not really any excuse for taking, oh, seventeen months to get around to writing up Bishop Allen’s last album The Broken String – or even longer if you think back to the year-long “one EP a month” series in 2006 from which much of the album is taken.

And it’s a pity I’ve waited so long, because I am very much in this record’s target market – namely fans of sprightly indie rock of the wordy variety. As such, stylistically and sonically, it’s very familiar stuff built on earnest boy lead vocals with sweet girl backing vocals and just enough interesting instrumental flourishes to disguise the fact that it’s pretty straight guitar-driven folk-pop. Where Bishop Allen stands out is in the songwriting, which is never less than solid but on a few occasions, is outstanding. Leadoff track “The Monitor” is a stirring and evocative piece about a Civil War naval battle, but that sort of lyrical grandeur is the exception rather than the rule – the standouts tend to be those the simple, slice of live observationals that are rendered in exquisite detail, as in “Flight 180” or “The Chinatown Bus”. They also handle the peppier stuff with vigor and aplomb, but it’s the slower, more thoughtful stuff such as above that really sticks.

Because of my neglect, I missed the band when they came through last Summer but I shan’t be skipping out on their just-announced January 17 date at the El Mocambo. Similarly, when their next album Grr… is released on March 10, you can be sure I won’t be taking a year and a half to give it the attention it deserves. The Justice has an interview with band principal Justin Rice.

MP3: Bishop Allen – “Click, Click, Click, Click”
MP3: Bishop Allen – “Middle Management”
MP3: Bishop Allen – “Rain”
Video: Bishop Allen – “Click, Click, Click, Click”
Video: Bishop Allen – “Middle Management”
MySpace: Bishop Allen

Ben Kweller and The Watson Twins are at the Mod Club on February 22, tickets $25. Spinner, The Smith College Sophian and The Irish Independent talk to Kweller, who will release a new album in Changing Horses on February 3. Stereogum are sharing the first single.

The Airborne Toxic Event, last spotted hereabouts for V Fest, have a date at the El Mocambo on March 4. Tickets for that are $12.50.

Blurt, Glide, ArtistDirect and The Toronto Sun make time with Rachael Yamgata, who will be at the Mod Club on Friday for an early show. She’s got not one but two new vids from Elephants… Teeth Sinking Into Heart.

Video: Rachael Yamagata – “Faster”
Video: Rachael Yamagata – “Sunday Afternoon”

Brooklyn noiseniks Dirty On Purpose have formally called it a day. A moment of silence for a great band who created my favourite trebuchet-themed video of all time.

Video: Dirty On Purpose – “Car No Driver”

The Independent, The Oxford Mail and This Is Nottingham interview Hold Steady frontman Craig Finn.

Ra Ra Riot are in session overload – Laundromatinee has a video session, NPR an audio one. They also find time to squeeze in an interview with The Courier-Journal.

Austin360 talks to Johnathan Martin of The Uglysuit.

Lots of session action lately for School Of Seven Bells with audio and video sets for for Radio K, KCRW and Spinner’s Interface and video only at Lime.

Paste reports that Hazards Of Love, the new record from The Decemberists, will be coming out on March 24 of next year.

The Long Winters have released a live DVD entitled Live At The Showbox and are giving away a few live tracks taken from it. Check it out.

MP3: The Long Winters – “Scared Straight” (live)
MP3: The Long Winters – “Clouds” (live)
MP3: The Long Winters – “Cinnamon” (live)

John Darnielle of The Mountain Goats salutes heavy metal for the The New Zealand Herald.

Frank YangIt’s amazing what a little tracklist editing can do. Though it goes against much of what I believe (album is sacred, blah blah), I’ve found that simply hitting the skip button on M83’s last album Before The Dawn Heals Us when a certain spoken word track starts improves the overall experience immeasurably. This revelation, combined with the fact that their latest effort Saturday=Youth has been growing on me much more since I reviewed it in brief, should have been enough to get me to the Opera House last Thursday night to see them live for the first time in some three and a half years. But it took the addition of School Of Seven Bells, whose debut Alpinisms has proven to be a real delight, to get me to commit.

I had been curious as to how School Of Seven Bells would recreate the decidedly studio-esque sounds of Alpinisms live, especially considering the fact that the three principals didn’t equate to a full conventional live band. In other words, I was wondering if they’d have a drummer. Answer – no. The band was guitarist Ben Curtis flanked by the Deheza sisters, Claudia on keyboards and Alley on guitar and samples handling rhythm duties. And while I’m of the school of thought that live drummers are always better than samples, their live performance didn’t suffer much for it. Though their set was briefer than I’d have liked – just seven songs in 35 minutes – they still covered all the high points of Alpinisms, though they opted for straight reproduction of the record rather than reinterpretation. The Dehezas’ harmonies were tight and note-perfect, though a bit low in the mix, and Curtis’ non-stop guitar-riffing kept things from feeling too mechanical. And if 17-year old me may step in for just a moment and say to Curtis – dude, standing on stage and soloing whilst surrounded by beautiful girls? You are living the dream. And adult me is hoping that School Of Seven Bells strike out on their own tour in the new year, play a longer set and maybe mess around with the structure of things a bit.

M83 had just come through town in May so I’d expected that might have affected the turnout, and while the crowd was pretty thin early on it had filled up substantially by show time. I’d seen them back in 2005 at their Toronto debut at Lee’s Palace, and when anyone asks me about it the best word I could come up with the describe it is “ridiculous”. Read my review from that show for specifics. This time out, I was expecting equal levels of sonic grandeur and while I don’t think that those heights were reached, I think the show was actually better than that first one. Like that show, the M83 live experience was again a four-piece but this time the bassist had been traded for a second keyboardist/vocalist in Morgan Kibby, who is such an essential presence on Saturday=Youth. Anthony Gonzalez also spent more time on keys than guitar this time, lessening the need for taped backing tracks (of which there were still plenty, just less) and also mitigating the amount of fromage-ish rock star posing he could engage in.

Essentially, it seemed that they’d opted to sacrifice some spectacle for the benefit of the sound, and it was a wise trade-off. The band seemed much more engaged in the performance, and the extended square-wave instrumental explorations of Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts stood alongside the more pop-friendly confections of the last couple records. Not that those albums are short of instrumental excursions either, and proved that M83 has assembled a broad enough repertoire to shake off the “new My Bloody Valentine” tag that got applied when they first began making waves. Now you could just as accurately/inaccurately call them the “new New Order” or “new Cocteau Twins”. Or you could give up on that approach to lazy descriptors and simply accept that while they may wear their influences on their sleeve, M83 are now creating something that’s distinctly theirs.

Chart and Panic Manual have reviews of the show while The Chicago Tribune offers up an interview with Anthony Gonzalez.

Photos: M83, School Of Seven Bells @ The Opera House – November 20, 2008
MP3: School Of Seven Bells – “Connjur”
MP3: School Of Seven Bells – “Half Asleep”
MP3: School Of Seven Bells – “Chain”
MP3: School Of Seven Bells – “My Cabal” (Robin Guthrie mix)
Video: M83 – “Graveyard Girl”
Video: M83 – “Kim And Jessie”
Video: M83 – “Teen Agnst”
Video: M83 – “Run Into Flowers”
Video: M83 – “Don’t Save Us From The Flames”
Video: M83 – “America”
MySpace: M83
MySpace: School Of Seven Bells

Nick Cave is in the UK – how can you tell? The trail of interviews he leaves in his wake. The Sheffield Telegraph, The Scotsman and The Independent all have features.

The Telegraph reports that thirteen years after he disappeared, Richey Edwards of Manic Street Preachers has finally been officially declared, “presumed dead”. Edwards’ left-behind lyrics are being used as the basis of the next Manics record, due out some time in the Spring.

The Guardian sits down for an extended chat with Jarvis Cocker and his new beard. Great reading.

And if you don’t want to read, you can listen instead – there’s an audio interview with Chris Geddes and Stevie Jackson about the just-releaed BBC Sessions at BelleAndSebastian.com.

Christina HensleyWhen I was writing up the self-titled debut from Madison, Wisconsin’s Pale Young Gentlemen last year, I took the easy way out in name-checking some of the more obvious stylistic reference points (DeVotchKa, Decemberists, Beirut) but the band has to take equal responsibility in that – they made it easy. And to be fair, I still gave the record a thumbs up – just because it was a bit obvious, it didn’t make it any less of an accomplished and enjoyable debut.

But they’re not letting me get away with any such shortcuts with the follow-up, Black Forest (Tra La La), released last month. Though the same elements are at work, or even moreso in the case of their expanded string section, Black Forest has a much greater sense of purpose and determination about it. The debut seemed quite content to spend the evening at the cabaret getting debauched in grand fashion, not that there’s anything wrong with that, but while the sophomore effort starts off in that same setting with the grandiose “Coal/Ivory”, it then opts to step outside and go for a walk, exploring the dark nooks and crannies of existence.

As such, it’s a less immediate and raucous affair. On the first few listens, I was asking myself, “didn’t this band used to be fun?”, but repeated listens served the record well. Michael Reisenauer’s croon is as dramatic as ever and the orchestrated backdrops even richer than before, but the overall delivery is much more nuanced and less reliant on the big, sweeping gestures. That may not play as well to those in the cheap seats, but for those up front and paying attention, it’s much more rewarding.

Fingertips, The Bat Segundo Show and Culture Bully all have interviews with Reisenauer about the new record.

MP3: Pale Young Gentlemen – “Coal/Ivory”
MP3: Pale Young Gentlemen – “The Crook Of My Good Arm”
MySpace: Pale Young Gentlemen

Drowned In Sound solicits a mix tape from Emmy The Great. She also gives Clash a list of the meats currently comprising up her cultural stew. Her debut First Love is out in the UK on February 2.

Laura Marling is the subject of interviews at Clash and For Folk’s Sake. I feel compelled to mention that the LP versions of Alas, I Cannot Swim are worth seeking out, not only because it’s a nice heavy pressing but because it also comes with a bonus live CD that features the backing band that played with her on the recent “Fe Fie Fo Fum” North American tour, and as such, sounds absolutely splendid. I don’t know if there’s any other (legal) way to get Verses From The Union Chapel, but it’s worth having. And the players that largely comprised said band, Mumford & Sons, are also interviewed at For Folk’s Sake.

Colin Meloy describes the new Decemberists record, Hazards Of Love, to Rolling Stone. Key takeaways? Musical theatre, rock opera, more of the same.

Jonathan Meiburg annotates Rook, track by track, for Drowned In Sound.

The Broken West stop in for a session at Daytrotter. Stereogum asks frontman Ross Flournoy about his day job.

eye features M83 while Limewire, The Georgia Straight and NOW interview School Of Seven Bells. Both are in town tonight for a show at the Opera House.

Laundromatinee welcomes Margot & The Nuclear So And So’s to their studios for a video session.