Myspace Toronto’s venerable Wavelength might have closed out their weekly showcase series last year in favour of intermittent events throughout the year, but they’ve not given up their tradition of throwing a killer birthday party or five. As they’ve done in years past, Wavelength Eleven (or event #515 if you’re keeping track) will commandeer venues around this city from February 16 through 20 and fill them with many of the finest acts the city and outlying regions have to offer, spanning all styles and genres, frequently on the same bill.

I missed last year’s festivities but hit up one of the 9th anniversary shows in 2009 and it’s interesting to see that one of the undercard acts at that show – Hooded Fang – has already graduated to headline status. This they’ve done on the strength of their debut Album, released last October to considerable praise. And indeed, it’s an impressive first effort that reflects the remarkable rate at which they’ve improved as a band since first making noise in late ’08/early ’09 – I saw them three times over the course of 2009 and each time, most flaws I’d have pointed out for the time before had been sorted without diminishing the amount of fun they were clearly having on stage. Album‘s orchestrally-inclined power pop still tends a bit more to the precious/twee side of things than I’d like and can feel a bit samey over the course of its dozen songs, but the degree of songwriting, musicianship and genuine joy it captures is undeniable. As was clear in each of those live reviews from 2009, big things seem an inevitability for this crew.

Hooded Fang will be closing out the Saturday night of Wavelength Eleven at The Great Hall. The rest of the week’s events look like this – tickets for the Thursday, Friday and Saturday shows are $11 while Wednesday and Sunday are PWYC. There is also a $33 all-access passes available. Check in at Wavelength for descriptions of each act. aux.tv has an interview with Hooded Fang.

Wednesday, February 16 @ Teranga – Anagram, Bruised Knees, The Guest Bedroom, The Jim Storie Juniors
Thursday, February 17 @ The Music Gallery – Kite Hill, Eiyn Sof, Gordon Grdina’s East Van Strings, Not The Wind, Not The Flag
Friday, February 18 @ The Steam Whistle Roundhouse – Woodhands, Minotaurs, Pat Jordache, Romo Roto, Doldrums
Saturday, February 19 @ The Great Hall – Hooded Fang, Maylee Todd, Little Girls, Eric Chenaux Electric Trio, Grimes
Sunday, February 20 @ The Garrison – Lullabye Arkestra, Neon Windbreaker, Simply Saucer, Ghostlight

MP3: Hooded Fang – “Laughing”
MP3: Hooded Fang – “Mutant Beart”
MP3: Woodhands – “Dissembler”
MP3: Eric Chenaux – “Warm Charleston”
MP3: Little Girls – “Growing”
MP3: Lullabye Arkestra – “We Fuck The Night”

In other just-announced live music happenings – guitar goddess Marnie Stern and prog-rockers Tera Melos will be at Wrongbar on March 8 as part of an extensive North American tour.

MP3: Marnie Stern – “For Ash”
MP3: Tera Melos – “Frozen Zoo”

We’re still some ways out from having a Canadian Musicfest schedule to pore over, but you’d be just silly to not keep staying at the Opera House all night – that’s the Billions showcase – circled on your calendar. The lineup will read like Land Of Talk, Hollerado, Cadence Weapon, Isis (ex. Thunderheist) and Little Scream, so while club-hopping is part of the CMF experience, there’s something to be said for staying put all night.

MP3: Land Of Talk – “Quarry Hymns”
MP3: Hollerado – “Americanarama”
MP3: Cadence Weapon – “Real Estate”

And I’m very excited that Sharon Van Etten, after many visits in a support capacity, will be playing her first headlining show here at the Drake on April 12 with Little Scream supporting – there’s a recording of her show at the Bowery in New York City last week up at NYC Taper. You may recall that her epic was one of my favourite albums of 2010, and she’s already started work on the follow-up with Aaron Dessner of The National.

MP3: Sharon Van Etten – “Love More”

The New Zealand Herald talks to The National’s Matt Berninger about their breakout year of 2010.

There’s a new video from Retribution Gospel Choir’s album 2.

Video: Retribution Gospel Choir – “Your Bird”

The Skinny talks to Iron & Wine’s Sam Beam about his new record Kiss Each Other Clean, due out January 25.

Superchunk’s Mac McCaughan and Laura Ballance discuss their visual artistic pursuits with Design Sponge.

Inara George of The Bird & The Bee chats with Spinner.

Pitchfork has a feature interview with Dan Bejar of Destroyer. His sax-y new album Kaputt arrives January 25 and he plays Lee’s Palace on March 31.

The Line Of Best Fit and NOW talk to Jonas Bonnetta of Evening Hymns about their new, nude video for “Dead Deer” from Spirit Guides. The band are currently out in the wilds of Ontario somewhere recording their next album, already dubbed Spectral Dusk – the proceedings are being documented on their Tumblr.

Video: Evening Hymns – “Dead Deer”

Diamond Rings’ John O’Regan discusses the therapeutic aspects of music with Spinner. He’s at the Sound Academy January 26 opening up for Robyn.

Brandon ShowersThe final week of the year – a time for reminiscences, reflections and regrets. And leading the pack in the regrets department, at least as far as the blog goes, is not giving more attention to Miles Kurosky’s solo debut The Desert Of Shallow Effects, even though Kurosky’s set was a highlight at SxSW. It’s an album that should have gotten a lot more facetime hereabouts, considering I’d been waiting for it for nigh on seven years, ever since Kurosky’s band Beulah called it a day.

Since Kurosky hasn’t really made an effort to distance himself from Beulah’s legacy with his solo work, I probably shouldn’t have to. After all, if Desert had come out under the Beulah marque, no one would have batted an eye. Indeed, no less than four of his former bandmates appear on this record, amongst the 30-plus players who are credited in the liner notes contributing horns, woodwinds and all manner of unconventional percussion instruments in addition to the mandatory guitars, keys and whatnot. Clearly, anyone thinking that a Kurosky solo record would just be him and a guitar has got another thing coming. Even after all the time away, his artistic ambitions remain as loft as ever and Desert is a pretty terrific record of lyrically sharp and sonically dense, yet wholly immediate pop tunes, the likes of which the world hasn’t been graced with since, well, Yoko. It’s a void in the cosmic musical continuum you didn’t know was there until something steps in to fill it; it had best not be another seven years before the next record.

Daytrotter just posted a session with Kurosky.

MP3: Miles Kurosky – “Apple For An Apple”
Video: Miles Kurosky – “The World Won’t Last The Night”
Video: Miles Kurosky – “Dog In The Burning Building”

Robert Pollard talks to Spinner about potential future Guided By Voices projects beyond the final handful of scheduled dates running through next February.

Spin quizzes Conor Oberst about the new Bright Eyes record The People’s Key, due out February 15. They play the Sound Academy on March 13.

The Dumbing Of America interviews Sharon Van Etten.

The New York Daily News checks in with Daniel Roesen of Grizzly Bear.

Woodpigeon, en route to Europe for an extensive tour, have scheduled a stopover in Toronto to play The Tranzac with Sandro Perri on January 12.

MP3: Woodpigeon – “Winter Song”

This year’s Hillside Inside festival in Guelph will bring Sarah Harmer and The Rural Alberta Advantage together at the River Run Centre on February 4 – tickets $39.50, on sale now and I’d say this is worth the drive to Guelph. And if you’re already in Guelph, well duh.

MP3: The Rural Alberta Advantage – “Stamp”
Video: Sarah Harmer – “Captive”

Daytrotter’s session with Stars is now up for the grabbing.

BBC talks to Will Butler of Arcade Fire.

AmazonThis is probably going to be it for the holidays, so I’ll leave it with a salute to the folks at Herohill, who’ve fulfilled a Christmas wish I didn’t know I had by assembling a tribute album to Hall & Oates featuring a slew of independent Canadian artists including Rae Spoon, Milks & Rectangles, Ox and more. A lot of the names might not be familiar but there’s talent in that there lineup and the material is tops, and there’s more to come – another batch of Can-con covers is coming sometime in January.

Yeah, I grew up listening to Hall & Oates and, as this collection and the Bird & The Bee tribute album Interpreting The Masters from earlier this year have proven, I still do. On my annual Boxing Day record store trawl this weekend, I will be crate digging for a copy of Private Eyes and/or H2O, yes I will.

Switch Mode talks community with Ohbijou’s Ryan Carley.

Conor Oberst goes over some of the science fiction influences on The People’s Key, the next album from Bright Eyes, with Spinner. The album is out February 15 and they play The Sound Academy on March 13.

MP3: Bright Eyes – “Shell Games”

There’s now a video trailer for R.E.M.’s new record Collapse Into Now, due March 8, and while the formula of veteran acts and special guests usually equals artistic calamity, the advance word on this record continues to be very good. Here’s hoping.

Trailer: R.E.M. / Collapse Into Now

Daytrotter have served up a session with Old 97’s, who should be making up their cancelled Miller/Hammond show in October with a full-band show at The Horseshoe sometime in the Spring. Keep an ear open. And in the meantime, read these interviews with Murry Hammond at American Songwriter and Rhett Miller at CNN.

NYC Taper has followed up last week’s post of The National at Maxwell’s in New Jersey with another set of recordings from the same show – for the whats and the whys, read the post and grab the tracks.

NPR has got a World Cafe session with Sharon Van Etten and another one with Janelle Monáe.

And that should do it. See you sometime next week. Safe holidays. Seacrest out.

Frank Yang

Well this was certainly a better year than last year, on pretty much every level. Of course, it would have required something on the scale of low-yield nuclear detonation in my bathtub – while I was in it – for it to have been worse, but I’ll take it. Musically, it was actually something of a banner year with what seemed like every active artist that I liked not only putting out new records, but good to great records. More hiatuses ended than started and despite intending to slow down the show-going, I ended up going to even more life-affirming, if not -changing, concerts than in any calendar year I can recall. In short, 2010 brought it.

So you’d think that with such a wealth of great records to choose from, assembling a short list of ten faves should have been easier than a year without as many worthy candidates but if anything, it’s tougher. Acts that release records that meet expectations, however high, are held to extra scrutiny; it’s like, “yeah this record was good but so was the last one – where’s that next level?” which of course is completely unreasonable. And conversely, acts heretofore unknown to me had the element of surprise on their side when it came to triggering the ineffable “wow” reflex. All of which is to say that, like past years, there’s nothing scientific nor quantitative about these selections – they’re alphabetical by artist and represent what I could get behind as of the first weekend of December, 2010, and strongly motivated by a desire to get this list over and done with.

So here they are, after the jump, or if you want to peer closely at my little photoshop project above (click for a bigger version) you can try and guess who made the cut before seeing the answers. Because I know the suspense is delicious.

(more…)

Annie RaczI liked Gregory & The Hawk’s last record, 2008’s Moenie & Kitchi. Really, I did. The combination of New Yorker Meredith Godreau’s sweet, girlish voice and her gentle, mostly-acoustic, semi-orchestral folk-pop is like kryptonite to me and maybe that’s why I was able to resist it – it’s the sort of record I’ve bought a dozen times before and while it’s not a style that I’m necessarily tired of, it is one that requires some above and beyond to really impress me. Which is why, I guess, I hung onto the record but didn’t write it up or make the 10-minute walk – or 5-minute bike ride – to see them at the El Mocambo last May.

The just-released follow-up Leche won’t be so easily ignored, though. While Goudreau hasn’t changed appreciably changed her approach, the new record is an impressive step forward in pretty much all departments. The arrangements are broader this time out, adding more percussion and both electric and electronic textures in just the right amounts to enhance but not obscure the songs’ simple charms. Not that the songs are as simple this time out; they still have the child-like sense of whimsy and fantastical edge to them, but have more dynamic and emotional range and even offer a whiff of darkness or anger that wasn’t present on Moenie. Add to this more immediate and memorable melodies and an unexpected crib of Cutting Crew’s ’80s hit “(I Just) Died In Your Arms”, and you’ve got a record that demands your attention for its own merits, and not just because it sounds like stuff you already like.

Sloucher has an interview with Goudreau.

MP3: Gregory & The Hawk – “Landscapes”
Video: Gregory & The Hawk – “Soulgazing”
Video: Gregory & The Hawk – “For The Best”
Myspace: Gregory & The Hawk

Spinner talks to Nicole Atkins about her new album Mondo Amore, out January 25, and offers a first look at the album art. Stereogum, meanwhile, has the b-side of her recent “Vultures” single – a Can cover – available to download.

Under The Radar has an interview with Sharon Van Etten.

Pitchfork brings word of a Joanna Newsom tribute album with the terrific title of Versions Of Joanna and featuring contributions fromM Ward, Owen Pallett and Billy Bragg, though the first two are previously released recordings and Bragg’s contribution presumably comes from his contribution to the Voice Project. It will be released digitally in December.

BBC Radio 6 and Pitchfork talk to Lykke Li about her new album, due out on March 1 of next year, which will carry the title Wounded Rhymes. She’s at The Phoenix on May 22.

Prefix talks to The Concretes. They’re at The Horseshoe on January 18.

Love Is All have released a new video from their latest, Two Thousand And Ten Injuries.

Video: Love Is All – “Bigger Bolder”

NPR is streaming the whole of Josni’s recent show at the 9:30 Club in Washington DC.

Daytrotter has got a session up with Suuns; they play the Silver Dollar on November 26.

Exclaim talks to Fucked Up drummer Jonah Falco about how progress is coming on their new record.

The Globe & Mail talks to the director of the Feist documentary Look At What The Light Did Now, screening at the ROM this Sunday night and coming out on DVD/CD on December 7.

Good news: in advance of their show at the Sound Academy that night opening up for Broken Social Scene, Superchunk will be playing an in-store at Sonic Boom on the afternoon of December 9. Bad news: it will be happening at 3PM, making it difficult or impossible to attend if you have a 9-5 job… unless you cut out early like some kind of slack motherfucker.

MP3: Superchunk – “Digging For Something”

Baths, Braids and Star Slinger are teaming up for a show at the El Mocambo on February 19, tickets $12. Baths’ debut Cerulean was released this past Summer, Braids’ debut Native Speaker is out January 18.

MP3: Baths – “Maximalist”
MP3: Braids – “Lemonade”