Sebastian MlynarskiI expect there’s a lot of interest in drawing parallels between the success of Purity Ring with that of Grimes what with both being based out of Montreal – although Purity Ring’s Corin Roddick and Megan James originally hail from Edmonton – and releasing albums of electronic pop that seem to be the perfect soundtracks for the zeitgeist circa 2012, and on the same label outside of Canada, no less – the legendary 4AD.

But whereas Claire Boucher’s work is rather defined by its technicolor ADD-ness and her pixie-like vocals, Purity Ring’s debut Shrines is quite content to work within decidedly narrow aesthetic parameters. Beats are slow and with their reverse-decay treatment, seem to exist somewhere between a stutter and a throb, giving the record a very steady if uneasy pace. At the other end of the spectrum and separated by layers of thickly reverbed ’80s-vintage synth tones, you have James’ bright, clear, and girlish vocals – and only occasionally electronically sliced and diced – delivering major-key, singalong melodies and lyrics that are often playfully nonsensical, yet still somehow foreboding.

This contrast essentially sums up Purity Ring – a friendly yet fearful intersection of dreampop and R&B. The consistency of their style reminds me of The xx, who were also able to turn a seemingly limited palette of sounds and ideas into a unique sonic world all their own. They aren’t quite as able to avoid the nagging sense of sameness that’s the downside of such an approach – by the end of Shrines, there’s a distinct sense that you’ve heard these songs already – but the record possesses enough distinctiveness and ideas to largely justify all the attention being given to it.

What attention? Well, consider that the week of the record’s release – that’s this week – has yielded feature pieces in Exclaim, Billboard, Rolling Stone, Interview, Canada.com, The Edmonton Journal, The Montreal Gazette, and Stereogum. I’d say that counts as people paying attention.

MP3: Purity Ring – “Belispeak”
MP3: Purity Ring – “Fineshrine”
MP3: Purity Ring – “Obedear”
Video: Purity Ring – “Fineshrine”
Video: Purity Ring – “Belispeak”

Claire Boucher talks to MTV Hive about some creative directions she may want to take in the future, whether as Grimes or as something else. It’s as Grimes that she’ll be at Lee’s Palace on September 21.

Crystal Castles are putting the finishing touches on their third album – still untitled but due out late September, and with the first sample available to download and accompanying North American tour announced. Full dates plus some words from Ethan Kath about the new record are available at Exclaim. The hometown date on the itinerary is November 4 at the Kool Haus; Los Angeles’ HEALTH supports.

MP3: Crystal Castles – “Plague”

Dan Snaith’s multiple personality disorder appears to have reared its head again. After being forced to stop being Manitoba and become Caribou some years ago – occasionally transforming into the Caribou Vibration Ensemble – he’s announced his next release will be under the name Daphni, and be decidedly more electronic/dancey than his past efforts which were decidedly electronic/dancey to begin with. The album JIAOLONG will be out on October 16 – Pitchfork has details, the first video is below.

Video: Daphni – “Ye Ye”

Also at Pitchfork, Dan Bejar reviews some of the musical milestones of his life that turned him into Destroyer. He also talks to The Vancouver Sun and Victoria Times-Colonist about attempting to get Destroyer onto the jazz festival circuit this Summer.

That new Stars tune from North that was made available to stream earlier this week is now downloadable. The album is out on September 4 and they open up for Metric at the Air Canada Centre on November 14.

MP3: Stars – “Hold On When You Get Love And Let Go When You Give It”

Shad talks to CBC Music about the ’90s-era samples and influences that went into his Melancholy & The Infinite Shadness mixtape.

Those who like their Can-rock bearded and retro-styled will like the looks of the lineup rolling into Echo Beach on September 15 – that’ll bring The Sheepdogs, The Sadies, Zeus, and Yukon Blonde to the waterfront stage. Tickets for that are $29.50 general admission and $45 VIP.

MP3: The Sadies – “Another Year Again”
MP3: Zeus – “Anything You Want Dear”>
MP3: Yukon Blonde – “Fire”
Video: The Sheepdogs – “I Don’t Know”

The Acorn have taken a moment to update the world on what The Acorn has been up to and to share an unreleased tune. A new record is in the works and they’re playing the Paper Bag Records 10th anniversary show at The Great Hall on September 27.

Stream: The Acorn – “Shoot The Moon”

Daytrotter has a session and The Calgary Herald an interview with Cold Specks. She’s at The Great Hall on August 8.

Beatroute talks to Little Scream.

Exclaim has some details on the deluxe reissue of Sloan’s seminal Twice Removed, which will come as a triple-LP set with the album proper on one slab of vinyl, a demo version of the album on another, and a batch of era-correct outtakes on the third. Street date and complete recital tour dates are still to come – the already announced dates only get them as far as the midwest by late September… they gotta come home sometime.

Those of you who like free shows – I see you enter my contests, I know that’s pretty much all of you – should take note of a couple things going down next week courtesy of Scion Sessions. They’ve got their fingers in a few things including the Mad Decent Block Party taking over Yonge-Dundas Square on Sunday, but there’s also a couple of shows – one headlined by Nosaj Thing at The Hoxton on August 2 and one led by Young Widows at Parts & Labour on August 3 that you can be at for just the cost of an RSVP. Follow the links above for details.

Todd V WolfsonI feel that I should say up front that any reservations I have about Kathleen Edwards and her work are entirely my own issues. Since her 2002 debut Failer, I’ve enjoyed her honest, roots-rock fare but always felt like I expected more from her creatively even though across her first three albums, she’d never shown any signs that she had ambitions beyond being a good singer-songwriter. That said, the fact that she spent her downtime following 2008’s Asking For Flowers songwriting with John Roderick of The Long Winters and becoming romantically/artistically involved with Justin Vernon of Bon Iver made me think that perhaps her fourth record would represent that creative hard left that for whatever reason I kept expecting her to take.

So just to get it out of the way, Voyageur, out today, is not that game-changing record. It does, however, represent a significant enough shift in Edwards’ modus operandi to be noteworthy and is arguably her best effort to date. She’s shed much of the country-rock accouterments of her earlier records and the more narrative songwriting structures for an approach that’s more sonically expansive and more thematically raw, but has balanced out that weightiness with some of her catchiest pop compositions to date in “Change The Sheets” and “Sidecar”. It’s surprising that two of the most personal and pensive numbers on the record – “Pink Champagne” and “A Soft Place To Land” – would be the Roderick co-writes; I’d have expected different lessons to be learned from one of the smartest power-pop songwriters around, but again perhaps that’s teaching me to think I know what to expect. Similarly, looking for Vernon’s overt fingerprints on the record are futile – there’s no vocoder or falsetto in effect, even though he contributes backing vocals throughout. Okay, the outro guitar solo(s) on “Going To Hell” are kind of Bon Iver-ish.

Whether it came from her collaborators of from within, what’s most remarkable about Voyageur is that Edwards is able to step away from her comfort zone just enough to establish a new creative boundaries – and I suspect that these are her boundaries as her voice sounds on the edge of strained at points – without abandoning the touchpoints that her existing fanbase would need to stick around. Maybe I’d have preferred that she went a little bit further – again, I don’t know what I mean by that it’s just how I feel – but Voyageur is pretty good proof that she knows what she’s doing better than I do.

The National Post, Toronto Star, Toronto Sun, The Ottawa Citizen and 660 News have interviews with Edwards while The Line Of Best Fit has a mini-documentary on the making of Voyageur, as well a stream of the entire album. She plays The Phoenix on February 11.

MP3: Kathleen Edwards – “Change The Sheets”
Video: Kathleen Edwards – “Change The Sheets”
Stream: Kathleen Edwards / Voyageur

Bry Webb has finally announced a proper local show to mark the release of his excellent solo debut Provider; he’ll play two shows on Saturday, February 4 at the Music Gallery – one at 6PM, the other at 8:30PM. Tickets are $12 for each show and on sale now at Rotate and Soundscapes. Also check out his just-released video session for Southern Souls.

MP3: Bry Webb – “Rivers Of Gold”

John K Samson’s solo debut Provincial comes out next Tuesday and Exclaim has the whole thing available to stream now. Samson plays an in-store at Soundscapes on the day of release – January 24 – at 7PM and will be back as part of Canadian Musicfest on March 22 at The Great Hall. And if that’s not enough, he’ll be doing a signing for his new book Lyrics and Poems 1997-2012 at TYPE Books on January 23 at 6:30PM.

Stream: John K Samson / Provincial

American Songwriter has premiered the new video from Canadian songwriter Louise Burns, taken from her Mellow Drama album.

Video: Louise Burns – “Drop Names Not Bombs”

A new, non-album Ohbijou song has been made available to download via Nylon; have at it.

MP3: Ohbijou – “Mossy Lungs”

BlogTO talks to Rae Spoon, in town at The Gladstone on January 27.

The new Woodpigeon EP For Paolo is now available to stream in whole and will be available to buy on January 23.

Stream: Woodpigeon / For Paolo

You can now watch the whole of Arcade Fire’s performance on Austin City Limits. Yeah, you have to sit through some commercials first, but it’s worth it.

Another new song to stream from Leonard Cohen’s forthcoming Old Ideas via The New Yorker. And you can also read it in poem form.

Stream: Leonard Cohen – “Going Home”

In conversation with The Chronicle Herald, director Bruce MacDonald reveals that his next film project will be based on the next Stars album and that it’s called Those Days Are Gone.

Local label Out Of This Spark have announced details of their fifth anniversary show, and as always it’s an impressive showcase of local talent. This year’s show happens February 25 at the label’s spiritual home of The Tranzac and will feature Forest City Lovers, Snowblink, Snailhouse and more.

MP3: Forest City Lovers – “Light You Up”
MP3: Snowblink – “Ambergris”
MP3: Snailhouse – “I Never Woke Up”

Canadian Musicfest wasn’t able to follow through on their promise of more artist announcements yesterday, but the lineup for the Indie Awards did leak this weekend, and the lineup of artists performing is as random and arbitrary as the awards themselves… but solid, nonetheless. Performing at the Royal York Hotel on the evening of March 24 will be Passion Pit, Rich Aucoin, The Sheepdogs, Dan Mangan, Cœur de pirate, Treble Charger, and The Pack AD. And yes, that means that Treble Charger – or at least Greg Nori and Bill Priddle – have reunited… but you’re more likely to hear them play “American Psycho” than “10th Grade Love”. Unfortunately. Update: Treble Charger are also playing their own show on March 21 at The Phoenix.

MP3: Rich Aucoin – “It”
MP3: Dan Mangan – “Oh Fortune”
MP3: The Pack A.D. – “Sirens”
Video: Passion Pit – “Sleepyhead”
Video: The Sheepdogs – “I Don’t Know”
Video: Coeur de Pirate – “Adieu”
Video: Treble Charger – “Red”