Curtain Call 2011

Well it might have taken us 30 years but Canada has issued its response to Intermittent Signals. But, in true blue canuck (add to dictionary) fashion Dog Day has woven twelve wintry tunes into a hockey sweater of sonic cozy. Dreams, woods, winter, Woofy, friends, travel, these are the make up of Dog Day's lyrical world and inform the sounds they capture within the comfort of their Nova Scotia country home. The album entrances the listener with its auditory warmth only to lead them down a bread crumb trail into the trees, at night, away from the streetlights and loud bars, the band's other life. As well as one can hear in Toody and Fred's rAT$ performances the frantic energy of city nightlife, Dog Day's hominess and intimacy are conveyed with amazing clarity through their compellingly insular songs. Listen to this at night 

in the woods    

Frank Ocean appears to be dubbing over and completely rewriting the faces of the mix tape. Using the format in the truest digital sense (free online download replete with uncleared samples) to release his latest album, the work is thoroughly influenced by the medium. Each track works to create its own detailed static image of a moment spent in reflection, not unlike Stetson's compositions on Judges. True to its title, Nostalgia quells its material from Frank's vivid remembrances, painted with outstanding melodies on a backdrop of pop tableau. From Novocane's euphorically subtle bass crescendos to American Wedding's thorough deconstruction of the atmosphere of a cultural anthem to Swim Good's existential desperation, Ocean takes the listener on a trip through a vibrantly experiential past. Forget Jay-Z and Kanye's Redding abomination, its Frank that will "give you chills harmonizing to Otis." 

We all try

Here's just what your NYE soundtrack needs. Hurry Up was probably 2011's biggest pay off. Extensively assimilating traits of the various styles throughout the band's more than a decade of constant evolution, this album delivers the perfected M83 recipe for hooky french synth pop with a potent 80s flavouring. One can hear echoes of the songwriting of the last three albums, but with all fat trimmed and catchy choruses abundant. The album delves at times into the ambient leanings of the group, branching out in composition out while maintaining and developing its unique textural environment. As far as I am concerned, Anthony Gonzalez has gone ahead and secured himself the throne of the prince of french dance pop.

The city is my church

This is so easily the boldest record of the year it sort of had to make number one on my list. Anyone who hates this already hated both the artists involved by this point, because it is the perfect synthesis of their respective styles. Whoever said this was Berlin meets Master of Puppets was dead on. No, it is not "accessible", I don't really understand why that is what people who would call themselves Lou Reed or Metallica fans would want. For 50 years Reed has been setting his unnerving poetry to conventional pop and rock as well as avant garde musical forms, it seems natural that he would tackle one of the monoliths of 20th Century metal to channel musically the horror of his images, and they do amazingly well. Its not the music here everyone hates, its the fearful awesomeness of this collaboration that they're not ready to handle. This record is too real for 2011, maybe people will get it in 2012, or 2112 and then it will be retrospectively lauded like a Metal Machine Music.

Happy New Years

Serious Music

Too bad the main kind of attention this highly lauded tour de force seemed to get in Canada was that from fogies and upstarts alike who wanted to have "but is it jazz??" discussions. NO, IT ISN'T JAZZ, MORONS, ITS A GIANT SAXOPHONE HARKING JUDGEMENT DAY. There, I said it. If there is one thing other than blow minds this record did it was reaffirm the lack of ownership snobby wasps have over jazz as well as that which jazz has over the sax. This record works outside of any definable musical compartment to create a truly solitary feeling of an observed passage of time. While effective in linear flow, most of the pieces on this album manage to stop time for monolithic moments of reflection, the orations of Laurie Anderson creating diverging, polyphonic narratives throughout. Stetson's ability to create atmosphere and continuity through a kind of additive synthesis in his playing reflects beautifully the subject matter: the way in which history and war are composed through the collective memory, out of innumerable bits and pieces. The innovative and mesmerizing recording techniques employed for this H2T session give the heaviest moments of this work lumbering weight, while others (A Dream of Water) seem to float as clouds, shimmering timelessly. Arcade Fire said it themselves, this record deserved the Polaris more. It would seem we hardly deserved such a stunning accomplishment.  Thank you, Colin.

Judgement   

Reverse Crystal

Yamantaka//Sonic Titan is a very cool art collective, I suggest you read about them on the interwebs. They also became a cool band this year and put together a simply amazing S/T record that invokes sounds reminiscent of gamelan, garage rock, Deep Purple, Can, Cure, Soft Machine, Amon Duul II and Cocteau Twins. Sounds pretty fucked right? It is. This psychedelic black noise soup is best served chilled with a heaping side of mind fog. Truly one of the more original projects active in the Montreal scene at this time. Bravo!

Sea of trees

Strangely Merciful

Perhaps the most unnerving quality to be found in the music on this record is the way in which its eerie arias float as comfortably above the earthy rhythms as a UFO above a vivid memory of your childhood home. Annie delivers alien material from her now familiar human form through which she manipulates us with her natural and artistic beauty. We being hardly the only thing manipulated, her clinical approach to the textures on Strange Mercy shows Clark's meticulous control and integration of all elements of her music as a defining characteristic of her recorded output up to now. While she tightens up the rhythmic/chordal palette and restricts herself to 3 or so guitar tones, Annie continues to cultivate and communicate her expressionist pop tendencies, isolating into lead gestures that move in parallel to the songs' pulses. Take, for instance, the "Bodies..." motif of lead single Cruel; the near operatic, soaring melody disjointedly floats atop an updated disco beat and is continually interrupted by the song's hooky verse and choruses. In much the same way St. Vincent super-imposes her geometric mannerist melodies with fuzz guitar onto her deeply magnetic moods. Bearing its weak links (Cheerleader, Hysterical Strength) the album overall shows an interplay between Annie's guitar and the rest of the instruments that would seem to reflect her still rapidly developing ability to write for unique ensembles. A fun trip.

Champagne year

Hold It Up To The Sun

This is an absolutely delicious and delightful first romp with Toronto's favourite noir folk sweethearts. The accuracy with which this record captures the familiar tones and atmospheric idiom of Orbison's era of pop ingenuity, in 2011, is absolutely flooring. With this flawlessly restored sonic facade in place the brilliant songwriting of head Hollie, Donna Linklater, and the innovative instrumentation and arrangements of this unique ensemble are able to be appreciated in the best possible light. That said, it is astonishing how much Linklater's voice and songs take one back to yester-century with their daring simplicity and soaring melodic statement. Songs like Elise, I Can't Stand To See You Cry, A Good Man Like You  and This Light of Mind are of the memorable quality to convince listeners they've either heard them in a past life or are transported to forgotten, simpler times upon hearing them. While Canada has had a very strong output this year, this album is one of the most impressive achievements of our current canon. You'll be hearing a more from these gals, I'm sure of it.

The Light

Two Horsey

This is a little different from what I've posted in the past. For all you folk rock folks, this should be right up your alley. I should mention that I have a bias because I was on this record and play in Char's band, but it is truly a great album. I think, being around during the time she wrote and developed most of these tunes, that it wasn't until I heard them in this beautiful recording that I realized exactly how brilliant these tunes are. Char has a most amazing ability to articulate emotion simultaneously through voice and music, while doing some impressively complex stuff harmonically that comes off naturally poppy and catchy. Of all her catalog this one, to me, captures both the strength and vulnerability of her personality perfectly in the songs and their presentation. The album also features a who's who of great Toronto/Montreal musicians including Thom Gill, members of Donlands and Mortimer, the Gramercy Riffs and Bent By Elephants. It's also the first of hers to feature Char herself doing bass, drums and of course guitar, voice and songs. Special props to Ryan Granville for an amazing drums/production job! Watch out for this lady, she'll rock your world; she is the reason I like Joni Mitchell.

Way to go Charlotte!

WHOOPS

Did ah doo daht?

Don't miss this fer chrismiss

Well, we may have to once again credit Polly with one of the few popular releases worthy of the term "earth-shattering" in the last, hmm, ten years? Unlike this blog post, this album artfully breaks all the style and content barriers its aesthetic and subject matter generally enforce, while not really betraying just how radically it is departing to the passive listener. These aren't songs really, they're photographs. There is way too much clarity and yet grit to every single verbal image delivered here. The real triumph for alt rock's undisputed queen is managing to translate the universally alienating into heart-breaking intimacy through words and delivery. Somehow, PJ managed to do quivering falsetto and subdued rasp without sounding remotely like White Chalk (in this author's opinion, her last great 'character' record before this) or anything else in her weighty catalog. I recommend sitting around the tree weeping to this one. Or you could always "spread a little love on Christmas day"...

Shake

Strangely fascinating

If there was a debut this year of an artist who came out guns blazing, it was this one. About as afraid of pretension as of being too rock 'n' roll, EMA's Past Life Martyred Saints delivers the kind of unforgiving and self-confident individuality its title suggests. While evoking a lineage of underground female rock icons too obvious to list, EMA stands out with her extremely bold and captivating songwriting which relies as much on its melodic simplicity as its stark arrangements and grainy production. Perhaps the most refreshing aspect of this record is its utter lack of gimmick or novelty. For as blatantly "hipster" as her visual aesthetic can be, these songs are impressively original in their composition and arrangement while the lyrics, at first sounding overbearing, have a great depth to them. Sexually grimy, simultaneously culturally void and rich mimicking the both passionate and understated monotone of her singing. She's almost Nico meets Thurston, really, which goes somewhat for the rest of her musical aesthetic. The production is tastily overdriven which, espeically in contrast to the acoustic sections, gives a warm, vaguely psychedelic murkiness to the atmosphere. Enjoy, with drugs.

The Gun 

sounds in a basement

Somewhere in the sonic smut cellar - built on top of an ancient native burial ground - of the decrepit Mtl art motel where Fucked Butter's music resides their is a shaman mystic mining dirges of its dank depths. Synth-slime slit open by faux Frithian ultra-chorus jagged wryffing. A demonically debased Sage, like Greg without the clarity Wipers gave. Analog as analogous to a filmy fuzz of future's fog; misty-eyed from mystifying mental mold... When I saw this performed at Pop opening for YT//ST the stage banter consisted of such great lines as "this next song goes out to a friend who isn't here, but if she were here, she'd be outside smoking" and "who knew southern Ontario is now southern California". Then it got vicious.
Basically, this shit is fucked. By far one of the best releases this year.

No Cars

... For the Fuckedness of the Butter

Sorry for that momentary lapse, lets get back into gear, shall we? Fucked Butter is a mysterious entity creating post-ironic electro-lounge disco fucnk grunge rap sporadically since 2010(?) in some twisted, sinful studio/loft space in Montreal's Griffontown area. The group's formal conceptual beginnings are about as vague as their artistic goals and official line-up, which at least includes Mtl hip-hop hooligan Nick Persons - geared for a 2012 solo release - renowned orator Lucas Julien and some other guy I went to highschool with. If Fucked Butter did have one primary intention evidenced by their 2011 output, it was hits. The guys have hits, not the kind that could be played on the radio (well, maybe one) but those kinds of hits that channel that celestially poetic power of music that touches us all, in places we're not sure we want to be touched, but we are. Then they have some weird songs you won't like. For a look into their creative processes of making hits, here is an in-studio making-of video for their one potential crack at charting

You can download their greatest 2011 hits here

For the Love of the People

It brings me so much joy that the bulk of musical releases of 2011 that excited and delighted me were from wonderful musicians who I am lucky enough to call good friends. One of the more recent of these is the illustrious Thomas Gill, whom I met this time last year and whose performances left me awestruck and continue to to this day. Thom inevitably evokes comparisons to Prince and perhaps Sufjan's recent work for his incredible guitar work and angelic falsetto atop minimalist, programmed funk grooves. While these perhaps the most accurate pop cultural reference point it is almost more apt to capture the sense of a beautiful individual who escapes most generic categorization. Working thoroughly in the slow jam tradition, Thom's compositions are seductively spiritual, often sprawling and lyrically laden with deeply reflective, existentially esoteric christian lyrics. While not religious, Thomas' music finds the religiosity of day-to-day life and often applies evocative christian symbolism in a truly insightful way. This year saw the release of no less than four amazing records for Thom, three under the Thomas moniker and one with the recently formed OG Melody, a duo straight out the hood feat. Isla Craig.

Breath - The first material I saw performed by Thomas on laptop and vocals. Post-smooth, soft-edged electro-soul. The perfect music to put on for the first time you take that special someone you've been courting home. Light some candles, make a prayer to love and let your heart guide you.

 Such is Your Triumph - Introspective hymnals of wintry reflection. Recorded in Montreal at the Redpath Chapel with some of the city's hottest young jazzists, this a more acoustic exploration of a sacred physical and spiritual space. Candid, soulful confessions to the father that is thyself and the light that shines within us all.

Janela - Epic cosmic spirituals in a more Arkestral vein. This weaves Thomas' ethereal electronics into a jazz/fusion/neo-soul chamber ensemble context. Like Triumph above, this is excellent listening for the season and would make a blessed present to a loved one.

A fun and deep exploration of 90s R&B textures. Closer in aesthetic to Breath, this might be what Destiny's Child or TLC would've sounded like if they came from the Oakwood area of Toronto and liked ambient music. On this one Thomas and Isla get back to the teachings of the street and the profound morals that lie therein. That, love and kickin' it.

They are all available here, here and here

New Boris

This is unquestionably one of the most fascinating sonic offerings of the year. While the pacifier plummeted from the quivering lips of wailing and whining drone doom newborns the world over at this "outrage" to Boris' long legacy of cooking up thickly tube distorted pooling stews of amplifier worshiping guitar goop, some of us with our hearing still intact were at the worst puzzled by the band's newest curiosity. If anyone kept up with the Heavy Rocks EPs they might have seen this coming. That being said even I was shocked at the outrageous additions of hoover synth lines and club-friendly beats on the now classic song, "Black Original"'s album cut. Nonetheless, like Abruptum, this is another example of what closed-minded type metalheads piss all over because they can't stomach it and were so sure they could stomach anything. Moreover, Boris have made this shocking switch to J-Pop inspired flare with a good deal of taste. The songs, while poppy, are really good and at times reach a level of melodic beauty reminiscent of their balladen hits "Farewell" and "Naki Kyouko". In concert too they were courteous enough to incorporate a good amount of their most widely appreciated material while maintaining a performance environment in the long and grandiose tradition of their country-mates and predecessors, hair metal dignitaries Loudness and X Japan. In short, this sort of incidentally sonically offensive bubblegum is what this blog is all about. This is for Party Boys only.

Pardon?

The Ross Bay Cult Lives On!

Don't be put off by the somewhat tasteless cover art, C. Moyen doesn't have enough hands to do every black metal record cover, he does come damn close though. Keeping right on rolling with this theme of unearthed booty of metal's forgotten past, I bring you easily the best and most compelling "re"issue of the year. "Re" because this was never released way back 1994 when it should've been. As the story goes Antichrist shared a rehearsal space, some top-notch junk and west coast style bestial mayhem with Canadian BM gods Blasphemy. There must not have been any sound proofing between their rooms because at times it sounds like these guys break into riffs straight-off Fallen Angel of Doom, war metal galloping drum beat and all. Frankly that's fine with me. For all my love of Gods of War and Blood Upon the Altar it is FAoD that unquestionably reshaped the sonic morbidity of all black metal to come. With the hordes of bands flying the war metal flag for kvlt status it's great to finally have another stone up in the cemetery of one of Canada's most important and influential moments in metal history. Best not to analyse this one too much, just drink yourself into oblivion and pretend that's Black Winds barking at you.

Devour 

PESTILENCE WAR FAMINE DEATH

Abruptum hold the highly prestigious place of most derided and hated band in the black metal sphere. This is no easy feat, let me tell you. It takes roughly 20 years of dicking around in dank basements and then a whole whack of post production to make what was initially offensive noise to sound even more vile. It is for this reason that they are an excellent place to pick up on 2011's music trends. If Kanye West and Jay-Z can put in about a week at the studio and crank out such "classics" as Nigga$ in Paris then why not pass these guys the buck? Undoubtedly I love this album in relation to much of this year's canon as I do the aforementioned track off Watch The Throne. What Abruptum do with these four very straightforward themes (listed in post title) is abstract and evoke them in a way far more visceral than any musical black metal could. Really the BM world hates this because it beats them at their own game. I'm also posting this because if you don't know this seminal Swedish act this is the perfect introduction to their material. Supposedly broken up since '05 they've had two releases since then of unknown origin. Basically, these are dark and fucked up sounds from the murky past by an entity now residing in the torrential mists of black metal's worldwide miasma. This is the perfect soundtrack for next year if all goes as planned.

Apocalypse Power 

EMERGENCY AT 30: Rocktober appended!

Alright so I know what I wrote and I lied, this is the actual last post before my 2011 in review series (starting Dec. 15). It's just that I realized I had foolishly overlooked perhaps the two most monumental works of our nineteen-thousandth and eighty-first year. Perhaps this oversight could be compared to another I often have which-due to it's close proximity and sovereignty from predominating music trends of the rest of the States-is to intermittently grant Portland honourary Canadian residency in my mind. Having never been there, only through the famed records and tales of the legendary minstrels of the mythical, woodsy city, can I romanticize the darkly shadowed rock 'n' roll pasts which dwell within it and the hearts of its fabled tune-smiths. As is characteristic of  the nature of most great thriving punk scenes, there is a lineage to the creators of these two PDX punk masterpieces, found in the bucket bashing of Sam Henry. Henry had, in fact, exited Wipers by Youth of America but his memorably dynamic driving of the band's 3 minute masterpieces made him a sure fit for what tHe rAT$ went for with Intermittent Signals.

Defiance!

First we have the highly coveted second installment in the short-lived but brilliant punk brainchild of Fred and Toody Cole (later of Dead Moon fame). While their S/T debut established the band with bubblegum punk classics like Teenagers and an overall endearing ferocity and knowing naivete, Intermittent Signals rips through the sturdy punk facade to reveal a band in reflection, equally inspired and disillusioned by the arrival of the 'New Wave'. It's all just "the same shit playing on the radio" to these newly christened rock and roll vets. A string of both imposingly punchy and seductively catchy proto-pop-punk anthems, Signals burns a blazing trail through the cannon with such underground hymnals as Descending Shadows, Defiance and Nightmare. It is the silhouette of this artistically ingenious twosome and their undying contribution to their scene that thoroughly consumes my mental musical landscape of PDX. The originals for over 30 years!

Can this be?

Unlike tHe rAT$ sophomore, with its assaying of the airwaves, Wipers traverse more direct connections to your cerebral cosmos via a Sage's circulation of cyclic licks in cylindrical orbit to the grooves on your disk. Indeed one can hear echoes of Greg's mystical lead playing in the reverb drenched leads Cole plays on In The Graveyard and throughout much the rest of DM's catalogue. There is no question Youth of America is a fate-altering classic all the way from monolithic title track through to feedback infinity. If you are averse to doing acid you might as well drop this on your ears, it's the perhaps the only way your mind will be freed.

Have one on me...

K, y'all know the drill. It's finals time and I am a slave to paper until the 15th, at which point I will begin my "2011 in review" series of daily posts of albums that made waves (with myself or with others) this year and why they did/should/shouldn't have. Until then, enjoy this gift of 20-year-old sweet, syrupy sludge.

Happy Holidays