March 10th, 2010
From the Planet D residing citizen named Jesse Locke:
With their second transmission from the heart of the black hole sunrise, Edmonton’s Krang continue their clusterfuck of stoner rock, noise-haze and squiggly electronics. The band’s debut self-released EP was a voyage in its own right, but until now, they’ve never been able to bottle the total gnarlitude of the extended space jams doubling as their live shows. Happily, with the addition of fourth member Dean “The Ram” Watson on guitar, this five-song flummox released via Eamon McGrath’s Cassettes Records has finally captured the experience on CD-R. Faithful followers will recognize the bass line from “Farmer” within seconds, along with Krang’s trademark echoed harmonica. Cold Bebop’s standout banger “Ships” has been re-recorded with the addition of Watson’s desolate licks, and finally “Snakes on the Brain” closes things off with some furious Danzig-on-psychedelic-fungi freak-outs. Best of all, the new and improved line-up can still melt faces live.
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Krang – Farmer
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Krang – Snakes on the Brain
File under: cassette records // eamon mcgrath // experimental // jesse locke // psych
Categoria!! New Canadiana :: alberta :: compact disc | No Comments »
March 9th, 2010
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EMILY
Neat and Tidy in Your Mind
(Mo=Da=Mu)
Vancouver, BC
Originally Released: 1985
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From the generally untidy mind of Aaron Levin:
Destructive guitar congruance. Menacing synthetic tones. Echo-to-infinity vox processing. Extirpated TASCAM wreckage. Neat and Tidy in My Mind is the most relentless barrage of left-field maximal synth North American has ever seen. It’s the second cassette by solo, multi-format Vancouver artist Emily Faryna, whose visionary digital mythics have been obscured by Canada’s under-documented vintage cassette scene. Her conical prose hovers darkly over Neat and Tidy’s minor-key delirium, brewing the magnetic urgency coursing through its self-producing ether; a last, desperate attempt to convince the world that the mind’s ailments exist on the outside. It’s a gateway drug into the underbelly of a hyper intimate experimental underground torn from the pages of Neuromancer and, to me, the flagship vehicle for the vanguard of fringe-Canada. Words left to describe Neat and Tidy in Your Mind: ambitious, singular, forward-thinking, powerful, intense, and prodigious. There is a reissue in the works.
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EMILY – Who Cares
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EMILY – Compromise
File under: 1985 // aaron levin // ambient // experimental // maximal synth // minimal synth // mo=da=mu // noise // psych // punk // synth
Categoria!! Departures Revisited :: british columbia :: cassette | 3 Comments »
March 4th, 2010
From the Jabroka-filled pockets of Aaron Levin:
Beneath Alienation’s beautifully die-cut packaging (typical Patente faire) lays a harrowing journey into Quebec’s multi-format experimental scene. Alienation is the audible outlet by visual artist Simon Langevin. Simon’s autodidactic approach to the genre’s freedom gives 2010 a welcomed erraticism resulting in a strange mix between multi-format, avant-meanderings and static post-techno beat collages. Add an 11-minute minor-key ethereal floater and you’ve got yourself a veritable trip through Simon’s consciousness; corrugated tunnels lined with deep, dark textures appropriate for any hang-out setting not involving: smiles, fun, or not-goths. Killer psychedelic artwork to boot. +1 Patente.
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Alienation – Track 03
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Alienation – Track 06
File under: aaron levin // drone // experimental // noise // techno
Categoria!! New Canadiana :: compact disc :: quebec | No Comments »
March 3rd, 2010
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Bad Vibrations
Bad Vibrations
(Brotherhood Cassettes)
Halifax, NS
::web/sounds::
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From the not-so-bad vibrations of James Goddard:
Sometimes I imagine a future where everyone has forgotten what a guitar actually sounds like; Children brought up on a steady diet of French pop and Swedish 8-bit. Eventually, current trends like lo-fi would become ailments listed in the DSM VII with prescriptions like: 2 hours of Kumbaya orchestrated by battery-operated MicroKorgs (twice daily, with food). Things would be bad. Luckily former Dog Day drummer KC Spidle has strapped on a six string and stepped to the foreground to ensure such a future will never happen. Bad Vibrations play guitar music. They play the kind of three piece power-pop that begs for adjectives like dark or gloomy; and they play it well. Eschewing any kind of overt studio trickery, the members of Bad Vibrations (KC, Evan and Meg) have put together a crisp sounding record that subtly recalls that classic 90s Halifax sound. Nothing could be further from an all-electro dystopia.
[Levin's Note: James forgot the positive side of an all-electro dystopia: Gino Soccio all day 'ere day.]
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Bad Vibrations – We’re Dead
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Bad Vibrations – Think About Life
File under: dog day // guitar // james goddard // lo-fi // pop // rock
Categoria!! New Canadiana :: compact disc :: nova scotia | 2 Comments »
March 1st, 2010
Since transplanting themselves from the sunshine state of Florida to the frosty French Canadian north, pizza-lovin’ brothers Andy and Edwin White have been recording and releasing tunes at an almost nonsensical pace. On top of sparking up psych burners and daffy rappin’ trip-outs with their best-known band, Tonstartssbandht, the bros maintain a plethora of side projects/aliases (High Rise II, NASA, Superbud, Bladestoner, etc.) while also running the boutique labels Does Are and Black Cheeks. For this Weird Canada exclusive, they’ve remixed our interview with wonky vocal FX, answers read by Jason Harvey™ and what sounds like a chopped and screwed version of their posi-vibes anthem “Andy Summers.”
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Weird Canada Exclusive :: Tonstartssbandht – Inferred Views
Jesse Locke
Texture Magazine / Weird Canada
texturemagazine.ca / weirdcanada.com
/////////////// TONSTARTSSBANDHT INFERRED VIEWS ///////////////
| J. |
= |
Jesse Locke (Texture Magazine // Weird Canada) |
T. |
= |
Andy and Edwin White (Tonstartssbandht) |
| J. |
:: |
What was life like growing up for you guys as brothers? Did you have any made-up games you would play, sibling rivalries or weird family inside jokes? |
| T. |
:: |
We were related, and then fed by older people. Andy knew all the secrets to life early because I let him drink from my brain after school everyday. I’m his ancient angel. We spent all of our time outside climbing ropes and making mud to prepare for the apocalypse. On a ranch, our grandpa makes great kielbasa and eggs. |
| J. |
:: |
When did you start making music together? Were there any other bro projects prior to Tonstartssbandht? |
::: READ MORE :::
File under: does are // interview // jesse locke // tonstartssbandht
Categoria!! Interviews :: New Canadiana :: quebec | 4 Comments »
February 26th, 2010
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Makeout Videotape
Eating Like a Kid
(Self Released)
Vancouver, BC
::web/sounds::
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From the pocketed mesh-back of Aaron Levin:
It’s our future babylon: yuppies and junkies coagulating to celebrate their mutant post-human hedonism. And in some grande irony, the lounge-garage stylings of Makeout Videotape will part every velvet curtain to entertain the new world’s last taste of love; vocalist Mac DeMarco’s million-dollar smile and soaring croons calming their insatiable desires. Eating Like a Kid is a mesmerizing departure from Makeout Videotape’s onslaught of red-line garage-punk; the hooks are intelligently buried while its melodies leave traces and flashbacks to Mac’s ageless smile. If there is love in the future it’s the sudden realization that they are speaking to us and as we turn around from our slot-machines, cocaine, sex, pizza, and peep shows – as we turn from our epicurean lives – we will see Mac smiling and know: death is all right so long as someone is singing. Mac’s golden voice is floating atop rivers of reverberating guitars, sailing Makeout Videotape into this new future America and we’re all on board.
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Makeout Videotape – Gigi Bungsu
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Makeout Videotape – Blondie
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Makeout Videotape – Eating Like a Kid
File under: aaron levin // garage // lounge
Categoria!! New Canadiana :: british columbia :: compact disc | 5 Comments »
February 24th, 2010
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Mode Moderne
Ghosts Emerging
(Lust Neuvo Records)
Vancouver, BC
::web/sounds::
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From the ghostly bedding of Aaron Levin:
Vancouver’s synthetic underground is bubbling for the second time since the 80s when labels and artists were populating basements, clubs, cassette racks, and ideas with bleak drum machines and coarse synthesizers. COSMETICS, magneticring, N.213, Twin Crystals, MYTHS, Von Bingen, Haunted Beard, [insert band I'm forgetting] and now the industrial gothic Mode Moderne project Vancouver as a city on the brink of a synth-adjective explosion. Ghosts Emerging live centre-stage in the unassuming minimal-synth-pop arena with secret conviction and harmonic prowess, drifting listeners on their currents of nostalgic woe. Vocalist Phillip Intile’s non-chalant industrial modulations makes the whole trip strangely manipulative as you wake up mid-album unaware of your new musical surroundings: pulsing drum machines, swathy synthesizers, ethereal guitar leads, and blankets of ambient-satin. Let’s welcome the new age.
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Mode Moderne – Les Neuf Soeurs
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Mode Moderne – Radio Heartbeat
File under: aaron levin // lust neuvo records // minimal synth // pop // synth
Categoria!! 12" :: New Canadiana :: british columbia | No Comments »
February 23rd, 2010
From the post-pubescent sludge of Jesse Locke:
From The Cramps (radical) to Mates of State (barf) to the Plastic Ono Band (radical barfing), musical married couples are nothing new. However, what sets thee Grown-Ups’ Sara and Josiah Hughes apart is that they’re cuter than a pair of bulldogs on snowboards that know how to turn up the rock and turn down the suck. Joined by third member/producer Darrell on “dad guitar” (nice Conchords reference, guys), they’ve now teamed with the almighty Bart for tape release number two. Eight songs of angry punk sludge that sound just as pitted as their debut but now with more Crazy Horse guitar solos (see: opener “Meat”) and Art Brut-esque motivational meta-songs (see: “Start A Band!”). This is the soundtrack for the skateboarding video game you invented in your brain. The musical equivalent of a cherry-coke slurpee with a stolen chocolate bar tucked in the cup. The creepy-lovable cover photo rules too, but I really just wish it was a drawing of Odie crossed with Jughead.
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Grown-Ups – Meat
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Grown-Ups – Start A Band!
File under: bart records // jesse locke // punk // sludge // teen angst
Categoria!! New Canadiana :: alberta :: cassette | No Comments »
February 23rd, 2010
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Colic
Best to Your Family
(Self Released)
Edmonton, AB
::web/sounds::
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From the colic cleanse of Aaron Levin:
Colic resides as my favorite left-field discovery of 2009, splintering my identity with an onslaught of pop-sprinkled atonal adjective-everything. Best to Your Family reads like a distasteful Japanese stereotype: hyperactive occult meanderings, bent reflections from unknown metals, and piercing waves of inter-dimensional origin. Imagine Big Mac handed you his demo tape after a weird inter-terrestrial mind-meld; it’s addicting, unearthly, and completely fringe. Yet, it’s greatest strength is making the whole rite-of-passage engaging by burying the subtle popyness within layers of instrumental shreddery. A certified unique listening experience. Genuinely strange artifacts of this ilk are rare. File-under ??????
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Colic – Keys
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Colic – Cold Time
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Colic – At 30,000 ft.
File under: adjective-everything // art-punk // experimental // outdoor miners // wyrd
Categoria!! New Canadiana :: alberta :: compact disc | 6 Comments »
February 19th, 2010
From the synthetic moons of Aaron Levin:
Bernardino continues to peel wigs and sublimate minds with his vicarious cosmic voyage through swaths of electroacoustic winds and perilous Ace Tone waters. This time we are lead by a transplanted Odysseus, bravely steering Bernardino’s vast synthesizer vessel through mysterious wires and serene circuitry. La Montaña del Capricornio is a continuation from Las Enamoradas‘ granular synthesia, diving deep into the dilemmic waves of warm ambience and dark druid-age. Hobo Cult cleverly realized Bernardino’s brilliance as a double-sided cassette, focusing your energies on the immaculate details emanating through tape hiss and Dolby warmth, adding comfort to the brooding sounds beneath its alluring orphic cover. A++++++.
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Bernardino Femminielli – La Montaña del Capricornio – Side A
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Bernardino Femminielli – La Montaña del Capricornio – Side B
File under: ambient // electronic // experimental // hobo cult // new age // synth
Categoria!! New Canadiana :: cassette :: quebec | 1 Comment »
