October 30th, 2009
OK. I’m back. I’m sick and jet-lagged but I’m back. In fact, I’ve never been happier to be back in Canada. Believe it or not, I’m not that into patriotism and nationalism. I’m into geographical, political, and historical peculiarities that breed creative nuances, but I’m not into drinking Molson and going to hockey games. In any case, I was really happy to be back in Canada. And I’m even more excited to start reviewing again. Coming soon will be: VINCAT CD, Chris d’Eon cassette, Moby Dicks 7″, Sharp Ends 7″, Holzkopf CDR, and more treats and trinkets!
Hearts,
Aaron Levin
Weird Canada / Cantor Records
www.weirdcanada.com / www.cantorrecords.com
File under: ny // wfmu
Categoria!! Promotions | 2 Comments »
October 21st, 2009
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Weird Canada Airlines
Fly, fly, fly, baby, bye, bye, bye.
(Self Released)
Edmonton, AB
::WFMU Record Fair::
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That is correct. Tomorrow I will get on a Jet Plane and fly to New York City to attend the WFMU Record Fair. Me and my pal $50-Sevier will be splitting a table and I’ll be selling the last copies of CHANDRA and various Weird Canadian stuff I’ve ordered in triplicate, as well as displaying previews of the upcoming Daily Dance reissue on Cantor Records. This means there will be no reviews until November 1st. I will certainly miss you all and I’ll try to update the site with photos of Weird Canada peraphenalia while I’m in New York.
New York readers: Please visit my table at the WFMU Record Fair. I don’t know where it is, but I’m tall and I have a big nose and there will be lots of waxidermy people around.
I’ll be writing you all soon!
Hearts,
Aaron Levin
Weird Canada / Cantor Records
www.weirdcanada.com / www.cantorrecords.com
File under: flying // new york // planes // wfmu
Categoria!! Promotions | No Comments »
October 21st, 2009
Are you ready? Because anthemic rock rarely ignites the sing-a-long factory while retaining imagination and granularity within the recorded zone. Which is why Twelve Hundred Dollars has been an anthem to every ear lucky enough to capture its brief life on the Hydeaway Winter 2008 compilation. Re-recorded and released as a 7″ via Edmonton’s Pop Echo Records, Twelve Hundred Dollars retains every ounce of arm-swinging, vertical strutting, no-money bravado as ever, and dammit, it’s still the biggest anthem to every rent-paying, cheapskate jerkoid who sneaks into shows, crowd-surf’s their unwilling friends, and steals 5-cent candies. They’ve paired Twelve Hundred Dollars with Keep Me Warm, segueing the Outdoor Miners into driving 90s popfuckery matched seamlessly by Alec Meen’s searing guitar leads and their iconic vocal recordings (drenched beautifully in distortion and reverb). Everybody: pay your rent!
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Outdoor Miners – Twelve Hundred Dollars
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Outdoor Miners – Keep Me Warm
File under: lo-fi // pop // pop echo
Categoria!! 7" :: New Canadiana :: alberta | 4 Comments »
October 20th, 2009
Daring portrayals of angular pop lurk around every corner of A Building. Montreal’s Brave Radar perfected the immensely difficult and hugely rewarding dialectical synthesis of jarring tonality and warm, sunday afternoon coffee-in-triplicate pop. Thus, it’s fitting they released a beautifully designed digipak on Fixture Records, Canada’s finest boutique fringe-pop emporium. Within the swirls of keyless harmonies and wasted guitar-mockery lay hidden phrases of pop’s greatest secrets; Brave Radar discovered music’s reticent obsessions and they’re not afraid to wrap it in audible mysteries, drowning them in seas of lo-fidelity. Dive right in, reveal their secret leviathan, and find yourself addicted to the manic portrait of known sounds.
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Brave Radar – Field Guide
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Brave Radar – For Sport
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Brave Radar – Steep Side
File under: angular // fixture records // lo-fi // pop
Categoria!! New Canadiana :: compact disc :: quebec | No Comments »
October 19th, 2009
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Nü Sensae
Three Dreams
(Critiscum Internationale)
Vancouver, BC
::web/sounds::
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Andrea and Daniel, the two voodoo witchmasters branding themselves Nü Sensae, are one of the most exciting streams of punk-consciousness gestating in the west-coast. Which is why I chose Three Dreams as the soundtrack to the hobo fight in my parking lot. Andrea’s iconic flannel-screaming accentuates the mumblings of a displaced mass left behind by unnatural poverty while Daniel sets the dying-pace of their battle with the relentless destruction of his drum kit. The whole listening experience is soon tainted by a hobo army of undead Matoolians raised from their graves by twin jabs of fried bass and fractured drum patterns; it’s voodoo punk and it reanimated your annoying dead-and-beat uncle who’s back to hit on your sister and borrow some money. The now-undead hobos are done fighting. They’re looking for fresh meat. They hear my Nü Sensae. They are devouring my mind and tasting Nü Sensae’s mutant spell running laps in my subconsciousness. This is past-tense. MMMMOooOOooOoOoOOOoORorRRrRRrrerrreeeeeeeeeEEEee.
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Nü Sensae – Fantum
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Nü Sensae – Worm(s)
File under: punk // weird punk // zombie
Categoria!! 7" :: New Canadiana :: british columbia | 7 Comments »
October 17th, 2009
Yes, Edmonton finally got its first underground music festival. It’s starting out small, with just 16 bands in one evening across two-stages, but I’m sure Wyrd Fest will become the revenue generating, gold-tank driving, investment masterpiece of Obey Convention, Sled Island, and Pop Montreal in no time!
In the meantime, see the full details here: WYRD FEST
File under: festivals
Categoria!! Promotions | 3 Comments »
October 16th, 2009
Hobo Cult has successfully melted my face with another uniquely packaged artifact from the bent minds of Velvet Chrome. Channeling the traces of a psych-dementia found in the bowels of abandoned structures and drenching it in the New Zealand acid of Wreck Small Speakers on Expensive Stereos, Velvet Chrome provides the only aural experience akin to a post-Warriors Coney Island vacation: desolation, litter, and decrepit rides breaking through the morning light; a psychedelic vision from oracles and witches brewed for your stereo. It’s bleak, beautiful, chaotic, desperate, intimate, and comes packaged in an unassuming, one-of-a-kind CDR limited to 30 copies. A singular sound that will surely resonate with anyone looking for reverberations on the fringes of musical genre. I can’t get enough, so I ask: WHAT MORE DO YOU FREAKS WANT?
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Velvet Chrome – Drowning in Space
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Velvet Chrome – Etude en Psychobilly
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Velvet Chrome – Desert Frenzy
File under: dead c // hobo cult // lo-fi // pop // psych
Categoria!! New Canadiana :: compact disc :: quebec | 2 Comments »
October 15th, 2009
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The Stolen Organ Family Band
Horse Treats
(Babynuts Records)
Vancouver, BC
::web/sounds::
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From the xian-beehive K-Mart closet of Jesse Locke:
It’d be pretty dim to call ‘em Proggy, but with their multiple movements, tempo changes and quickly shifting moods, the tweaked, twangy tunes of the Stolen Organ Family Band come across like some backwoods strain of “Bohemian Rhapsody.†Lyrically, singer, songwriter and six-string slinger Conor Mack shares campfire stories of shitty hometowns, divorce and excitable puppies with syrupy sweet choruses that’ll get wedged in your brainpan and rattle around for weeks. With back-up vocals, blown-out Casio FX and suitcase percussion by the lovely Miss Kelly Badger plus the Zen-like steadiness of bassist Ari Cipes, the Stolen Organs bring to mind Jonathan Richman and his Modern Lovers slumming it as subway buskers. You might also think of the Meat Puppets when you’re listening to these country-fried home-recorded rambles, but the shadow of the almighty Ween looms the largest. Horse Treats is a kind of ‘greatest hits so far,’ and the manifesto on the back might just say it best: “Ain’t down with hiss, ain’t down with this.â€
[Levin's Note: Never underestimate the power of Casio.]
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The Stolen Organ Family – Plums
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The Stolen Organ Family – Baby, What’s Your Phone Number?
File under: casio // lo-fi // pop
Categoria!! New Canadiana :: british columbia :: compact disc | No Comments »
October 15th, 2009
Halifax is on an advanced level of pop-wizardry. For a city with less than 400,000 people, they put the rest of North American to shame with the shear volume of crafted sounds. And they all have their own Halifaxian aura to them; seemingly channelled through distinct avenues, returning home from remote adventures with presents of pop’s future. York Redoubt has proven themselves a worthy flag-bearer of Halifax’s bubbling underground. Their first cassette showed a brief glimpse into a future-now, and with their self-titled debut out on Hot Money Records (limited to 100 vinyl copies – screen-printed with personalized photograph (cop that!)), they’ve finally actualized into the math-pop behemoth we’ve been waiting for. Weaving complicated threads of stubborn-catchiness between time-signatures that make so-much-nonsense and vocal harmonies buried within angular distortion, it’s difficult to turn your attention away from the album and it’ll be no-time before you’ve listened to the entire thing six or seven times. It’s ridiculous music to write about because it’s so incredibly layered, complex, and easy. Which is where York Redoubt really shines: they’ve taken all this ridiculous math-pop and made it serene; like just another pop song. Listen and buy the damn record. They. Are. Next.
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York Redoubt – I Said Slightly
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York Redoubt – Stenciled Lines
File under: halifax // math-pop // pop // women
Categoria!! 12" :: New Canadiana :: nova scotia | 3 Comments »
October 13th, 2009
From the stalagmite-riddled collection of Paul K Lawton:
Tough going for any band that automatically assumes the rank of “supergroupâ€, especially when only one member of said band is in group of international renown (band in question: Women, who currently hold rank of “biggest band in Calgaryâ€, though they would all be pretty embarrassed if you brought that up in polite conversation). For those paying attention to the (at times) white-hot Calgary music scene, the other two members of Friendo hail from noted groups Puberty (on hiatus until further notice) and Beija Flor. Like the best groups that achieve rank of “superâ€, Friendo retain the elements that make all respective groups compelling in the first place – the swirling, lo-fidelity soundscapes of Women (though, like Women, this is a warm and crisp lo-fidelity), the angular-yet-soft abrasion of Puberty and the gentleness and sense of melody of Beija Flor. Cold Toads could very easily be a lost K-Records release, the recording of these songs giving them a timeless-yet-dated feel, where you can’t help but feel like you’ve already fallen in love with these songs and they are coming back into your life at the exact right time. A stunning debut if there ever was one.
[Levin's Note: I'd like to give a big f***-you to Paul Lawton for reviewing this cassette before me. This is really blowing me away; "swirling, lo-fidelity" to say the least. And a perfect album for the cassette format. This may replace Sans AIDS as my favorite 90s mellow-jam of the year. Maybe.]
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Friendo – Liner
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Friendo – Callers
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Friendo – Counter Time
File under: 90s // lo-fi // mellow // pop // puberty
Categoria!! New Canadiana :: alberta :: cassette | 8 Comments »
