January 29th, 2010
From the celestial kingdom of Zachary Fairbrother:
Broken Deer is the project of musician/artist Lindsay Dobbin, formerly of Halifax, now relocated in the deep, northern frontier of the Yukon. Our Small Going is a collection of beautiful songs mixed with field recordings, soundscapes, and lo-fi blips and bleeps, finding the perfect home on San Francisco’s Gandhara Recordings. Lindsay’s music is embedded with grainy sound pieces and field recordings to create a celebration of nature, ritual, life and decay. The opening track “Coming of Age Funeral” is a beautiful instrumental piece, played on a solo acoustic guitar with tape hiss and buzz, giving the music a warm maternal feeling, while also tragic, as in the passing of an era or the sadness that comes with moving on. Neither ancient nor modern, the music seems to celebrate the difficulties and conveniences of our journey in the age of technology. Her textures are always light, often just using single instruments, allowing her to explore the fabrics of her sounds. Her unique voice shines through, giving a deep sense of ecology to her music.
[Levin's Note: Broken Deer is a testament to the undiscovered treasures existing beneath the dark snow of Canada's north.]
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Broken Deer – It Creeps
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Broken Deer – Face on the Riverside
File under: avant-garde // experimental // folk // gandhara recordings
Categoria!! New Canadiana :: compact disc :: yukon | No Comments »
January 27th, 2010
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False Face
No Business / One Man Clapping
(Self Released)
Kingston, ON
::web/sounds::
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From the I-assure-you-this-face-is-real face of Aaron Levin:
Literally out-of-nowhere mind-melding rock genre-fuckery of a very high calibre. False Face’s emergency-room resuscitation is thankfully limited to a two-track c10 so as to avoid the annihilation of your audible calibration. Atonal guitar freak-outs, droning doom breakdowns, and No Ageian walls of popular-noise are served beneath the covers of cafe-fresh vocal hooks and crunchy drums that churn your pop-music vocabulary into a beautiful puree of adjective hyperbole. An (almost) unbelievable mixture of sounds with a foot in every scene, deep-fried to perfection. A huge thanks to Garrett from The Famines for foisting this on me. Who are these dudes?
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False Face – No Business
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False Face – One Man Clapping
File under: indie // no age // noise // pop // punk
Categoria!! New Canadiana :: cassette :: ontario | 10 Comments »
January 26th, 2010
From the wish-I-had-a-tough-guy-leather-jacket stylings of Aaron Levin:
Monochromatic Youth, the vanguard of Grand Trine’s Bruised Tongue debut, captured their synthetic sans-wave pedigree at the cusp of their existence, posing the question: where now? Defying all expectations, Grand Trine returned with a barrage of brilliant psychedelic biker-punk transplanted from their phantasmagoric Montreal freak-clinic. Some wastoid time-warp seizure has them sounding like Marty McFly opening for the MC5; face-melting genre-collages, bursting celluloid solos, and decimating saxophone freak-outs; all of it wrapped in layers of frayed leather, busted zippers, and skitched sunglasses. Translation: Sunglasses is not for the faint of heart, mind, spirit, or stomach. All orifices will succumb to their unwholesome mutant hard-rock and I suggest you send all litigations directly to Divorce Records c/o Weird Canada legal services (but make sure to grip the 12″ vinyl (limited to 600 copies) as evidence of their crime). Now, if you don’t mind, I have a large mess near my stereo system to attend to.
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Grand Trine – I Am a Magnet
File under: biker punk // divorce records // punk // punk punk // synth punk // weird punk
Categoria!! 12" :: New Canadiana :: quebec | 1 Comment »
January 22nd, 2010
From the compiled danglings of Jesse Locke:
The Comp of Hope starts off with a serious wallop: the 1-2-3 whirligig of Vancouver’s Damages, Nova Scotia’s Minivan Halen (snagging the prize for Best New Band Name) and Toronto’s Place Hands, three groups with distinct yet equally imposing approaches to the post- / proto- / avant- / eff-it-let’s-just-get-rowdy hardcore continuum. Bart Records founder Kevin Stebner seems to favour the tuff gnarl stuff, with seven of the comp’s 10 acts setting their phasers to beatdown. From the spazzy attack of Abbotsford’s GSTS! to the rastafried “turbo jamz” of Edmonton’s Slates, Missisauga’s Whiskey Priest and unfuckwithable label faves Gift Eaters closing it off, this cassette could provide the perfect aggro soundtrack for any hesher’s backyard mini-ramp sesh. The softer side of weird Canadiana is also represented with the Strokes-meet-a-blown-out-Casio addictiveness of Swwords (the former project of this very site’s founder), Montreal’s math-pop dangereux duo Special Noise and a live jam from the inimitable dd/mm/yyyy. Another top-notch tape release from Bart, with awesome foldout liner art (front & back) from Calgary’s Heather Kai Smith.
[Levin's Note: This has the most links of any review on Weird Canada. Which means you get to virtually travel across Canada, all thanks to Bart Records. Benjoy!]
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Special Noise – Fitness
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Minivan Halen – Epic
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SLATES – blooloend
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swwords – The Hit
File under: bart records // compilation // experimental // hardcore // math-pop // pop // punk // rock
Categoria!! New Canadiana :: alberta :: british columbia :: cassette :: manitoba :: nova scotia :: ontario :: quebec :: saskatchewan | 1 Comment »
January 20th, 2010
From the Kimono-draped androgyny of Aaron Levin:
Geidi Primes is a landmark album of modern Canadian fringe, an assemblage of space-station pop memorabilia teleported from a time-static nether-zone beyond the scope of our earthly understanding. I’ve been waiting months for this, posting anxious pleas to Grimes after hearing the sinuous, harrowing bass-line on Rosa. With the curiously packaged cassette in my fiending grip, the orbiting swaths of synthetic warmth and echoing drum-machines have caused exciting astral projections outside my usual mental musicalia. Geidi Primes takes off from Rosa’s minimal bass-lines and launches straight into a strange hybrid of Björk, The Cure, Micachu, and other avant seamstresses, leaving a footprint in every decade and thankfully landing in ours. Chord progressions and samples are pulled from any source imaginable and the aggregation results in a Kate Bushian trail of decadence. It seems pointless and restrictive attempting to describe its brilliance, so I’ll stop with this: Geidi Primes is a flagship of hyperbolic dimensions. Get on board.
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Grimes – Rosa
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Grimes – Venus In Fleurs
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Grimes – Zoal, Face Dancer
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Grimes – Sardaukar Levenbrech
File under: arbutus // electronic // kate bush // pop // space // strange // the future // weird
Categoria!! New Canadiana :: cassette :: quebec | 7 Comments »
January 19th, 2010
From every fleeting moment of Aaron Levin:
Montreal has effortlessly cultivated an ensemble of pop creators ready to fill any niche, pocket, or corner. Thus, it comes as no surprised that Devon Welsh was nurtured in the same wasteland of Montreal that produced Sean Nicholas Savage, The Pop Winds, Matt Perri, and other spectacular curators I’m forgetting. Juxtaposing his backdrop of distorted, reverberated murmurings with pop-savvy guitar leads and harmonies, Welsh delivers a surprisingly pastoral post-burn-out too-soon-for-whiskey-but-too-late-for-breakfast introduction to the universe. Too full for the abrasive lo-fi popular amongst Da Youth™ and too earnest for the Steely Dans of the world, Welcome exists in the ether between things; invitations to catchy exploration.
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Devon Welsh – Girlfriend
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Devon Welsh – Fun House Mirror
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Devon Welsh – As Far As I’m Aware
File under: lo-fi // pop
Categoria!! New Canadiana :: compact disc :: quebec | 4 Comments »
January 19th, 2010
From the synthetic mellowings of Aaron Levin:
In the not-too-distant future, Joshua Stevenson will be listed in the canon of modern Canadian synthesia. Earlier this year we saw the release of Josh’s debut into meanderonic minimalism via his solo project magneticring. Meanwhile, an ensemble of Vancouver-area heavyweights (including Josh), titling themselves Von Bingen, reared a massive, ugly head in the latter half of the annum with a difficult-to-find LP of perturbed disquality. Channeling the early fuse of Irrlicht-era Klaus Schulze with droning, distorted guitar fanfare amongst cathedrals of unorganic chambers, Von Bingen subjects you to a sexcellent multi-textual unification of analog-electro genius. Pulsing mechanics, forced dualities, and atonal guitar workouts part the static stasis within the dark shadows of your listening cosmos and reveal the inner beat of our earthic tunings. Part psychedelic, part synthetic, part experimental, but as a whole, rewarding on multiple listens; an entity better heard than read. Packaged with a loving, two-colour essay.
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Von Bingen – Eyeglasses of Kentucky
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Von Bingen – Murray 606
File under: ambient // amen absen // electronic // josh stevenson // magneticring // minimal synth // synth
Categoria!! 12" :: New Canadiana :: british columbia | 11 Comments »
January 14th, 2010
From the cave-dwelling hive-mind of Paul Lawton:
This xmas I got a Peace for Bombs CDR and a book outlining the history of Wowbam Records label directly from the source, Jeff King, who writes and releases music under a legion of pseudonyms and (fake) band names (though The Square Waves and Favour have been his most well-known, mainly because he has actually assembled musicians to play those songs in a live setting). The Wowbam discography is remarkable – 31 releases over ten years, ranging from noise, to punkrawk, to straightpop; a catalogue that features some astonishing works such as the Folk 6 collection that spans seven discs and 300 songs (!). With the newest Wowbam release, Peace for Bombs, King plays secret hit-maker working within his limitations, six anthemic songs built around that shitty-drum setting you found on every toy-keyboard in the 80’s and layers of synths and guitars that gives this lost classic feel – one that no one has heard, but everyone has heard-about.
[Levin's Note: "Anthemic" is an understatement.]
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Peace For Bombs – Summerstory
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Peace For Bombs – Want 2 Belong
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Peace For Bombs – Peace For Bombs
File under: anthems // lo-fi // pop // wowbam
Categoria!! New Canadiana :: alberta :: compact disc | No Comments »
January 12th, 2010
From the Teddy Riley jacketed body of Aaron Levin:
Chris d’Eon returns with a new moniker and a time-lapsed sound no less forward looking than his last. Veering away from the cosmic meanderings of wa al-’asr (by the time) and plunging wrap-first into New Jack Swingery, D’EON delivers like no other methamphetamine-infused Much Music dance party. The whole trip is soaked in d’Eon’s psychedelic twilight, making it the ideal late-night, post-apocalyptic high-on-life-but-I’m-still-down-on-everything soundtrack to your small-town fashion-school graduation party. Your not-really-friends are passing rails in a bathroom while you’re saluting a full-moon on the apex of an abandoned farm-house; Sony Walkman™ giving portable life to d’Eon’s mellow tech flowing through your veins. Meanwhile, Teddy Riley is sitting in his blackstreet-funded mansion with a giant grin and the speach bubble reads: “it’s about time, whoa jam.”
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D’EON – the girl from köln is gone
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D’EON – artificial law
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D’EON – haridwar
File under: ambient // electronic // new jack swing // numbers station // teddy riley
Categoria!! New Canadiana :: cassette :: quebec | No Comments »
January 11th, 2010
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Lightdreams
10,000 Dreams
(Self Released)
Victoria, BC
Originally Released: 1983
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From the cassette-gripping hands of Aaron Levin:
There is a universe inside the mind of Victorian Paul Marcano unlike anyone has or could have imagined. After self-releasing Islands in Space (Paul’s 1981 cosmic folk consecration to the colonization of space released under the moniker Lightdreams), Paul seemingly disappeared into the serene pastures of Vancouver Island with only a brief mention of a new cassette available in an issue of CLEM (Canadian List of Electronic Music). Almost mistakenly lumped in with left-field Canadian avant-gardism, 10,001 Dreams takes a leave of absence from the ambient, synthesizer-driven visuals of Islands in Space to craft a wild, lysergic-filled journey into pan-delic psych and guitar workouts, stretching our understanding of pop-psych and bursting our tiny minds with visions of unfound landscapes. It is thee underground psychedelic masterpiece from Canada; released 15 years too late on a format no one cared about and relegated to absolute obscurity shortly thereafter. The cassettes were made-to-order and incredibly rare. Paul remains a visionary of human experience and is dedicated to experimenting with music and virtual reality.
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Lightdreams – Who is the One
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Light Dreams – 10,001 Dreams
File under: 1983 // folk // new age // psych
Categoria!! Departures Revisited :: british columbia :: cassette | 4 Comments »
