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February 26th, 2010

Review :: Makeout Videotape – Eating Like a Kid

Makeout Videotape
Eating Like a Kid
(Self Released)
Vancouver, BC
::web/sounds::


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

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Categoria!! british columbia :: compact disc :: New Canadiana | 6 Comments »

February 24th, 2010

Review :: Mode Moderne – Ghosts Emerging

Mode Moderne
Ghosts Emerging
(Lust Neuvo Records)
Vancouver, BC
::web/sounds::


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

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Categoria!! 12" :: british columbia :: New Canadiana | 3 Comments »

February 23rd, 2010

Review :: Grown-Ups – I Can’t Win

Grown-Ups
I Can’t Win
(Bart Records)
Calgary, AB
::web/sounds::


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!

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Categoria!! alberta :: cassette :: New Canadiana | 1 Comment »

February 23rd, 2010

Review :: Colic – Best to Your Family

Colic
Best to Your Family
(Self Released)
Edmonton, AB
::web/sounds::


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.

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Categoria!! alberta :: compact disc :: New Canadiana | 7 Comments »

February 19th, 2010

Review :: Bernardino Femminielli – La Montaña del Capricornio

Bernardino Femminielli
La Montaña del Capricornio
(Hobo Cult)
Montreal, QC
::web/sounds::


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

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Categoria!! cassette :: New Canadiana :: quebec | 2 Comments »

February 17th, 2010

Review :: Silly Kissers – Precious Necklace

Silly Kissers
Precious Necklace
(Arbutus Records)
Montreal, QC
::web/sounds::


From the perilous necklace of Aaron Levin:
I want to live Precious Necklace. I want tight sweaters. VIP access to the clurb. Double martinis. False love. Teen soundtracks blasting. I want the whole world in a song and I want to dance; pulsing drum machines, echoey vocals and exaggerated pop-harmonies. Let the music take you back in time. Nintendo, cocaine, plastic people, and radio hits. Sex in bathrooms and parental neglect. Stereotypes. We’ve lost our youth. We can take it back. The Silly Kissers, in a futuristic act of heroism, are our only hope. Their fourth and most realized effort to-date showcases their perfected 80s-pop ventriloquism. Precious Necklace is a re-imagining that only nostalgia can deliver; glossing over the weaknesses of an era we will never truly understand and manipulating the pearls of its bounty to deliver every genre’s saving grace: synthetic pop perfection. Precious Necklace, released as a limited-edition 10″ on Montreal’s Arbutus Records, is a 10/10 major-scale heart-melt. The world has never needed so much. They will deliver. GRIP. IT. NOW.

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Silly Kissers – You Could Even Like Me

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Silly Kissers – Treat Me Like You Do

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Silly Kissers – Precious Necklace

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Categoria!! 10" :: New Canadiana :: quebec | 5 Comments »

February 15th, 2010

Review :: Roommates – Wi

Roommates
Wi
(Scotch Tapes)
Toronto, ON
::web/sounds::


From the polyamorous disaster of Michael Deane:
Looking onto the mid-northern thunderous tundra puts me in a perfect place to relate to the Roommates’ “Back to the Sun,” the latest in a flurry of side-projects from Fucked Up guitarist Ben Cook. The breezy, straightforward pop hooks tinged with melancholy and longing speak directly to me. “Back to the Sun” is self-conscious, with sun-yearning lyrics matched by the sweetly sad vocals and tom-heavy thumping we’re used to from Young Governor. The flip of this cassingle is the slightly creepy, slightly goofy anthem that follows two dudes trying to talk their gals into a “Girlfriend Swap”. Infectious hooks and an entertaining story-line make it repeatable power pop magic. “Don’t roll your eyes at me / Let’s do things differently / We’re all just one big family / So let’s give it a try.” I’m not quite convinced by their logic, but you can’t deny these hits.
[Levin's Note: I'm very convinced. Hit me on my beeper.]

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Roommates – Back To The Sun // Girlfriend Swap

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Categoria!! cassette :: New Canadiana :: ontario | 2 Comments »

February 12th, 2010

Review :: Myelin Sheaths – Stackticon 7″

Myelin Sheaths
Stackticon 7″
(Bachelor Records)
Lethbridge, AB
::web/sounds::


From the laboratory disaster of Jesse Locke:
Not since the glory days of Thomas Dolby has the world been gifted with such catchy songs about science. Following their debut 7” released via the HoZac Records Hookup Klub, Leth/Death/Methbridge’s Myelin Sheaths are back with another Bunsen-burnt four-song platter, this time stamped with the imprint of Bachelor Records from Austria. AUSTRIA! Big ups, guys. A-side opener “Stackticon” is a scrappy, foaming-at-the-mouth cheerleader chant rocker, clocking in at 1:40 and blown the eff out just like Paul Lawton loves it. “SPF70” is a moody instrumental with tasteful guitar wrangling that almost sounds surf-y in places, which, now that I think about it, the suntan lotion song title is assuredly alluding to. On the flip, the head-bashing repetition of “Laboratory Disaster” and garagey girl groupisms of “Fun With Science” will be familiar to anyone who’s caught these cats live or copped their O.G. self-released CD. For all your fuzzy, skuzzy weirdo rock needs, the Mammoth Cave keeps on churning out the goods.
[Levin's Note: Austria! Wild!!]

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Myelin Sheaths – Stackticon

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Myelin Sheaths – Fun w/ Science

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Categoria!! 7" :: alberta :: New Canadiana | 2 Comments »

February 12th, 2010

Review :: Mess Folk – Something I Remember 7″

Mess Folk
Something I Remember / Give Me A Gun b/w If I Don’t Get Out
(HoZac Records)
Sydney, NS
::web/sounds::


From the solitary confinement of Aaron Levin:
Digging deep in the recesses of Sydney, Nova Scotia’s musical tar ponds, Mess Folk returns with a trio of serotonin-deprived hymns for the emotionally-challenged. Mess Folk’s HoZac debut will uproot your anchors and rip apart any notion of mental-stability. The aural spectacle sounds like lost recordings of Nirvana live in Hobbiton; a sparsely attended minor-key distortion-fest populated by meth-afflicted hobbits and rejects from Gummo‘s casting call. It’s all the more real because of its absurd projection, adding musical meanderings to ideas usually debated by stale academics. It’s uncomfortable, challenging, awful, and speaks to every secret plan you’ve made to escape the reality of being. You will hate it, but best of all: you will hate yourself. A+++.

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Mess Folk – Give Me A Gun

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Mess Folk – If I Don’t Get Out

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Categoria!! 7" :: New Canadiana :: nova scotia | 3 Comments »

February 9th, 2010

Review :: Pompoir – Exploding Time

Pompoir
Exploding Time
(Isolated Now Waves (INW 211))
Vancouver, BC
::web/sounds::


From the burnt locker of Paul Lawton:
At one point in the second half of Exploding in Time, Nic Hughes (Pompoir’s lead singer and leading member of Shearing Pinx) repeats “Do you feel this?” and to this I say: Yes! I am absolutely feeling this. Pompoir’s grunge has been filtered through an accentuated Vancouver-alienation, giving the songs on Exploding Time a feeling unstuck in time and place while still capturing the sounds of this relativistic-event in Vancouver’s scene. In fact, after the first few listens I had pangs of jealousy that I don’t currently live in Vancouver to hear these bands on any given weekend. I’ll go out on a limb and say, of all the records that have come out of the Vancouver scene in the last five years (and lets face it, there have been a fuck-load of records… SHPX alone have over ten thousand releases!) Pompoir’s Exploding Time lands firmly in the “essential” category. Comes in fantastic silkscreened B-Side and album-covers. The vinyl is limited to 300 copies.
[Levin's Note: The photo used in this review is the rare, test-pressing vagina-cover variant (#15/20). The actual album art is quite similar. This record slays.]

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Pompoir – Going Nowhere

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Pompoir – Krush

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Categoria!! 12" :: british columbia :: New Canadiana | 1 Comment »

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