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August 31st, 2011

New Canadiana :: Various Artists – Bloodstains Across Ontario

Mammoth Cave’s tribute to my recently adopted province and the third entry in its Bloodstains series is a rapid-fire bombardment of ON’s finest hook-smugglers. Like speed dating at Gaga Weekend. it’s a blur of faces young and old that spins by before you can decide if they’re a creeper or a keeper. From the scummy sugar rush of Strange Attractors to White Wires’ pogo-punk and the starry eyed twee of Peach Kelli Pop, side A spills over with jams. The flip sees Young Guv channel his inner Ric Ocasek, Slim Twig sprout up twice with shred-heavy side-project Tropics, and the unreleased cut from Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet jolt from idyllic to jugular-ripping. Of course, Tonetta steals the show with effortless elevator sleaze, urging Toronto residents to “clean it up, yeah, all the shit.” Wooly bully bang for the buck grip.

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Tonetta 777 – City Joke

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Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet – Foreign/Aft

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Peach Kelli Pop – Panchito Blues

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Young Governor – I Wanna Girl from Wawa

August 30th, 2011

New Canadiana :: Pregnancy Scares – Demo

The Pregnancy Scares manifesto is relentless; an incipient chaos of guitarmageddon obliterating every conical speaker polar-left of Ottawa. The mayhem starts with 20 seconds of tonal stasis before driving your face through “Nightwalker”‘s parabolic shreddery. Their infinite calamity grinds endlessly as each epic (clocking an average of 59.3 seconds) churns through a power nine of diamond-dense hardcore. Grip-mode squad from the co-founder of Bruised Tongue.

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Pregnancy Scares – Nightwalker

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Pregnancy Scares – Reptile Race

August 30th, 2011

Festivities :: Celestial City 2011 [Fredericton, NB]

In our endless pursuit of marganalized rockery, we often stumble upon incredibly inspiring sources of creative energy. Case in point: the tiny city of Fredericton, New Brunswick is celebrating the second year of their newest fringe-music festival: Celestial City. Housed in the All-Ages Art Space Gallery Connexion, the festival will play host to Weird Canada favourites: Jerry Granelli, Cat Bag, Transfixed, and Saint John-native Adam Mowery. Their manifesto is simple: provide an alternative space for experimental and fringe musics while Fredericton is caught-up celebrating the ancient twangs of jazz and blues. Celestial City’s sweltering sounds will blanket Fredericton on September 16th and 17th, granting credence amongst Fredericton’s lay-folk; indeed, the new wave has come.

August 29th, 2011

New Canadiana :: The Shrapnelles – Asscalibur

This three-song debut EP by four gloriously greasy Calgarian trashwomen will remind you of all things dirty, bad for you and therefore irresistible: the burn in your throat after a shot of SoCo; the oily bartender with prison tats who pours your pint in a way that loosens your knees; your friend’s mom who wears too-short shorts, makes jokes about anal sex and always shares her menthols. Opener “My Mom is Hot” is a bristly beast, off and running with nary a word, but out of nowhere comes “Desert Furs”, which begins as a swooning ballad and suddenly lurches into a galloping, howling expression of hot-blood love (or maybe it’s hate). This record rips with a snarling beauty. Please mummies, I want some more.

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The Shrapnelles – Desert Furs

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The Shrapnelles – My Mom Is Hot

August 26th, 2011

Imprint :: Pleasence Records

Swirling within the endless cosmos of polyphonic doctrine, Toronto’s Pleasence Records remain an ardent force of diversity alongside the orthogonal streams of TO’s new underground. Their catalog grows in dimension with each mind-boggling effort, exemplified by the soft yacht-rock of Young Guv easing into Man Made Hill’s burnt fidelity. I was stoked to hear that Managing Editor Jesse Locke met with the head honchos from Pleasence this week. Dig below.

Aaron Levin
Big Lurch
Weird Canada
weirdcanada.com

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The Pink Noise – Galapagos

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Man Made Hill – Hard Breeze Is Gonna Blow

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Induced Labour – Whore Eyes

1 :: How did you launch your label and why? C.R.E.A.M.?

We were both at an Induced Labour show in early 2010 where Leslie (Predy) smashed a pint glass off the stage, dove into the shards, and was dragged by her pants around her ankles by the crowd. Deirdre later picked the glass out of her ass. That night we both fell in love with them. Later that spring, over some very fine homemade Italian food with friends, Deirdre stated her intention to release their record and James wanted in. The record took a while to put out so we released a Vagina Bison tape, a 7″ split from Gay/White Suede, and a 7″ EP from Suitcase Sam in the interim. By the time the Induced Labour record came out, we were already working with more artists. It’s been rolling steadily ever since.

2 :: To date, which of your releases has been: a) the best-seller, b) your favourite and c) the biggest bummer?

Young Guv & The Scuzz has undoubtedly been our best seller. We’ve sold that record all over the world. He also recorded the Tropics, Huckleberry Friends, and Gay/Sexy Merlin records we’ve put out. He’s one of the most prolific guys in Toronto right now. The Soupcans and Suitcase Sam have also worked very hard to get their records out there, selling a few at every show, playing as often as they can around town and touring Canada and the States.

As for B, that’s like picking your favourite child. We’re so proud of them all! Our favourite is usually whatever we’re working at the moment, since usually that means we’re listening to it over and over and over before the final press. You become quite intimate with the record, like you’ve known it for years.

The only time it feels like a bummer is when a record we really love doesn’t have the immediate impact we feel it deserves. We become like angry parents at their kid’s hockey game.

3 :: What sets you apart from other labels? Music, art, liner notes, posters, glossy 8.5” x 11” head-shots?

We initially connected over music by both being record collectors. Deirdre works at She Said Boom records in Toronto and James would hang out there for hours browsing, yakking about bands, listening to different records. We like to think there’s a certain diversity in our catalog that reflects our broad tastes. We never wanted to have a genre label that would only release a specific style. I don’t think we could ever commit to that, there’s just too much different stuff we’re into.

4 :: Future plans? What can grippers look forward to gripping?

By this time next year you’ll be hearing records by Pon De Replay, Fleshtone Aura, John Milner You’re So Boss, Wasted Nymph, Odonis Odonis, a VHS tape of the last Induced Labour performance, and hopefully a few others.

Pleasence Records Discography (to date)

  • PR000
  • ::
  • Vagina Bison
  • Self Titled
  • (2010, Cassette)
  • PR001
  • ::
  • Induced Labour
  • Self Titled
  • (2010, 7″)
  • PR002
  • ::
  • Gay/White Suede
  • Split
  • (2010, 7″)
  • PR003
  • ::
  • Suitcase Sam
  • Get It To Go
  • (2010, 7″)
  • PR004
  • ::
  • Pleasence T-Shirt
  • PR005
  • ::
  • The Soupcans
  • Erotic Nightmare
  • (2010, 12″)
  • PR006
  • ::
  • Sexy Merlin
  • Self Titled
  • (2011, 7″)
  • PR007
  • ::
  • Gay/Sexy Merlin
  • Self Titled
  • (2011, 7″)
  • PR008
  • ::
  • Young Guv & The Scuzz
  • Bedroom Eyes b/w Rumors
  • (2011, 7″)
  • PR009
  • ::
  • Tropics
  • Pale Trash b/w Earmarked
  • (2011, 7″)
  • PR010
  • ::
  • Huckleberry Friends
  • Vision b/w Disaster Keyz
  • (2011, 7″)
  • PR011
  • ::
  • The Pink Noise
  • Gilded Flowers
  • (2011, 12″)
  • PR012
  • ::
  • Man Made Hill/Young Truck
  • (2011, 12″)

August 25th, 2011

Video :: The Ether – I Have Seen the Smile [Dir. Jacqueline Lachance]

An audacious chronicle of the family Solanaceae. Jacqueline Lachance takes The Ether’s infinite disharmony into ridiculous arrays of VHS mashery, forcing the stop-motion absurdity through burnt colour palettes and neck-churning cut-ups. Wither beside the translucent Tomato-narrative and abandon all attempts to capture the disparate fiction. Shred.

August 24th, 2011

New Canadiana :: Weed – With Drug b/w Eighty

Weed’s follow-up to the fuzzencholy-laced summer-bummer vibes of Down in the Valley is a remarkably sunnier turn-of-phrase on the granular 90s pop nomenclature. The wonderfully self-conflicted sinusoid-spectacular bursts with vocal hooks, tossing easy-bait through a gauntlet of crunchy guitars and Haligonian angularity. A fantastic voyage down the bizarro-universe of 200-press pop genius. GRIP.

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Weed – With Drug

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Weed – Eighty

August 23rd, 2011

New Canadiana :: Hobo Cubes – Color Exchange

It’s hard to pinpoint any kind of hallmark in the ever-swelling body of Hobo errata, spawning endless outgrowths from the hyperactive hands of Cult leader Frank Ouellette. Yet one thing you can count on across the awe-inspiring multitude of multi-format releases, solo/collab projects and transfixing videos is a hazy atmosphere of unease filtering in like night terrors at the edges of sleep. The Color Exchange VHS feels like a culmination of sorts in its 30-minute voyage through the liminal realms of late night transmissions as pan and scanned visions of distressed facial close-ups, sinister statues and bikini-clad beach babes get the creeper treatment with a stomach-churning synth soundtrack to match. 50 copies! Get it while it’s hot…

August 22nd, 2011

New Canadiana :: Quivers – <o>

Giving Stalwart Sons a run for their CanRock dollars, Halifax’s Quivers streamline the lobster-fisting, Hali-riffery of our magnificent eastern bloc into prodigious narratives of distortion-laced heroism. Their lead shreddery tears down every wall, channeling riff-ladened vibrations through our undulating bodies. All praise the heralded second-coming of anthemic rockery. File under: arena grip.

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Quivers – Instant Life

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Quivers – Sou’Wester

August 19th, 2011

New Canadiana :: Le Révélateur – Fictions

Roger Tellier-Craig’s roots run deep in the Montreal music subterrain, yet he’s truly launched into the stratosphere with the kosmische synth solo mission Le Révélateur. Fictions is a glorious deluge of chromatic aberrations and krautrock apparitions, cascading from ear to ear through a spellbinding array of incandescent arpeggios. Combined with the soft focus visions of Sabrina Ratté, the bar has been raised to astonishing heights. Pressed in a ludicrously small run of 500 copies, so grip this brilliant slab before it’s cosmic dust.

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Le Révélateur – Age Maze

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Le Révélateur – Bleu Nuit

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