February 12th, 2010
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
File under: bachelor records // garage // punk // science // weird punk
Categoria!! 7" :: New Canadiana :: alberta | 2 Comments »
February 12th, 2010
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
File under: depressing // grunge // HoZac // lo-fi // punk
Categoria!! 7" :: New Canadiana :: nova scotia | 3 Comments »
February 5th, 2010
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Various Artists
Dove Project No. 9
(Self Released)
Calgary, AB
Originally Released: 1970
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From the partially-ordered, semi-continuous grippage of Aaron Levin:
We have witnessed the possessed meanderings of teenagers pushed to the creative fringe for years. It’s not uncommon these days for some residential weirdo to emerge from their suburban cave with a MySpace full of damaged sounds teetering on the edge of unsanity. This was not the case for Canada’s underground rock scene of the 60s, whose output pales numerically to our American counterparts, owing to a lack of custom pressing plants and home-recording equipment. Which is why it’s incredible that Calgarian Doug Wong, at the tail end of 1969, when psychedelic music delivered its last blow to the world’s unsuspecting youth, decided to package the last issue of his high-school newspaper with a 7″ of school “rock bands” (I’ve posted the full story here). The resulting 7″ has become a truly bewildering artifact of Canada’s marginalized fringe music community: a compilation of unfettered teenage expression; trashy, face-melting, fuzz-drenched glorious hard-rock mingling amongst Dylan-inspired folk and sunshine pop. A beautiful peak into the small lives of folk-club weirdos at a time when their sounds usually withered and vanished. Amazing and incredibly rare. This is the third time I’ve written about this record and it still astounds me.
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Wrinkled Pumpkin – Hello
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Sundance Reunion – I’m Leaving
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Dusk – Three Thirty Two
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File under: diy // doug wong // hard rock // psych
Categoria!! 7" :: Departures Revisited :: alberta | 3 Comments »
November 12th, 2009
From the cave of earthly desires curated by Paul Lawton:
No other band is able to convey the unease, trepidation and frustration of living within the booming Alberta economy like Sharp Ends. It’s true, Calgarians live the complete opposite material circumstances of, say, the early UK Factory Records scene (heh). Yet, extremes are extremes, and the destitute Manchester of the early 80’s and inane economic ante-upping of modern Alberta are equally as efficient at marginalizing the weak and powerlessness. And so emerges Sharp Ends, the voice of our discontent, music to soothe the general malaise. Their secret weapon is guitarist Danny Christiansen. Danny’s guitar skulks for the first half of “Ghosts of Chance,†bass and drum churning away with vocalist Chris Zajko lurking in the shadow, enveloping the room, and putting the listener into a trance. Waiting for its epic entrance, the guitar bursts into white light, from sepia tone to full technicolour before fading out and taking all hope with it. On “Northern Front”, the guitar meanders and constantly leaves you wanting (especially the mini guitar suite at the end of the song). Sharp Ends are the real deal: so much complexity stuffed into music so simple. Everything you want in a band.
[Levin's Note: Living in Edmonton makes the acuteness of it's being that much more powerful. A+]
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Sharp Ends – Ghosts of Chance
File under: HoZac // power pop // punk // wave
Categoria!! 7" :: New Canadiana :: alberta | 23 Comments »
November 10th, 2009
Sharp Ends were the source of rampant rumours in our village square during 2009’s adjective-fest (read: Sled Island) and they’ve quickly become the talk of North America’s underground after a debut single on Chicago’s bozak-repellant HoZac Records. With a new single on Lethbridge’s beautifully curated Mammoth Cave Recordings, Sharp Ends briefly depart from the rolling bass, bludgeonly drums, and red-line vocals to surprise us with one of the best B-sides left of Winnipeg (I’ve always wanted to say that!). Loaded Hearts will rip you into Legoâ„¢-chunks of teenage angst within seconds of launching; it’s classic DIY jangle with way too much attitude tastefully balanced by top-notch laxidasical chanting and relentless guitar shreddery. This isn’t to say Crack Trap doesn’t also deliver, just in an entirely different way; Crack Trap tickles the inner post-punk / college-radio basement-nerd inside of every loser going Dutch and buying $100 7″s on the sly (myself (proudly) included). There are many treasures inside the Mammoth Cave.
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Sharp Ends – Loaded Hearts
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Sharp Ends – Crack Trap
File under: power pop // punk // wave
Categoria!! 7" :: New Canadiana :: alberta | 3 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 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 | 6 Comments »
October 5th, 2009
Canada’s modern-psychedelic scene is re-emerging, painted new colours and worshiping new Gods. Gone are the pretenses of 60s pop-lysergia; in its place we gladly fall before false idols and re-hashed idioms. And why not? When it’s done well, we put our minds on a true trip thru hell. Sex Church easily accomplishes this with their mix of doomy, pedantic guitar drones and gothic romanticism; parsing liturgy and psych in a bewildering and addictive way. The songs are long, depressing and mesmerizing; perfect musical beds for basement-evenings in your teenage vortex. And if that all made sense, they throw in a pop-punk ballad for the last minute of Dead End; nothing is ever too easy anymore. 300 copies pressed on black vinyl via Vancouver’s Sweet Rot records. Die vicariously.
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Sex Church – Dead End
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Sex Church – Let Down
File under: gloom // goth // psych // punk // sweet rot
Categoria!! 7" :: New Canadiana :: british columbia | 1 Comment »
August 9th, 2009
Scribbler is, as far as I can tell, a strange group of pseudo-druid, feudal-revivalists operating in the Halifax region (where there are more bands than people). I got their 7″ in the mail and it’s a mixed brew of depressing one-mic-in-a-box loner folk, manic distorted folk-rock, and (my favorite) a thirty-second cosmic noise-hippie freak-out. Even stranger is their remix project featuring a variety of artists I had never heard about doing even-weirder interpretations of their songs (including one amazing electro-psych track that’s no longer on their **Space (but will hopefully be on the soon-to-be-released C-90 containing all the remixes)). You, the reader, are also welcome to participate in the remix project, so feel free to contact them. In the meantime, pick up the 7″ if you’re into echoey lonertude from the bowels of Canada’s most creative city.
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Scribbler – My Old Lady
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Scribbler – zzzzzz demo
File under: folk // lo-fi // loner folk // no-fi // noise
Categoria!! 7" :: New Canadiana :: nova scotia | No Comments »
