February 24th, 2010
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Mode Moderne
Ghosts Emerging
(Lust Neuvo Records)
Vancouver, BC
::web/sounds::
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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
File under: aaron levin // lust neuvo records // minimal synth // pop // synth
Categoria!! 12" :: New Canadiana :: british columbia | No Comments »
February 9th, 2010
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
File under: 90s // grunge // inw // isolated now waves // punk // shearing pinx
Categoria!! 12" :: New Canadiana :: british columbia | 1 Comment »
February 8th, 2010
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Collapsing Opposites
In Time
(Self Released)
Vancouver, BC
::web/sounds::
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From the bent winds of Paul Lawton:
The latest opus from Collapsing Opposites is a gem of psych-pop (poppy psych?) that sounds alien, but not alienating, quirky, but not annoying, dark but not desperate. Much of my affinity for Collapsing Opposites comes from the band leader Ryan McCormick (formerly of They Shoot Horses, Don’t They), who lends this record his warmth and charisma, and notably his strange vocal styling. Lyrics take the form of stream-of-consciousness monologue/rants that are layered inside of repetitive, swirling backdrops. I could imagine an edition of Acid Archives thirty years from now unearthing this record and freaking out over it as one of the great unheralded private-press oddities of 2010; hopefully the kids get hep to this record before then.
[Levin's Note: This is proudly the first Acid Archives reference on Weird Canada. PS - You can order this lovely LP by visiting Geographing Records!]
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Collapsing Opposites – Diamond Mind
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Collapsing Opposites – No. One
File under: experimental // indie // lo-fi // pop
Categoria!! 12" :: New Canadiana :: british columbia | 1 Comment »
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 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 »
December 1st, 2009
From the portal-books of Jesse Locke:
For those keeping track at home, Aidan Baker’s discography is starting to stretch longer than both his beard and onstage guitar jams. On this split LP, the multi-instrumentalist and founding member of “Ambient Doom” duo Nadja is in full-on minimalist mode, filling the entirety of his side with the soft-focus tone workout “Disturbances pt. 1 & 2.” Movement wise, it’s as unhurried as Eno or Stars of the Lid, and equally iridescent. On the flip, Brooklyn’s Sarah Lipstate (a.k.a. Noveller) – a member of Rhys Chatham’s Guitar Army, Glenn Branca’s 100 Guitar Ensemble and formerly Parts and Labor – contributes two shorter songs. In comparison to Baker’s piece, her haunting “White Rabbit” and ornate “Under The Color Cave” sound positively lively. This one could be a desert island pick, if that island happened to be Myst.
[Levin's Note: Having played Myst (blind subway!), Myst II: Riven (hang-man language thingy!), and Myst III: Exile (bee-hive!), I concur with everything Mr. Locke has stated, and more!]
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Aidan Baker – Disturbances [excerpt]
File under: ambient // avant-guitar // divorce records // experimental
Categoria!! 12" :: New Canadiana :: ontario | 1 Comment »
November 27th, 2009
From the stressed-graduate-student existence of Joni Sadler:
Eschewing the cheeky sloppiness that often accompanies the ‘weird punk‘ aesthetic, Vancouver’s Nü Sensae lets loose with a visceral attack of noisy jams that are over much too quick for their own good. The eight songs crammed onto this one-sided 12″ are short bursts of frantic drumming, dirty fuzzed-out bass riffs, and Andrea Luki?’s snarled vocals, all packaged together into a wholly ear-blistering listen. When they turn up the rage and Luki? unleashes that scream of hers, she sounds like the single most badass frontwoman of any band, ever. This is punk rock that isn’t afraid to be abrasive; the duo takes pride in the rough edges and lo-fi grit of their songs, and rightfully so. If only more bands had as much guts as these kids do and the sense of recklessness that actually lets them pull it all off without sounding forced. This record leaves little doubt that Nü Sensae means business.
[Levin's Note: Every time I listen to this 12" I feel like I'm getting punched in the face. Very limited pressing. GRIP OR REGRET.]
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Nü Sensae – Raven Tussle
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Nü Sensae – Peter Tripp
File under: 90s // inw // no-wave // weird punk
Categoria!! 12" :: New Canadiana :: british columbia | 3 Comments »
November 19th, 2009
The Old Line is dense; a desolate bus-ride on the midnight express to nowhere, culminating in the heaviest, trance-inducing psychedelic yogi-chant ever documented. Gown, the solo project of Thurston Moore collaborator Andrew McGregor (now residing in Nova Scotia), is not your paltry foray into distorted minimalism. Having cut the fabric of space-time and emerged as its own cosmic entity, Gown self-assimilates the reverberations of our universe and rebroadcasts them as soundtracks to our imagination’s self-deprecated autobiography. All the reverb-soaked, red-line meanderings underneath Andrew’s atonal murmurs resonate with the basement of our psyche. It’s challenging and absolutely impressive how deep The Old Line penetrates. I’ve spent three days with this record and I’m not yet ready for the world.
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Gown – roots
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Gown – here
File under: divorce records // experimental // minimal // noise // post-rock // thurston moore
Categoria!! 12" :: New Canadiana :: nova scotia | 1 Comment »
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 | 2 Comments »
September 28th, 2009
The past three years have seen Shearing Pinx focus their creative blasts from harsh noise-punk to decimating experimentalism, tying together streams of sans-wave, noise, 90s-whatever-rock, and experimental every/any/something. Weaponry, Shearing Pinx’s first of two slated albums on Halifax’s Divorce Records, is by far their most meditative release and leaps into the unchartered netherlands of post-ritual druid-wave; ruminating vocals pierce through our cosmetic musical barriers and channel sinusoidal rhythms embedded within searing pleas of release (I’m really trying to convey a feeling I’ve had while listening to this record for the past four days straight and it’s hard). Fourier would be proud as the album converges; inspiring, leading, and transcending national boundaries in an effort to present the world with one the best adjective-punk records of 2009. My highest recommendation.
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Shearing Pinx – Battery Born
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Shearing Pinx – Selfish Acts
File under: adjective-punk // experimental // noise // punk
Categoria!! 12" :: New Canadiana :: british columbia | 2 Comments »
