Shuffling and smiling through a moon-hung Ren. Faire when the dandelion wine has kicked in for the minstrels, electroacoustic jazzbo Lee Hutzulak dips into that crazy river. Tucked underneath his faded poncho, the twinkle-eyed lifeguard of Dixie’s Death Pool unleashes a squadron of steam punk arachnids to undertake his mystical bidding. Rev up your electric flute, grab a Mackie Blackjack and get jiggy.

Rambling through the bedhead basement freak scene like a scorched tumbleweed, Student Teacher play hooky with classification. These teenage dirt ‘stache desert jammers make crocodile rock wha-wha pop sound just as leisurely as monotonic garage, wayward drifted psych-outs and corpse paint metal broods. Somewhere between the janglophone twang of Dead Ghosts and Babysitter’s hormone-overdriven hack and thrash, our new favourite Vancouverites are bumming out Mount Pleasant. Grip.

Not exactly sure how the entire world missed this one. Very quietly sometime last week Alex Zhang Hungtai a.k.a. Dirty Beaches posted the final product of one of his dreams come true: a music video directed by Tsien-Tsien Zhang with cinematography by Christopher Doyle. Mr. Doyle is of course the man who helped give legendary Hong Kong director Wong Kar-wai’s films their distinct look with his fast & loose approach to shooting. The result of this unique technique gives the work a very natural, human perspective. You quickly forget you are even watching a film and sink deep into the world they create.

Doyle & Kar-wai’s collaborations include a long list of masterpieces such as Chungking Express (1994), Fallen Angels (1995), Happy Together (1997), In the Mood for Love (2000), etc, etc. The video for “White Sand” feels very much like a vignette from one of these films with its voyeuristic, fly-on-the-wall approach, moody drifting shots and abundant (but mild) NSFWisms. It’s clear with the absence of >tired tropical tropes, that is to say the imagery that indie-rock has beyond pillaged in the last few years, that “White Sand” stands as simply a state of mind.

In the days where most young bands use old sourced footage to make quick videos on the cheap in a fast grab, the impact might not be as heavy seeing something so eloquent, warm grainy and hypnotic. Your connectopathic brain is trained to think that something so beautiful could not possibly be original. However when you are informed that this is original footage, shot and directed by professionals specifically to accompany the music it takes on a whole new life and meaning. We are simply not used to seeing this type of thing attempted by unsigned bands in the underground.

Plodding along the unending hallways and caves of life, we lust for the sedatival inspyrations of happiness slung to the souls, throats and pasts of others. Alex Hungtai stars as Dirty Beaches and has for the past few years laid bare the minimalism that the over-saturated (that’s you!) and inundated generation(s) crave. This new 7” (the haunting “Lone Runner” and a reissue of “Stye Eye”) lets you slink into chicken wire honky-tonk darkness; like reverberated leather, Bakersfield-cum-Nayshville yelps all set to a comfort-drug soundtrack. With two, sometimes three psychedelic tongue-wagging crooners and percussive mutants as accompaniment, it’s time for you to think less, listen more and step out from behind that beautiful shell into the great divide.

As I begin my journey east I have begun reflecting upon the westward strangers whose lysergic testaments have shaped my own vision. Paul Marcano, with his ode to a future bursting with space colonies and solar winds, is first in mind. Recorded in his secluded studio outside Victoria, BC, Islands in Space is a testament to the forward-thinking creative consciousness existing within the New Age cosmos. Ragged guitar, searing leads, layered vocals, and dense electronics synthesize Islands in Space into one of the great psychedelic canons of the north. As an experience that begs meditation and continuous listening, I challenge readers to take a dive into Paul’s universe. Islands in Space is a pre-cursor to Lightdreams’ tape-only release 10,001 Dreams.

Standing by our never-ending infatuation with all things Jennifer Castle, Weird Canada is proud to partner with Flemish Eye, Beatroute Magazine, and Sled Island in presenting three evenings of ethereal reverberations. For the lucky druidics mingling around Vancouver, Edmonton, and Calgary, we welcome your participatory magik while this otherworldly hippie goddess from the east conjures her delicate, finger-picked minimalism. Please, join us.

## Vancouver, BC

- Date: Thursday, September 29, 2011:
- Location: Electric Owl Social Club (928 Main St.)
- With: The Ruffled Feathers, David Vertesi
- Price: $10 / $12
- Link: facebook
- Presented By: Beatroute Magazine & Weird Canada

## Edmonton, AB

- Date: Friday, September 30, 2011:
- Location: ARTery (9535 Jasper Ave.)
- With: Kris Ellestad, Smoke+Band, Mark Templeton
- Price: $10
- Link: facebook
- Presented By: Weird Canada & Flemish Eye

## Calgary, AB

- Date: Saturday, October 1, 2011:
- Location: Cantos Music Foundation
- With: Kris Ellestad
- Price: $10
- Link: facebook
- Presented By: Sled Island

Huge late-pass on this beast of an LP from Edmonton ex-patriots Peace. Soaring wickedly within rippling bass-lines and jagged guitar wrenching, My Face bursts through every three-minute pop monopoly. Drawing their anthemic, addictive wave-wrought experience over enduring excursions into indie-rock jammery, My Face rips, shreds, and permanently damages every turntable lucky enough to jive with their vibrations. Pop Echo kept this one limited to 300, so grip fast while copies remain within the ether.

It’s no secret. The shadowy lizard government pulling the strings behind Weird Canada HQ is fully brainwashed by Babysitter’s revolutionary rhetoric. The fifth chapter in their ever-evolving saga of sub-island urban wastoids is a fully realized dogma of red-lined rock absurdity. With western flair they drive through 60s mellow with surprising seriousness, espousing their living word in trinkets as clear as “I’m riding on a plane / a real astral plane“. The blend of rural-rock, 90s hair-pop, and completely burnt punk has never been weirder, as tracks like “be cool” and “sex pet” rip asunder fledging notions of genre. A serious favorite in the nation of fringe. GRIP AND GET FREE.

To quote the press release, this single is “an homage to the Vancouver punk scene circa 2007-2010… i.e. a post-30 interpretation of Nu Sensae/B-Lines/Chris-a-riffic… an allegiance to the Nanaimo 4-track scene and Lethbridge garage.” The new wave of adjective-punk has arrived folks — post-adjective-punk, or perhaps more fittingly, subjectivity-punk; the end result of talented individuals swimming in the ocean of access, filtering music like baleen whales filter krill. Success in this new musical epoch will require talented people (people like Apollo Ghost’s Adrian Teacher) to actually do something creative with all of this excess. It’s not even December and I will already declare this the best 7” to come out in 2011. Impossibly good musics.

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.