So you’d like to contribute to Weird Canada? That’s great! Weird Canada was not started with the intention of remaining a sole enterprise. In the future, I’d like to view myself as an “editor” of content rather than sole contributor. With this in mind, it’s important to specify the mandate of Weird Canada as well as the type of information each review will require.
Weird Canada – Mandate
Weird Canada doesn’t have a mandate. Haha! Tricked you! The motivation to create Weird Canada came from a perceived gap in the media’s attention to independent and DIY music in Canada. Thus, the idea is to review physically released material by independent musicians in Canada attempting to create boundary-pushing, forward-thinking, and interesting music. It’s Canadian, it’s independent, but most importantly, it’s wyrd.
You can read the blog to see the type of music that gets reviewed on Weird Canada. However, here is a list of things that I don’t want to review: straight forward anything (pop-rock, jazz, folk, etc.), music supported by major-minor labels, or music released only in the digital format.
Weird Canada – Review Format
It’s 2009 and we have to realize that people don’t read music reviews to have someone else describe the content. Why read when you can listen? Thus, reviews on Weird Canada are short and to the point (approximately 100 words) and should focus on the regionality, process of creation, the musics relation and importance to you-the-writer (i.e. personalize it!), and uniqueness in our current musical landscape. Short, punchy, and to the point!
On top of the written portion I require the following items:
- Artist name
- Album name
- Label name
- Current location of group / individual
- High-quality scan of the cover of the album (see the blog for examples). The image should be 300 pixels wide. High-quality design is an important aspect of Weird Canada. The visual presentation is, unfortunately, sometimes more important than the content 
- Two MP3s to be streamed and downloaded from the web-page
If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to e-mail me: aaron (at) cantorrecords (dot) com
I look forward to reading your contributions!
Hearts,
Aaron Levin
