March 9th, 2010
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EMILY
Neat and Tidy in Your Mind
(Mo=Da=Mu)
Vancouver, BC
Originally Released: 1985
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From the generally untidy mind of Aaron Levin:
Destructive guitar congruance. Menacing synthetic tones. Echo-to-infinity vox processing. Extirpated TASCAM wreckage. Neat and Tidy in My Mind is the most relentless barrage of left-field maximal synth North American has ever seen. It’s the second cassette by solo, multi-format Vancouver artist Emily Faryna, whose visionary digital mythics have been obscured by Canada’s under-documented vintage cassette scene. Her conical prose hovers darkly over Neat and Tidy’s minor-key delirium, brewing the magnetic urgency coursing through its self-producing ether; a last, desperate attempt to convince the world that the mind’s ailments exist on the outside. It’s a gateway drug into the underbelly of a hyper intimate experimental underground torn from the pages of Neuromancer and, to me, the flagship vehicle for the vanguard of fringe-Canada. Words left to describe Neat and Tidy in Your Mind: ambitious, singular, forward-thinking, powerful, intense, and prodigious. There is a reissue in the works.
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EMILY – Who Cares
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EMILY – Compromise
File under: 1985 // aaron levin // ambient // experimental // maximal synth // minimal synth // mo=da=mu // noise // psych // punk // synth
Categoria!! Departures Revisited :: british columbia :: cassette | 3 Comments »
March 4th, 2010
From the Jabroka-filled pockets of Aaron Levin:
Beneath Alienation’s beautifully die-cut packaging (typical Patente faire) lays a harrowing journey into Quebec’s multi-format experimental scene. Alienation is the audible outlet by visual artist Simon Langevin. Simon’s autodidactic approach to the genre’s freedom gives 2010 a welcomed erraticism resulting in a strange mix between multi-format, avant-meanderings and static post-techno beat collages. Add an 11-minute minor-key ethereal floater and you’ve got yourself a veritable trip through Simon’s consciousness; corrugated tunnels lined with deep, dark textures appropriate for any hang-out setting not involving: smiles, fun, or not-goths. Killer psychedelic artwork to boot. +1 Patente.
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Alienation – Track 03
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Alienation – Track 06
File under: aaron levin // drone // experimental // noise // techno
Categoria!! New Canadiana :: compact disc :: quebec | No Comments »
January 27th, 2010
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False Face
No Business / One Man Clapping
(Self Released)
Kingston, ON
::web/sounds::
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From the I-assure-you-this-face-is-real face of Aaron Levin:
Literally out-of-nowhere mind-melding rock genre-fuckery of a very high calibre. False Face’s emergency-room resuscitation is thankfully limited to a two-track c10 so as to avoid the annihilation of your audible calibration. Atonal guitar freak-outs, droning doom breakdowns, and No Ageian walls of popular-noise are served beneath the covers of cafe-fresh vocal hooks and crunchy drums that churn your pop-music vocabulary into a beautiful puree of adjective hyperbole. An (almost) unbelievable mixture of sounds with a foot in every scene, deep-fried to perfection. A huge thanks to Garrett from The Famines for foisting this on me. Who are these dudes?
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False Face – No Business
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False Face – One Man Clapping
File under: indie // no age // noise // pop // punk
Categoria!! New Canadiana :: cassette :: ontario | 9 Comments »
December 8th, 2009
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Holzkopf
Sober Materials #1
(Self Released)
Vancouver, BC
::web/sounds::
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From the closeted-bourgeoise life-stylings of Aaron Levin:
I once thought it would be incredibly ingenious to put Holzkopf in a box and carry him around with me. His adorable ponytails popping out of my JanSport backpack as I dithered about my daily duties (pretentious white-man stuff like buying whole-wheat bagels and reading Trotsky). And then, when things go awry in my white-picket-world, out pops Holzkopf with his busted drum machine, hand-manipulated Walkman, karaoke microphone, and array of pedals, ready to pulverize whatever gentrified fear stands before me. But! Now that Holzkopf has compiled his improvised dungeon dancery onto a CDR, I can get down to his body-destroying beats without leaving my suburb. Holzkopf’s sound and performance are unparalleled in North America (please to find me another pedal-mashing drum-machine hooligan), so we at Weird Canada are happy to celebrate any record documenting Holzkopf’s strange travels. Tracks on this disc were compiled from Holzkopf’s European tour and a few vinyl and cdr releases (on the labels: Little Fury Things, Wintage, and Panospria). Let the shredding begin!
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Holzkopf – draw blood
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Holzkopf – pissing next to me and preaching
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Holzkopf – state trooper
File under: dance // electronic // noise
Categoria!! New Canadiana :: british columbia :: compact disc | 4 Comments »
November 21st, 2009
The philosophical implications of the word “everything” are overwhelming, so I say this with all due caution: the AIDS Wolf live performance is a cantankerous barrage of everything. Yannick’s hyper-frenetic drum impalement, Chloe’s vexatious bellowing and undulations, and the impossibly patient guitarists whose ability to maintain any sense of artistic composure during their non-pejorative circus is incredible, form the sum of “all things” and shove it down your face in under 3 minutes. It’s absolutely overwhelming and beautiful; a palette-cleansing barf mitzvah of the highest disorder. This crowning achievement comes from being one of the hardest working groups in Canada with a strict discipline and philosophy, allowing them to form a Druin’s-esque bridge between experimental academia and the weird punk crowd. Thus, Pas Rapport, a live recording from their native environment committed to tape and released in a limited edition of 50 to support their tour, cannot adequately contain their audible torrent. But allow your mind to fill-in the fidelity-gaps and you’ll whisk yourself away to the static confusion and bludgeoned existence of their live show. Punish yourself and live creatively. I love this band. PS – Chloe and Yannick from AIDS Wolf make incredible art and screenprints, so check out the Seripop website. Don’t believe me? Here is a photo of me underneath one of their screens (g/b/w).
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AIDS Wolf – P’tit débile
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AIDS Wolf – Elle est si cochonne
File under: experimental // noise // punk
Categoria!! New Canadiana :: cassette :: quebec | 1 Comment »
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 »
November 9th, 2009
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ManyMental Mistakes
Clean The Bloody Tape!
(ManyMental Records)
Montreal, QC
::web/sounds::
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From the padded-walls of Jesse Locke:
Throughout this short but sick five-song EP, Montreal noise rock trio ManyMental Mistakes seem to find perverse pleasure in eardrum shredding feedback damage, claws on chalkboard No Wave guitar scrapes and other high-pitched squeals. Thankfully (or unthankfully, depending on your tastes) there are moments of respite such as the woozily carsick rave-up “Call Me!†or the standout and longest track “Lame.†The latter finds frontwoman Eva Stone switching between icy monotone mantras and bloodcurdling screams over drummer MJ’s ritualistic tom-tom workouts plus wordless chants and blown-out atmospherics from bassist Vaan, conjuring comparisons to Magik Markers, Confusion Is Sex-era Sonic Youth or a terrifying low-budget remake of The Craft. Impressively oppressive stuff, and the fact that it clocks in at just less than 15 minutes should leave masochistic listeners craving more punishment.
[Levin's Note: Hands down the best named band in Canada.]
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ManyMental Mistakes – Lame
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ManyMental Mistakes – Call Me!
File under: noise // punk // weird punk
Categoria!! New Canadiana :: compact disc :: quebec | No Comments »
October 1st, 2009
Rivaling Fixture Records as best-designed multi-format boutique label in Canada, Hobo Cult really delivered with a small package of incredibly wyld and strange music; Wasted Widow being the first of many reviews to come. Caught in the imaginative triangulation of punk, noise-psych, and experimentalism, Les Douches Romaines captures a unique moment in uncategorized music. No-gaze? Adjective-wave? Who cares? Classification will certainly fail when filing away Wasted Widow’s wailing distorted guitar, granular noise, vocals delayed beyond calculation, and incongruent notions of song structure. It’s droney and psychedelic and noisey and weird and awesome! I had to have a time-out in my apartment and re-calibrate my association with commonly held notions of “genre” and “taste.” Incredible (no hyperbole). And, yes, those drums are looped in Skyscrape My Shapes. Wasted, indeed!
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Wasted Widow – Skyscrape My Shapes
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Wasted Widow – Heroin Quest (w/ Clef Guitarson)
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Wasted Widow – Love Child (w/ Clef Guitarson)
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Wasted Widow – Hospital Memorium (exit)
File under: experimental // hobo cult // no-wave // noise // psych // punk // weird punk
Categoria!! New Canadiana :: compact disc :: quebec | 1 Comment »
September 30th, 2009
“It’s just some songs I recorded by myself” stated JV DUB, Shearing Pinx’s drummer and participant in a plethora of Vancouver fringing (Black Dicks (best band-name in Canada), Aerosol Constellations, Totally Ripped, and Shitty Weed). A fairly humble statement considering the miasmic bludgeoning of basement doom and hellish guitar shreddery contained within A Poison Stronger Than Love. As bewildered and shocked as I was (and still am), it’s brilliance lay in providing the type of intimacy that is addicting and shameful; we become voyeurs on the brink of some terrifying shit. Which is great, because we need unnerving music to remind us of how remarkable it is to be moved. I’ve searched long and hard for artifacts that carry this banner and they are few and far between; intense, serious, and heavy. Real heavy. Really heavy. If you listen to this cassette at night you will, and I paraphrase the wise words of rapper Plies: go to bed real; wake up reala.
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Mongst – taxed body
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Mongst – dormitude
File under: doom // experimental // inw // noise // punk
Categoria!! New Canadiana :: british columbia :: cassette | 4 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 »
