March 3rd, 2010
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Bad Vibrations
Bad Vibrations
(Brotherhood Cassettes)
Halifax, NS
::web/sounds::
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From the not-so-bad vibrations of James Goddard:
Sometimes I imagine a future where everyone has forgotten what a guitar actually sounds like; Children brought up on a steady diet of French pop and Swedish 8-bit. Eventually, current trends like lo-fi would become ailments listed in the DSM VII with prescriptions like: 2 hours of Kumbaya orchestrated by battery-operated MicroKorgs (twice daily, with food). Things would be bad. Luckily former Dog Day drummer KC Spidle has strapped on a six string and stepped to the foreground to ensure such a future will never happen. Bad Vibrations play guitar music. They play the kind of three piece power-pop that begs for adjectives like dark or gloomy; and they play it well. Eschewing any kind of overt studio trickery, the members of Bad Vibrations (KC, Evan and Meg) have put together a crisp sounding record that subtly recalls that classic 90s Halifax sound. Nothing could be further from an all-electro dystopia.
[Levin's Note: James forgot the positive side of an all-electro dystopia: Gino Soccio all day 'ere day.]
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Bad Vibrations – We’re Dead
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Bad Vibrations – Think About Life
File under: dog day // guitar // james goddard // lo-fi // pop // rock
Categoria!! New Canadiana :: compact disc :: nova scotia | 2 Comments »
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 17th, 2010
From the perilous necklace of Aaron Levin:
I want to live Precious Necklace. I want tight sweaters. VIP access to the clurb. Double martinis. False love. Teen soundtracks blasting. I want the whole world in a song and I want to dance; pulsing drum machines, echoey vocals and exaggerated pop-harmonies. Let the music take you back in time. Nintendo, cocaine, plastic people, and radio hits. Sex in bathrooms and parental neglect. Stereotypes. We’ve lost our youth. We can take it back. The Silly Kissers, in a futuristic act of heroism, are our only hope. Their fourth and most realized effort to-date showcases their perfected 80s-pop ventriloquism. Precious Necklace is a re-imagining that only nostalgia can deliver; glossing over the weaknesses of an era we will never truly understand and manipulating the pearls of its bounty to deliver every genre’s saving grace: synthetic pop perfection. Precious Necklace, released as a limited-edition 10″ on Montreal’s Arbutus Records, is a 10/10 major-scale heart-melt. The world has never needed so much. They will deliver. GRIP. IT. NOW.
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Silly Kissers – You Could Even Like Me
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Silly Kissers – Treat Me Like You Do
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Silly Kissers – Precious Necklace
File under: 80s // arbutus records // pop // synth
Categoria!! 10" :: New Canadiana :: quebec | 3 Comments »
February 15th, 2010
From the polyamorous disaster of Michael Deane:
Looking onto the mid-northern thunderous tundra puts me in a perfect place to relate to the Roommates’ “Back to the Sun,” the latest in a flurry of side-projects from Fucked Up guitarist Ben Cook. The breezy, straightforward pop hooks tinged with melancholy and longing speak directly to me. “Back to the Sun” is self-conscious, with sun-yearning lyrics matched by the sweetly sad vocals and tom-heavy thumping we’re used to from Young Governor. The flip of this cassingle is the slightly creepy, slightly goofy anthem that follows two dudes trying to talk their gals into a “Girlfriend Swap”. Infectious hooks and an entertaining story-line make it repeatable power pop magic. “Don’t roll your eyes at me / Let’s do things differently / We’re all just one big family / So let’s give it a try.” I’m not quite convinced by their logic, but you can’t deny these hits.
[Levin's Note: I'm very convinced. Hit me on my beeper.]
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Roommates – Back To The Sun // Girlfriend Swap
File under: ben cooke // pop // power pop // punk // scotch tapes
Categoria!! New Canadiana :: cassette :: ontario | 2 Comments »
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 »
February 2nd, 2010
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Adam Mowery
Port City Burning
(Self Released)
Saint John, NB
::web/sounds::
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From the singed mind of James Goddard:
Adam Mowery began the decade singing songs about being a cat and wearing striped socks in a well-loved acoustic indie-pop trio. Here as we enter a new decade he has re-invented himself as a sort of bizarro world Harry Belafonte. His live shows are swoon inducing rock and roll revivalism at its best. On this CD-R he treats us to 13 bad luck pop songs. The old pop-sensibility that used to dominate Port City Allstars records is now tempered by lo-fi experimentalism. His falsetto voice cuts through all the tape hiss and off-beat percussion making you believe that the rain-soaked, wind-ravaged port city of Saint John, New Brunswick really is a tropical paradise. What could be better than that?
[Levin's Note: Saint John is the new Halifax.]
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Adam Mowery – Turn Another Page
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Adam Mowery – The Dragon Boat Festival (Let’s All Go To)
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Adam Mowery – I’m Forever Diggin’ Where the Well Went Dry
File under: indie // lo-fi // pop
Categoria!! New Canadiana :: compact disc :: new brunswick | 5 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 »
January 22nd, 2010
From the compiled danglings of Jesse Locke:
The Comp of Hope starts off with a serious wallop: the 1-2-3 whirligig of Vancouver’s Damages, Nova Scotia’s Minivan Halen (snagging the prize for Best New Band Name) and Toronto’s Place Hands, three groups with distinct yet equally imposing approaches to the post- / proto- / avant- / eff-it-let’s-just-get-rowdy hardcore continuum. Bart Records founder Kevin Stebner seems to favour the tuff gnarl stuff, with seven of the comp’s 10 acts setting their phasers to beatdown. From the spazzy attack of Abbotsford’s GSTS! to the rastafried “turbo jamz” of Edmonton’s Slates, Missisauga’s Whiskey Priest and unfuckwithable label faves Gift Eaters closing it off, this cassette could provide the perfect aggro soundtrack for any hesher’s backyard mini-ramp sesh. The softer side of weird Canadiana is also represented with the Strokes-meet-a-blown-out-Casio addictiveness of Swwords (the former project of this very site’s founder), Montreal’s math-pop dangereux duo Special Noise and a live jam from the inimitable dd/mm/yyyy. Another top-notch tape release from Bart, with awesome foldout liner art (front & back) from Calgary’s Heather Kai Smith.
[Levin's Note: This has the most links of any review on Weird Canada. Which means you get to virtually travel across Canada, all thanks to Bart Records. Benjoy!]
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Special Noise – Fitness
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Minivan Halen – Epic
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SLATES – blooloend
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swwords – The Hit
File under: bart records // compilation // experimental // hardcore // math-pop // pop // punk // rock
Categoria!! New Canadiana :: alberta :: british columbia :: cassette :: manitoba :: nova scotia :: ontario :: quebec :: saskatchewan | 1 Comment »
January 20th, 2010
From the Kimono-draped androgyny of Aaron Levin:
Geidi Primes is a landmark album of modern Canadian fringe, an assemblage of space-station pop memorabilia teleported from a time-static nether-zone beyond the scope of our earthly understanding. I’ve been waiting months for this, posting anxious pleas to Grimes after hearing the sinuous, harrowing bass-line on Rosa. With the curiously packaged cassette in my fiending grip, the orbiting swaths of synthetic warmth and echoing drum-machines have caused exciting astral projections outside my usual mental musicalia. Geidi Primes takes off from Rosa’s minimal bass-lines and launches straight into a strange hybrid of Björk, The Cure, Micachu, and other avant seamstresses, leaving a footprint in every decade and thankfully landing in ours. Chord progressions and samples are pulled from any source imaginable and the aggregation results in a Kate Bushian trail of decadence. It seems pointless and restrictive attempting to describe its brilliance, so I’ll stop with this: Geidi Primes is a flagship of hyperbolic dimensions. Get on board.
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Grimes – Rosa
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Grimes – Venus In Fleurs
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Grimes – Zoal, Face Dancer
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Grimes – Sardaukar Levenbrech
File under: arbutus // electronic // kate bush // pop // space // strange // the future // weird
Categoria!! New Canadiana :: cassette :: quebec | 7 Comments »
January 19th, 2010
From every fleeting moment of Aaron Levin:
Montreal has effortlessly cultivated an ensemble of pop creators ready to fill any niche, pocket, or corner. Thus, it comes as no surprised that Devon Welsh was nurtured in the same wasteland of Montreal that produced Sean Nicholas Savage, The Pop Winds, Matt Perri, and other spectacular curators I’m forgetting. Juxtaposing his backdrop of distorted, reverberated murmurings with pop-savvy guitar leads and harmonies, Welsh delivers a surprisingly pastoral post-burn-out too-soon-for-whiskey-but-too-late-for-breakfast introduction to the universe. Too full for the abrasive lo-fi popular amongst Da Youth™ and too earnest for the Steely Dans of the world, Welcome exists in the ether between things; invitations to catchy exploration.
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Devon Welsh – Girlfriend
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Devon Welsh – Fun House Mirror
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Devon Welsh – As Far As I’m Aware
File under: lo-fi // pop
Categoria!! New Canadiana :: compact disc :: quebec | 3 Comments »
