Arbutus Records Showcase Pop Montreal 2010 (Thursday September 30, 2010 @ The Rialto Theatre) Montreal, QC ::web/sounds::

From the new indie of Aaron Levin:
In the closing tides of 2010 there are few festivals left. And as this little corner of a website gleaned a few weeks ago, Canada’s premiere indie-music festival (Pop Montreal) came through with a succinct and telling slogan: Weird is the New Indie. The obvious correlation is incidental, but the shifting focus to emerging music is a welcomed modulation in agenda. And to further drive the point home, Pop Montreal and Weird Canada will be presenting a showcase from one of Canada’s furthest reaching boutique imprints. Arbutus Records (home to Sean Nicholas Savage, Grimes, Silly Kissers and many more) has become an asylum for many westward ex-pats flourishing within the inexplicable fringe-pop spectrum and has occupied prime real estate within Weird Canada’s own borders. The label has grown from an e-mail address and a cd burner to a veritable force within the diy pop explosion running its course through our collective consciousness. Arbutus’ materials have appeared on Pitchfork, Gorilla VS Bear, Altered Zones, Stereogum, Weird Canada (ha!), etc. and I can say without hyperbole that many within the indie music community are anxiously awaiting to hear their future. So, with much excitement, I’d like to encourage all of our readers in-and-around the Montreal area to attend both Pop Montreal and one of the best showcases during the five-day festival. Sebastian Cowan has worked many magicks; for that we love him dearly. Congratulations!

Pop Montreal & Weird Canada Present
Arbutus Records Showcase
SILLY KISSERS
GRIMES (album release)
POP WINDS
BLUE HAWAII
Date: Thursday September 30th @ 9pm
Location: The Rialto Theatre
Price: Five Dollars (available at Phonopolis & Cheap Thrills)

Silly Kissers Precious Necklace (Arbutus Records) Montreal, QC ::web/sounds::

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

Silly Kissers Halloween Summer (Self Released) Montreal, QC ::web/sounds::

The first time I got close to another women (during our junior-high dance) I went for a butt-grab. I was twelve. She told me she had to go to the bathroom and never returned. The confusion hanging in the air post-grab-pre-rejection would have been the perfect foreground for the Silly Kissers’ new adventure into vintage summer-of-’84 teenage angst. Six months after they dropped Love Tsunami, their take on the more danceable side of ’84, the Silly Kissers return with a thoughtful, less sugary, and more interesting segue into the unchartered waters of extreme-catchiness and mid-80s radio-faire. They depart from the Human League standard and set-course towards a more emotional and distorted take on ’80s-balladry. The rapid key-scales and spoken-word segways are still there, so you know it’s the same band of creative sailors on a quest for some higher understanding of pop. The new album is a grower and it’s blowing up my spot right now. I love it.

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Silly Kissers- Easy Fantasy

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Silly Kissers – Thinking Of You

Silly Kissers Love Tsunami (Self Released) Montreal, Quebec ::web/sounds::

Someone bought a ticket to London, 1985. The Montreal duo walked into Human League’s studio and downloaded Philip Oakley’s soul into Garage Band. Infectious synth-pop of the highest retro variety. While many throw-back groups suffer from sounding stale and “modern,” I get a complete vintage vibe from this band that goes beyond audio and into the writing, phrasing, and sexualizing. I have on idea what they sound like live, but the 12-song CDR released in late-2008 is a pop sensation. Sean Nicholas Savage sings on a few songs.

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