we are northernly
Join the house of Fringe
September 22nd, 2010

New Canadiana :: Women – Public Strain

Women
Public Strain
(Flemish Eye // Jagjaguwar)
Calgary, AB
::web/sounds::


From the pubic strain of Aaron Levin:
From the strained, harrowing winces fluttering throughout “China Steps,” to the obliterated guitar wrenching on “Drag Open,” Women’s sophomore perturbation is a decimating paradigm shift within pop musicalia’s gothic waters. Mesmeric bass lines forge an unstoppable avant-pop matrix transfiguring all notions of stringed cacophony; harmonies dust their standing waves with glimmers of luminous decay; and an endless supply of static coalesces their rock abandon. For all its minor-key desolation, Public Strain is not without its hopeful glimmers; the singular listening experience is cemented with bursts of sunlight through splintering corsets of lysergia. Women have pushed broken destroyed annihilated all boundaries to liberate a brilliant array of chromatosed sinusoids.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Women – China Steps

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Women – Drag Open

October 15th, 2009

Review :: York Redoubt – York Redoubt

York Redoubt - York Redoubt York Redoubt
York Redoubt
(Hot Money Records)
Halifax, NS
::web/sounds::


Halifax is on an advanced level of pop-wizardry. For a city with less than 400,000 people, they put the rest of North American to shame with the shear volume of crafted sounds. And they all have their own Halifaxian aura to them; seemingly channelled through distinct avenues, returning home from remote adventures with presents of pop’s future. York Redoubt has proven themselves a worthy flag-bearer of Halifax’s bubbling underground. Their first cassette showed a brief glimpse into a future-now, and with their self-titled debut out on Hot Money Records (limited to 100 vinyl copies – screen-printed with personalized photograph (cop that!)), they’ve finally actualized into the math-pop behemoth we’ve been waiting for. Weaving complicated threads of stubborn-catchiness between time-signatures that make so-much-nonsense and vocal harmonies buried within angular distortion, it’s difficult to turn your attention away from the album and it’ll be no-time before you’ve listened to the entire thing six or seven times. It’s ridiculous music to write about because it’s so incredibly layered, complex, and easy. Which is where York Redoubt really shines: they’ve taken all this ridiculous math-pop and made it serene; like just another pop song. Listen and buy the damn record. They. Are. Next.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

York Redoubt – I Said Slightly

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

York Redoubt – Stenciled Lines

August 3rd, 2009

Hunting and gathering.

Hunter-Gatherer - Hunter-Gatherer EP Hunter-Gatherer
Hunter-Gatherer EP
(Self Released)
Calgary, AB
::web/sounds::

I remember being young once. I would prance around my basement in pajamas playing Zelda and fighting with my brother. This one afternoon I watched all the American Ninja movies and tried to do a front-flip off a small play-coffee-table. I landed on my back and knocked the wind out of my body. I recall laying on the floor in shame as the world circled above me in a fizzy haze of creative indulgence. Had I been a better ninja I would have landed on my feet to the roaring audience of my brother. Calgary’s Hunter-Gatherer is a better ninja. They skirt the challenging math-pop with a fizzy edge that puts them in a category no American Ninja dare venture; deep in the wooded grounds of dissonant-catchiness and inordinate-yet-amazing-harmonies. I’ve been listening to their EP repeatedly and I keep returning to that exercise of my physical limitations; as the world once spun in my childhood eyes, so will Hunter-Gatherer’s whirlwind of distorted-pop ramble on in your ears. Hopefully you’ll land on your feet. That metaphor makes no sense (it’s a metaphor?).

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Hunter-Gatherer – Carrion Hearts

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Hunter-Gatherer – Magpie Trap

This work is licensed under GPL - 2009 | Powered by Wordpress using the theme aav1