weird canada – we are northernly

Tag: flemish eye

New Canadiana :: Chad VanGaalen – Shrink Dust

Chad VanGaalen - Shrink Dust
  • Renaissance man Chad VanGaalen welcomes old friends into the latest wing of his warped imaginarium. These sonic nooks and cram-stuffed crannies find the ol’ reliable ramshackle rockers and sweet falsetto swooners peppered with country-fried soundwaves of pedal steel guitar and electronic gurgle. Shake Dust continues to conjure la planète sauvage while singing the spiritual refrain of a match made in space-opera.
  • Chad VanGaalen
  • Shrink Dust
  • (Flemish Eye // Sub Pop)
  • Calgary, AB
  • ::web/sounds::

From the weird love of Jesse Locke:

Renaissance man Chad VanGaalen welcomes old friends into the latest wing of his warped imaginarium. These sonic nooks and cram-stuffed crannies find the ol’ reliable ramshackle rockers and sweet falsetto swooners peppered with country-fried soundwaves of pedal steel guitar and electronic gurgle. Shake Dust continues to conjure la planète sauvage while singing the spiritual refrain of a match made in space-opera.

De l’amour bizarre de Jesse Locke:
(Traduit par le gros gros gros(comme ça!) coeur de Louis-Félix Pellerin)

L’esprit universel Chad VanGaalen accueille de vieux amis dans la nouvelle section de son imaginarium tordu. Dans ces coins soniques et recoins remplis à bloc, on trouve les infaillibles brasse-scènes déglingués et les charmeuses ballades de fausset envahis d’ondes sonores déchirées au country habituellement émises par la guitare à pédale d’acier et le gargouillis électronique. Shake Dust continue d’évoquer la planète sauvage tout en chantant le refrain spirituel d’une union formée dans un space opera.


Chad VanGaalen – Cut Off My Hands


Chad VanGaalen – Weighed Sin

New Canadiana :: Braids – In Kind // Amends

Weird_Canada-Braids-In_Kinds_Amends

From the bouncy castle of Max Mohenu:

The In Kind // Amends 12” showcases a much more layered sound for Braids, as they explore upbeat electronics and rich textures, pushing the atmospheric boundaries into an exciting new direction. Raphaelle Standell-Preston’s poised vocals gracefully evolve into shimmering echoes, riding the subtle percussion into a realm of floating ambient pop on “Near Enough”. Pushing the vocals through lush drones, the drums sweep in and out of the haze of the impending “Amends”, a wistful downtempo song that finds the trio caught in an electronic bouncy castle, as the hypnotic glitches leave you caught somewhere between dance and deep slumber. The grand finale, “A Dawn In Me”, is a pillar of mesmerizing white noise that soothes the subconscious and leaves you wondering what other gems lie in wait of their forthcoming LP, Flourish//Perish. Only time will tell.

Du château gonflable Max Mohenu:
(Traduit par la danse somnambule d’Andréanne Dion)

Sur In Kind // Amends, le son de Braids se révèle beaucoup plus riche et explore des univers électroniques entraînants et des textures opulentes qui repoussent les frontières atmosphériques vers un nouvel horizon fascinant. Sur « Near Enough », la voix posée de Raphaelle Standell-Preston se mue gracieusement en des échos chatoyants et attire les percussions délicates vers un royaume de pop ambiante en suspension. Menant les chants à travers des drones luxuriants, la batterie va et vient dans le brouillard de la menaçante « Amends », un morceau méditatif au tempo lent où le trio se retrouve coincé dans un château gonflable électronique, alors que les micro-sons hypnotiques vous laissent quelque part entre le plancher de danse et le sommeil profond. L’apothéose, « A Dawn In Me », est un blizzard sonore envoûtant qui apaise le subconscient et vous laisse rêver aux autres bijoux qui vous attendent sur Flourish/Perish, leur prochain album. Seul l’avenir nous le dira.

Braids – Near Enough

Braids – In Kind

Festivities :: Jennifer Castle [Western Tour]

  • Jennifer Castle
  • Western Tour
  • (Flemish Eye)
  • + Vancouver, BC
  • + Edmonton, AB
  • + Calgary, AB
From the western abstraction of Aaron Levin:
Standing by our never-ending infatuation with all things Jennifer Castle, Weird Canada is proud to partner with Flemish Eye, Beatroute Magazine, and Sled Island in presenting three evenings of ethereal reverberations. For the lucky druidics mingling around Vancouver, Edmonton, and Calgary, we welcome your participatory magik while this otherworldly hippie goddess from the east conjures her delicate, finger-picked minimalism. Please, join us.

## Vancouver, BC

– Date: Thursday, September 29, 2011:
– Location: Electric Owl Social Club (928 Main St.)
– With: The Ruffled Feathers, David Vertesi
– Price: $10 / $12
– Link: facebook
– Presented By: Beatroute Magazine & Weird Canada

## Edmonton, AB

– Date: Friday, September 30, 2011:
– Location: ARTery (9535 Jasper Ave.)
– With: Kris Ellestad, Smoke+Band, Mark Templeton
– Price: $10
– Link: facebook
– Presented By: Weird Canada & Flemish Eye

## Calgary, AB

– Date: Saturday, October 1, 2011:
– Location: Cantos Music Foundation
– With: Kris Ellestad
– Price: $10
– Link: facebook
– Presented By: Sled Island

New Canadiana :: Chad VanGaalen – Diaper Island

From the vivid afterglow of Gabriel Jasmin:
Not a soul can predict the cascading disposition of Chad VanGaalen’s zany neurons. His fourth full length, curiously/awesomely titled Diaper Island, shies away from past electronic interferences to switch the focus towards thick, alt-rock minded studio production. Perhaps as an afterglow to his baroque noise-pop adornments for Women, VanGaalen maturely navigates between straightforward and dreamy, his mystical visions taking new shapes vivid as ever.

[audio:http://weirdcanada.com/binary/Weird_Canada-Chad_VanGaalen-05-Sara.mp3|titles=Chad VanGaalen – Sara] Chad VanGaalen – Sara

[audio:http://weirdcanada.com/binary/Weird_Canada-Chad_VanGaalen-07-Blonde_Hash.mp3|titles=Chad VanGaalen – Blonde Hash] Chad VanGaalen – Blonde Hash

Ephemera :: Jennifer Castle on Castlemusic

At the wintry tail of 2010, Toronto’s spook-folk minstrel Jennifer Castle teamed with the ever-enigmatic Wyrd Visions for a stunningly beautiful 12″ split. Four months later, Calgary-based boutique label Flemish Eye gives us the follow-up, an expanded excursion through the wardrobe and into Castle’s enchanted kingdom. Accentuating pillow-soft vocals and delicate finger-plucks with flourishes of pedal steel, organ, medieval flute and signature fusion instrument ‘the guitlele.’ Castlemusic casts a spell you won’t want to counter. In line with the site’s physicality m.o., Weird Canada asked Castle to take part in the inaugural edition of our latest feature “Ephemera”, assembling a shrine of totemic objects that played a part in the album’s creation.

By: Jesse Locke

Weird Canada // Texture Magazine

Feel free to listen to these two tracks from the album while you peruse the images below (which you can click for larger versions). The accompanied text was provided by Jennifer Castle. We’re very grateful to Jennifer, David Clarke, Ian Russell (Flemish Eye), and Landon Speers (photos) for this very special feature.

Jennifer Castle – Neverride

Jennifer Castle – Powers

(more…)

New Canadiana :: BRAIDS – Native Speaker

From the non-native language of Gabriel Jasmin:

From whispers to screams, Braids’ Native Speaker encapsulates an immense array of emotion. The album maintains a wet and undulating pulse, a backbone for dense, overlapping melodies, akin to classic minimalist composers. Over a year in the making, not a single texture or sound was left unpolished by the band’s distinctive minutiae throughout the process of writing, recording and mixing. Reaching an emotional climax in the haunting “Lammicken”, a standout song for singer Raphaelle Standell-Preston’s powerful delivery, it is clear that the young quartet have an unsettling and unique talent to communicate sensibility through sound.

De la langue maternelle de Gabriel Jasmin:
(Traduit par Odile Leclerc)

Passant des soupirs aux cris, l’album Native Speaker, de Braids, abonde dans sa variété d’émotions. Ayant passés près d’un an en production, aucun son ni texture n’ont pas été peaufinés par les oreilles minutieuses des quatre membres du groupe, qui ont tout autoproduit. L’album jouit donc d’une richesse ondulatoire et aqueuse, un paysage peuplé de denses mélodies entrecroisées qui rappellent certains compositeurs minimalistes classiques. L’émotion culminant dans «Lammicken», une démonstration tourmentante de la voix puissante de Raphaelle Standell-Preston, le jeune quatuor prouve son talent unique pour communiquer la sensibilité par le son.


BRAIDS – Lemonade


BRAIDS – Lammicken

Interview :: BRAIDS

Montreal by way of Calgary quartet Braids make chilling, meticulously crafted pop music. Layering angelic four-part vocal harmonies over swirling synths, twinkling pianos, tropical guitars and stuttering, sophisticated rhythms, their arrangements are lush and obsessively detailed. The eye of this storm is frontwoman Raphaelle Standell Preston — also the voice behind Blue Hawaii — imbuing Braids’ songs with Bjorkian banshee shrieks, unexpected ululations and pigtailed curlicues. This week sees the release of their long-awaited debut LP on New York’s Kanine and Calgary’s Flemish Eye, a mini-tour supported by Long, Long, Long, and a lengthier jaunt into the U.S. Weird Canada’s Gabriel Jasmin sat down with the band for an interview.

Jesse Locke
Managing Editor
Texture Magazine / Weird Canada
texturemagazine.ca / weirdcanada.com
(more…)

New Canadiana :: Women – Public Strain

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.

De l’élongation pubienne d’Aaron Levin:
(Traduit par Maya Keshav)

Des grimaces claquées et éprouvantes qui battent pendant “China Steps”, jusqu’à l’arrachement détruit de guitare de “Drag Open”, la perturbation adolescente de Women est une révolution conceptuelle qui décime les eaux gothiques du pop musicalia. Les mélodies hypnotiques de basse façonnent une matrice irrésistible d’avant-pop qui transfigure toutes notions de cacophonie cordée; les harmonies sapoudrent leurs ondes stationnaires de miroitements de décomposition lumineuse; et une source intarissable de larsen se fond avec leur abandon rock. Malgré toute sa désolation en mode mineur, Public Strain n’est pas vide de miroitements d’espoir; l’expérience unique d’écoute est cimentée avec les éclats du soleil entre les corsets écailleux du LSD. Women ont repoussé cassé détruit anéanti toutes les limites pour libérer un étalage brillant de sinusoïdes chromatiques.


Women – China Steps


Women – Drag Open


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