Its been a marvellous year for new music, so many great records, not least among them Do Easy from Tasseomancy. Funny how when you remove commercial considerations art moves to the top.
Photo by Steven Perlin
Plasketts jam over Celtic Solidarity, new album due 02 17 2017
A new album on Pheromone Records in the new year; Joel Plaskett and his pops Bill will drop Solidarity, a collaboration between BIll's traditional music heritage and Joel's modern pop angle. The title track has been released and it does have Celtic air to it.
Tour Dates, with support from the Mayhemingways have been announced
Mar 15 - Truro, NS - Marigold Cultural Centre
Mar 17 - Montreal, QC - L'Astral
Mar 18 - Ottawa, ON - National Arts Centre
Mar 22 - Winnipeg, MB - West End Cultural Centre
Mar 23 - Regina, SK - WA WA Shire Centre
Mar 24 - Saskatoon, SK - Broadway Theatre
Mar 29 - Kelowna, BC - Mary Irwin Theatre
Mar 30 - Nanaimo, BC - The Queens
Mar 31- Victoria, BC - Alix Goolden Performance Hall
Apr 1 - Vancouver, BC - Vogue Theatre
Apr 5 - Waterloo, ON - Starlight
Apr 6 - Waterloo, ON - Starlight
Apr 7- Hamilton, ON - The Studio at Hamilton Place
Apr 12 - London, ON - Aeolian Hall
Apr 13 - London, ON - Aeolian Hall
Apr 14 - Stratford, ON - Avondale United Church
Apr 20 - Halifax, NS - Rebecca Cohn Auditorium
Apr 22 - Port Hawkesbury, NS - Port Hawkesbury Civic Centre
May 4 - Paris, ON - Dominion Telegraph
May 5 - Bayfield, ON - Old Town Hall
Terra Lightfoot All Alone on video
We will take any opportunity to feature the hammer house of blues that is Terra Lightfoot and her musical marriage of Ray Davies and Chrissy Hynes. The track "All Alone" gets a video cut from shots taken on time spent in Scotland and we take the opportunity to present it.
Reuben and The Dark gives rise to AMAARA's Black Moon
AMAARA is the solo project from Kaelen Ohm of Reuben and The Dark. Its an airy eerie platform for Ohm, with Black Moon the debut single. A full-length will be available in 2017. The video was directed and edited by Ohm who of course also stars.
“The video’s imagery was with me when I wrote the song, so three years later it’s so rewarding to finally see Black Moon come to life,” she says in a PR, “I grew up in a small town in the mountains in BC, so connection to nature and wildlife are an important part of my life and artistic process. The spiritual symbolism of the animals was a big theme in the video and we were so grateful for the Yamnuska Wolfdog Sanctuary and the Medicine River Wildlife Centre for their openness and willingness to have some of their animal residents as part of the project.”
Stranger Things have happened to PUP before
Finn Wolfhard is featured in PUP's vid for "Sleep in the Heat." The track is from the Toronto punksters new record The Dream is Over. Wolfhard was in the band's vid for "Guilt Trip" way back in the day and he reprises that character for the new vid. PUP have an extensive American/Canada/European tour ahead of them with a couple of TO dates at the Danforth Hall on Dec 15 and 16.
Photo by Catie Laffoon
Royal Canoe dance across the water, European tour in the new year
Royal Canoe have released “Walk Out On The Water”, from their latest album, Something Got Lost Between Here And The Orbit, available on Nevado . The video features Anton Sokalski; it follows the transformation of a young boy from marooned orphan to broadway star in his quest for water as he dances through the desert.
Royal Canoe with Tom Keenan, has written and arranged new music which will be performed live as the backdrop to a contemporary production of Shakespeare’s Richard II titled “Am I Not King?”. The performance is directed by Christopher Brauer and runs from December 14-18 at the West End Cultural Centre in Winnipeg.
European dates for Royal Canoe
Jan 25 - Hamburg, DE - MS Stubnitz
Jan 26 - Hannover, DE - Feinkostlampe
Jan 27 - Aachen, DE - Musikbunker
Jan 28 - Amsterdam, NE - Sugarfactory
Jan 31 - Manchester, UK - The Castle Hotel
Feb 01 - London, UK - The Slaughtered Lamb
Feb 02 - Paris, FR - Supersonic
Feb 04 - Freiburg, DE - The Great Rang Teng Tang
Feb 07 - Vienna, AT - B72
Feb 08 - Nuremberg, DE - K4
Feb 09 - Dortmund, DE - FZW
Feb 10 - Dresden, DE - Beatpol
Feb 11 - Berlin, DE - Berghain Kantine
Photo by Claire Harvie
Arts and Crafts signee Bernice releases 'St. Lucia', all the ladies in the house say . . .
"Named after my great Auntie Irene (middle name Lucia), the song works as a reminder to myself of all the women in my family who’ve lived before me, I wonder what of me is you?
As much as I'm me, I'm also them, and so everything I do is part them too; body language, bone structure, spacey brain... sense of self, identity. We can let ourselves off the hook a bit. Even though we can't escape our worries, we can still be good to ourselves, because we need it.”
- Bernice (aka Robin Dann)
Renegade DJ Lawless, life remixer, spinning at Space Goat Nov 5
DJ Lawless will be spinning the world a new one at the launch for electronica promotion company, Space Goat, Nov 5 2016 at the Remix Lounge. Eitan Reiter is on the bill along with Mythrophan and Myda. Lawless tells SlowCity.ca Reitner, making his Toronto debut, is the one to witness.
“He's just a solid guy making solid music with feeling,” says Lawless adding he has experienced the Israeli producer's sets at Harvest Festival as well as at events in Mexico and Portugal.
“Anybody that's into really good techno should not miss this show. The other act on the bill, MŸDA are a duo out of Toronto consisting of Amir Daäna and Mitchell Honok and are making a name for themselves on the electronic scene with their own productions being released on Techgnosis Records. Definitely want to keep an eye on them and that label. I'll be spinning for the opening slot to warm up the crowd and Mythrophan will be last on to close out the night. Pretty solid lineup to this event.”
Lawless is a pretty solid lineup all by himself. Lawless has been in the house for many years but his star has taken on an extra sheen of late. He’s bringing the tech tunes to a whole new level, and that’s no cliche, that’s the truth - I’m told. He plays in a couple of bands as well as DJing and has been a fulcrum around which the Durham music scene spins, that is until he moved north some, somewhere with some room to flow. Room in the house is what attracted him to electronic music in the first place he says, “it was the limitlessness of it”, something like the sky over the Kawarthas I imagine.
“You can push all the boundaries and go all over the sonic landscape without having to feel too constrained...there just seems to be more colours on the palette. The whole DJ thing came about due to me wanting to step outside of the band structure that I was used to, I love playing in bands but I needed to do something where I could be on my own,” he says.
On his own he can own a crowd but he’s not averse to mixing it up with the electronic community at large. His most recent collaboration is with Daäna. It grew out of a mutual respect for dropping some intelligence into the mix and some mutual mates.
“We'd been hanging in the same circle of friends for awhile and when he heard that I was interested in producing he asked if I'd like to come by and write a track together. The first session went so well that we kept with it and eventually finished 2 pieces that were recently released through Techgnosis Records, which has a couple of really nice remixes on it as well. We've got a third one on the go and plan on doing more in the future with the goal of being able to do a live set once we've compiled enough music,” he says.
In the meantime hear more live Lawless when the Space Goat gets launched, and with Daäna in the house perhaps that goal will be achieved.
Laughed The Boy, heavens knows we're not indifferent now
There’s in a poptimism on the Durhamrock scene, among the younger bands. Their millennial enthusiasm is welcome, its a dreary time but the shwakats are bringing back shiny happy sounds; Native Other and Crown Lands and also Laughed The Boy in particular. Perhaps all that chrome covers up a darkness but for now we will just dance the blues away with these young rock ’n rollers. We asked Laughed The Boy, Chris Panacci on guitar,bass and vox (brother Sean is on drums) to fill us in on whats so funny about Out of the Blue, their new EP.
"We started out in Taylor's (Taylor Spears) bedroom. I had recently blown out my voice playing a show with Busker Bros. and was taking a step back from singing to let my voice heal. I showed him a few songs I had been working on recently and he started singing them. We ended up recording a ton of material over the next year. Our goal was to write and record anything we wanted and without worrying about playing it live to make the music less restrictive."
"Obviously a lot has changed since then, I ended up getting back to singing, we added my brother Sean (also in Busker Bros.) and my friend Brennan on bass. Taylor was away from the project for a while but mixed our full length album we just finished."
"Our sound has always been pretty all over the place. I never intentionally write to create a particular sound, it depends what kind of mood I'm in, what guitar tone I'm fooling around with and what I think might suit my voice. I think I try to keep a lot of our songs cheerful but mixed with other themes to give them more depth. I think songs like "Indifferent" and "Ice Cream" come off as bright and happy initially but there's definitely some feelings of insecurity and uncertainty in the lyrics and riffs that make up those songs. The album itself is going to be a roller coaster ride of different emotions."
Photo by Tero Ahonen
Lone Wolf Dante Decaro leaves the Parade for solo EP, Kill Your Boyfriend
Gorgeous track from Dante Decaro of Wolf Parade and Hot Hot Heat, gorgeous tremble not unlike Wooden Sky with synths, whole lotta love for this one. Its from his debut solo EP Kill Your Boyfriend available on Last Gang Nov 4 2016.
Bakkah: The history of humankind in four and a half minutes by Emay
"This new song "Bakkah", was initially just a poem about humanity as a whole. When it began to rhyme I basically just ran with it. It was also a great opportunity for me to experiment with my writing as I was always self-conscious about using a more poetic/metaphorical style of writing so with this track I allowed myself to get completely lost in that form. For the video, me and the director, Aaron Hall, bounced a lot of ideas off of each other and eventually Aaron thought of using riot gear for the video. To me the video is a battle displaying my ideological development and the conflict of ideas taking over and building off of one another. Much love to Aaron Hall and Dujean Williams for creating that with me." - Emay
You may need this for reference
Oh Pep leaves you Wanting, oh and cake, Stadium Cake
Aussie two piece Oh Pep have released the vid for their track “Wanting”, off their Stadium Cake album. The album was recorded in Nova Scotia with Daniel Ledwell, whom we last met as the producer of Justin Rutledge’s East record. And like his work with JR and Jenn Grant, Ledwell's partner and music collaborator, he brings an attractive softness to Oh Pep, a fuzzy furry softness.
Found our theme music, So Slow from No Terrain
Once upon a time a band called Germans played Oshawa's Hoedown, it was the beginning of a lot but also put Leon Taheny on my radar. He's a sonic genius and Irish, it happens. This is a new project he has produced with ex-Germans Aidan Koper and SlowCity's rad new theme although I guess the band will have to agree or something.