Instead of adding the miracle of Manchester, Johnny Marr, to electro-pop acts New Order, Pet Shop Boys, The The, add that cynical siren Morrissey and you're digging the ground of Little Cub, London UK trippy trio who must have had the coolest uncles. Their debut "Still Life" comes out Apr 28 on Domino.
and there's a mix - dig it
The BSS, - well some of them: Kevin Drew, Brendan Canning, Justin Peroff, Andrew Whiteman, Charles Spearin, Sam Goldberg, Ariel Engel, Metric’s Emily Haines and Jimmy Shaw, Stars’ Amy Millan and Evan Cranley, David French, and Dave Hodge played their new single on late nite TV. Yip and thats not all of them!!!
Photo by Unfolding Creative
Its all bathhouse atmospherics, hazy memories of tea and mopeds, an anthem for the end of times, its all slow wave and factory town station platforms filled with sad faces as those that can do. And all else is left behind but this band from the City of Champions are among those who do. Dream of a shoegazy Cowboy Junkies or Supergrass 'Alright' on super slo-mo and maybe join the pyjamarama when they play Cherry Colas Apr 20 in TO or open the next night at the Great Hall for Wolf Parade
Photo by Caroline Desilets
One time once I spoke with the rather elusive Timber Timbre and he was telling me back then that once he would dig through crates and explore particular sounds from particular eras. Mostly what made them so. He’s been on a tear since.
Working though decades as he worked out albums. The Fifties, the Sixties, the Seventies and I’m thinking this new album, on Arts & Crafts on Apr 7, may just be his best ever and I’ll says its because he’s hit the Eighties but also because he has kept on creeping on over the racks and crates, the thin spines of the music, slipping them under his arms for late night musings in locked towers. He is a man with a plan regardless of what gifts and trinkets are proffered to distract. He's a missionary, a visionary, a voyageur and an artist on this one.
Sure there is always the eerie cinematic overtones, its what makes Timber Timbre Timber Timbre but this new album “Sincerely, Future Population” adds the uneasiness of the automaton into his other-worldy swampy outside.
The songs revel in Kraftwerk, Ultravox and Tangerine Dream but also the pop-chart leanings of Bowie, Hall and Oates, Phil Collins and Beverly Hills Cop. Its all in the tweaky whirring synth-y floppy-disced programmed beats and sweeping sonicscapes of wide-eyed awe. Its as if the Timber Timbre are approaching these stained-cream coloured instruments in a vacuum of history, not recreating their fab faves from the era but following the tech itself into similar creations both alternative and chart-driven as it was then and there. Of course Taylor Kirk’s cedar shacked vocals are the menace even in the lighter efforts.
The Timber Timbre stepped out of the forest with memories of a slight beast, who could turn man into a cannibal. Over his early albums he gave it a soundtrack but the Windigo of Future Pollution is the ghost in the machine and Kirk and his pals have let IT out.
Photo by Mark Maryanovich
Steph Cameron from SASK has a voice that carries as much weight as the Edmund Fitzgerald. She weaves a tale within her melodies as craftily as Mariposa's favourite son. The track "Winterwoods" has just been released. Its from her album, "Daybreak over Jackson Street" Apr 14 on Pheremone Recordings. There's a couple of other tracks below.
Photo by Mark Maryanovich
Rootsy Donovan Woods is up for a 2017 Songwriter of the Year Award. To underline the reasons he shot a session in Massey Hall, showcasing "It'll Work Itself Out", a breathy beaut of a number.
Setting the record will be gravy on top of all the good will and community that has been created." - Steve Stanley
Photo courtesy of John Shisko Photography
The quest for the Guinness Book of Records Longest Concert by Multiple Artists crown continues unabated at the Earl of Whitchurch in Stouffville Ontario. The concert started Mar 17 2017 with a goal of running until at least Apr 2, and perhaps beyond. The Earl has its dukes up and is going for the win.
Heather Cook-Scala, along with open mic host Kevin Ker of the Epidemic Music Group, are behind the Earl’s record book attempt. To accommodate the rules required by Guinness the entire event must be recorded on video so with the help of a local security surveillance company a camera has been set up to film but also live-stream the concert. The Earl now holds the World Record for longest live-streamed event.
Kelly Jamieson & THE Keepers
Cook-Scala says the line-up for the Stouffville concert, (which is also a fundraiser for several charities including the Gord Downie and Chanie Wenjack Fund), is almost all local musicians from the Whitchurch-Stouffville area. But artists from Durham Region and the GTA have signed up or dropped by. Stephen Stanley of Lowest of the Low, came by to perform Mar 24.
Stanley says he was most impressed with the community Ker has built in the area.
“Beyond a really great reaction from all the folks there to our set, what struck me was the massive sense of community that Kev is fostering. Everyone I talked to is pulling in the same direction and having a fantastic time in doing it. Setting the record will be gravy on top of all the good will and community that has been created. Chris Bennett and I were absolutely honoured to play a very small part in this huge endeavour,” he says.
As the concert rocks and rolls towards its goal organizers are saying more nationally known musicians are expected to show up. The organisers also are hoping to seal the world record deal at the same time Canada’s is celebrating its national record industry at the annual JUNO awards being held in Ottawa Apr 2 with a possible tie-in. But even without celebrity endorsement the entire event has galvanised the area’s music and business community.
George Bigelow, owner of the Earl of Whitchurch Pub
“The support has been one of the most amazing parts of this attempt,” says Cook-Scala. “We knew people would come out but being smalltown, Stouffville has really taking ownership of us. They have formed almost a protective community around us. So we have a tribe of people who show up at four in the morning. They literally won’t leave, they bring us food, they bring us toiletries, they stay until they know with absolute certainty we are ok.”
Cook-Scala, Ker, the volunteers, musicians and staff too are staying until they are absolutely certain they have the record.
Photo by Danny Clinch courtesy of Esquire
Chuck Berry passed away Mar 18 2017. The 90 year-old rock 'n roll pioneer had been working for a few years on a new album, his first in 40 years. The album titled Chuck will be released June 16 and features many members of the Berry family including his daughter Ingrid, his son Charles and grandson Charles Berry the third. Guests include Gary Clarke Jr., Tom Morello and Nathaniel Rateliff. The first single has been released and the latter two feature. It begins with iconic Berry riffage and swings quickly into the rock but as always with Chuck Berry its the story he relates that makes the track rattle and shake.
Photo by Zach Hertzman
Little Scream's new single is a hymn to the 'Silent Moon", its a keen, a plea and it has a deep emotional resonance, its evocative and the video imagines the creatures who may come out after the party ends and all are deep in slumber.
Not quite Joshua Tree psych-folk but there is an eerie California vibe to the latest track by Little Coyote, "Electric" and its accompanying video aka a film about a sad girl who lives in the desert.
Holy Mount have released a new single, 'Seasons', its a fuzzed out terror-riffic instrumental all about little flowers peeking through the forest floor possibly.
A picture is worth a thousand words but sometimes one word carries more weight than a picture. Dylan - he is more than an icon he is the word. This Word plays American Independence Day in Canada at Oshawa's TCC. He was here before in his bar blues persona almost ten years ago. He returns as a Nobel Laureate but also as an American Song Book crooner, working material more often associated with Rod Stewart and Tony Bennet than a folkie versed in Beat Culture. He is touring a new three-record album titled Triplicate. It follows on his 2016 Fallen Angels and 2015 Shadows in the Night which saw him dump the dungarees for a dinner jacket and pink carnation. Its a direction I like. It could be the songs are so good no voice could kill them or it could be Dylan grew up with these songs so he gets them at their core. Either way I would suggest they are worth investing time in and if you have it, dollars. Either way Dylan does what Dylan wants. He keeps on moving and he is moving this way in July. Tickets go on sale Friday, March 24, 2017 at the venue website, by phone at 1-877-436-8811 and in person at the Tribute Communities Centre Ticket Office.
Beauty black and white video thats sees the voice as a landscape and the ocean unfurling in the infiniteness of fractal geometry. The track has tender hints of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah.