Twinkling ever so brightly is this one by Quebec group Stars, produced by Peter Katis who has done an excellent job blending orchestral manoeuvres with upbeat synth pop. As always, Amy Millan and Torquil Campbell take turns at the mic delivering sensitive lyrics. The album was heralded by single “Privilege” which opens the disc. Playful B-side “We Call It Love” is included. “Losing to You”, at over 6 minutes, is packed with enough goodies to keep you captivated: a nocturnal shimmer that breaks into slapping beats and burbling bass. Another standout is “Hope Avenue” suggesting a place to go for Strange Advance’s “We Run”. “Real Thing” seals the deal for a great album, a synth pop ace. Even on the mellower tracks, genius is present, an example being “California, I Love That Name”. “Wanderers” is the perfect closer, dramatic and feel-goody. Three JUNO nominations, all for Alternative Album of the Year, are among Stars’ achievements.
Toronto group Alvvays pressed its sophomore album, Antisocialites this year. The band is helmed by NovaScotian raised Molly Rankin. The smart mixing job appropriately obscures the vocals slightly on the shoegaze tracks, such as delicious opener “In Undertow”. And on jangly pop tracks, like “Dreams Tonight,” they shine through. Molly purposefully sings in a deadpan style which works well with the Alvvays design. The writing is strong and the fusion of flavours is seamless, as heard on songs like decade defying “Plimsoll Punks”. Although the cubby-hole genre does not have broad spectrum appeal, the musical composition here will waft onto many wanderers its charms. No one can resist a good tune, and Alvvays has the savvy to craft more than a few.
Alvvays performs “Adult Diversion” and “Archie, Marry Me”, live in the Hidden Studio. Toronto.
Whitby, Ontario’s Tom Meikle, through Paper Bag Records, presented his debut album “A Northern Star, A Perfect Stone” under moniker Mappe Of. Lyrically, he populates the disc with an interesting gang of characters: a disturbed boy setting fire to his family’s home, a vagabond in Australia who’s disavowed all family ties, a Canadian youth figuring life out overseas, and an elder dying from Alzheimer’s who can’t recognize his family. Musically, the album is a dreamy, meta-dimensional sequence of alternative folk masterpieces. Mappe Of blends synthesizers with organic instruments including guitars (both acoustic and electric), trumpets, violins, kalimba, and autoharp. Where you allow this album to take you is entirely up to you; it’s filled with sonic magic.
“Young Mopes,” a record full of witchy, Stevie Nicks-esque gestures, Go-Go’s-inspired harmonies and chiming guitars. The “madman” of the opening track “make-believes that everything’s just fine.”…the album’s 10 songs thread the needle between darkness and light, evoking the hazy twilight world between waking and dreaming. “Young Mopes”embraces this existential crisis and addresses them through beautiful, glittering new-wave.
“Her demeanour at once relaxed and commanding, Burns effortlessly glided through her set, laughing with her band in between songs, bantering with the crowd and consistently delivering rich, velvety vocals. She swayed with her eyes shut as she strummed her low-slung bass, looking out steadily at the room on “Who’s the Madman,” a gorgeous and dreamily infectious cut from her new record.
“Young Mopes is her sharpest collection of songs, and one that finds her expanding on the scope of her ’80s-inspired goth pop to include such disparate influences as country music and the sitar.
Canadian singer-songwriter Terra Lightfoot is making a name for herself internationally as one of the rock talents to watch right now, her third album New Mistakesshowing off not only the power and versatility of her vocals, but also an array of chunky riffs to tie it all together.
Lightfoot, a multi-octave mezzo soprano singer, first started out as part of a country-folk group in her hometown of Hamilton, before picking up her signature Gibson SG and moving into heavier roots-rock territory. New Mistakes, however, introduces wonderful elements of soul and blues to form her strongest work to date.
“I think the songs tell the perfect story of where I’ve been and where I would like to go,” she explains. “And I don’t want to apologize for any of it – I’m proud of it, mistakes and all.”
If those mistakes are what led to this record, it’s hard to argue, and she’s certainly put in the hard yards to get here, backing her music up with some serious graft on tours around the world – including supporting none other than Canadian icon Gordon Lightfoot (no relation).
Here’s where it all started falling apart for the group. Culled from the Rolling Stones’ soul-draining 1975-76 tour, along with a pair of club shows in Toronto from 1977 (right after Keith Richards‘ famous bust), ‘Love You Live’ is a mess at times. Nobody could agree on the track listing, the performances are sometimes languid at best and not one Stone seems to be having a good time. It’s no surprise that many of the songs were later overdubbed to make it palatable to fans’ ears.
It wasn’t a surprise that the Rolling Stones were in Toronto in the winter of 1977. The Royal Mounted Police had alerted the world to the band’s Canadian presence due to one of the biggest drug busts in rock history.
In late February, Stones guitarist Keith Richard was found with an large amount of heroin and cocaine in his possession. The incident made international news because Richards was initially charged with trafficking (due to the large amounts) and there was a possibility that the rock star could be headed for a long jail sentence.
The other Stones, who had already been in Toronto practicing, were less than thrilled. Not just for the obvious reasons, but because Richards has potentially blown their cover. Months earlier, frontman Jagger and his manager Peter Rudge had set up a pair of secret Stones shows at the city’s El Mocambo Club with the idea of using some of the live recordings for a forthcoming concert album.
Secrecy was paramount because the upper level at the El Mo (as it’s known) only can contain about 300 people. If the Stones’ cover got blown, the shows would quickly become a media circus – especially with what was going on with Richards. The El Mocambo’s booker, Dave Bluestein, came up with a misdirection. He would schedule Montreal’s April Wine to play March 4th and 5th at the club.
“We had natural cover,” Bluestein said, “because if anything got out, we could say, ‘No, look, April Wine is playing. That’s the gig.’
April Wine was billed along with an unknown band, called the Cockroaches. Of course, in reality, the Canadian rockers were set to open for the biggest band in the world.
In order to ensure that the gigs were attended by friendly crowds, Roman devised a radio contest in which Stones fans could enter to see April Wine. He and Stones members handpicked the winners, who were told of the actual plan while on the bus en route to the gig. The guests entered through the back of the club to cut down on any chance hysteria.
That night, after April Wine’s opening set, the Rolling Stones took the El Mocambo stage, the arena-rocking band’s first club show in 14 years. Richards remembers being thankful for having something positive to do, after all of his legal and media woes.
“The minute I got onstage, it felt just like another Sunday gig at the Crawdaddy,” Richards recalled. “It immediately felt the same… It was one of those weird things in Toronto. Everybody’s going around talking doom and disaster, and we’re up onstage at the El Mocambo and we never felt better. I mean, we sounded great.”
Ronnie Wood then a relatively recent edition to the Stones, has claimed he had a major influence on the setlists for the two El Mocambo concerts. The band’s other guitarist was able to convince Mick and the boys to include some of the group’s earlier, bluesy material.
“Yeah, it was a good time of development for me,” Wood said. “I made them play ‘Come On’ [the Stones actually didn’t play this], ‘Little Red Rooster,’ all those blues standars. Right from the first song I felt very pleased at the fact that no one said, ‘Oh, we can’t do that one, it’s too old.’ Everyone just went straight into them.”
Although Woody is mistaken about Chuck Berry’s “Come On,” they did play his “Around and Around,” as well as Muddy Waters’s “Mannish Boy” and Bo Diddley’s “Crackin’ Up.” Although the Stones performed plenty of their self-written tunes, from “Honky Tonk Women” to “Hand of Fate” to “Brown Sugar,” the blues and R&B covers must have stood out. It was those songs that eventually ended up on a Stones live album.
In fact, when Love You Live (the band’s third live album) came out on September. 23rd, 1977, side 3 of the double LP set was composed solely of covers recorded at the El Mocambo. Well, they were mostly recorded there. Story goes that both Wood and Richards overdubbed guitar parts and backing vocals while Jagger redid the harmonica part for “Mannish Boy.” Only “Around and Around” went untouched.
It’s not sure if the same can be said for Canada’s then-first lady Margaret Trudeau, who was separated from Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. She caused a media furor when she was spotted with Jagger in the days before and after the shows (though she was officially Ronnie’s guest at the gigs). When the news of the potential fling reached her estranged husband, he reportedly said, “I hope that she doesn’t start to see the Beatles .”
Weaves “Wide Open,” the follow up to the Polaris Shortlisted, self-titled debut, will be out October 6th!
You can pre-order vinyl and cd above. First 100 US vinyl pre-orders are blue haze colored vinyl. Limited edition . Buzz Records is releasing the album in Canada and Memphis Industries rest of world. Weaves have said
“We debuted a new song at last night’s Polaris Music Prize gala alongside Tanya Tagaq – it’s called Scream”.
We don’t want to say featuring Tanya Tagaq because she is a force! A friend! And a mentor! This song was written out of necessity in a way. Feeling lost in the world and just releasing negative energy and Tanya just made the experience of creating Scream so special. She is such a beautiful, raw artist. So happy to have collaborated with her on this one.
The lineup: Jasmyn Burke (vocals), Morgan Waters (guitar), Zach Bines (bass), Spencer Cole (drums).
Canadian band Security are a hauntingly atmospheric Industrial, Shoegaze, and Experimental music duo from Montreal featuring Anna (vocals, guitar) and Elie (bass, programming). They used to be the briefly named Dernier Sex, which was an amazing project in itself, albeit short lived. “Arid Land” is their debut outing on vinyl and sees them veer into harsher territory than in Dernier Sex. Thick, layered synthesizers have been replaced with sparse percussion and grinding low-end on par with early Swans or even S.P.K., though with vocals suited to a Cocteau Twins album.
Security’s debut on vinyl, “Arid Land” is out now, and the music is more abrasive that Dernier Sex, with Security’s harsh industrial soundscapes on par with early Swans or SPK , but with aural reality based upon some sort of dream logic. The video for Position—the first track off of the 12 inch EP .
Canadian singer-songwriter Tamara Lindeman, Aka The Weather Station has announced plans to release her forth studio album on the 6th October. On her fourth (and tellingly self-titled) album as The Weather Station, Tamara Lindeman reinvents, and more deeply roots, her extraordinary, acclaimed songcraft, framing her precisely detailed, exquisitely wrought prose-poem narratives in bolder and more cinematic musical settings. The result is her most sonically direct and emotionally candid statement to date, a work of profound urgency and artistic generosity.
“Timeless… Measured, perceptive storytelling. A singer with an unmistakable & communicative voice, able to convey hope & hurt with equal clarity.” – Pitchfork
“She writes literate songs with unusual precision & sings them in an understated, open-hearted way that lends good poetry the directness of conversation.” – Uncut
The self-titled album sees The Weather Station channelling a new, more energetic sound. To be released on Paradise of Bachelors Records.
“I wanted to make a rock and roll record,” Lindeman explained, “but one that sounded how I wanted it to sound, which of course is nothing like rock and roll.”
The first single from The Weather Station is the wonderful “Thirty”
Canadian singer-songwriter Dan Mangan has just released the powerful new video for his track “Whistleblower”. Taken from his 2016 EP “Unmake”, the video juxtaposes Mangan’s understated acoustic track with intense images of anger.
“Seems there is a lot of anger in the world,” Mangan explained. “Anger can be important. Anger can topple tyrants. Anger can be a catalyst to growth. But if it becomes the default lens through which the world is seen, it can blind us from the redemption or beauty that can be found in this absurdity of errors. This video was not made with the intent to incite anger, but it does hope to advocate to work through anger and find the other side of it. To find resolution, forgiveness, and peace. Everyone involved donated their time/talent completely, and I am so grateful.”
The Fat Angel Sings 