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Old World Vulture, B For Butterfly

Frank Yang — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 20:21:53 +0000

Who: B For Butterfly
What: English duo apparently not given to divulging much information about themselves, but prefer to let the music speak for them. And the two songs they’ve offered up say volumes; haunting and spare, rooted in folk and versed in rock and rich with melancholic melody and soaring harmony. If everything that showed up in my inbox was half as beautiful, it’d be a better world.
MP3: B For Butterfly – “Photograph”
MP3: B For Butterfly – “Treading On Snails”

Who: Old World Vulture
What: Quartet hailing from various points along the 401 offers a more extroverted take on instrumental post-rock and see no reason why sweeping cinematic soundscapes can’t live in harmony with squelching synths and heavy-ass guitar riffing. They’re giving away some tracks from their forthcoming debut EP on their website and are playing the Horseshoe this Friday night, December 11.
MP3: Old World Vulture – “Bastard Engine”
MySpace: Old World Vulture

Think About Life, Ava Luna

Frank Yang — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 23:03:33 +0000

Frank Yang

Who: Think About Life
What: Montreal outfit hasn’t quite managed to translate the insane energy of their live show into a recording – that’s near impossible and probably dangerous – but they do capture the anything-goes, good-times-till-you-drop spirit with their disco-rocking second album Family. They play the Phoenix on November 20 supporting You Say Party! We Say Die!
MP3: Think About Life – “Johanna”
MP3: Think About Life – “Having My Baby”
Video: Think About Life – “Sweet Sixteen”
MySpace: Think About Life

Who: Ava Luna
What: Brookylnites make fusing impassioned soul. gospel/doo-wop choirs and abrasive, synth-power post-punk sound like a good idea. They’re at the Boat on Tuesday night and their new EP Services is out in December.
MP3: Ava Luna – “Clips”

Golden Bloom, Zeus, Steve McKay

Frank Yang — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 20:51:29 +0000

Frank Yang

Who: Golden Bloom
What: Latest record Fan The Flames is chock full of thoughtful and shimmery power-pop oft compared to Summerteeth-era Wilco. A bevy of downloads and an interview with main man Shawn Fogel available at Ryan’s Smashing Life.
MP3: Golden Bloom – “Doomsday Devices”
MP3: Golden Bloom – “E.H.M.”
MP3: Golden Bloom – “The Fight At The End Of The Tunnel”
Video: Golden Bloom – “Doomsday Devices”
MySpace: Golden Bloom

Who: Zeus
What: Retro-minded Toronto quartet whose debut EP Sounds Like Zeus strikes a perfect balance of pop melody and virtuostic riffery with a Genesis cover that’s either points for or against, depending on your opinion of Collins-era Genesis. They play the Rivoli on Thursday night, November 12.
MP3: Zeus – “Marching Through Your Head”
Video: Zeus – “Greater Times” (live on alt.sessions)
Video: Zeus – “Fever Of The Time” (live on alt.sessions)
MySpace: Zeus

Who: Steven McKay
What: The drummer for Bruce Peninsula steps out from behind the kit with some unexpectedly rich and intricate folk-pop orchestrations which inhabit a similar fantasy landscape as St Vincent. He plays the Drake Underground on Thursday night with Catriona Sturton & The Pigeons and Abigail Lapell.
Video: Steven McKay – “Andy’s House” (live on Southern Souls)
Video: Steven McKay – “Restore Me” (live on Southern Souls)

Said The Whale, It Hugs Back

Frank Yang — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 18:21:06 +0000

Frank Yang

Who: Said The Whale
What: Vancouver quintet sing about what they know – Vancouver, the sea and heartbreak – and their intersections and allegories, rendered in big happy pop styles on their new record Islands Disappear. They’re currently on a cross-Canada tour which stops at the El Mocambo on October 28.
Video: Said The Whale – “Camilo (The Magician)”
MySpace: Said The Whale

Who: It Hugs Back
What: Warm and whispery narcolepsy-rock from English outfit with an American Analog Set record or five in their collections filed alongside their complete Yo La Tengo discographies. Their latest album is Inside Your Guitar.
MP3: It Hugs Back – “Now & Again”
MP3: It Hugs Back – “Work Day”
Video: It Hugs Back – “Now & Again”
Video: It Hugs Back – “Work Day”
MySpace: It Hugs Back

The Danks, Sharon Van Etten, ArpLine

Frank Yang — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 19:15:47 +0000

Frank Yang

Who: The Danks
What: PEI four-piece who include a member of Two Hours Traffic, are touring with Two Hours Traffic and sound like a louder and rowdier Two Hours Traffic. RIYL: Two Hours Traffic. Their debut album is Are You Afraid Of The Danks and they’re at Lee’s Palace this Friday night with – wait for it – Two Hours Traffic.
MP3: The Danks – “Die Young”
MP3: The Danks – “Treaty Connector
MP3: The Danks – “I Mean, Come On”
Video: The Danks – “Planet Beach”
MySpace: The Danks

Who: Sharon Van Etten
What: Because I Was In Love, the 2009 debut from the Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter, is a sweet blend of melancholy and narcolepsy. Not new, but never out of style as long as there exist acoustic guitars and heartbreak. She opens for Kyp Malone’s Rain Machine at Lee’s Palace on October 19.
MP3: Sharon Van Etten – “For You”
Video: Sharon Van Etten – “For You”
MySpace: Sharon Van Etten

Who: ArpLine
What: New York outfit formerly trading under the name The Kiss Off deals in synth-infused, borderline-histrionic glam anthems. Their full length debut is due out in early 2010.
MP3: ArpLine – “Fold Up Like A Piece Of Paper”
MP3: ArpLine – “Rope”

Juliette Commagere, Octoberman, Kids Love Lies

Frank Yang — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 16:46:31 +0000

Frank YangYou may have noticed that the Sunday Cleaning features I used to run on, well, Sundays have largely fallen by the wayside this year. In fact I’ve run a grand total of one in 2009. Shameful. Fact is, time has become more and more scarce and it just wasn’t possible to put together reviews of even that length on top of the regular week of feature writing. But I continue to get stuff sent to me, both physically and digitally, that I want to at least put out there in some sense, even without accompanying essay or implied endorsement.

Enter Sunday Cleaning v2.0. This will be not capsule reviews, but pellet reviews. Maybe not even reviews, but just informational bits related to upcoming shows or releases. Impressions, not necessarily fully-formed and subject to change. Mainly a way for me to clear out stuff I’m sent that otherwise would just sit and gather dust, not necessarily for lack of interest but just lack of time. In theory, this will encourage me to listen to more random stuff since I won’t feel the (self-inflicted) pressure of having to do a full write-up on it. We’ll see how this goes.

And there won’t be this much preamble in the future. Or probably any. This is just to offer some context and kick myself in the ass.

Who: Juliette Commagere
What: Los Angeles singer-songwriter affiliated with Hello Stranger and The Bird & the Bee whose 2008 album Queens Die Proudly is unabashedly pretty and polished adult-contemporary-ish pop, equal parts orchestrated and synthetic, but with more teeth and inclination to wander than you might expect.
MP3: Juliette Commagere – “Overcome”
MySpace: Juliette Commagere

Who: Octoberman
What: Like Sparklehorse’s Mark Linkous fronting a welterweight Crazy Horse, the Toronto/Vancouver-based quintent has just released their third album in Fortresses and are on a Cross-Canada tour which brings them to the Dakota Tavern in Toronto on October 8.
MP3: Octoberman – “Trapped In The New Scene”
Video: Octoberman – “Trapped In The New Scene”
Video: Octoberman – “Thirty Reasons”

Who: Kids Love Lies
What: Scrappy London five-piece that sounds like The Grates if they traded their childlike exuberance for some adolescent snottiness.
Video: Kids Love Lies – “Count In My Head”

Smothered In Hugs, Paper Moon

Frank Yang — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 17:58:42 +0000

Smothered In Hugs / The Healing Power Of Injury (Collagen Rock)

Though their name – one of the more obvious Guided By Voices cribs out there – certainly gives an idea of what to expect from the debut from this Prince Edward Island quintet, it doesn’t tell the whole story. Yes, there’s a pronounced affection for the oddball, rapid-fire pop aesthetic of Dayton’s finest, but an almost equally large debt is owed to the early works of R.E.M., particularly in their penchant for unpredictable but wholly memorable melodic lines and the bit of Replacements-esque angst can’t be overlooked. Add in production values which eschews gloss for a certain cassette-tape fidelity and you’ve got a record that triggers a nostalgic aural endorphin rush.

MP3: Smothered In Hugs – “Blank Test”
MySpace: Smothered In Hugs

Paper Moon / What Are You Going To Do With Me? (Endearing)

Winnipeggers Paper Moon have been hanging out in the lower tiers of the Canadian indie rock circuit for many years now, releasing a couple albums of sweet and sophisticated pop that’d be equally at home in a fuzzy twee cardigan or a sleek evening gown but never managing to break out in an appreciable manner. But three years and some lineup shuffles on from their last release, they’re back and have released an EP before their new record Only During Thunderstorms arrives in April 2009. And while the recipe hasn’t changed much, there’s a certain confidence and cohesiveness throughout this teaser that seems to herald a band ready to take that next step forward. That’s particularly impressive considering the songs are drawn from a disparate range of sources (one new song, a couple older songs and a couple covers) yet hang together perfectly. Here’s hoping this Paper Moon is finally beginning to wax.

MP3: Paper Moon – “What Are You Going To Do With Me?”
MySpace: Paper Moon

Portishead, The Last Shadow Puppets, Chairlift

Frank Yang — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 17:10:45 +0000

I’m going to close out 2008′s Sunday Cleaning series with quick reviews of three albums that have already received dollops of ink pretty much everywhere else. But I feel like writing about them, just a bit.

Portishead / Third (Island)

I believe that there is a crucial decibel level at which the first Portishead record in eleven years moves from subtle, inscrutable and sinister to all-out terrifying. For most of this year, whenever I put Third on, I apparently kept the volume knob in the former range and as such, didn’t get much out of it rather than a general sense of unease and the impression that they’d managed somehow to become even more downcast and averse to music conventions in their decade away. But after putting it on loud, as I did for the first time a couple weeks ago, “subtle” is pretty much the last word I would ever use to describe it. It’s like an aural death grip, skeletal, insistent and unrelenting, Beth Gibbons whispering seductive nightmares in your ears – terrible but still beautiful. It took me a while, but I get it now.

Video: Portishead – “The Rip”
Video: Portishead – “Machine Gun”
Video: Portishead – “Magic Doors”
MySpace: Portishead

The Last Shadow Puppets / The Age Of The Understatement (Domino)

Being no particular fan of the Arctic Monkeys and not knowing who The Rascals are, the default sales pitch for The Last Shadow Puppets wouldn’t have worked too well on me. But even without the backstory, the absurdly lush retrorchestral (my word!) pop they delivered would have gotten my attention. At first, I was a bit suspicious that the opulence of the dressings were meant to distract from the lightweightness of the songwriting – it sounded great but perhaps there wasn’t any substance there. But with time and repeated listens – it kept drawing me back – I found that that was either simply not the case, or I just didn’t care anymore.

Video: The Last Shadow Puppets – “The Age Of The Understatement”
Video: The Last Shadow Puppets – “My Mistakes Were Made For You”
Video: The Last Shadow Puppets – “Standing Next To Me”
MySpace: The Last Shadow Puppets

Chairlift / Does You Inspire You (Kanine)

The debut album from the latest iPod commercial lottery winner is sleek and slinky, though probably too playful and innocent to qualify as seductive. Built mainly on a blueprint of hazy, ’80s-drenched synth-pop, it occasionally forays into country or soul terrain but is kept centered by the remarkable vocals of Caroline Polachek, which are never sound out of place no matter what musical accouterments surround them. Inspire is consistently listenable throughout, but the high points – the Nano-shilling “Bruises” and the additively nonsensical “Evident Utensil” – do stand considerably above the rest.

Clash has a feature on Chairlift.

MP3: Chairlift – “Evident Utensil”
Video: Chairlift – “Planet Health”
MySpace: Chairlift

The Henry Clay People, Audrye Sessions

Frank Yang — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 14:43:48 +0000

The Henry Clay People / For Cheap Or For Free (Autumn Tone)

I tend to have a pre-conceived idea about what rock that comes out of Los Angeles sounds like. If it’s not hepped-up punk, then I assume that it’ll come with at least a moderate amount of inescapable studio slickness – maybe it’s the smog. But then you’ve got The Henry Clay People, whose mail goes to Irvine, CA but whose sound sounds more like it comes from the streets of Stockton (via the Pacific Northwest, perhaps). To be a bit clearer, take the slightly unhinged melodicism of Pavement, run it through the tightly-wound energy of The Thermals and let it sit in the dry desert sun outside a roadhouse for a few hours and you’re just about there. And as good as that might sound, it’s actually better.

MP3: The Henry Clay People – “Something In The Water”
MP3: The Henry Clay People – “Working Part Time”
MySpace: The Henry Clay People

Audrye Sessions / Audrye Sessions (Black Seal)

Audrye Sessions, on the other hand, hail from Oakland but their debut EP sounds like it was pressed right on the Sunset Strip. Frontman Ryan Karajiza has one of those elastic, big rock voices that he feels compelled to use in elastic, big rock ways and coupled with an aural shine that you can check your hair in, it’s modern rock radio made to order. But there’s evidence that there’s substance under the sheen. Their live cover of Elliott Smith’s “Waltz #2″, one of the saddest and most beautiful songs ever written, is spare and genuinely affecting and their Daytrotter session further demonstrates their range and offers proof that they can not only rein it in and strip it down, but sound better when they do. Here’s hoping their debut full-length offers some more balance when it’s released February 17.

MP3: Audrye Sessions – “Turn Me Off”
MP3: Audrye Sessions – “Waltz #2″
Video: Audrye Sessions – “Turn Me Off”

Hearts Of Palm UK, Hospital Bombers

Frank Yang — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 15:58:41 +0000

Hearts Of Palm UK / For Life (Hypnote)

For the record, the “UK” part of the name is all affectation – there’s was territorial trademark tussle and the trio hails from California. There’s not even much overtly Anglophilic in their sound, which is a twinkling example of electro-chamber pop more comparable to the likes of The Postal Service or Au Revoir Simone, though not as peppy as the former or as dreamy as the latter. Built on Erica Electra’s downcast lyrics and delicately worn vocals, burbling synths and beats more suited to shuffling than dancing,, For Life is beautiful in sound and melancholic in mood, evoking the feel of an Autumn day where the sun may shine, but the chill in the air remains.

MP3: Hearts Of Palm UK – “People & Logistics”
MP3: Hearts Of Palm UK – “I Flow”
Video: Hearts Of Palm UK – “People & Logistics”
MySpace: Hearts Of Palm UK

Hospital Bombers / Footnotes (Saved By Radio)

I didn’t need to read the bio for Amsterdam’s Hospital Bombers to know they hold the Mountain Goats in high regard. Besides the fact that their name is taken from the lyrics of “The Best Ever Death Metal Band In Denton”, the influence of John Darnielle is evident in every one of vocalist Jan Schenk’s nasal bleats (this is not criticism, just description). And while it’s not really possible to emulate Darnielle’s songwriting, the quartet – self-proclaimed deliverers of “stadium folk” – do manage to replicate some of the manic, playful energy of mid-period Goats with a delivery that’s suitably dry though seasoned with a blend of New Wave and orchestral flavours. Combined with a certain distinctive Euro-ness, the Bombers ensure that for all their idol worship, they remain their own band. If you don’t like the Goats in the first place, however, you may want to just move on.

Footnotes will be released in North America on Tuesday and they play Sneaky Dee’s next Wednesday night, October 29.

MP3: Hospital Bombers – “Neighbourhood”
MySpace: Hospital Bombers