Say you’re a band who’s been around a while and whose last album got a good amount of critical and popular acclaim and a nomination for a major music prize in your home country. How do you follow that up? Well, if you’re Murray Lightburn of The Dears, you dissolve the whole band with the exception of your wife (that would probably have been too awkward) and make the follow-up entirely on your own. That is the context for Missiles, the fourth proper album released under the Dears name, out October 21.

The whys of it all are unclear – interviews between Lightburn and Hour.ca and Spinner hint at the usual “creative differences” (as well as referencing a sorta funny and almost certainly fake thread at Stille Post) – but having cut the rest of the gang loose, the net result is an album with a creative process considerably different from past efforts, done entirely by the remaining two members.

Compared to Gang of Losers, which was a fairly concise and straight full band rock record, Missiles is more stripped down and introspective. Rock outs are few and arrangements, while still on the lush side, are decidedly leaner and more prone to wander. It’s not nearly a stark, singer-songwriter record – though there are some decidedly raw voice and acoustic guitar moments, there’s still sonic indulgences like soaring guitar solos, sweeping synths and a children’s choir – but it is a far cry from the grandiose musical statements that defined the band in their early days. It’ll take more listens than I’ve been able to give it to determine if this is a creative step forward, backwards or just a sort of contemplative pause, but considering that The Dears will be hitting the road this Fall as a seven-piece, it’s safe to say that keeping things small isn’t in Lightburn’s long-term plans.

Chart talks to Murray Lightburn and Natalia Yanchak about the album and the fact that it’s apparently now leaked to the internets.

The Autumn tour will bring the all-new, all-different Dears to the Music Gallery next week for two shows, October 9 and 10, and courtesy of Maple Music and Filter, I’ve got a pair of passes to give away to each show. To enter, email me at contests AT chromewaves.net with “I want to see The Dears on the 9th/10th” (only put one of the dates, please) and your full name in the body. Contest closes at midnight, October 5th.

MySpace: The Dears

Exclaim features Land Of Talk, whose Chris McCarron is a touring member of The Dears. Some Are Lakes is out next Tuesday.

Chart talks to Chad Van Gaalen about his two new records out this Fall – Soft Airplane, out now under his own name, and an electronic record to come out under the Black Mold moniker. The Georgia Straight, Metro, The Hour also have interviews. Van Gaalen is playing the El Mocambo on Saturday night and will do a brief in-store beforehand at Sonic Boom at 6PM. And congrats to Matt who won the contest for passes and a copy of the album on LP.

And Van Gaalen’s tourmates/bandmates in Women will also be doing an in-store, this one at Soundscapes on October 5 at 1PM. Their self-titled debut has been out in Canada since July but gets a US release on October 7.

MP3: Women – “Black Rice”
MP3: Women – “Group Transport Hall”

The UK discovers the wonders of Woodpigeon, with writeups in The Guardian, Q and Metro. If you haven’t grabbed a copy of their limited-edition Treasury Canada Library album, you really really really should.

The New Pornographers have made a new video, though not of pornography.

Video: The New Pornographers – “Mutiny, I Promise You”

Also with the new video action – Final Fantasy, with a clip for one of the tracks from his new Spectrum, 14th Century EP. Still forthcoming is Plays To Please, out October 21. Not entirely sure where you get them in physical form right now, but checking in at his label will surely yield some info in that direction.

Video: Final Fantasy – “The Butcher”

LAist talks to Stars frontman Torq Campbell. They’re at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre on December 12 and 13.

PitchforkTV has a two-part video session with Broken Social Scene, who will be at the Sound Academy on November 27.

So technically, I was correct a few weeks ago about there being a surprise appearance involving My Bloody Valentine’s Kevin Shields and Gemma Hayes while the two were in town last week. Except instead of Shields sitting in on Hayes’ show at Supermarket on Friday, it was Hayes making an unannounced appearance as support at the My Bloody Valentine show at the Kool Haus the night before. A set I missed because I was elsewhere.

Friday’s was a much more suitable setting, however, even with the usual chatty crowds in the restaurant area of the venue. Shortly after taking the stage, Hayes asked the audience, “so what are you all doing here?” in reference to the fact that she’d never been to Toronto before, even though that was exactly why we were there. And it was a surprisingly large crowd that showed up to welcome her – maybe no more than fifty, but considering the short notice of the show’s announcement and her general low profile in North America, still impressive.

For her part, Hayes played acoustically but accompanied by multi-instrumentalist Joe Chester who added much-welcome electric guitar and keyboard accents to the songs, reproducing some of the depth and texture of the studio versions. Even so, the setup kept her more in her singer-songwriter guise than the rock side that evidences itself far too rarely, opting to stick to the quieter material of her last two records though the fact that her voice cracked a couple times in the set perhaps indicated that there was some exhaustion involved as well. The set was a bit on the short side – forty-five minutes or so – but she largely sounded wonderful in that time and I felt fortunate that she was even playing a show of her own at all. With her new record The Hollow Of Morning getting a domestic release this week, perhaps it’ll get a proper push and she’ll be back to play some more before long.

Photos: Gemma Hayes @ Supermarket – September 26, 2008
MP3: Gemma Hayes – “Happy Sad”
Video: Gemma Hayes – “Back Of My Hand”
Video: Gemma Hayes – “Hanging Around”
Video: Gemma Hayes – “Let A Good Thing Go”
Video: Gemma Hayes – “Happy Sad”
MySpace: Gemma Hayes

Ah the best laid plans… part of my intention for going to New York City during CMJ was to catch Emmy The Great in addition to Lucky Soul – I was hoping that she’d be playing one of the three days of the festival that i was in town but alas, she’s playing the BrooklynVegan showcase on the 21st, fully two days before I arrive, so unless she’s got more shows lined up there will be no Emmy for me. As a consolation, The Brother Kite have a show on the 23rd, when I arrive, so that’s something. Anyways, though the targeted September release date for Emmy’s debut First Love has come and gone with no new date announced, there’s a single for “We Almost Had A Baby” coming out on November 10 and hopefully the album will be out this calendar year. You can stream a few new tracks, presumably from the new record, at her MySpace and there’s a new video for the single.

Video: Emmy The Great – “We Almost Had A Baby”

Duffy tells Wales Online that she’s a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

The San Francisco Bay Guardian, Metro and LAist interview David Berman of Silver Jews.

The new Okkervil River vid was actually released to the internets last week, but only in the US. It now belongs to the world. They’re at the Phoenix on October 12.

Video: Okkervil River – “Lost Coastlines”

And via Matablog, information about a forthcoming Shearwater digital-only release in the form of an EP for “The Snow Leopard” from Rook. It will be released October 14 and in addition to the album track (which you can hear below), it will contain some b-sides and live recordings.

MP3: Shearwater – “The Snow Leopard”

A couple new videos from Fleet Foxes and The Jealous Girlfriends.

Video: Fleet Foxes – “He Doesn’t Know Why”
Video: The Jealous Girlfriends – “Organs On The Kitchen Floor”

Blurt chats with Kurt Wagner of Lambchop, whose OH (ohio) hits the streets on October 7. And at the same time Wagner hits the road for a solo tour which brings him to the Drake Underground on October 6.

The Los Angeles Times and Wireless Bollinger talk to Joey Burns of Calexico, in town at the Phoenix on November 18.

Norwegian crooner Sonde Lerche has a date at the Mod Club on November 14. Tickets $18.50.

CSS will ride Donkey into the Opera House on December 15. Full tour dates at BrooklynVegan.

MP3: CSS – “Alala”
MP3: CSS – “Rat Is Dead (Rage)

This Is Fake DIY has a video session and a video interview with Sky Larkin.

The Huffington Post gets political with Ted Leo.

I’m immensely relieved that Caribou won this year’s Polaris Music Prize for last year’s Andorra, because if he didn’t then I’d have had to find a new post title. Because so confident I was that this is how things would turn out, I’d already committed to… typing it. And I didn’t want to have to hit that backspace key soooo many times.

So there’s your winner. And though I’m sure that some people figured they knew which way my vote was going to go, despite the fact that I’d not really written about the Caribou record at all, it was my top choice for the prize and I’m very pleased that it came through in the end. I detail the specifics on what I thought of each of the nominated albums, through the filter of what the Polaris criteria was supposed to be, after the jump. And here, I’m not really sure what I can write about. Because though as a member of this year’s Grand Jury, I’ve got a lot I’d like to talk about, I’m not actually allowed to do so. What happens in the jury room, stays in the jury room And since I was sequestered away for most of the gala, I didn’t get to see the show either. So. I guess I’ll just cover what I’m allowed to say about the process.

It started on Sunday night with a dinner with all the Grand Jurists, ostensibly to meet and greet each other and have an informal discussion about the nominated albums. What it turned out to be was a very revealing look at where everyone’s inclinations lay, and which albums would be serious contenders and which would likely be saying, “it was an honour just to be nominated”. It was as essential to the process as the official jury session the night of the gala and I think gave everyone the inclination to revisit at least one of the nominated records that they might have thought their minds made up on

Though the mission statement of the prize, to seek the album of the “highest artistic integrity”, is pretty straightforward (if impossible to actually define), everyone’s criteria for picking a winner was obviously different. While my picks for initial balloting was pretty straightforward – what were my favourite eligible albums and in what order? – for the final round, I took the criteria more seriously. Personal biases would be checked as much as possible, but while I definitely analyzed each album more objectively than I normally might, it still came down to a gut feeling. I wanted something that was more than just a good album – they’re all good albums – and that was for lack of a better, less cheesy word, transcendent. Something that was more than just a good example of its respective style or genre. Something that I’d be comfortable having as a sort of ambassador for Canadian music for the next year.

So going into things on Monday night, I already had the top contenders already sorted out – the middle of the pack could certainly jockey back and forth but they likely wouldn’t end up making much of a difference. My mind was pretty much made up what I was going to pull for and I think most everyone else was as well. The actual jury session result was a very interesting (and civil) discussion about each record, but not so much the knock-down, drag-out argument that you might have expected (or hoped for). Working as I do in mostly isolation, it was a really interesting exercise to actually discuss and debate the merits and flaws of the records, getting different points of view in real time. It was like a book club. And it was amusing to have read some of the more conspiracist theories as to what records we might pick and why, based on agendas that had nothing to do with the albums themselves – Give the finger to the Conservatives! Punish the successful label! They don’t need the money! It’s time for a woman! A rapper! A westerner! Blah blah blah. There was more than enough to talk about in just about the music without getting off-topic.

So when we were finally let out of the jury room and a winner selected (though not revealed to us), I managed to catch the very end of the gala and performances from Shad and Holy Fuck, both so good that I was sorry I missed the rest of the proceedings, even for the privilege of being on the Grand Jury. Holy Fuck were also the only act I got any photos of. But being right up front beside Caribou’s table and seeing the shock and disbelief on Dan Snaith’s face when he was announced as the winner was a real treat. And yes, I was feeling quite good and validated in my opinions.

I’m a bit sad that now having done the Grand Jury thing and having wholly enjoying the experience, I know I won’t get to do it again. It was a real pleasure and honour to have been a part of the process, for something that I think has done a fine job of establishing its credibility as a worthy award and has quickly become an important part of the Canadian music machine. Sure, there are complaints about the records that make the short list (or don’t make the short list) or the Polaris process in general, but now having seen how it all works, I can honestly say that its doing its very best and strives to be as open and fair as possible.

Plenty of coverage on Caribou’s win in the media today, but I found this piece in The Guardian, from a UK perspective, particularly interesting. And as mentioned, I only got a handful of photos of Holy Fuck but there’re some more from the end of the gala at my Flickr.

Photos: Holy Fuck @ The Phoenix – September 29, 2008

Black Mountain / In The Future Impeccably performed and recorded, and yet such a deliberate and self-conscious homage to ’70s stoner rock that I couldn’t bring myself to take entirely seriously. I don’t want to trot out the i-word (irony) but I can’t bring myself to believe that the band didn’t break out laughing hysterically at least once during recording. I wouldn’t have been disappointed if this one won, but it would have to do it without my help. MP3: Black Mountain – “Tyrants” Video: Black Mountain – “Wucan”

Basia Bulat / Oh My Darling I know most everyone expected I’d go to the mat for this album and yes, it was a favourite of 2007 and I’m obviously a big fan of Ms Bulat. But while I think that it’s a remarkable debut and it pushes all my buttons, it’s also true that it has its less remarkable moments and as a whole, doesn’t deliver all the potential that Basia has. She’s got more and better albums in her yet, and I doubt this will be her last visit to the Polaris short list. Still, though, it made a last minute rally and moved up a couple spots on my final ballot. MP3: Basia Bulat – “In The Night” Video: Basia Bulat – “The Pilgriming Vine” Video: Basia Bulat – “In The Night”

Caribou / Andorra Honestly, I had hardly listened to Andorra prior to being named to the Polaris Grand Jury. Dan Snaith’s previous records hadn’t done much for me and the cursory listens I’d given this one were equally intriguing and unsettling for reasons I couldn’t articulate, so I didn’t go back to it. And then I did. And again. And again. This, and to a lesser extent the Shad record, were the new discoveries that basically set the bar for what the best Canadian album of the year should elicit in terms of an emotional and cerebral response. Too classically pop to be regarded as an electronic album and too electronic to be regarded as a classic pop record, Andorra feels like its been orphaned by its parent genres and has instead started its own. It’s the android Beach Boys singing Gregorian chants in outer space. Timeless yet modern, comforting yet creepy, with each listen it revealed something new to me and also, each time, cemented its place at the top of my list. MP3: Caribou – “Melody Day” Video: Caribou – “Melody Day” Video: Caribou – “She’s The One” Video: Caribou – “Irene”

Kathleen Edwards / Asking For Flowers You’d think that familiarity would be an advantage in these things, but in the case of three of the nominees whose careers I’ve essentially followed since the beginning, this wasn’t the case. In Kathleen Edwards’ case, the fact that Asking For Flowers felt like boilerplate Kathleen Edwards was a definite strike against her. I didn’t think it stood out even from her own catalog, let alone the rest of the short list. In fact, whenever I tried to recall who was on the short list, this would be the last album I remembered. That said, with some of the cases made for it over the Polaris process will encourage me to revisit it and maybe give it another chance. Video: Kathleen Edwards – “The Cheapest Key” Video: Kathleen Edwards – “I Make The Dough, You Get The Glory”

Holy Fuck / LP I would be perfectly happy to put LP on at a party and let it ride, as it’s thoroughly enjoyable as both something to listen to and something to soundtrack other activities. It’s grown on me a lot and given more than a couple months to spend with it, it might have gotten more traction in my mind but considering the fact that I’m a lyrics and themes kind of guy (look back at my top albums of the year for the past however many years – all dense and wordy mofos), Holy Fuck probably never had a real chance with me. MP3: Holy Fuck – “Lovely Allen” Video: Holy Fuck – “Lovely Allen” Video: Holy Fuck – “Milkshake”

Plants & Animals / Parc Avenue I know I’ll take grief for this from lots of people, but this was a record that – even pre-Polaris – began gaining more ill will from me with each listen. I can’t even explain why. The band are obviously tremendous musicians and there’s truly prodigious talent on display, but it feel like an over-long hippie jam that lacks real substance. It just didn’t speak to me at all. Of all the Polaris noms, this was the album I dreaded putting on the most because I knew that I’d like it even less than the last time I made myself listen to it. And I know of at least a half-dozen people who now hate me for this.

Shad / The Old Prince It would seem that an artist’s best chance at winning the Polaris is to have me not hear the record. How else to explain how the two short list records that I heard the least (or not at all) before entering the judging phase would end up at or near the top of my list? As I’ve said countless times before by way of disclaimer, I don’t listen to hip-hop. But I don’t dislike it – I enjoy it live and like to think that I can recognize good hip-hop when I hear it. Like the best music of any genre, you shouldn’t need a lot of background for it to reach you. And the first time I listened to The Old Prince, my initial reaction was “I like this” and “this guy is good”. But I admit I needed verification from more hip-hop-savvy acquaintances that this guy, indeed, had the goods and that he wasn’t just the best I’d heard from my sample group of one. This record picked up more and more good will with each listen, and, of course, there was the video. MP3: Shad – “I Don’t Like To” Video: Shad – “The Old Prince Still Lives At Home” Video: Shad – “I Don’t Like To”

Stars / In Our Bedroom After The War We weren’t supposed to compare any of the nominated records against the rest of the artist’s oeuvre but that’s really difficult to do, especially when your initial emotional response to said album was disappointment because it didn’t measure up to its predecessors. Case in point, Stars – though Bedroom contains a handful of the band’s very best songs ever, the album as a whole felt overlong and too much of a retread of themes and styles already well-covered on Set Yourself On Fire. It didn’t display much in the way of artistic growth and it feels like the Stars recipe is starting to get a little stale. MP3: Stars – “The Night Starts Here” Video: Stars – “The Night Stars Here” Video: Stars – “Bitches In Tokyo” Video: Stars – “Take Me To The Riot”

Two Hours Traffic / Little Jabs Little Jabs is a textbook example of superb, Summer-y power pop but that’s a genre that’s traditionally had trouble being taken seriously, rightly or wrongly. It’s easy to do it to a mediocre level, but to do it in an outstanding way – as Two Hours Traffic do – is incredibly hard and definitely worthy of note. The album’s catchy as hell and there’s no other album on the list that I’d rather have playing if I were on a road trip somewhere, but it just felt a bit too slight to stand up against the other nominees and take the prize. MP3: Two Hours Traffic – “Stuck For The Summer” Video: Two Hours Traffic – “Nighthawks” Video: Two Hours Traffic – “Stuck For The Summer” Video: Two Hours Traffic – “Jezebel”

The Weakerthans / Reunion Tour My comments on the Stars record also apply here, though the merits of Reunion Tour have grown on me more in the last few weeks. Samson is a devastatingly good poet/songwriter, but his choice of subject matter this time out felt a little too “sponsored by CBC”, too deliberately Canadiana, to win me over. And like the Stars record, it felt very much like it was covering the same ground as its predecessor in Reconstruction Site but less successfully so. And I much preferred the cat song on that one to the cat song on this one. MP3: The Weakerthans – “Sun In An Empty Room” MP3: The Weakerthans – “Night Windows” Video: The Weakerthans – “Civil Twilight”

It had never occurred to me, in the decade plus that I’ve been listening to Loveless, that I’d ever experience it live. For starters, My Bloody Valentine were completely defunct for almost all of that time, Kevin Shields’ reclusiveness and eccentricities having become a topic of musical urban legend.

No, like much of the music I’d discovered in the ’90s, I was at least a few years to late to the party to experience it in real time and so I’d have to make do with the recordings. And those songs existed as that single, definitive recording – I’d never heard any live material, any alternate versions, I don’t even know if any exist. Loveless was Loveless, like the statues on Easter Island – unique and monolithic, able to be experienced and wondered at, but not ever fully understood. And I was okay with that.

So when the news came last November that the band were not only back together but planning live shows for this year and releasing new recordings, followed this May by the announcement of a brief North American tour that included a Toronto date, the response was disbelief, excitement, disbelief again, then a general sense of confusion. Would it be good? Would it be awful? Where would they play? Would it sell out? Do people still care? In time, the answers came – reviews of the first London shows were a blend of awestruck and rapturous. The band were still deafening loud but amidst that din, sounded amazing. And when the Toronto show was downgraded last week from the 5000-capacity Ricoh Coliseum to the cozier 2000-capacity Kool Haus, well there was the other answer. But this venue shift made it a near-sell out, with the atmosphere that goes with such events – a feeling that would have been lost in a cavernous arena. Rarely do I cheer about having to go to the Kool Haus to see a show, but this was one of those times.

Though there really wasn’t a need for an opening act, we got one anyways. Two, actually. The first was The Flowers Of Hell, a sprawling instrumental ensemble based half in Toronto and half in the UK that sounded like an orchestral tribute to Spacemen 3 and The Velvet Underground, but without the pop angle. And interesting and ambitious project, they sounded like a series of phrases, beautifully elocuted but lacking any underlying narrative. The second opener was unbilled and thus, missed by me as I was out in the lobby sorting out press access business. And so what I thought was the DJ playing a Gemma Hayes CD – an odd choice for entertaining the masses – was actually Gemma Hayes playing a short solo set. If not for the fact that I was going to see her do her own show the next night, I’d have been absolutely gutted to miss her play. As it was, I was just a bit miffed.

But that was all preamble. A little after 10PM, the band strolled onstage – all looking remarkably well-preserved – and with “I Only Said” from Loveless, the onslaught began. Actually, that’s not true. For all the talk about how unbelievably loud My Bloody Valentine once were and were yet again, my earplugs did a fine job of bringing things down to a manageable level and from the photo pit at least, the mix was actually quite good – vocals were audible, the rhythm section of Deb Googe and Colm O’Coisig much louder and urgent live than they ever were on record and the guitars… By my count, Kevin Shields had something on the order of 700W of guitar amplification run through some 32 12″ speakers (that’s 25 square feet of speaker cone) and an ungodly amount of pedals. That’s a lot of sound-wielding potential.

And what sound. Listening to the band as they drew evenly from both Loveless and Isn’t Anything plus some b-sides from the You Made Me Realise EP, you realize that as legendary as they are and much as they’re used as a reference point for countless bands that followed them, no one has ever managed to sound like them. Many have picked up a Fender Jazzmaster, run it through mountains of fuzz and volume and worked the vibrato bar just so (myself included), but unless you’re Kevin Shields or Belinda Butcher, it just doesn’t sound the same. There is only one My Bloody Valentine, and they were most definitely back. Accompanied by blinding light show and projections, the band were able to give new meaning to the phrase, “sound wave”. I’ve heard that standing in a tall building during an earthquake creates a sensation not unlike surfing, a feeling of undulation while remaining stationary – when My Bloody Valentine played, it felt like surfing (or swimming) in an ocean of sound.

Dwelling on the volume, however, is to only get part of the picture. My Bloody Valentine have also always been about the pop song, the blend of breathy, dream-state vocals with hazy (and deafening) guitars. For all the bludgeoning decibels they generate, at the core their songs are unbelievably delicate, like a butterfly in the eye of a hurricane. Gems like “When You Sleep”, “To Here Knows When” and “Soon” – oh my goodness “Soon” – certainly attest to that.

And yet you cannot discount the loud. If there was one prevalent topic of discussion leading up to the show, it was the anticipated hearing loss amongst attendees. Anyone who didn’t fully understand why people were excited about going to see this band may have wondered why we didn’t just get someone to punch us in the kidneys and save us the $50, so anticipated the impending injuries seemed to be. The thing is, My Bloody Valentine don’t indulge in volume for volume’s sake. Shields has said in interviews that he believes that there’s a a sonic quality, an interaction between musician, instrument, amplifier and listener, that can only be achieved at a certain decibel level. It probably sounds at least a little crazy, but it’s this experience that he’s seeking to create – not simply to deafen. That’s just a pleasant side-effect.

And it’s in set-closer “You Made Me Realise”, and in particular the infamous portion of the song dubbed “the holocaust” that this is most clear. Starting earlier in the song than I’d anticipated, it began as a slowly but steadily growing wall of sound – not in the metaphorical Phil Spector sense, but in a very literal and tangible one. You were actually feeling the air in the room move past you, reflect back off the walls and ceiling and basically envelop you, all from the band. Again, thanks to my earplugs I was able to contemplate this experience without doubling over in pain or needing to flee, as many of the concert-goers around me were doing. And after a while, the wall began to shift, to expand, to modulate. It was like a magic eye picture of a space shuttle engine at take-off, but for the ears. It was a 24-minute look into the mind of Kevin Shields, and while some found it unbearable, I found it fascinating. I also couldn’t feel my teeth and had the inexplicable desire to adopt a chinchilla.

Despite the enormous weight of expectation on this show and the very real possibility that the band today would be unable to live up to the myth that’s grown around them in the past fifteen years, the reality of it was, in a word, amazing. Unlike anything I’ve ever experienced and unless I get the opportunity to see them play again, probably unlike anything I’ll ever experience again.

The Toronto Star, The Toronto Sun, eye and Exclaim! have rave reviews of the show. Chart opts to play fifth dentist. Guitar Player Gear Guide has an expansive analysis of the tools of My Bloody Valentine’s trade, complete with photos and updated for the current touring setup (warning: heavy guitar geek content) and Audio Pro International has an interview with the band’s live sound engineer that covers just how they manage to keep “Realise” constantly building and shifting for the length of an episode of Seinfeld.

Photos: My Bloody Valentine @ The Kool Haus – September 25, 2008
Video: My Bloody Valentine – “Only Shallow”
Video: My Bloody Valentine – “Soon”
Video: My Bloody Valentine – “To Here Knows When”
Video: My Bloody Valentine – “Swallow”
Video: My Bloody Valentine – “You Made Me Realise”
Video: My Bloody Valentine – “Feed Me With Your Kiss”
MySpace: My Bloody Valentine
MySpace: Flowers Of Hell

While Pop Montreal kicks off this week, it doesn’t mark the end of the Canadian music festival calendar – that privilege goes to the Halifax Pop Explosion, set for October 21 through 25 in – you guessed it – Halifax. I’ve always looked for an excuse to go visit the Maritimes and Halifax in particular, and while that won’t be happening this year – booked my flight to New York City for that week last night – I’m sure it will eventually. Though I suspect that the Atlantic coast isn’t necessarily the warmest place to be in late October.

Commandeering seven venues in Halifax for five nights, this year’s Pop Explosion features a lineup of the cream of the crop of up and coming Canadian talent with the likes of Holy Fuck, Basia Bulat, The Rural Alberta Advantage and Amos The Transparent, as well as a smattering of import acts such as Jay Reatard, Monotonix and GZA. Actually, now that I look over the lineup, I’m thinking maybe this should be my Autumn trip for next year…

But first this year. Courtesy of Pigeon Row, I’ve got a pair of festival passes to give away that will get you access to all Pop Explosion shows. If you’re from out east, going to be out east or are looking for an excuse to go out east, I am your hook up. To enter, email me at contests AT chromewaves.net with “I want to explode with pop in Halifax” in the subject line and your personal info in the body. Passes will be picked up at the festival offices so you’ll have to get out to Halifax to collect. And attend. Though that part’s probably a no-brainer. Contest closes at midnight, October 5.

MySpace: Halifax Pop Explosion

So it’s finally here – Polaris Music Prize Weekend! As the city, nay – the COUNTRY – gears up for what’s surely the biggest event in the Canadian cultural calendar with the always popular Polaris Parade, the Polaris Hot Dog Eating Contest, the Polaris Dirigible Race, the Polaris Ultimate Fighting Championship… there’s just too much to do!

Okay, that’s not really true at all. The ceremony is Monday night, and as a member of the grand jury I’m personally starting to get a little excited/antsy, but there’s really not much to do except show up and see what happens. I’ve been spending the last few months getting acquainted and re-acquainted with the ten nominated albums, and while I bet you think you know where my inclinations like, I can tell you you might be wrong. Or right. Or neither. Records that I previously liked have not fared as well under the critical assessment that this responsibility demands, and other records that I’d dismissed have revealed new facets of themselves that have definitely given me pause. And others are exactly what I thought they were in the first place. If you hadn’t noticed, I’ve said absolutely nothing of value in the past paragraph.

But the purpose of this post isn’t to get in my head – it’s a scary and boring place – but to offer up some interesting linkage to those who are playing Polaris-spotter on Monday night. Radio Free Canuckistan has spent the past week doing a fine job of analyzing and handicapping all the nominated albums, two per day. Check out his thoughts on Black Mountain and Basia Bulat, Caribou and Kathleen Edwards, Holy Fuck and Plants & Animals, Shad and Stars and Two Hours Traffic and The Weakerthans. He also offers up some worthy records that he thinks should have made the short list.

Chart rounded up half the nominees – Holy Fuck, Shad, The Weakerthans, Two Hours Traffic and Caribou – to ask them what it’s like to be nominated and what they’d do with the $20,000 prize. NOW covers a lot of the same ground. The London Free Press – and fellow Grand Jurist James Reaney – talks to hometown noms Basia Bulat and Shad, The Globe & Mail’s Robert Everett-Green (a member of last year’s Grand Jury) looks at how the process of picking a winner works (or is supposed to work), while Zoilus (2006 Grand Jurist) responds. And more 2006 Grand Jurists comment at the National Post and Edmonton Journal. Chart is trying to guess the winner. BrooklynVegan commentates.

If you’re interested to follow along with the ceremony in real time Monday night and listen to the performances from the nominees – and thus enjoy more of the show than I will, since I’ll be sequestered away in a little room – it’s being webcast on CBC Radio 3 starting at 7PM Eastern time. And if you’re curious about the little bits of art that make up today’s image, they come from the lovely posters that were created to honour each of the nominated records – you can see the full pieces at the Polaris website.

And, if you’ve forgotten, here’s the ten nominees.

Black Mountain / In The Future / MP3: “Tyrants”
Basia Bulat / Oh My Darling / MP3: “In The Night”
Caribou / Andorra / MP3: “Melody Day”
Kathleen Edwards / Asking For Flowers
Holy Fuck / LP / MP3: “Lovely Allen”
Plants & Animals / Parc Avenue
Shad / The Old Prince / MP3: “I Don’t Like To”
Stars / In Our Bedroom After The War / MP3: “The Night Starts Here”
Two Hours Traffic / Little Jabs / MP3: “Stuck For The Summer”
The Weakerthans / Reunion Tour / MP3: “Sun In An Empty Room”

So who’s your pick to win and why? If I like your reasoning, maybe I’ll just use that instead of my own.

I have a feeling October 7 is going to be a good day to visit your local record store.

Margot & The Nuclear So And Sos have released a first sample of their two upcoming albums, Animal! and Not Animal, both due out on October 7. What’s the difference? Besides the former only being available on vinyl and the latter on CD (in addition to digitally for both), the band’s MySpace blog diplomatically describes the differences thusly: “Animal! is our second album, while Not Animal is a label compiled collection of songs”. Well, it certainly sounds like this major-label relationship is going well, doesn’t it?

There is some overlap between the albums. I don’t have a tracklisting for the vinyl but both these tracks appear on the Epic-approved, band-disavowed album. For more audio, head over to My Old Kentucky Blog for some live tracks and demos and, of course, there’s the Daytrotter session from this Summer.

MP3: Margot & The Nuclear So And So’s – “As Tall As Cliffs”
MP3: Margot & The Nuclear So And So’s – “A Children’s Crusade On Acid”

Also hitting on October 7 – Life Like from The Rosebuds. Check out the title track.

MP3: The Rosebuds – “Life Like”

Though he cancelled his Summer tour a while back, El Guincho is playing make-up in November. Look for him on November 27 at the El Mocambo. Alegranza! is out October 7.

MP3: El Guincho – “Palmitos Park”
Video: El Guincho – “Palmitos Park”

In preparation for the release of Bob Dylan’s latest Bootleg Series – Tell-Tale Signs, also out October 7, you can get a free MP3 of the track “Mississippi” at Amazon.com and there’s also a new video.

Video: Bob Dylan – “Dreamin’ Of You”

The Montreal Gazette talks to Will Sheff of Okkervil River, at the Phoenix on October 12, Daytrotter has some video of Sheff playing a Randy Newman cover (with simian companion) and Paste gets his thoughts on the topic of murder ballads.

That’s a topic Nick Cave knows a thing or two about – Six Billion Stories talks to him about the making of his Murder Ballads record, while Crawdaddy, The Chicago Tribune, SF Weekly and The Chicago Tribune have interviews with the head of the Bad Seeds, who are at the Kool Haus next Wednesday, and you bet your sweet bippy I’m excited about it.

Helpful information from the UK! Simon Jones of The Verve gives Filter a guided tour of Manchester while Mogwai’s Barry Burns offers some cautionary advice to The Quietus for anyone considering a career in grade school teaching.

AM NY talks to Steve Earle about being a New Yorker.

Nicole Atkins reflects on her whirlwind year for The Shreveport Times.

Spin interviews Ra Ra Riot, gets them to play track and field, shoots video. Tuscon Weekly and San Diego City Beat also have interviews but no AV or phys ed components.

Matablog has details on the next edition in the Pavement fancy-pants reissue series. Brighten The Corners: Nicene Creedence Ed. is out November 18.

Drowned In Sound interviews David Berman of the Silver Jews.

Daytrotter has an extra-long session with Centro-Matic.

The Quietus and Paste interview TV On The Radio.

English quartet Noah & The Whale rolled into the Horseshoe on Tuesday night for a free show, though given the moderate amount of buzz surrounding them and their just-released debut Peaceful, The World Lays Me Down, they could have charged for tickets. Not a whole lot, but some. But the intention surrounding this tour appears to be to garner goodwill for the band and there’s not many better ways to do that than to leave some extra cash in the punter’s pocket for beer, a CD, a t-shirt, whatever.

Their support on this tour happened to be a local girl in the form of Lindi Ortega, so the hometown aspect of her performance was a nice bonus. Though she obviously had the voice and looks to pull off the full-on diva thing, she instead served it up with a pleasant Martha Wainwright-gone-boho/glam approach, and not nearly as over the top as she could have been. Her songs were pleasant if a bit slight and kept her set cheerful, charming and compact.

Though they’ve been happy to take whatever benefits being lumped in with the English anti-folk scene might offer, the “folk” appellation doesn’t really suit them as their live performance makes clear. They may still be plying their craft on fiddles and harmoniums but deep down, the kids just want to rock. But even the best of intentions can be sidetracked by unforseen circumstances and in this case, it was frontman Charlie Fink attempting to fight off a cold that made his normally nasal and groan-y vocals sound even moreso. As a result, Noah & The Whale’s introduction to Toronto started off a bit slow but gradually picked up steam as things progressed.

Louder and more ragged than one might expect given the shiny twee-ness of the recordings – hell, one new song they played was downright sombre – they evidenced some good energy considering Fink’s illness and got the audience involved with some crowd-baiting – encouraging singalongs, talking about how good Montreal was the night before, textbook stuff. Ortega was invited onstage to handle Laura Marling’s vocal parts from the album and though her mic wasn’t working for “Five Years Time”, she sounded quite good on “Rocks & Daggers” – not as ethereal as Marling, but her more powerful delivery also worked well. With a set clocking in at under an hour and a one-song encore showing off their punk rock side (taken from their A Sides side project), they were solid though not remarkable. Though you could attribute some of that to the illness, the truth is probably more along the lines of them simply not being one of those overwhelming live acts – they’ll show up, play their songs and crack some jokes but as long as their songs continue to be of the quality of those that make up Peaceful, that’ll be plenty.

The Boston Herald talks to the band about their desire to make a good (and free) first impression on North America while New City Chicago talks to Fink about his songwriting.

Photos: Noah & The Whale, Lindi Ortega @ The Horseshoe – September 23, 2008
MP3: Noah & The Whale – “2 Bodies 1 Heart”
Video: Noah & The Whale – “Five Years Time”
Video: Noah & The Whale – “2 Bodies 1 Heart”
Video: Noah & The Whale – “Shape Of My Heart”
MySpace: Noah & The Whale
MySpace: Lindi Ortega

This Is Fake DIY interviews Johnny Flynn, playing the Rivoli next Saturday night, October 4.

It’s been a good/bad week for concert cancellations. Though the blog entry from Land Of Talk hoped that the laryngitis Liz Powell finds herself afflicted with – I guess that makes them Land Of No Talk – would only claim a couple of shows, their tour dates now show all Ontario dates – including Saturday’s show at Lee’s Palace – as being cancelled. Making this week’s feature in eye considerably less timely, though the subhead stating that the band were “born under a bad sign” is eerily prescient.

The Toronto Star reminds itself that My Bloody Valentine were never all that popular. Tonight! Kool Haus!

Via the AV Club – Wilco are doing their best to country-rock the vote by offering a download of a live MP3 of themselves and Fleet Foxes covering Bob Dylan via The Band’s “I Shall Be Released” in Oregon last month to anyone who pledges to vote in the 2008 election. Of course, it doesn’t specify WHICH election or even check if you live somewhere that’s having an election this year, but that’s between you and your sense of democratic duty. Wilco are at the Air Canada Centre on December 4 and 5.

Matablog offers details on the forthcoming solo record from Carl Newman, who will take off his New Pornographer hat and replace it with his A.C. derby. Get Guilty will be released on January 20 of next year.

The St Louis Post-Dispatch interviews Torq Campbell of Stars. They’re playing two nights at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre on December 12 and 13.

Muzzle Of Bees asks five questions of Hayden, opening up for Feist on November 1 and 3 at Massey Hall and the Air Canada Centre, respectively.

Smashing Pumpkins will be playing two completely different sets when they roll into Massey Hall on November 3 and 4. And since these dates are part of their 20th anniversary tour, there’ll hopefully be no pretending that they’re still a relevant artistic force and it’ll just be wall to wall Siamese Dream and Gish. One hopes. Dates and details at Pitchfork.

Poor Noel Gallagher. Thanks to the injuries sustained a couple weeks back when this chump attacked him onstage here in Toronto – injuries that are considerably more serious than initially reported – Oasis has had to cancel a number of European dates on top of the scrapped North American tour earlier this month. Assuming Gallagher gets his health back in order sooner rather than later, Oasis should be back in North America in December since that’s when they’ve said the cancelled London, Ontario show would be made up. Whether they risk another visit to Toronto at that time remains to be seen.

It’s a much healthier and happier Gallagher who shows up in this Spin interview, talking about the making of Dig Out Your Soul, due out October 7 (or already out if you know where to look), and the various feuds attributed to him over the years. Not as hilariously profane as this Exclaim! piece from a couple years back, but still a good read.

And speaking of Dig Out Your Soul, The Quietus reports that the album has the Ryan Adams seal of approval – for what that’s worth – but preferring to form their own opinion, they’ve given the record a listen and assembled a track-by-track review of their own.

And also to be filed under meaningless endorsements, Simon Jones of The Verve tells Spinner that their new material got the thumbs up from Liam Gallagher. He also insists to Undercover that the band won’t split again. Honest.

NME reports on the never-ending yet probably never-resolving prospects of a Blur reunion. In this chapter – Graham Coxon, the man who essentially split the band in the first place and who has generally resisted overtures to give it another go, says that Damon Albarn has no rights to say that the band are done. And Alex James and Dave Rowntree discover they’re actually twins, separated at birth.

Prefix has an interview with Portishead’s Geoff Barrow about the usual Portishead topics – their absence, their new record, their reluctance to tour, et cetera, et cetera.

Peter Hook discusses a myriad of topics, including the forthcoming New Order reissues coming September 30, with Drowned In Sound.

Scott Hutchison of Frightened Rabbit writes about the band’s successes in America versus the UK and life on the road for The Guardian. They’ll be at Lee’s Palace on October 21.

PitchforkTV invites The Futureheads to a New York City rooftop to play some songs for them in a two-part video feature. Adelaide Now has an interview and the band tells BBC that another record is in the works for next year.

Leeds’ Sky Larkin – whom I blogged about last month – have released a new video from their still way-off debut album, due February 2009 or so.

Video: Sky Larkin – “Fossil, I”

In chatting with Billboard, Guy Garvey of Elbow reveals that they’ll be following up their Mercury Prize-winning album The Seldom Seen Kid with a record FOR kids, seldom seen or otherwise. That project will actually happen in parallel with their proper fifth album, presumably skewed towards adults.

MTV UK has details on the next star-studded edition of the War Child benefit album, entitled Heroes and out November 25 in North America. While it’s a shame that these records continue to be necessary, at least the talent assembled means that they’ll sell a ton and help the cause.

In the two years since Sigur Ros last paid us a visit – May 2006, if you were wondering – they’ve discovered pop. Or at least, that’s what the talking points around their latest record Med sud I eyrum vid spilum endalaust would have you believe. This is not actually true.

If there was a watershed moment in the Icelandic quartet’s career, it would have been 2005′s Takk, which saw the band making a conscious effort to try a more direct form of songwriting, at least relative to their first records. Compared to everyone else, they still sounded like an herd of space manatees in heat. Med Sud is a progression of that aesthetic shift. Yes, “Gobbledigook” is probably the most accessible thing they’ve ever written but there’s still far more sprawl on the record than conciseness. And that’s okay, because there’s plenty of pop bands in the world, but only one Sigur Ros.

Monday night was another sold out show for the Icelandic quartet at their now-traditional digs in town, Massey Hall. They could obviously play and fill a much larger room, but the classy environs and acoustics of the Old Lady Of Shuter Street are too perfectly suited for the band to ever consider moving… having said that, watch them play somewhere huge and awful next time. Anyway. Support on this tour came from fellow Icelanders Parachutes, whom are easily described as sounding very Icelandic. This might seem awful reductive, but the fact is they sounded almost exactly like a Mum cover band made up of grade school students trying their hand at covering Sigur Ros. The eight-piece were quite effective at creating the shimmering, tinkertoy orchestra that might imply, but didn’t manage to establish any sort of identity of their own. Everything they did had been done better before, and would be done so again about a half hour after they finished up.

In all the past times I’d seen Sigur Ros, the show was very much in keeping with the mysteriousness of the first couple albums. The band seemed perfectly content – even intent – on keeping as low a profile as possible and letting the music (and lightshow) carry everything. This time, even though they started out as one might have expected with the sombre Takk closer “Heysatan” in almost pitch darkness – great for us photographers – there was obviously something else going on. For starters, there were costumes. Most notable were Jonsi Birgisson looking like Chris Martin’s stunt double and drummer Orri Pall Dyrason looking like a vagrant Burger King. This was not the wardrobe of individuals looking to blend into the background. And throughout the course of the set as they alternated the older moody material with the newer, more sprightly songs – all delivered with grandeur and drama – there were even more happenings unprecedented at a Sigur Ros show. Banter (though a lot of it was in Icelandic I think), invitations to sing along, and even a few performance flubs (just enough to be endearing). This was a Sigur Ros not as aliens, not as elves, but simply as people. It seems like an obvious enough statement but in the past, not necessarily the case.

And there was an encore. I don’t think I’d ever seen them do an encore before, and when they tore into their usual apocalyptic set closer of “Popplagio / The Pop Song”, I assumed that would be it. Goodness knows that a song that intense would be near impossible to follow. And so, as the band left the stage and the crowd stood in applause, I thought that’d be it. The band would come out for their curtain call and everyone would go home. But instead, the roadies were scurrying around on stage, bringing out acoustic guitars and quite obviously setting up for more songs. Unbelievable. And return they did, for a reading of “Illgresi” and then, with Parachutes on hand with drums and percussion and Birgisson asking everyone to clap along, the real finale of “Gobbledigook” and the at the crescendo of that, Massey Hall quite literally exploded in brightly coloured confetti – possibly one of the most joyous things I’ve ever seen. I wish I’d had my camera at the ready but even without, it’s an image that I won’t soon forget.

The Boston Globe has an interview with drummer Dyrason. Update: Reviews up at eye, Chart and The Toronto Sun.

Photos: Sigur Ros @ Massey Hall – September 22, 2008
MP3: Sigur Ros – “Gobbledigook”
MP3: Sigur Ros – “Popplagio / The Pop Song”
MP3: Sigur Ros – “Staralfur”
Video: Sigur Ros – “Gobbledigook”
Video: Sigur Ros – “Inni Mer Syngur Vitleysingur”
MySpace: Sigur Ros

Mogwai are releasing The Hawk Is Howling today and they’re marking the occasion… by by cancelling their North American tour. Medical issues have felled drummer Martin Bulloch and all remaining dates – including Wednesday’s gig at the Phoenix – have been axed. They will be rescheduled for Spring 2009 and all tickets for this show will be honoured then, or you can return them at point of purchase for a refund. But as consolation, here’s an interview with Stuart Braithwaite at Wired and The Quietus has an apology from Bulloch for having a dodgy heart.

And if you’re disappointed about losing out on that particular opportunity to go deaf, remember that My Bloody Valentine are at the Kool Haus on Thursday. Spin has a profile on the band and Billboard a review of their first North American show in forever at ATP in New York this past weekend and The New York Times has a feature and interview with Kevin Shields.

Pitchfork talks to Brendan Canning about his next video and the possible return of Broken Social Scene as a band and not a brand for solo projects. Broken Social Scene the band – they’ve probably realized that’s more marketable – have scheduled a local date at the Sound Academy on November 27, tickets $25. Don’t complain about the venue – it’s your own fault you made the band popular.

Sunset Rubdown are at Lee’s Palace on October 13, tickets $12.

MP3: Sunset Rubdown – “Stadiums & Shrines II”

Neva Dinova have a date at the El Mocambo on November 5, tickets $9. Their new album is You May Already Be Dreaming. Also on the bill are McCarthy Trenching.

MP3: Neva Dinova – “Clouds”
MP3: Neva Dinova – “Will The Ladies Send You Flowers?”