Tenci A Swollen River, A Well Overflowing Keeled Scales Whenever you encounter an artist or a band you did not have a chance to hear before, the first thing you do is try and make a comparison – who do they sound like, or to whom you can [...]
Tod Lippy Closer Than They Appear Independent There are two basic criteria to judge a covers album. One is the choice of the covers, the other is the way they are (re)interpreted and/or re-imagined. And usually each of those is usually quite [...]
Jason Collett Head Full Of Wonder Arts & Crafts Whether it was his work with Broken Social Scene or solo, Jason Collett was never an artist who stood still. He always left his fans wondering what he’s going to do next. So, not to leave [...]
Various Artists Brown Acid: The Fifteenth Trip RidingEasy Records “The Beat Goes On”, title of one of the two best songs Sonny & Cher recorded together, kind of stuck beyond the song itself, and it seems it is something that can [...]
Dan Mangan Being Somewhere Arts & Crafts Ok, so there are certain canons and formulas for any musical genre, and that includes folk music as the domain of singer songwriters, where you don’t go further than mid-tempo and favor your [...]
Alex Roberts Love & Supernatural Mottow Soundz When some artists come up with anniversary editions, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the initial release was an enormous success with the audience. Quite often, they want to bring to the [...]
Robyn Hitchcock Shufflemania! Tiny Ghost Records Robyn Hitchcock is often dubbed as ‘the modern day Syd Barrett’. Ok, the comparisons can be made, with Hitchcock’s penchant for all things psych and left-left-field lyrics, yet [...]
Christopher Ward Spark Of Desire Warner Music Canada Back in 1978 when this album was first released, baroque pop was something of a dirty word. It was all either punk (the hardcore stuff first) or commercial versions of hard rock/heavy metal. [...]
Sloan Steady Murderecords/Universal Music If currently there is a band/artist that is truly keeping the flame of power pop burning, not just in Canada but around the world, it is Toronto via Halifax magicians Sloan. Steady, their latest album, [...]
Mal Continuous Short Feature Film Pirate! If you think the title Continuous Short Feature Film by Los Angeles musician/visual artist Mal (they) has a deeper meaning, it certainly does. Yet, it also actually refers to a continuous short, 20-min [...]
Eliza Edens We’ll Become The Flowers Independent Since Nick Drake’s enigmatic artistic figure left us too early, many other singer/songwriters, both male and female, were compared to his entirely individual musical and lyrical [...]
Stephen Becker A Calm That Shifts NNA Tapes Sometimes, artists hit it right on the nose when they come up with an album title, but often that is not the case, particularly when debut albums are concerned. Yet, here is a debut album that does [...]
Barrett Davis The Ballad Of Aesop Fin Independent Being an artist that wants to explore all the aspects of a certain genre that very often operates within strict rules and music formulas can be a tall order even for seasoned musicians, let alone [...]
Ev Bird Puff Piece Royal Mountain Records If you are an artist/musician based in Montreal, you may be tempted to retreat indoors when the winter takes its hold. One of those is take an extensive listen to your record collection, something that [...]
Various Artists Listen To The Red Rock Vast Horizons Music Inc. Gigi Love, the key artist behind this compilation, is from Utah herself, so it is no wonder that she knows exactly why she needed to organize a group of like-minded artists to [...]
Chico Romano Vol. 5 Ramp Local It seems to be a fact that artists who change their monikers once in a while have very wide musical taste and interests, and want to keep those tastes and interests distinct. Yet, very often, thy merge and seep [...]
HamsandwicH Magnify Route 109 Picking up cues in pop music is seemingly easy, you find an artist or artists, remodel, combine, and presto you’ve got your song or set of songs. For some pop that indeed does not have to be hard, if you know how to [...]
Kolb Tyrannical Vibes Ramp Local What do you do if you are a classically trained opera singer that has serious love for sophisticated pop that is a cross between Fleetwood Mac and latter-day Doobie Brothers, sprinkled with touches of Steely Dan [...]
Office Culture Big Time Things Northern Spy Trying to swim in the waters of complex, sophisticated pop that spreads into rock, jazz, and elsewhere is something quite a few artists with good musical taste will try, but not that many will succeed [...]
Izzy Oram Brown Mess Independent The influence late Elliott Smith left on quite a number of artists that started out after him seems to be much greater than can be gauged just by cursory listen. Often, it is just closely following in [...]
DAVID LEAF – GOD ONLY KNOWS: THE STORY OF BRIAN WILSON, THE BEACH BOYS & THE CALIFORNIA MYTH OMNIBUS PRESS BOOK REVIEW BY: LJUBINKO ZIVKOVIC There’s rarely a band around which has more things written about it than The Beach Boys. [...]
Dan Lyons & The Tenants Shuttered Dreams Shaker Records Margate is one of those English seaside towns that really comes alive when the summer season is on with musicians confined to themselves most of the time and being able to either work [...]
Creedence Clearwater Revival Creedence Clearwater Revival At The Royal Albert Hall Craft Recordings It turns out that revival was always the key word with Creedence Clearwater Revival and John Fogerty, the band’s mastermind. And it is not [...]
Maeve Steele Overland Independent The number of artists doing their music the way they want is growing exponentially, which makes it exponentially hard for them to reach a wider audience, without something to make them stand out. Very often, [...]
