Chapell Penultimate Independent Making good pop music is probably one of the hardest things to do. You have all these prerequisite rules to abide by, coming up with a good and catchy melody, exercise almost perfect musicianship, and decide how [...]
Paul Doffing Running In The Dark Independent It is very easy for singer/songwriters to fall into the ‘my pains’ musical compartment. That is the one where the artist picks up his or her acoustic guitar, starts strumming it slowly, and starts [...]
Alejandra O’Leary Everest Independent Have you been missing those twisted pop Throwing Muses albums from the the Nineties? Well, while you wait for something new from them, you just might find the needed refuge in Everest, the latest album [...]
Akiko Yano Iroha Ni Konpeitou (Reissue) We Want Sounds Akiko Yano is one of those artists that is able to cross the usual English language barrier and make a name for herself outside her native Japan. One of the reasons for this is that she has [...]
Genuine Leather 2011-2019 Singles, Demos and Live Independent Once listeners got hooked on songs like The Kinks’ “You Really Got Me” or The Who’s “Substitute”, it became obvious that what is called power pop, a phrase coined by The Who’s Pete [...]
Lucy Spraggan Today Was A Good Day Cooking Vinyl Naming your album Today Was A Good Day is certainly a good indication of how the artist feels at the moment. And with her fifth album, UK singer/songwriter Lucy Spraggan obviously feels in a good [...]
The Last Bees The Last Bees Independent By the first few notes of his debut EP it becomes obvious that Milwaukee’s Ian Nash, or basically The Last Bees loves The Beatles, particularly their pre-Rubber Soul sound. Who doesn’t? But many might see [...]
James Parm Oh My Darling Independent How do you reconcile with personal breakup? One way is to take a long trip far away, and James Parm left Montreal for South East Asia after his breakup. When he returned, he had not lost his girlfriend, but [...]
Ashley Wilson Paint The Sky Independent For artists who are just starting to gain some notoriety, the natural tendency is to compare them to more familiar names. Though categorizing music can provide a sense of order for listeners trying to [...]
Gordon Lightfoot The Complete Singles 1970-1980 Real Gone Music Gordon Lightfoot is a legend in the fullest sense of the word, an honour that few musicians can claim, especially those who are still alive and active, as Lightfoot fortunately is. [...]
THE MUSIC SOUNDS BETTER WITH WHOM? GRACIE MANAGEMENT PRODUCTIONS JANUARY 26, 2019 “As artificial intelligence continues to impact our human lives, many questions still remain… How will artificial intelligence impact one of the most human things [...]
The Camino Side Project Of Movement & Music Paul Farran Music Montreal’s Paul Farran has quite an interesting story, and instead of picking up a pen, paintbrush, or mobile camera, he has decided to tell it in the form of a musical [...]
Dave Allen Live At The Five & Dime Independent Toronto’s Dave Allen came up with When The Demons Come, one of the more sublime debut albums of 2017 and still he seems to be flying under the radar. Trying to rectify the situation and in [...]
DEREK & DAVE PHILPOTT – DEAR MR. POP STAR UNBOUND – SEPTEMBER 20, 2018 BOOK REVIEW BY LJUBINKO ZIVKOVIC The premise for this book is brilliant – a father somewhere in Britain keeps complaining to his son about the linguistic and [...]
Blitzen Trapper Furr (10th Anniversary Deluxe Edition) Sub Pop Did you ever wonder what a compendium album of roots/americana music with a psychedelic twist and rooted in the late ’60s early ’70s west coast sound would sound like, [...]
Merry Clayton Merry Clayton Real Gone Music Strange is the fate of backup singers. Many have extraordinary talents, but rarely get anything beyond a mention in the liner notes, and rarely even get a chance to have a solo recording. The case of [...]
Reuben & The Dark Arms Of A Dream Arts & Crafts Anybody a bit more familiar with Calgary’s Ruben & The Dark has known them so far as just yet another set of indie folkies, albeit with the leader Reuben Bullock possessing an excellent [...]
Megan Bonnell Separate Rooms Cadence Music Group Three albums into her musical career and Megan Bonnell is ready to become a name that is recognizable beyond Canadian borders. While her previous two albums, Hunts and Chase and Magnolia, have [...]
Dana Buoy Ice Glitter Gold Everloving Akron/Family are (were?) one of those bands from whose inception you were never on a sure ground. On record or live (even better), you were never sure what to expect. From acapella gospel, through to folk [...]
Idiot Grins State Of Health Snug Harbor Records Harkening back to bygone musical times requires detailed musical knowledge and perception, but also a vision of what kind of sound needs to be brought back. Miss out on any of these points and it [...]
The Country Liners Mary Jane Dunphe & Chris McDonnell In The County Liners Warf Cat Records “Way out west,” to quote Big Star, they love to “roll & tumble” with their country rock. And Olympia, Washington quartet The County Liners with [...]
The Flux Machine Hurricane Independent How do you mix a good cocktail that will pump you up, get you moving, jump around so that at one point you can simply drop? Usually, it means that you need at least two strong drinks, maybe even three, [...]
Dave Allen When The Demons Come Independent Dave Allen has released When the Demons Come, a stone cold brilliant album that absolutely should not become a tiny footnote of, in this case, Canada and Toronto’s (and even broader) music history. [...]
Various Artists Stranger Things (Soundtrack From The Netflix Original Series) Legacy Recordings There are so many ways you can approach making an album out of an original soundtrack – from slap dash pile of anything that has an even remote [...]
