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 [...]
Various Artists Stax Country Stax Records Would anyone have expected a country music album from the stalwart Southern soul label Stax? Nevertheless, while there is a history of overlap between country and soul/r&b, this release might still [...]
Julien Baker Turn Out The Lights Matador Records Julien Baker’s new album Turn Out the Lights is emotionally disarming, as her talent as a songwriter/lyricist/singer makes itself known. While her debut Sprained Ankle was an all acoustic [...]
Dirty Fences Goodbye Love Greenway Records You walk into a punk/heavy rock dive, you’re seriously craving a greasy burger and an even more seriously cold beer. Oh, and you want to hear a band that is first of all loud, but tight and musically [...]
Little Coyote The Trouble With Teeth EggHunt Records Debut albums can be a tough affair, for the artists making them and for the listeners encountering an artist they are not familiar with no matter how much they’ve heard about them beforehand, [...]
Michael Nau The Load Suicide Squeeze Sometimes, no matter how good you are or how hard you try — or both — you just have an extremely hard time making it. It can be any reason or combination of them: too little exposure, too much [...]
Electric Youth Breathing Milan Records Sometimes it is hard not to pigeonhole a band based on its name. After all, the Toronto duo Austin Garrick and Bronwyn Griffin named their band after a Debbie Gibson album. With the electro-pop tag attached [...]
The Persian Leaps Bicycle Face EP Land Ski Records Everybody who thinks they have something to say about music at some point mentions originality. Sure, great, but what do they exactly have in mind? Something exceptional, never heard before, a [...]
The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart The Echo Of Pleasure Painbow Records The fourth album by Kip Berman’s The Pains of Being Pure at Heart is called The Echo of Pleasure. The album has been out for a while and many initial opinions jumped onto the [...]
The Dan Ryan Guidance Cosmic Dreamer Some albums hit you straight away, right in your chest, feet, head, or all of those. Some, on the other hand are slow evolving affairs, unfolding note by note in front of your ears, either to be simply [...]
My Favourite Things Fly I Will, Because I Can Independent You really have to be a bit cheeky to name your band My Favourite Things. This was one of the main themes from the Mary Poppins move which became one of signature John Coltrane tunes upon [...]
John Murry A Short History Of Decay Latent Recordings Some artists suddenly crop up, come up with some brilliant music, get critical accolades, and then, as if there is an invisible border, they simply cannot cross it. It can be that the [...]
