Shapes and Sizes!

Shapes and Sizes is my new favourite band. I'm pretty sure that it's your new favourite band, too.

Divorce Records News

I received an email today with an update on one of my favourite Halifax music families, Divorce Records.

"A Divorce Records showcase is happening Friday, March 25 around 7:30 p.m. at One World Cafe - $5. The show is part of the North by North End Festival and will feature Gilbert Switzer, The Hold, Be Bad, and Attack Mode. Next weekend Divorce will be releasing Die Like An Animal Dies - A Compilation of Noise and Other Fringe Music From Nova Scotia. The album features some of the most bizarre and interesting music being made in this region. A release show will take place March 25th at The One World Cafe - 7:00 p.m. - $5. Torso, S-Slaytor, Thee Meugicians, Jef Jef, Pastemaker, Dogs of Art, and Shit Cook will be performing. Albums will be available in Halifax at CD Plus and Taz Records. You can also order online at www.divorcerecords.ca.

Coming in April... Gilbert Switzer/The Hold Split 7 Inch - State of Nature and in June... Be Bad/Attack Mode Split 7 Inch."

Honey from the Tombs!

The subject line is the name of Amy Millan from Stars' first solo album! I have been looking forward to this for awhile. A track called "Skinny Boy" is available for download if you go here.

I'm not sure how I feel about this song yet. I like the song but I think it's just the instrumentation and production that I'm not a fan of. I guess I was expecting something similar to Stars or Broken Social Scene (it's probably a good thing that it's not), but instead this song sounds like Shaye with a guest appearance by Amy Millan. Perhaps it will grow on me. Perhaps it won't. Either way, I'm still going to get this album when it comes out.

Here are the details:

Amy Millan's solo album, "Honey from the Tombs" will be available on May 30, 2006. The album was recorded over three years in three different studios and produced by Sir Ian Blurton. It features performances from the bluegrass band, "Crazy Strings," as well as fellow Stars Chris Seligman and Evan Cranley, Broken Social Scene's Kevin Drew and Brendan Canning, Charles Spearin of Do Make Say Think and Jimmy Shaw of Metric.

Amy will soon embark on a summer tour across Canada and Europe in support of the new album. Please visit arts-crafts.ca for tour dates and more information.

In Memory.

"We love in another's soul whatever of ourselves we can deposit in it; the greater the deposit, the greater the love." - Irving Layton

"A poet, short-story writer, and essayist, Irving Layton is perhaps the most well-known of the Montreal poets, a group of young poets who engaged in a battle against romanticism in poetry in the 1940's. Layton has published many poetry collections, including A Red Carpet for the Sun (1959) which won the Governor General's Award. Layton has been poet-in-residence at various Canadian universities and was professor of English at York University 1969-78. Layton was nominated for the Nobel Prize in 1981."

Globe and Mail: "His often boisterous behaviour and anti-bourgeois attitude earned him as many admirers as it did detractors, and his notoriety became legendary among Canadian poets." Read more here.

Fintal Fantasty Times!

There is an article on Final Fantasy aka Owen Pallett written by Carl Wilson aka Zoilus aka my favourite author Shelia Heti's husband in the New York Times. Check it out here: The World's Most Popular Gay Postmodern Harpsichord Nerd.

Thanks to Shawn for the heads up on this article.

Top 5 Labels of 2005!

CocoRosie
5. The Leaf Label
See: Caribou and Colleen

4. Young God Records
See: Akron/Family, Mi and L'au, and Angels of Light

3. Asthmatic Kitty Records
See: Sufjan Stevens and Castanets

2. Fat Cat Records
See: Animal Collective and Vashti Bunyan

1. Voodoo-EROS
See: The Enlightened Family and Diane Cluck
Started by CocoRosie's Bianca Casady and her friend Melissa Shimkovitz, Voodoo-EROS is quite new with only two releases under their belt: The Enlightened Family compilation and Diane Cluck's Countless Times. The Enlightened Family is my favourite compilation of the year because it captures the innovative and unique projects we can expect from this label in the future - "rare and secret music compiled in NYC and scattered around the world... [the compilation] is like the blueprint of a loosely bound family, heritage unknown, generations melting into one another." Tracks from Jana Hunter, Diane Cluck, Vashti Bunyan, Patrick Wolf, and Devendra Banhart stand out Also, tracks from CocoRosie's two side projects are a welcome addition: the "baby metal" of Metallic Falcons (Sierra's sideproject) and the loose, and tropical hip-hop of Island Folk Lore (Bianca's sideproject).

Listen to some tracks from both releases at the Voodoo-EROS website.

Label to watch out for in 2006: Gnomongsong (formed by Revolver USA, Devendra Banhart and Vetiver’s Andy Cabic). Their first release is Jana Hunter's Blank Unstaring Heirs of Doom. Read an article about the label here.

Top 10 Albums of 2005!

It's that time of year! We reflect, think about what we could have done and think about what we did do. This list reflects what I did do - or listened to - in terms of music. Let me know what your favourite releases of 2005 are!

10. Bell Orchestre - Recording a Tape the Colour of Light

When all the lights of the city fade, Bell Orchestre’s music will be there. Weaving through the streets. Cutting through the fog, shadows and commercial signs of the city. Sparkling in our eyes. They are our voice. We are those who still see the beauty in the world. Hidden in corners, idiosyncrasies, and simplicity. We are those who see why darkness is an absence of colour. The colours will never breathe until we have light. And light is something we create. They realize that when you have so much colour in one place, it seems as though there is an absence of it. The trick is to focus on the details, in every niche. That's where the colour sits. Waiting to be discovered.

MP3: Throw It On a Fire

9. Jana Hunter - Blank Unstaring Heirs of Doom

It’s easy to think that Jana Hunter has made her way into the hearts of freak-folk lovers because of Devendra Banhart. She and Banhart released a split LP together and Blank Unstaring Heirs of Doom is the first release on Banhart’s new label, Gnomongsong. Also, Banhart seems to be the go-to guy for musical recommendations within the freak-folk genre (see: Golden Apples of the Sun). Despite the Banhart connection – and the ever popular anthromorphogenic drawing on her album – Hunter would have likely found her way to ears outside of her native Texas without his aid — even though it probably would have taken a little longer. Her lyrics are thought-provokingly dark and melodies unassumingly simple.

MP3: The New Sane Scramble

8. Caribou - The Milk of Human Kindness

Even though this album is eighth on my list, it’s the last one that I’m reviewing. I saved this one until the end because I really can’t describe why I like it so much. It may have something to do with the fact that Caribou makes electronica sound organic. You know what? That is exactly it! And that is all I’m going to say.

MP3: Hello Hammerheads

7. Final Fantasy - Has a Good Home

The plot line for a video game based on Has a Good Home: A broken family goes their separate ways to search for truth in life while the video game-loving little brother mans the fort, so to speak, and cleans up the rubble. Battling personal demons and left-over negativity with the remaining positivity, the hero attempts to bring the family back together by staying in one place, writing songs, and then attaching the recordings to pigeons who carry them to their lost family members (note: the pigeon reference is solely based on the fact that I love pigeons and has nothing to do with Final Fantasy or any of his songs).

MP3: CN Tower

6. Buck 65 - Secret House Against the World

The first time I heard this album was at a listening station in Sam the Record Man. I wasn’t very impressed. I’ve always liked and respected Buck 65 but never could really get into his music — other than a one month obsession with Square three years ago. I always thought that he was over-hyped just because he was doing something original. Was I ever wrong. I love this album. Every. Single. Song. It is obvious why he notes Burkowski and Johnny Cash as influences — his lyrics are straight to the point and, at times, laced with poetics.

MP3: Kennedy Killed the Hat

5. Broken Social Scene - Broken Social Scene

There's always an urge to compare artists' new creations to what they've done before. Broken Social Scene's previous release, You Forgot it in People, was simple, affecting and spoke to the teenage boy or girl sitting alone in their suburban bedroom dreaming of a better world. The band's self-titled release of this year uses the same suburban setting but speaks to everyone at the same time. Broken Social Scene's music has moved from suburban bedroom rock to suburban house rock - meandering from the secrets in the basement to the mysteries in the attic and filling everything in between.

MP3: 7/4 (Shoreline)

4. Gang Gang Dance - God’s Money

The title God’s Money sums up the dichotomy found within Gang Gang Dance’s music. It’s music that feels like the universe conspiring between the crotch of your pants and your heart. There is a transcendent, spiritual quality to this album — an individual listening effort as you reflect on a life worth living. But there is also a very tribal, primal quality to it — ethereal, stream-of-consciousness vocals float over the instrumentation that is, at times, weaving through space and then, at other times, locked in corners, trying to beat its way through the walls.

MP3: Nomad for Love (Cannibal)

3. Animal Collective - Feels

It happens all the time. One of your favourite bands releases a new album and they do something completely different. Some fans love it and embrace the band for their departure; others hate it. I’m sure some Animal Collective fans don’t like Feels because it’s their most accessible, pop-friendly release to date. While it’s not a huge departure from Sung Tongs, there are marked differences — namely (and personally speaking) there is more of a wistfulness to Feels whereas Sung Tongs was weighted in its primal, devilish quality. For an artist like Joni Mitchell, for example, I can understand the backlash that emerged because of her strange duet-with-a-bass jazz stuff in the 80's, but you have to embrace the tangents that the Animal Collective pursue.

MP3: Grass

2. CocoRosie - Noah’s Ark

CocoRosie's music maintains, at the base, the simplicity of a bluesy folk song you
know you've heard before but never have. Beyond that, things are more open. Literally. There is so much space found within their songs that it's easy to get lost inside of them. The sister duo does their best to guide the listener through, but still leaves quite an amount of open-endedness. The songs on Noah's Ark are elevated by hip-hop beats, electronica, field recordings, children's toys and vocals that are, at times, operatic and, at others, childlike. The most seductive element of CocoRosie's music is that it's very unaware of itself like a child. It's almost as if everything occurs accidentally. As a result, CocoRosie's music creates a dreamlike world similar to those we remember from our own childhood.

MP3: Noah's Ark

1. Sufjan Stevens - Illinois

Out of every single album that was due to be released this year, this was my most anticipated. It also tops my year end list. Maps are poetry and Stevens uses them as a starting point on his states project. Where Michigan – his first states album – focussed more on Stevens personal experiences within the state, Illinois captures the general realities of the state and uses them as a metaphor to critique many United States ideologies. Stevens creates music that both my grandmother and my little brother would like. Some rock star said that if you like music that your family would like then you have bad taste. Fuck him.

MP3: John Wayne Gacy Jr.

Special Mentions: Antony and the Johnsons - I am a Bird Now, Vashti Bunyan - Lookaftering, M.I.A. - Arular, Akron/Family - Akron, Family, voodooEROS - The Enlightened Family, Silver Mt. Zion - Horses in the Sky, Chad VanGaalen - Infiniheart, Sigur Ros - Takk, Castanets - First Light’s Freeze, Six Organs of Admittance - School of the Flower, Mi and L’au - s/t, Patrick Wolf - Wind in the Wires