Photograph by Jason Halstead

Provincial is John K. Samson’s first full-length solo album. Collecting re-recorded versions of songs from his previously released EPs City Route 85 and Provincial Road 222, along with a few extras, the Weakerthans’ frontman finds himself able to explore a bit musically and indulge in a bit of weirdness.

Not that anything here would be particularly out of place on a Weakerthans album, but the subject matter is certainly more varied, and as a whole the album is more subdued. Most noticeable is ‘http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/rivertonrifle/’ formerly known as ‘Petition’, which is less a song and more a plea to get hockey player (and fellow Manitoba native) Reggie Leach into the Hall of Fame. ‘Stop Error’ is much improved on this record, as Samson’s solo vocals evoke more pathos than the awkward choir found on the EP. Though the Call of Duty 4 shout-out is still a little jarring. ‘The Last And’ is as good as ever, and the knowledge that it was inspired by the relationship of Edna Krabappel and Seymour Skinner only improves that. As for the new songs, the clear stand-out is ‘When I Write My Master’s Thesis’. More upbeat than the rest of the album, still name-dropping video games (take that Lana del Rey), anyone who’s been in grad school can relate to the light at the end of the tunnel Samson presents here.

With Samson’s body of work, it’s strange to call Provincial a debut, but in any case, it’s a successful one. Now get to work on that all-Virtute concept album, Samson.

John K. Samson – Cruise Night
John K. Samson – When I Write My Master’s Thesis
John K. Samson – Stop Error

Photograph by Jon Bergman

With no obvious favourite as in past years, we here at Ca Va Cool were left to our own devices when choosing the ten best albums of 2011. Much like the first half of our list, the top ten features a stylistic array from the year’s offerings. Plenty to enjoy, from sincere and contrived chill vibes to literary-rock, dubstep to soft-rock verging on quiet storm, and our first top album to be a debut. As always, thanks for reading. See you in 2012.

10. Handsome Furs – Sound Kapital

Dan Boeckner and Alexei Perry seem forever changed by their travels throughout Eastern Europe and Asia. They’ve created a sparse, yet pulsating album in Sound Kapital, inspired by the kids in regions of the world who love music so much that they risk imprisonment by making it. The album is dark, loud, and penetrating with a focus more on beats and vocals than the duo’s earlier, more guitar-based offerings. Boeckner’s voice remains simply one of the most authentic and powerful around, and one only has to see the Handsome Furs live to witness their commitment to the music and those that inspired it. Songs like ‘Serve the People’, ‘Cheap Music’ and ‘No Feelings’ seem to embody not only the headspace they were in when creating the album, but make me believe that the demise of Wolf Parade was worth the tears. — Christian Kraeker

Handsome Furs – Cheap Music

09. Youth Lagoon – The Year of Hibernation

Describing the artist’s eternal dilemma in 2008, beefcake and introvert getaway driver, Ryan Gosling, said: “You know when you’re a kid and you get crayons and papers and just draw whatever you want and it’s just a bunch of messy lines, but to you it makes sense, and then they put it on the fridge? From that point on, you’re always trying to get back on the fridge, you start drawing things that look like something, like, the more it looks like a horse, the more chance you have of getting it on the fridge.” This quote came to mind when thinking of where Trevor Powers’ solo project Youth Lagoon fits in the realm of 2011’s music scene: that place before the fridge. With words like “epic,” “lush,” and “dense” being used to describe his contemporaries, the simplicity and sincerity of Youth Lagoon’s genre-less debut is what set it apart this year. “I just want to make honest songs,” Powers said to earlier this year. Goal achieved, Trevor. — Sal Patel

Youth Lagoon – Montana

08. James Blake

I’ve had some good times with James Blake this past year. While I was fortunate enough to see Blake play in sunny Barcelona during Primavera Sound Festival in May, it was through a pair of old speakers in a Montreal apartment in November that I realized how much the record really meant to me. The moment itself was far-flung from the vast crowds, overpowering bass, and elaborate stages of Parc del Forum – just a few friends gathered around a record player quietly listening to Blake’s shaky croon. The simple appeal in that instant was reliving the feelings of memories been and gone – a gentle reminder that in the span of ‘Lindisfarne’ four seasons have fluttered passed. Trudging through snow with ‘The Wilhelm Scream’; the bloom of tulips with ‘Unluck’; muggy nights with ‘Measurements’; and the glow of Jack-o-Lantern’s with ‘I Mind’. If nothing else, James Blake is a record of the distance we cover in a year – might as well fall in. — Jan Kucic-Riker

James Blake – The Wilhelm Scream

07. Wye Oak – Civilian

2011 was the year Wye Oak broke. Riding the wave of hype and goodwill from 2009’s The Knot and becoming the A.V. Club’s most valuable cover-band, Civilian, their third album, dropped earlier this year to critical acclaim. Darker and more introspective than their previous work, Civilian contains heavy hitters like the title track, and more subdued tracks like ‘We Were Wealth’. The common thread here is the sheer amount of sound coming at you at any given moment. Jenn Wasner is a hell of a singer and guitarist, and Andy Stack’s unique billing as a drummer/keyboardist adds a great percussion section. Already having earned spots opening for the likes of the National and the Decemberists, 2012 is looking very bright. There’s no better duo in the business. — Kevin Kania

Wye Oak – Civilian

06. Library Voices – Summer of Lust

If you didn’t see Library Voices perform live this past year, there’s a very important New Year’s resolution for you. I spent a fair amount of time this year growing to know and love this seven-member lit-pop ensemble, both on stage and on record, and am looking forward to more of the same in 2012. Summer of Lust is a great album for supporting a great live act, filled with high-impact, high-minded songs on subjects that are sure to have made someone’s old high school English teacher very proud. Songs to sit and think about, or to get up and dance about, are rare enough; having both in one package is enough to make you want to burst out in handclaps. — Josh Penslar

05. Washed Out – Within and Without

At a time when the death knells were tolling for chillwave, Ernest Greene breathed new life into the minimalist ambient pop genre with his debut LP, Within and Without. Considerably cleaner, sparser, and calmer than his preceding EPs High Times and Life of Leisure, Greene maintained his wistful poetry, DIY aesthetic and beach-tune-inspired warmth. Sparkling bright moments (‘Amor Fati’, ‘Soft’, ‘Before’) are intermingled with darker, more somber songs (‘Echoes’, ‘Within and Without’, ‘ A Dedication’), allowing listeners to cascade into a beautifully haunting dreamscape. And while the mellow, sun-drenched melodies of the album led to its status as a summer soundtrack, nothing warms up the winter like a little glo-fi. — Sabrina Diemert

Washed Out – Amor Fati

04. Fleet Foxes – Helplessness Blues

Helplessness Blues finds Fleet Foxes pushing forward new musical ideas while staying true to traditional folk roots. ‘The Shrine/An Argument’ showcases this at its peak. While starting with only lead singer Robin Pecknold’s voice and his acoustic guitar, the 8-minute, 3-part song finishes with a sprawl of woodwinds and strings that take the song on a journey on par with Radiohead’s Kid A epic ‘The National Anthem’. ’The Plains/Bitter Dancer’ is another example of the band pushing forward with traditional ideas, creating atmospheric and haunting soundscapes with vocal harmonies layered upon each other. It gives an almost machine like quality to the natural sound of their voices. However, it’s the songwriting itself that is the biggest leap forward for the band. Though the songs on their debut are timeless and well crafted, the songs on Helplessness Blues bring very personal and thoughtful views on the world and finding ones place and purpose in it. — Kyle Sikorski

Fleet Foxes – The Shrine / An Argument

03. Bon Iver

If For Emma, Forever Ago was winter, Bon Iver is spring. Bon Iver’s sophomore album presents an entirely different Justin Vernon than we are all accustomed to. The snow has thawed and on opener ‘Perth’ we can already hear flowing water, wind chimes, and the blooming of an electric guitar. Gone is the DIY approach, the Wisconsin cabin in the woods, and the cold loneliness that filled it. His sound has transformed from an acoustic isolation into an electrified celebration. With an array of strings, organs, electric guitars, thundering drums, and some awesome synthesizers, Vernon and company have created an album that is rich with peaks and valleys, moments of joy and despair, with lyrics that become more subjectively introspective after every listen. It is personal, yet made for everyone. From ‘Perth’, to ‘Calgary’, to the incredible ‘Beth/Rest’ (don’t disagree on this because you’re wrong), all songs tap into Bon Iver’s new sound. Vernon has matured from a lonely cabin boy to an explosive composer, traveling through real and fictional locations, bringing along his sound and shouting it from the thawing mountaintops to the babbling brooks. — Alec Ross

Bon Iver – Beth/Rest

02. Destroyer – Kaputt

Dan Bejar has always been something of a polarizing figure, but with Kaputt the only divide I’m willing to recognize is between those who love the album and those who haven’t yet heard it. Bejar set about applying his distinctive lyrics and vocals to a familiar, albeit distant, pop sound – borrowing from the influences of smooth jazz, new age, and soft rock – and the result was a brilliantly unassailable success. Nearly every track on the album, which is remarkably consistent for a Destroyer release, feels expertly crafted and resonates long after the horns and guitars dissipate into Destroyer’s signature creeping fog. Though it’s nearly a full year old now, this is the album I’ll remember best from 2011. It put down a marker and set the tone for a terrific year of music to come. — Will Morrison

Destroyer – Savage Night at the Opera

01. Yuck

Just one listen to the amped-up classics ‘Georgia’ or ‘Operation’ and you know these London twenty-somethings bleed Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr., and the rest of the canon. Further listens to ‘Suicide Policeman’ and ‘Suck’ reveal that Yuck are off-kilter romantics with a penchant for melodies akin to Built to Spill, Yo La Tengo, and most difficult of all, Teenage Fanclub. But better than accurately recreating some of the noisiest/best music of the ‘80s and ‘90s, Yuck’s real accomplishment on their self-titled debut is their ability to capture the feeling of discovery that music fans are all too familiar with and have longed for ever since they listened to that mix CD of Smiths singles from their older brother, or whatever. Appropriately, Yuck aren’t a band maturing; better than that, they’re a band going through puberty. Earlier this year, guitarist Daniel Blumberg admitted with refreshing frankness that he listened to Pavement for the first time a couple of years ago and that his favourite band growing up was blink-182. This is a period that musicians and fans rarely discuss and are only reminded of when confronted with the awkward question of the first album they owned, but I remember it fondly when I listen to Yuck, if only for the sheer amount of  music I had yet to hear. Yuck is the sound of a band simultaneously discovering and creating music they love, and we love too. — Daniel Hernandez

Yuck – Operation

Ca Va Cool’s Best Albums of 2011

20. The Rural Alberta Advantage – Departing
19. Austra – Feel It Break
18. M83 – Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming
17. I Break Horses – Hearts
16. Kurt Vile – Smoke Ring for My Halo
15. Feist – Metals
14. Wild Flag
13. The Weeknd – House of Balloons
12. tUnE-yArDs – w h o k i l l
11. The War on Drugs – Slave Ambient
10. Handsome Furs – Sound Kapital
09. Youth Lagoon – The Year of Hibernation
08. James Blake
07. Wye Oak – Civilian
06. Library Voices – Summer of Lust
05. Washed Out – Within and Without
04. Fleet Foxes – Helplessness Blues
03. Bon Iver
02. Destroyer – Kaputt
01. Yuck

Photograph by Anna M. Campbell

As Ca Va Cool concludes its fifth year and the arbitrary music-ranking period of 2011 comes to a close, the gang assembled (virtually) once again to bring you our twenty favourite albums of the year. The bottom half of our list features riot grrrls old and new, an R&B resurrection, and, interestingly, most of the Philadelphia rock scene. Stay tuned for the conclusion of our list with the ten best albums of 2011, when we get around to it.

20. The Rural Alberta Advantage - Departing

Arriving in the dead of winter early this year, Departing lived up to high expectations by not really departing at all from the rock ‘n’ nostalgia formula that powered the Rural Alberta Advantage’s 2009 debut Hometowns. A new batch of crafty songs from Nils Edenloff continues to blur the line between homesickness and heartbreak; Paul Banwatt’s manic beats continue to provide the gasoline. Feeling more and more comfortable in their shoes as a dedicated three-piece ensemble, Edenloff, Banwatt, and keyboardist Amy Cole focus on what they’re best at: compelling, unpretentious indie-folk drawn through the emotional mesh of all that we must leave behind. Plus some kickass drums. — Josh Penslar

The Rural Alberta Advantage – Coldest Days

19. Austra – Feel It Break

After several years of building hype in Canada and honing her unique sound, Katie Stelmanis has finally arrived in a big way, in the form of Austra. The band’s debut album, Feel It Break, is an icy hot blast of synth-pop, capable of shattering and melting at equal intervals. Throughout this dark and dramatic album, Stelmanis manages to seamlessly blend a modern, danceable pulse into the band’s operatic orchestrations. Like a pint-sized Pompidou, she’s even turned showing off her pipes into a part of the dance itself. Her ethereal, soaring vocals are the standout feature of this album, and should leave you looking forward to what else Stelmanis has in store. — Will Morrison

Austra – Lose It

18. M83 – Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming

M83′s music is regularly described as “epic”, which is unfortunate, but accurate. So when Anthony Gonzalez announced that his first double album would be “very, very, very epic”, I had to wonder how much further he could really take it. As Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming revealed, not only had M83 not completed their electronic fairytale – futurist in style, wistful in sentiment – they had only just begun. Guest Zola Jesus sets the tone for the proceedings on ‘Intro’ as she remembers “We didn’t need a story, we didn’t need a real world…and we became the stories, we became the places.” What follows is M83’s crowning achievement and probably track of the year, ‘Midnight City’, which successfully bottles every facet of M83’s youthful exuberance into four minutes. Those are just the first two tracks, but there are four sides to this classic, and none of it was rushed. — Daniel Hernandez

M83 – Midnight-City

17. I Break Horses – Hearts

I Break Horses are yet another talented band from Sweden. The duo of Maria Linden and Fredrik Balck perfectly meld together 1990s shoegaze with the now fashionable 1980s electronic revivalist sound to create a stunningly current effect. The album is incredibly deep with sound, layering texture upon texture with Linden’s soft and beautiful vocals providing structure and balance, as much of an instrument as anything else. Songs build, swell and fade as true to the genres form. Although this formula has been around for decades, I find myself drawn to their ability to make it emotional and raw, yet distant at the same time. This is an extremely mature debut and if the two are able to continue on in this path, I Break Horses will definitely be a band to watch. — Christian Kraeker

I Break Horses – Hearts

16. Kurt Vile – Smoke Ring for My Halo

Kurt Vile is able to express everything from the thoughts and worries of the common working man, much like Bruce Springsteen, to the frustrations of the creative minds that are often hard to understand, reminiscent of Bob Dylan. Though it’s not the easiest record to slip into, it’s its weirdness that keeps you coming back, trying to discover the heart of each song. Opening track ‘Baby’s Arms’ could have been a standard acoustic opener, but the thick texture gives it that extra something always constant in Kurt Vile’s quiet songs — quiet songs that are never too quiet. Smoke Ring also finds Vile rocking out as on ‘Puppet to the Man’, which hints at the the psychedelic nature of his live shows with his backing band the Violators. There are bigger and better things to come from Kurt Vile, but Smoke Ring for My Halo has solidified his name among the best of them writing music today. — Kyle Sikorski

Kurt Vile – Baby’s Arms

15. Feist – Metals

Perhaps the most enigmatic album on this list, Metals doesn’t reveal itself easily. Borne on a cliff side studio in Big Sur, the record is lush with Thoreau-inspired allusions to nature. While Metals is an introspective evocation of sounds that find themselves at home amongst mountains and birds, it has the capacity to explode in a human way, too. Metals eschews the pop-dynamics of The Reminder opting to invest in simplicity and subtlety. The record has no distinct beginning, middle, and end, just a patchwork of stories simultaneously undulating between start and finish. Feist’s languid vocals fall in and out of focus as they string together themes of nature, love, and life. The wistful melodies of ‘Anti-Pioneer’ creep along the heavy bass line and uncover themselves to those patient. Given room to grow, the beauty and diversity of Metals envelops you in much the same way. — Jan Kucic-Riker

Feist – Anti-Pioneer

14. Wild Flag

It’s been a good year for Carrie Brownstein. Following the creation of the brilliant Portlandia with Saturday Night Live’s Fred Armisen, Brownstein returned to the music scene with Wild Flag, her first band since Sleater-Kinney’s break-up. Also featuring ex-Sleater-Kinney drummer Janet Weiss, as well as former members of Helium and The Minders, Wild Flag’s self-titled debut is ten tracks of catchy, punky, rock ‘n’ roll. The whole album is a treat, but the highlight here is the opening track, ‘Romance’. More than simply Sleater-Kinney with keyboards, Wild Flag is one of the best debuts of the year, even if most of the faces are familiar. Riot grrrl lives! — Kevin Kania

Wild Flag – Romance

13. The Weeknd – House of Balloons

“Getting everyone nervous, ‘cus them hipsters gon have to get along with them hood niggas,” Drake prophesized on an early and forgotten mixtape-cut ‘Ignant Shit’ in 2009. Fast-forward two and half years and the line rings truer than ever when thinking about his spawn, The Weeknd’s, place in music. It’s hard to think of a more successful crossover act in 2011, fusing a minimal ’90s R&B aesthetic with Beach House and Cocteau Twins samples. Alongside seedy and bleak sex and drug-laden lyrics, this musical fusion accounts for how House of Balloons single-handedly resurrected the comatose genre of R&B this year, sparked an interest in contemporaries like Frank Ocean, and birthed a sure to be future star in lead, Abel Tesfaye. Drake was right – seems them hipsters are gettin along with them hood niggas on this one. — Sal Patel

The Weeknd – House of Balloons / Glass Table Girls

12. tUnE-yArDs – w h o k i l l

In naming tUnE-yArD’s sophomore album, Merrill Garbus gave a nod to Ann Jones’ influential book on women and violence, Women Who Kill. By dropping ‘women’ from the title, Garbus didn’t diminish the prominent role of feminist themes in the album, but extended her artistic endeavour beyond the gender arena. Through the narration of various characters, Garbus delves into an exploration of power struggles in different spheres: eating disorders, abusive relationships, city violence and poverty. Despite the dense themes, irregular typography and designation as an experimental pop album, w h o k i l l is neither inaccessible nor does it take itself too seriously. Some of the lyrically heavier tracks are cloaked in a deceptive ’60s girl group vibe, others are frenetically danceable, and yearnings of gang affiliation are rendered earnestly goofy. With her powerfully idiosyncratic voice and an intricacy of loop pedal work that never ceases to amaze in live performances, Merrill is definitely a new kind of woman. — Sabrina Diemert

tUnE-yArDs – Gangsta

11. The War on Drugs – Slave Ambient

My original opening line for this blurb went like this, “Combine equal parts Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen with a dash of Kurt Vile for edginess and you have the War on Drugs.” Bad cooking metaphors aside, I later understood why this line sucked. First, it read like a poorly plagiarized version of the band’s Wikipedia entry. Second, I realized that Kurt Vile was a former member of the band, so the reference made both perfect sense and no sense at all. I learned a couple things from this experience. First, I can play spot-the-references just as well as any Wikipedia contributor. Second, I don’t know why I like this band so much or why Slave Ambient made it onto this list. It may be both so simple and obvious, the specifics elude me. The War on Drugs are a talented, straight-forward rock band and Slave Ambient is a well-produced, straight-forward rock record. — Justin Everett

The War on Drugs – Come to the City

Continue Reading ‘Best Albums of 2011′ Feature List »

Photograph by Vanessa Heins

It’s been a busy few years for Hey Rosetta!, Newfoundland’s premier indie music export. They’ve become a fixture on the Polaris Prize shortlist and toured their ambitious Can-rock virtually non-stop, though judging by their multiple sellout crowds at the cavernous Phoenix in Toronto this week, the country is still in the mood to hear more. In that spirit, I joined frontman Tim Baker and cellist/guitarist/utility outfielder Romesh Thavanathan on one of the band’s rare days off for a traditional Toronto burrito lunch. Read on if you’ve ever wondered about the hidden gems of the St. John’s music scene, or how to start a rock band without owning an electric guitar, or what kind of burrito a true Newfoundlander enjoys.

Hey Rosetta! – Yer Fall
Hey Rosetta! – Welcome

Josh: First things first. What kind of burritos did you get, and why?

Romesh Thavanathan: I got the large halibut, because I’m a baller.

Tim Baker:  I got the small halibut, because I’m not a baller, or at least less of a baller.

Josh: With a couple days off in Toronto before your next show, what are you getting up to?

Both: Recovery. [Laughs]

Tim: It’s been a long run and a long time since we’ve had any days off. I think the last time we had a few was a month and a half ago, when we got to Australia.

Josh: How was Australia?

Tim: It was great just being there. The vibe is so amazing. Really laid back, really sunny. We got to drive through the countryside, got to play a lot of smaller towns that we never knew existed, towns with names like Toowoomba and Coolangatta and Ballarat.

Josh: I’ll have to Google those to see about how to spell them.

Romesh: They’re a lot of fun to say.

Josh: Your third album Seeds just came out earlier this year. What’s different about it, compared to your older stuff – what’s changed, and what direction are you headed?

Tim: I think the biggest difference between this record and the last is the two years we’ve spent on the road—two years of listening to music and fully living in the role of being in a band. It’s really focused us more on the craft of writing and recording.

When we recorded the last album, Into Your Lungs, our attitude was very much about the songs, rather than about crafting a sound. And [Into Your Lungs producer] Hawksley Workman recognized that. We didn’t have a lot of time in the studio for that album, so everything was recorded using the same setup for every song: same drum miking, same kit, same guitars. Hawk is just amazing at creating a really good feeling and a really good vibe, and capturing that in sound.

But this time, we wanted to get deeper into the sound of things—making the songs more distinct, making a soundscape. We looked at tone more closely. And that was made possible by those couple years of listening to music, playing shows, realizing how much work there is left to do and how much room there is in our small aspect of music. Tony [Doogan, producer for Belle & Sebastian and Mogwai] was amazing in that regard because he’s an absolute mad scientist with sound. He has this strategy where we’ll do an entire song from beginning to end before moving on to the next one, taking a full day or two totally devoted to one song, which helps a lot with creating distinctiveness on each track. I think it gives the record a lot more depth and a lot more scope.

[The halibut burritos arrive.]

Josh: Speaking of fish, tell us a little about St. John’s—

Romesh: Did you say “speaking of fish”?

Tim: That’s fair, actually.

Romesh: Now that’s a segue.

Josh: I think that’s the highlight of my journalistic career right there.

Romesh: St. John’s is a great place. It’s got a wonderful arts and music scene, one that doesn’t get exported as much as it should. And that’s just a fact of life being on an island that’s not very close to the rest of the country. It costs so much to get off of it that a lot of talented people just can’t afford to start touring. On the bright side, when we’re home we get to listen to a lot of fantastic music.

Josh: I’ve heard you guys describe the scene and culture there as being very collaborative, more so than in the rest of Canada.

Tim: It is, by the nature of the setting there, the isolation and the small numbers. You know, I never feel really qualified to say much about the scene in St. John’s, because I feel like I was never really a part of it. Never went to see any shows, really, until the band started. It’s only since then that I’ve realized that there is a showgoing culture in St. John’s. Well, it’s actually only since the band started that I realized showgoing culture was a real thing anywhere in the world, you know? And realized that going to see music live is, like, really awesome?

Romesh: [Laughs]

Tim: And a fun thing to do on the weekend? Who knew? But yeah, St. John’s, it’s always been an amazing place for us to be. Supportive, loyal, really amazing people.

Josh: Are there bands you’ve made a connection with back home who deserve to be world famous and aren’t yet? Want to give them a shout out?

Romesh: Pathological Lovers definitely deserve the nod in that category.

Tim: Yes. They’re just such an amazing band. Jody Richardson is the lead singer, songwriter, he’s an amazing performer and just not really interested in touring. They’re a little older in that band. Whenever we’re home they play almost every week, and it’s so sweet that they do. I never get tired of seeing them. One of my favourite bands in the world to see live.

Romish: Chad VanGaalen too. That’s another one for the list.

Josh: You’ve gotten comparisons to the Tragically Hip and Gord Downie for being a rock band that put a lot of emphasis on the lyrics. Who are your influences where lyrics are concerned?

Tim: It’s really nice to even be mentioned in the same sentence as Gord Downie. He’s got this incredible talent. He’s much freer than I am, I think, in how he writes his songs—he’s got a much freer connection between words and music that is ultimately way cooler than what I do. My songs are written almost like essays. You’re writing and a line may come to you—or something may come to you on the street and you’ll write it down—and I always want the whole song to be about that little nugget of meaning, where everything sort of reflects back onto it. It ends up being cohesive, so you can say with confidence that song X is about Y. On the other hand, Gord has this great ability where the lines don’t have to go together. Somehow, combining those disconnected lyrical images or ideas with the music just pushes them both higher, and makes it really powerful. I’ve seen him live a lot, and he’s definitely affected me. Although so does everything you listen to.

[‘These Boots Are Made For Walking’ by Nancy Sinatra plays on the radio.]

Tim: Even that.

Josh: What’s on the CD player in the van right now?

Tim: Spoon, Transference. The new Wilco record is also getting a lot of love.

Romesh: A whole lot of love, you might say.

Josh: I wasn’t going to go there. So you guys do sometimes have a fair number of swears in your songs, maybe a bit more than the average rock band. What’s the process for dealing with those?

Tim: Well, maybe if we were a band that radio really loved from day one it would be different, but I don’t think about that too much. Much to our management and label’s chagrin and disappointment. [Laughs] But we do think about it. On ‘Yer Spring’ we did a radio edit with the line “looking around in the dark” instead of “fucking around”, which I think could just as easily have been the line anyway. I don’t really consciously put them in. It’s just the way you naturally speak.

Romesh: Our moms would be ashamed.

Tim: Well, I think they hopefully understand that it’s just real, you know. That it’s emphatic, and often it’s part of a character.

Josh: You’ve created an name for yourselves as “that rock band with a string section”—the strings are a huge part of your identity. Have they been part of your music from the beginning?

Tim: In the beginning I had all these songs written, like you mentioned—stuff I’d done on my own. I’d been listening to the soundtrack to Waking Life by the Tosca Tango Orchestra, and I just fell in love with those strings on it. I really love the way that the strings deepen the poetics of music. Strings are such passionate instruments. So, originally, the plan was going to be cello and piano and a minimal bit of percussion, and then eventually…

Romesh: The boys found electric guitars.

Tim: [Laughs] Yeah, basically! I didn’t even own an electric guitar when we started.

Romesh: You didn’t? That’s awesome.

Tim: No, but I found one. And then we started remembering what it was like being in bands in high school and just rocking out. And yeah, that sort of took over. It has a way of doing that in rock music, I guess.

Josh: Romesh, has your role as a string player changed over the lifespan of the band?

Romesh: Definitely. At first Tim and our bassist Josh [Ward] were writing all the arrangements. Now we’re starting to get more involved, taking more active roles.

Josh: Do you find you face challenges other bands don’t have to deal with because of the strings?

Romesh: Live. Live can be kind of a nightmare, trying to figure out how to make it work. A cello has such a big resonant body—it soaks up frequencies, particularly bass frequencies, and that’ll feed back on you. And you’re playing a fretless instrument, so if you can’t hear yourself you’re going to sound really bad. It can be a tough environment.

Tim: But I think now that we’re five years in, we’re finally figuring it out. Or at least we’re starting to get close.

Photograph by Chris Graham

Who are Library Voices? They are a seven-piece pop group from Saskatchewan whose new album Summer of Lust should be popping up on a number of Best of 2011 lists. They are fun-loving literary types who will probably kick your ass at shot chess. They write with one foot in the 1960s and the other in the not-too-distant future. In short, they’re a bit like Vampire Weekend, except that they’re Canadian and don’t give you a mild urge to punch them in the face.

As they endeavour to spread their name (memorably misremembered by a friend-of-a-friend as “The Shushing Librarians”), the live act should help. Library Voices bring serious weapons-grade energy to every show. Eoin Hickey-Cameron (above: top centre), for example, isn’t a bassist out of Central Casting lurking in the corner in a hoodie. He’ll jump up on a monitor or kick drum, get soaked with sweat by the end of the third song, trade stupid faces with the sax player, flop his hair back and forth like a really gross shampoo commercial—and there are seven of these guys. The notoriously dance-averse Horseshoe crowd at their recent Toronto show even showed moments of bopping and swaying, if not, you know, actual dancing.

I sat down with 28.6% of the band, namely songwriter/synth player Mike Dawson and guitarist Brennan Ross (above: far right and far left, respectively), to talk about audiobooks and how to get kicked out of one’s apartment.

Library Voices – Generation Handclap
Library Voices – If Raymond Carver Were Born in the 90′s

Josh: How’s the tour been so far?

Brennan Ross: It’s great. It’s hard to really tell when it started—it’s been sort of perpetually going on. We went out to Victoria and Halifax and back, we’re starting to go into the States.

Josh: How do you find it touring in the States as a Canadian band?

Mike Dawson: It’s sort of like starting over. We’ve been feeling really well accepted when we meet people down there, when they discover our band, but people aren’t aware. In Canada people are a little spoiled because having access to bands from the States is second nature. They might as well be from down the road. It’s not the case the other way round—because there are so many incredible bands in the States, they’re not always so aware of what’s going on in Canada. So in that capacity it sort of feels like a first tour sometimes, building crowds and meeting people, sleeping on the floor at the sound guy’s house. With his six roommates. But it’s awesome. It helps you keep yourself in check.

Brennan: Mike’s right. You get spoiled up here, and then you play for, what, 25 people in some places?

Josh: The people in the front row don’t know the lyrics anymore.

Brennan: Right. We might get a little bummed if there aren’t a whole bunch of people there, but we also might get to do something we wouldn’t regularly get to do, because there’s no expectations. We’ll drag out the middle of one song for five minutes just to try it out. You get to sort of experiment and, you know, be back in that place again. It’s nice.

Mike: We’ve been really enjoying it. Some of our funnest shows have been on this tour and we’ve met some amazing people. That’s just the first little bit of it. We’re headed back down again next week and we’ll do some more stuff in the new year. So it’s not something to complain about. Keeps yourself in line.

Josh: Your new album, Summer of Lust. Where does that name come from?

Mike: I have… no idea. Well, I kind of do, in the back of my head. When we first started the band, we looked toward a lot of ’60s pop as an influence, how they were so loose with instrumentation. We grew up with this rigid and naïve and kind of embarrassing mindset where you’ve got two guitars, bass, and drums, and adding anything else is totally left field. But you get a little older and revisit those records and you realize there’s any instrument you could imagine in there, and your ears just kind of washed over it when you were a kid. I’ve always had this ’60s pop thing in the back of my head, and in the new record we pursued more Motown things as well in terms of what we were listening to.

So that’s one part of it. I also was hoping to make a record that felt on the cusp of being… embarrassingly modern, I guess? Something that will feel dated eventually, but in a way that down the road we’ll look at it half in jest and half with nostalgia. So there you go. It’s a modern play on the summer of love.

Brennan: And it sounds good.

Mike: Yes. It sounds good. It’s catchy.

Josh: Your lead singer Carl mentioned on stage that the video for ‘Generation Handclap’ had gotten him kicked out of his apartment.

Mike: Yeah. Well, I think it was a handful of things.

Brennan: It was a lot of things.

Mike: Never got a clear-cut explanation. [Laughs] The video was probably the final straw. We shot it ourselves at his house, the landlord saw it eventually down the road, and… that was that.

Watch this video on YouTube.

Josh: That video does make Regina seem like a lot of fun.

Brennan: It can be, yeah.

Josh: What can you say about it as a town to grow up in, to develop in as a band?

Mike: Well, about five of us grew up in Estevan, which is two hours south and quite a bit smaller—just over ten thousand people. Growing up there was the same as anywhere, you know? You discover a culture of people who are drawn to the same things and you learn to share music. We all sort of traveled around and ended up in Regina.

Brennan: We also happened to grow up in Estevan at a time when there were a whole bunch of kids into music, and they all sort of migrated to bigger centres.

Josh: And ended up in your band.

Brennan: Yeah, a lot of them did! I’m not sure if that exists in Estavan still. Maybe?

Mike: We’re so far removed at this point that I’m not even sure what genre they’re pursuing there now. Maybe there’s a big hip-hop scene. No idea.

Brennan: But being from Estevan is…

Mike: …it’s not really a liberal culture.

Brennan: Right. You should get a job out on the rigs, mostly. That’s success there.

Mike: There is a great music community in Regina, though, and I think it’s starting to get more recognition now. I’m not sure what took so long.

Josh: You have songs like ‘The Prime Minister’s Daughter’ that are political and very specific. Do you set out to write a political song, or a literary one, or does it come up out of the songwriting?

Mike: Yeah, no, there was no schema of what I wanted to get across with that one. When we finished—well, not even finished—when we set out to write this record, Carl [Johnson] was like, “Hey, what’s the new record going to be about?” I hadn’t really thought about it. When you write enough stuff in a lump, it’s inevitable that one song is going to carry through to fill out the next one. It’s hard to not care about the arts or even care about social policy in any capacity and not feel affected by those decisions. There are all sorts of things that are pertinent to our lives, but I don’t set out to write a political song per se.

Josh: What was your last album Denim on Denim about, then?

Mike: Well, there’s a lot of reference to the concept of the end of the world and just how preposterous that is, and the acts of recognizing and celebrating life. Sometimes it feels like a really negative record listening back to it, but that was sort of the theme with it. Partly it was that and partly the pursuit of love and running away from it when you find it. This cat and mouse game that runs through our lives. That kind of thing.

Josh: So ‘Generation Handclap’. It’s a party song that kind of makes fun of party people, calling them “generation drunk-text.” Do you mean it to be particularly contradictory like that, or maybe just cynical?

Mike: I didn’t mean it to be. The first reviews that came out did comment on this juxtaposition of cheerful music with really negative lyrics. I have a fairly dry sense of humour and I sometimes forget that out of context it can sound so negative. They’re just observations. I think anyone who’s engaged in that lifestyle—you know, late 20s-early 30s, digging music—sort of gets where it’s coming from. The generation of immediacy. Right now, I mean, my phone keeps resetting and it’s driving me crazy.

Josh: Like, rebooting on its own?

Mike: Yeah. In the scheme of life, it’s pretty much one degree away from teleporting me, and I’m wound up because it shuts off sometimes?

Josh: First world problems.

Brennan: That’s right. With a hashtag. #firstworldproblems.

Josh: One more thing. What’s up with the intro and outro?

Brennan: In the van we have Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything on audiobook, read by Simon Vance. We’d be doing late drives, and we’d be listening to it, and it was just the most soothing yet dry and witty British sort of voice. I think it was Paul who had the idea, “Hey, we should get that guy to talk on our record.” And then Mike, being the guy that makes things happen, made it happen.

Mike: And going back to Generation Handclap—the way that he reads that book, and how it’s this combination of stone-cold fact with hints of humour? I think his dry, satirical voice sets a great tone for the record.

Brennan: [British accent] “Imagine, if you can… but of course you can’t.”

Library Voices – Outro

Photograph by Jonathan Taggart

In the spirit of the season, let’s take a moment before we get started to thank Dan Mangan for giving the world ‘Robots‘.

There may not be anything quite as wonderful on Mangan’s new album Oh Fortune as that track from his last release, a plea on behalf of our mechanical friends for the oft-overlooked affection they so require – but so it goes. Oh Fortune is still a gorgeous neo-folk album that tops Nice, Nice, Very Nice on points, comparing favourably with Chad VanGaalen’s Soft Airplane and Andrew Bird’s last few releases. The continuing emergence of the Vancouver-based Mangan plants Canada’s musical epicentre even more firmly on the West Coast, which really isn’t fair since they also got the Olympics and some nice beaches, but what can you do?

There’s a lot to like in Mangan’s congealing style. He’s got a tricky voice that delivers wall-eyed melodrama track after track and somehow still comes across as a little understated. He doesn’t hide behind effects and instrumentation but doesn’t avoid them either; he puts himself out in front of the noise of the track, like Andrew Bird with a better sense of direction. On ‘Daffodil’, when he does slip into vocal filters and a shy moan borrowed from M. Ward, the result is a sublime low-fidelity lullaby.

This isn’t an album for good moods, though. The lyrics are a buffet of death, regret, grief, warfare, dread, more death, and anything else depressing I’ve forgotten to mention. There are tracks titled ‘If I am Dead’ and ‘Regarding Death and Dying’ and ‘Post-War Blues’ and they’re just as resigned, morose, and cynical (respectively) as you’d expect. Anything positive gets crushed out: “Nice to have the kids around – oh my God, it’s killing me” closes out the title track. For his part, Mangan has an explanation for all this: he mentioned in a recent Globe and Mail interview that writing these dark songs helps him live in a better headspace day to day. Food for thought.

So, sure, Oh Fortune is downcast enough that even the entirely sensible phrase “There are leaves on the trees/there are trees in the forest” becomes a down-and-out dirge, but it’s a pleasure to listen to regardless. The stream-of-consciousness inflections in ‘Leaves, Trees, Forest’ and ‘Jeopardy’ are quite something, especially in ‘Jeopardy’ where a string of stock phrases that lie flat on a written page – “Is it meaningful to be angry? Who’s angry? Are you angry? Why do I get the feeling you might be angry?” – tumble helplessly into each other in the music: you can hear tears hiding behind frustration, hidden behind defensiveness, hidden behind world-weary detachment. It’s a sad moment and it’s lovely. That’s Oh Fortune for you.

Dan Mangan – Post-War Blues
Dan Mangan – Oh Fortune
Dan Mangan – Jeopardy

Photograph by Alex Cairncross

As summer dies down, Library Voices return with their second LP, Summer of Lust. Produced by the Besnard Lakes’ Jace Lasek, who is becoming the go-to guy for Canadian indie rock, Summer of Lust feels more reined in and focused than Denim on Denim, which is surprising for a band of seven people. On Summer of Lust, Library Voices have managed to maintain their pop sensibilities and make another solid, if brief, album.

Playing up their literary moniker, the album is introduced and closed by a narrator, and a multitude of allusions that go completely over my head are included. ‘The Prime Minister’s Daughter’, however, is a clear rebuke of recent cuts to art funding, which may be lost in the lightness of the song. The album’s highlight comes with the first song, ‘If Raymond Carver Were Born in the 90′s’, with a surprisingly poignant theme of coming to grips with the people around you growing up, while remaining in a sort of arrested development. In a recurring motif, the melancholy lyrics are paired with bouncy background music. Even ‘Generation Handclap’, the most upbeat song on the record, seems to have a bit of sadness to it.

At just over a half-hour in length, Summer of Lust comes and goes rather quickly. It’s usually a good sign if a band leaves you wanting more, and it looks like that desire will have to be satiated with their perpetual touring. It’s a wonder they aren’t more well known, but hopefully Summer of Lust will bring Library Voices the respect they deserve.

Library Voices – If Raymond Carver Were Born in the 90′s
Library Voices – Generation Handclap

September 3-5, 2011, Seattle, Washington — To say that I enjoyed myself at Bumbershoot 2011 would be an understatement. In their four years co-producing the event, One Reel & AEG Live have truly achieved something special incorporating numerous venues inside the seventy-four-acre Seattle Centre over labour day weekend. Bumbershoot’s greatest assets are its use of space, the variety of musical acts, presentations of other mediums of art, Paul Allen’s Experience Music Project, and beer gardens with great stage views.

On the first day, Seattle sextet Pickwick played two dazzling shows filled with their mixture sultry garage hodgepodge, while Swedish act Little Dragon had the crowd dancing on the Fisher Green stage. Adorned in gold clothing and electric blue shoes, vocalist Yukimi Nagano pranced around the stage, perfectly in sync with the synthpop being generated from her bandmates. Ray LaMontagne and his backing band the Pariah Dogs closed the evening with their soulful folk, playing hits such as ‘Jolene’, ‘Beg, Steal or Borrow’, and ‘Trouble’.

Little Dragon – Shuffle a Dream

Photograph by Alec Ross

Day two started out on a high note with an intimate performance from Tennis in the KEXP 90.3 music lounge. After minor sound issues, Toro Y Moi delivered a solid performance, but I can’t think of a time that Chazwick Bundick played a bad show. Once his intergalactic love jams get into full swing, it’s hard to limit your hips’ fluidity. The final highlight of day two was the Kills. Watching the raucous Alison Mosshart is always a pleasure, but since she began singing for the Dead Weather, there is definitely a new level of swagger to her step. Dressed in leather and leopard print, and with fierce blood-red hair, Allison and guitarist Jamie Hince deafened the crowd with harder songs like ‘Sour Cherry’ and silenced the crowd with the heart-wrenching ‘The Last Goodbye’.

Tennis – Waterbirds

Photograph by Shayd Johnson

On the third and final day of bumbershoot, New York electro act Phantogram killed both their KEXP lounge set and their Fountain Lawn evening set. Also, Charles Bradley probably caused an extraordinary amount of pregnancies with his revivalist approach to soul, while at the same time subliminally telling us to never give up on our dreams. The man was born in 1948 and only became active in the early 2000s; it is never too late. The epic festival closed with a performance by Daryl Hall and John Oates, and they sure did make my dreams come true. Aside from their choice in clothing (picture your sixty-four year old trying to fit into your sisters pair of skinny jeans), Hall and Oates still have the energy and vocal talent that assisted them in their domination of the music charts in the ’70s and ’80s.

Phantogram – You Are the Ocean and I’m Good at Drowning

August 26, 2011 — Given that this was Conor Oberst’s last tour under the Bright Eyes name and the relative dearth of acts to make their way through London this summer, it seemed only logical to make the trek down Richmond Street. Prior to the show, I was only a casual Bright Eyes fan, but they managed to exceed my expectations and shatter my concept of what a Bright Eyes concert was. Well, if you ignored the legion of teens that were in attendance, which forced me to sip my beer behind a velvet rope. Serving as openers were Toronto’s own purveyors of old-school rock, Zeus.

I had seen Zeus twice before, with only passing interest, but it seems the third time is the charm with them. The members swap instruments and vocals with nearly every song, giving their brand of classic-style rock a great deal of variety. The one-two punch of ‘Greater Times on the Wayside’ and ‘River By the Garden’ was the highlight of their set twice before, and nothing has changed there. By the end of their set, the crowd seemed to have warmed to Zeus as much as I had.

Conor Oberst emerged shortly after, to the expected joy of the crowd, and Bright Eyes opened with ‘Another Travelin’ Song’. The band was touring as a seven-piece, along with a giant drum that the man standing next to me could not get his head around. Despite having a conception of him as a brooding, mopey songwriter type, Oberst, was particularly animated, frequently turning into a whirling dervish on stage, and playfully miming along to his lyrics. Banter was limited, with the most memorable being Oberst claiming that this was his favourite London, and introducing a song with “Champagne for my real friends, real pain for my sham friends.” Much of the set list was culled from Bright Eyes’ final album, the surprisingly good The People’s Key, but the biggest response was given to fan favourites like broken-heart anthem ‘Lover I Don’t Have to Love’, ‘Bowl of Oranges’, and ‘Four Winds’.

The nearly two-hour set was capped with a three-song encore, beginning with the extended intro of Digital Ash in a Digital Urn’s ‘Gold Mine Gutted’. Zeus joined in on percussion for ‘Road to Joy’, and Oberst finished with the final track from The People’s Key, ‘One for You, One for Me’, all the while high-fiving audience members and calling for peace and love, a good deal more joyous than the guy I remembered from high school as a source of sad songs. This monster of folk proved he was worthy of his title that night.

Zeus – River by the Garden
Bright Eyes – Gold Mine Gutted

Setlist
Another Travelin’ Song
Old Soul Song
Four Winds
Bowl of Oranges
Take It Easy (Love Nothing)
Arienette
Jejune Stars
Lover I Don’t Have to Love
Shell Games
Beginner’s Mind
Landlocked Blues
Cartoon Blues
Poison Oak
Falling Out of Love at This Volume
I Believe in Symmetry
The Calendar Hung Itself…
Ladder Song

Encore
Gold Mine Gutted
Road to Joy (with Zeus)
One for You, One for Me

Photograph by Alex Southam

I Break Horses are Swedish duo Maria Lindén and Fredrik Balck, who, as the story goes, met online while both were visiting a medical site catering to hypochondriacs. The two were able to connect and decided to put their worries into music. The resulting catharsis is Hearts. Finding themselves labelmates with Fleet Foxes and Explosions in the Sky on Bella Union, I suspect they feel pretty good right about now.

The first two singles ‘Hearts’ and ‘Winter Beats’ have been available for some time, and being a devout follower of all things shoegaze (typically the floppy haired guitar variety), these offerings had me excited for things to come, even if the noise I Break Horses generates is created electronically. These songs gently layer into an astonishing and repetitive, beautiful sound, with the vocals softly adding to the atmosphere.

Although there are some obvious older guitar-based influences, most notably My Bloody Valentine with Loveless and Ride with Nowhere, I Break Horses still come off sounding fresh and relevant. The comparison with M83 has been made, but I would argue that this material could rival anything Anthony Gonzalez has to offer, especially as he seems to have progressed little since Saturdays = Youth with his latest single.

Hearts as a whole doesn’t sound like the first two singles, but overall the remaining seven songs tend to take on the same formula, shifting and progressing slowly. ‘Wired’ deconstructs itself and becomes somewhat foggy and unrecognizable near the end, while ‘Pulse’ utilizes hazy vocals that swell with beautiful harmonies. I never thought I would use the word ethereal to describe a song entitled ‘Cancer’, but somehow I think this is what I Break Horses had in mind, perhaps trying to understand something that they have both professed to fear greatly. And while the album as a whole could hardly be described as positive, the finale ‘No Way Outro’ certainly ends with a triumphant drum roll.

Overall this is a very successful debut. Although I wish there was more songs sounding like the singles, Hearts will not disappoint anyone looking for a contemporary take on the wall of sound. While some might question the album’s inclusion into the shoegaze genre, I think the term applies not only to the sound, but the process and experience of those creating and performing the music. It still qualifies if you’re staring downwards engrossed in the noise you’re creating, even if in the case of I Break Horses, it’s towards your computer.

I Break Horses – Winter Beats
I Break Horses – Hearts
I Break Horses – Pulse