Timber Timbre - Creep On Creepin' On

An earlier version of this article was previously published in The Omega.

4/5 stars
Timber Timbre’s new album, Creep On Creepin’ On, is dreary, creepy, weird and for the most part, brilliant. Considering the title, that’s probably to be expected.

     After the success of their 2009 self-titled album—which made the long-list for the Polaris Prize—Timber Timbre build upon the sound of their previous album while simultaneously moving away from their folk roots.  Timber Timbre is a trio made up of Taylor Kirk, Mika Posen and Simon Trottier. They’re sometimes based out of Toronto and other times out of Montreal.  For their current album they have also enlisted the services of pianist Mathieu Charbonneau and saxophonist Colin Stetson.

     The array of musical instruments that these five are able to employ is at times astounding, but the songs never become crowded or convoluted. In fact, Timber Timbre’s music often sounds deceptively simple, giving Kirk’s vocals the centre stage.  The closest description of the music I can give is that of folk-blues infused with noir and chamber pop.  The difficulty in explaining Timber Timbre’s musical style is unsurprising considering that Kirk has said that “the idea was to make music we love and therefore embrace the risk of sounding like all the music we’ve ever loved, all at once.”

     Kirk’s vocal style hovers somewhere between Leonard Cohen’s sing-speak poetics and Nick Cave’s croon. His voice never seems to betray his emotional state and almost sounds disinterested. This is hardly a negative, as songs often unexpectedly switch from love songs to murder ballads and Kirk sounds like he barely notices the difference.  The effect can be quite chilling.

     Highlights include “Black Water”, in which Kirk sings “all I need is some sunshine” without a trace of irony in his voice. The verses are particularly hushed as he describes dead fish floating down rivers, as if he is sharing an important secret with us.  The excellent “Too Old to Die Young” has Kirk channeling his best Nick Cave bad boy croon and the song often sounds like a straightforward British rock song. That’s until the chorus kicks in and Kirk tauntingly sings “I’m givin’ it, givin’ it all up,” over scraping strings. As if that wasn’t weird enough, a gospel chorus kicks in after the second chorus.

     I definitely recommend Creep On Creepin’ On to the musically adventurous. It takes the sounds of chamber pop and noir and exploits them for all their strangest elements.  The album doesn’t seem to be crushed under the weight of its influences either, in the way that Destroyer’s schmaltzy-sounding Kaputt was earlier this year.  Timber Timbre is an exciting band to follow as they continually build on their previous sounds without being repetitive or discarding past elements.

Their original sound and relative success is a testament to the diversity and robustness of the current Canadian indie scene.

Brasstronaut at Heroes Pub

An earlier version of this article was previously published in The Omega.

Brasstronaut, a six-piece experimental-pop band from Vancouver, played at a very busy Heroes on Wednesday night(November 10, 2010).

     Unfortunately, the crowd seemed to have different ideas for the night; one half of the crowd was there for the music and the other half was there to take advantage of the fact that there was no classes the next day.  Though this did not seem to stop anyone, including the band, from having fun.

     Brasstronaut has had an extremely busy and successful year.  In March, they released their first full-length album and then won the Echo Songwriting Prize.  They also made the long list for the prestigious Polaris Music Prize. 

     As if this hasn’t kept them busy enough, they have “done a substantial amount of touring this year,” returning from the U.K. so recently that they were still feeling jet-lagged, and are currently in the process writing new material for their next album.

     Before the show started, I had a chance to sit down with Brennan Saul, the drummer, and Sam Davidson, who grew up in Kamloops and plays the clarinet and the electronic wind synthesizer.  When I asked them if they could describe their unique sound, they hesitated to define it. 

"[There is] such a mix of different stuff in there that it is really hard to classify,” Saul said.

 "It is hard to want to pick a few words simply because the moment you choose too many defining words people have expectations and we’re certainly all about wrecking expectations," Davidson said.

     The local band BluElla opened the night with a fairly low-key set in front of an uninterested crowd.  By the time Brasstronaut started their set, Heroes was packed and noisy.  To Brasstronaut’s credit they seemed to feed off the crowd’s energy, playing particularly energetic versions of Lo Hi Hopes and Requiem for a Scene.

     Half way through the set, Edo Van Breeman, the lead singer, asked if someone in the crowd would body surf, since it had never been done at one of their shows before.  It took a couple more songs before someone worked up the courage to get on top of the crowd and suddenly it seemed like everyone wanted to.  In the middle of the song Hearts Trompet someone from the crowd hopped on stage and started talking to Van Breeman.  Van Breeman nodded as if they were agreeing on something, and then handed over the mike to their temporary new band member, who promptly started screaming into it as if he was fronting a punk band. Van Breeman and the rest of his band seemed as bewildered and surprised as the rest of us, but they also seemed to be thoroughly enjoying themselves. 

     Slow Knots was the set closer and the floor erupted into a particularly energetic 'mosh-pit' as people went flying into the stage, knocking over equipment and band members. 

Not a single beat was missed, but at the end of the song a man leapt onto the stage, making a slashing motion across his throat, and the show was over. 

I went and talked to Edo after the show. 
“What just happened?" I said.

"That was awesome," he said.

"That has never happened at one of our shows before.”  

After all, Brasstronaut is all about wrecking expecations. 

Terri Clark at the Interior Savings Center

An earlier version of this article was previously published in the Omega.

Canadian country singer, Terri Clark, proved herself to be a top-notch entertainer when she played at the Interior Savings Centre last Friday(November 19th 2010).  The coliseum was only half full, and the floor was filled with chairs, dampening the atmosphere, but Terri Clark exuded energy and charisma on stage, putting on an entertaining performance. 

           

Clark grew up in Medicine Hat, Alberta before moving down to Nashville to pursue music.   She has had a fairly successful career: two of her albums have gone platinum in both Canada and the United States, and she has had her fair share of top ten country hits. 

Despite her success she has felt unsatisfied with her past career and music.  “I wasn’t connecting with what people wanted me to record. It felt like I was on an assembly line: nothing new, nothing fresh or true to me – and it seemed like the fire was going out,” a quote from her website said.  With this in mind, she broke from her label and independently produced and released her new album, The Long Way Home.  The album has a definite mainstream country music sound, but it has grown in both complexity and maturity. 

Having little experience with country music, I was curious to check out Clark’s show.  Despite her music not being of my particular taste, I was pleasantly surprised by the vigor of her live  performance.  Switching between sharing the stage with a backing band and appearing with just her acoustic guitar, she also gave her band ample time to display their own talents.   Through most of the performance she adlibbed lines and responded to the crowd.

Her new material was heavily featured in the concert but that didn’t stop her from playing her old hits, such as Poor, Poor Pitiful Me, which seemed to get the best response from the appreciative crowd.

           

The main problem with the show didn’t have anything to do with Clark or her band at all–the biggest problem was the placement of chairs on the floor.  While Terri Clark was doing her best to get people to dance and sing along, the chairs made it difficult for crowd to move around or work up much energy.  Behind the chairs,  quite a ways away from the stage, was an open area where a few couples had moved from their seats to dance and two-step. 

           

Despite this downfall and a partially empty coliseum, Clark seemed genuinely excited to be performing in Kamloops.  The crowd also responded warmly and enthusiastically to her.   

When she left the stage the first time, the applause was surprisingly loud for the size of the audience.  When she returned for the encore she blasted through a rocking cover of Folsom Prison Blues that featured both a drum and a bass solo.  She finished the night with a more toned down version of If You Want Fire from her new album before finishing her set. 

Clark seems to be one of those performers  who is a genuine pleasure to watch live whether you are a fan or not, as she not only comes across as sincere but is entertaining and exciting to watch. 

 

Mother Mother - Eureka

 An earlier version of this article was previously published in The Omega.

2.5/5 stars

Mother Mother’s recently released album, Eureka, sounds like a bid for mainstream success.  The Vancouver based band has always had a sound that is firmly rooted in pop music, and their ability to create infectious and catchy melodies through spastic tempo changes, strange and simple metaphorical lyrics, and a refusal to be loyal to a single musical genre are what have made them one of the most interesting up and coming bands. 

           

            The current album still contains many of the characteristics that define Mother Mother, such as their unique three part harmonies, but the band has moved in the direction of a traditional rock sound.  This isn’t to say that Eureka is a terrible album, but Eureka is definitely a less interesting effort than their previous creations.  

           

            The first single, The Stand, is a deliciously misanthropic call and response song that seems to represent lead singer, lyricist, and band-leader Ryan Guldemond's absolute distaste for the human race.

            “Tell me your fears.”

            “Okay, its everyone here.”

            “You mean just all of the people?”

            “Yeah, and all of their peers.”

            The catchy chorus then begins with “I can hardly stand the sight of it all...”  Guldemond’s lyrics are consistently more abstract and bizarre than his previous work.  In The Stand he sings “I forgot about handfuls,” which within the context of the song is a sexual euphemism, but he sounds so uncertain and confused by his own words that the meaning becomes obscure and ambiguous.

           

            The lyrical quality never reaches the heights that it did in songs like “Ghosting,” but it is only in the absolutely dreadful “Original Spin” that they reach a level of stupidity.  A note to future artists: in a post-Rebecca Black world, no matter how ironically you say “fun, fun, fun” it will still sound like self-parody. 

           

            Musically, Eureka is Mother Mother’s first rock album.  Mother Mother has always shied away from comparisons to other indie acts, such as the New Pornographers, trying to maintain an identity that is separate from the Canadian indie scene.  Yet, Eureka seems to embrace the so-called indie rock “sound” for the first time in Mother Mother’s history.  Simply Simple has the sound that is currently being used to advertise the hipness of department stores.

           

            The best song on the album is Problems, which seems to entirely ignore the rest of the album that surrounds it.  The song begins with a Buddy Holly inspired guitar lick which leads into a bouncing bass led verse.  The screeching chorus line, “I’ve got problems, not just ones that are little, its those people problems that’s something to consider, when you come for dinner at my place,” unexpectedly erupts from the song.  It is the only song on the album that seems to have its tongue firmly implanted in cheek. 

           

Which is something that Mother Mother should consider, because for the first time they seem to be taking themselves too seriously and the results are often bland and unexciting.  It might be a bit cynical to say that Mother Mother is making a bid for mainstream success, but the truth of the matter is that their current musical direction seems to be a dead end.  Let’s hope that by the time they release their next album they are feeling more playful and inspired again.

Radiohead - The King of Limbs

An earlier version of this article was previously published in The Omega.

2/5 stars

The most surprising thing about the new Radiohead album “The King of Limbs” is how unsurprising it’s content is.  Radiohead is a band that has continually reinvented themselves with each subsequent release.  The band has had a brilliant history of frustrating expectations and carving out a niche that is purely their own.

After the success of their masterpiece “OK Computer,” an album that pushed the ideas of what rock music could be, the band went on to produce albums that were full of glitches and stuttering drumbeats, Thom Yorke’s unearthly vocals became indecipherable, and song structures began to eschew hooks or choruses or song structure all together.  Despite these attributes Radiohead is a band that has always remained in the mainstream’s subconscious and is regularly regarded as one of the biggest rock bands in the world.  Even Britney Spears has been seen carry their previous album to her car!

This changed for the first time with a brief return to accessibility with 2007’s “In Rainbows.” “In Rainbows” seemed to be a summary of everything the band had done thus far.  Not only that, but the album was full of hooks, snarling guitars, crashing cymbals, unearthly wails, and bombastic strings, even on the quietest ballads. 

“The King of Limbs” doesn’t do any of these things, it doesn’t present something new and it doesn’t create a cohesive package; what it does present is a quiet, minimalist album that seems to be made up of previously discarded ideas.  This is certainly not surprising, as Radiohead spent the majority of the 90’s fashioning a glitchy-electro-rock sound.  The reason this album is such a disappointment is its inability to create a unified vision, or much of a vision at all in its brief 37 minutes. 

The first half of the album is easily the weakest part of the album.  The songs sound like a cross between Thom Yorke’s solo work on “The Eraser” and Radiohead’s “Amnesiac.”  These songs could have easily been B-sides to either of those albums, but the music isn’t nearly as unsettling and interesting as the “The Eraser” or as inventive as “Amnesiac.” 

The album highlights begin halfway through the album with “Lotus Flower” and “Codex”.  The latter sounds almost like a spooky Coldplay (aka Radiohead-lite) concept.  After half an album of cold and insular electronic sounds the warm piano chords are incredibly welcome.  The second half of the album becomes less dense and easier to listen to. 

As the shortest Radiohead album, “The King of Limbs” seems to end prematurely, every time “Separator” ends on my IPod I keep waiting for the next song to start.  It is hard not to feel ripped-off by the album, not only is it short, but it seems to be populated with throwaway songs, songs that might have better suited on a B-side collection. 

A lot of music critics have labeled “The King of Limbs” as an in-between album, one that represents an evolution from an old sound to a new one.  This description seems like a way to try and excuse the albums mediocrity.  The hard truth is that “The King of Limbs” seems to symbolize for the first time in their long and successful career that Radiohead is running out of new ideas and concepts. 

Kamloops Burlesque

Picture taken by Jessica Wallace

An earlier version of this article was previously published in The Omega.

On Tuesday night at the Blue Grotto, Kamloops Burlesque preformed to a sold out crowd for the second time in a row.  The show mixed erotic dancing, tap dancing, magic, and comedy for an entertaining night.  The mostly female crowd was a mix of ages and demographics and responded enthusiastically to the festivities with applause and catcalls. 

            Burlesque is a form of entertainment that is extremely difficult to define.  It started out as a way of parodying high-class entertainment such as opera or theatre, while emphasizing risqué elements.  More recently Burlesque has become a random often scattered mixture of strip-tease, comedy, and music. 

Surprisingly it is an art form that seems to have more female than male fans, and one that many feminists have embraced.  This is probably not only because Burlesque is more about teasing than gratuity, but because Burlesque often features many different body types and ages, is often ran by women, and embraces both amateurs and pros. 

           

Tuesday had all these features and more.  The most popular section of the show was when four women dressed as men came onto the stage and not only did a dance but hit on the women in the crowd with embarrassingly bad pick-up lines.  The dance ended with a man dressed as a woman coming on to the stage and being harassed and knocked around the stage by the dancers, A Night at the Roxbury style. 

           

Other highlights included two dancers, one at the front stage and one at the back stage who were covered in balloons.  Lighting sparklers they popped the balloons along to the music until they only had underwear and pasties on. 

           

The second half of the show was all about audience participation.  People in the crowd who had dressed to impress were invited onto the stage for a fashion competition.  A man who not only strutted, but also took off his tie, vest, belt, and shoes, easily won.  Later on, audience members were invited onto the stage to try and learn a choreographed dance.  The results were hilarious as some members tried to follow along and others gave up and just did their own thing.

           

The only major downside to the show seems to be the location.  The seating is extremely limited, and even when standing it can be hard to find a spot where you can see the stage.  The bathrooms are by the stage, and require some creative maneuvering through the crowd to get to.  Not only that, but those of us who were lucky enough to be closer to the front didn’t dare leave our spots to go get a drink, as we knew that our spots wouldn’t be there anymore when we returned. 

           

The event has been extraordinarily popular.  We attempted to go see the show last time, but we didn’t show up early enough to get in the doors.  This time we showed up a half an hour before the doors even opened and the line up outside the Grotto was already stretched down the majority of the block, from the Grotto to Carlos O’Brian’s.  

The event runs every month, and if you are interested in going, I would suggest arriving early.  If you end up going, I’ll see you there.

Steve Aoki crowdsurfed Kamloops Tuesday night

A previous version of this article was published in The Omega.

Steve Aoki put on exciting show at Cactus Jack’s Saloon this past Tuesday night, living up to his reputation as one of the world’s biggest DJs.

The globetrotting DJ stopped off in Kamloops in between gigs in Whistler and Colorado.  The event was sold out, and the bar was packed with a young and enthusiastic crowd.  Either because of the cold or the value of tickets there were no ticket scalpers outside the club. 

Aoki himself didn’t come on until around 12:30 a.m.  And the push to the front by the crowd was almost immediate.  This seems to be one of the major problems with famous DJs is that their shows end up being more like rock concerts.  The crowd wants to be as close to the fame as possible and push forward, leaving little room or space on the floor to actually dance.  This is problematic for an artist like Aoki whose particular brand of electro-house isn’t that groundbreaking but is extremely effective at getting you to move your feet.  

Aoki has had a highly successful career in the music industry, constantly changing his role in the creation of music.   Founding his own record label only a year after graduating from high school, he has released albums from an incredible array of bands and artists: Bloc Party, MSTRKRFT, The Klaxons, and The Bloody Beetroots to name a few.  He has also been successful as a performer himself, and has been releasing remixes and original creations under his own name for the last couple years, The crowd was not disappointed even with all of the hype surrounding him.

The night first heated up with several talented local DJs including: Jesse Faubert (the Diplomat), Mikael Finley and Ross Koch of Totally Boss, and DJ Erik-B.  DJ Erik-B took the stage just before Aoki.  I have seen him perform many times around town, but never like this.  His mixes were inventive, and novel, but at the same time floor-fillers.  The crowd responded quickly, and the floor was packed, in a matter of seconds. 

Because of miscommunication problems, we had a little bit of difficulty getting into the show and were forced to stand outside in the cold for a while.  In that short period of time there was quite a few people walking around, unsuccessfully looking for a way to score tickets.  When we finally got into the show, the club wasn’t very crowded and had a long way to go until it filled up.  Ironically, this ended up being a good thing, as it allowed people to have room to dance and move around on the floor.  One of the biggest complaints about Cactus Jack’s has been the difficulty to move around and navigate through the club.  The layout seems to hinder flow and movement, which in turn inspires frustration and aggression among the patrons.  Tuesday night was no different, except for at the beginning of the night when the club was only half full.

             

Despite these flaws in the show, Aoki lived up to the excitement he inspired.  His beats and mixes weren’t anything you haven’t heard before, but they inspired the crowd to stand on tables and counters and dance like the possessed.  Aoki clearly fed off the crowd’s energy and reacted like a wild man on the stage, jumping up and down,screaming into the microphone and even jumping into the crowd.  Overall, the night was a success, displaying both local and international talents to a wildly enthusiastic and energetic crowd.

LCD Soundsystem - This Is Happening

 An earlier version of this article was published in The Omega.

4/5 Stars
LCD Soundsystem’s  This Is Happening was easily the best American release of 2010.  LCD Soundsystem is one of those rare bands that started out at a high point with their 2005 self-titled debut and has only gotten better with every subsequent release. 

For front man, James Murphy, the last five years seem to have been one long hipster midlife crisis.  Whether he was singing Losing My Edge as he watched “the kids” take over his scene, or he was looking back at past booze-filled friendships in painful nostalgia in All My Friends, Murphy has been slowly watching his coolness fall apart(in an extremely cool way, I might add). 

Despite this, Murphy falls apart like he has never fallen apart before on This Is Happening, and while this might sound like a depressing album, LCD Soundsystem’s particular brand of post-punk dance never allows Murphy to wallow for too long. 

LCD Soundsystem’s ability to take simple sounds and chord progressions and make them interesting is astounding. While LCD Soundsystem has always had their own distinct sound, bringing together dance, punk, new wave and 60s pop music into a twisted collage of music, This Is Happening is heavily influenced by the likes of David Bowie and Iggy Pop.  This seems ironic considering earlier comments by Murphy.  "It’s kind of soul-crushing in a way to listen to ‘Perfect Day’ and say ‘I’m gonna go write a song like that’ and it’ll be fucking horrible by comparison,” he said in an interview with Pitchfork.com.  The creeping sound of Somebody Is Calling Me is so close to Iggy Pop’s Nightclubbing that it almost seems like a form of musical plagiarism.  It’s Murphy’s clean voice that raises the song above its roots—he sounds lost in a sleazy Iggy Pop inspired world, enjoying himself but looking for an escape route. 

The album opener Dance Yrself Clean, begins with a pitter-patter beat and Murphy mumbling about his difficulty with social situations. “Walking up to me expecting words, it happens all the time,” Murphy mumbles in despair.  But three minutes later an unexpected synthesizer rips through the speakers, and Murphy is back out on the dance floor, singing “I miss the way the night goes with friends who always make it feel good.”

While, Murphy bares his soul at times, as when he tries to convince a lover not to leave on “Can Change,” This Is Happening is also lacerating at times. Pow Pow takes jabs at his critics while fighting off the “the kids” who are taking over his scene.  “Your time will come, but tonight is our night, so you should give us all your drugs,” he says cheekily, only to rage seconds later that “you don’t know shit about where I am from that you didn’t get from your TV.” 

This line between cheekiness and anger is again played with on the nine minute song You Wanted A Hit.  It is the brazenness of the album that makes it seem fitting that Murphy has said that it will be the LCD Soundsystem’s last work.  His musical midlife crisis seems to have hit a peak and he seems ready to move onto new things. 

Top 5 Canadian albums of 2010

An earlier version of this article was previously published in The Omega.

The start of a new year and top ten lists seem to go hand in hand.  It allows us to look back on the year that just passed and sum up what we liked and didn’t like about it.  Whether it is movies, or books, or music, we can then decide whether it was a good, bad, or mediocre year. 

 Looking back on the past year of Canadian music made me realize how rewarding of a year it has been for Canadian music.  It was exceedingly difficult to pick my top five albums of the year, mostly because there was so much great music to choose from. 

 

5. Caribou – Swim

Daniel Snaith, the man behind Caribou, has often been commended for his chameleon-like ability to change styles and inhabit multiple genres.  Because of this, describing his music can be challenging.  Swim sounds almost like being a DJs pet goldfish because the music sounds like dance music filtered through water. His mixture of 60’s pop and electronica ripple and warp to make something more soothing than danceable.  

 

4. Broken Social Scene – Forgiveness Rock Record

Broken Social Scene is so ubiquitous in other forms that it’s easy to forget that they haven’t released anything for five years.  But with current and former members (including Fiest, Emily Haines of Metric, Stars, Jason Collet, and many more) constantly releasing their own material, it almost feels like Broken Social Scene is always creating music.  Forgiveness Rock Record isn’t a perfect album, and it isn’t the bands best either—but even some of the albums duds sound better than most bands at their best.  Broken Social Scene is often described as Canadian indie-rock royalty, and here they certainly live up to that moniker.  

 

3. Crystal Castles – Crystal Castles(II)

Crystal Castles is surprisingly still around.  After they released their first album there was meltdowns on stage, they sometimes didn’t show up for gigs, and then they were sued for stealing artwork. Their new album, however, is easily one of the year’s best.  While the sound is still harsh and distorted, II is surprisingly melodic.  The best songs such as Celestica or Suffocation have pop melodies that have an almost soothing quality to them, but at the same time, they are still full of the duo’s signature fuzz and distortion.  The album can be a challenging listen at times, but it is always a satisfying one.

2. Shad – Tsol

Tsol is not only a great hip hop album, but it is a distinctly Canadian style of hip hop.  Whether he is fighting for the empowerment of women, preaching tolerance, swinging imaginary punches at Glenn Beck, or shaking his head in disgust at the religious fundamentalists, it all seems very Canadian.  But that’s not the only reason to love this album, Shad’s ability to weave together pop culture, political, and biblical references into complex word play is astounding, and sometimes only reveals its brilliance after a couple listens.  

1. Arcade Fire – The Suburbs

Arcade Fire’s success, not only in Canada, but across the border isn’t surprising.  Heavily influenced by the likes of Bruce Springsteen and Tom Petty, their music has always had a distinct American sound to it.  The Suburbs is not only arguably their best and most successful album yet, but it also wears its influences the most candidly.  It is over top of this classic style that Arcade Fire tries to come to terms with growing up.  One second they are musing about their teenage fantasies of rebellion and the boredom of growing up in the suburbs, and the next they are trying to reconcile it with their own life goals of family and stability.  Suburbia is often a place that bands use to relive teenage anger, but Arcade Fire, whether they are searching for old friends or having children, have used suburbia as a place to grow up.  It is a beautiful and bittersweet album that will haunt you long after you have listened to it .