I once read an interview with Canadian author and Broken Pencil editor Hal Niedzviecki where he discussed a void in Canadian art: the reality of the country’s often seedy, dark and filthy urban centers. Why so many tributes to pioneer lifestyles? Why so many albums about canoes? It’s 2011: ignore it however you choose, but you probably lost several high school acquaintances to oxycodone.
Enter the Weeknd. Still shrouded in relative mystery, Toronto artist Abel Tesfaye first emerged anonymously via Youtube, posting tracks from his House of Balloons mixtape over single, slick, black and white images of decadent urban grit – most notably the song “Loft Music,” which in title alone suggests not the Great Canadian Shield, but the bleak claustrophobia of cosmopolitan condo living. “Oo, bar queen… I think you lost your morals, girl, but it’s okay cause you don’t need ’em… In that two floor loft in the middle of the city…” croons Tesfaye. From its lyrical nihilism, to the minimal and genre indifferent production (House of Balloons famously samples Siouxsie and the Banshees and Beach House) to the way Tesfaye has presented himself – grainy photos; mainly communicating via Twitter – House of Balloons is Niedzviecki’s Canada.
The Weeknd is experiencing both hype and kickback from critics, but the is-this-or-isn’t-this-the-evolution-of-R&B drama doesn’t stand up to the fact that HoB will be one of the most interesting, listenable, re-listenable, and real albums to come out of Canada this year, significant in part because of its enormous appeal to both niche fans and mass audiences.
Tesfaye will be on Torontonian Young Money artist Drake’s next album “a bunch”, and will release Thursday, part two to the promised mixtape trilogy of which House of Balloons was the first, sometime this summer. You can download HoB for free from the-weeknd.com, or look up The Weeknd on Youtube. Start with “High for This,” and get converted. (Independent, the-weeknd.com) Kristel Jax