Watching Basia Bulat onstage, you can’t help but feel that her throaty alto was made for the resonance of the West End. She has this energy, present and exuberant that’s perfect for this sort of listening room.
On this tour, supporting her second album Heart of My Own, she’s accompanied by her brother, Bobby, on percussion and Allison Stewart on backing vocals and viola. (Sadly absent was Holly Rancher. Where in the world is Holly Rancher? Better check her blog to find out.)
Bobby matched his sister’s exuberance and Alison provided the stoic reserve that both she and Holly are known for (some people find this off-putting, but I’ve always felt it balances out Basia’s energy perfectly).
Continue reading “Basia Bulat: Breaking Hearts and Autoharp Strings”
Released right around Halloweentime, Dead Man’s Bones could be considered gimmicky if it wasn’t so unexpectedly good. Celebrity heartthrob Ryan Gosling and filmmaker Zach Shields manage to combine all the right elements of vintage spooky sounds, raw indie cabaret tunes and the charm of an elementary school play. Featuring the Silverlake Conservatory of Music children’s choir, Gosling and Shields guide the kids through songs about ghosts, werewolves and losing one’s soul. The album often fringes on creepy macabre material with standout tracks like “My Body’s a Zombie for You.” While it might be easily dismissed as a quirky for the sake of being quirky it often strikes the right balance of creative atmosphere and rawness that is lacking in most, if not all, actor-turned-musician celebrity projects. (Yes, I’m talking to you, ScarJo.) Whether it’s the rumblings of out-of-tune children or actors not being able to play their instruments, this project has managed to summon the perfect balance of morbid allure and resourceful conception. (Anti, 
When Basia Bulat released her first full-length, Oh, My Darling, in 2007, it was quite under the radar. Sure, it was released on legendary UK label Rough Trade and later on Hayden’s Hardwood Records in Canada, but it was unassuming (not unlike Bulat herself). It had, after all, been recorded primarily to serve as a souvenir of a moment in time—a record of the music being made among a small group of friends and family. The intervening years have brought a Polaris Prize nomination, trips around the folk festival circuit and lots of attention for this appealing singer-songwriter, who was transformed from English Literature grad student to indie folk darling. You’ll be pleased to learn, as I was, that Bulat has lost none of her charm with Heart of My Own. Her music is still deceptively delicate at times, building into crescendos of emotion and sound. The record has a more old-school folk feeling, with the autoharp front and centre on tracks like “The Shore” and “If It Rains.” The poetry of her lyrics is still straightforward enough to be accessible but not too simple as to descend into cliché. In short: this record affirms that the faith we placed in her, after falling in love with her debut release and her live performances, was well-given. (Secret City Records, 
My, my. What a fantastic album. Yeah, flipping through CDs you might think it looks absolutely retarded, with its long-ass title and pencil-crayoned wrestling figures of decades past. What could it be? Field recordings of a special-ed music class pressed up for door-to-door fundraising? As cool as that would’ve been, you get something even cooler if you pick this album up. The Beets play pop music. Kinda like the Beatles. Yeah, those Beatles. The songs are catchy as hell and they all sing together. Yeah, they might sound a little drunk, but at least they’re in tune. From the start, the combination of the gang vocals and the simple, repeated melodies catch on and you’ll. And holy reverb—the Beets sound like they were recorded at the bottom of a giant plastic bucket. The Beets are like a mulch of Sic Alps/Galaxie 500/Beach Boys (yum!), some of the better stuff that’s coming out of this nouveau lo-fi movement. (Captured Tracks, 
In the documentary People Who Do Noise, one noise musician says that the genre has “stripped all of the musicality from music.” But does that make it any less of an experience to catch one of Winnipeg label Midori Records’ acts live when the rare opportunity arises? Hell, no. The experience is all they’re concerned about. Sigmund just played an improv set at Element Sircus, horrifically backing for a self-mutilator. In the summer, Krakk sometimes lays all their electronic gear on the street and blasts the ears and minds of passers-by in guerrilla shows. And a couple years ago, label owner Fletcher Pratt played at Send + Receive festival, to recreate sounds from his Mind Gunk series. Stylus recently met with Pratt, who is also a member of Krakk and Sigmund, to ask a couple of label-related questions.