Finally, new Sic Alps! It’s been a few years since the fantastic US E.Z. came out. Waiting sucked a big one, but the band’s delivered with a discfull of brand new, sun-kissed, reverb-hissed, noise-damaged poppy psychy rock. I had fun trying to sing along to fast-favourites without consulting the lyrics sheet. “Eat Happy” chugs along, hugs along to one chord of an eventual three-chord kicker that hooks you in then… just stops. Bastards! (I was singing along “Beep beep beep…” to what was actually “Eat eat eat… eat happy.”) Then you’ve got songs like “Trip Train” and the wonderfully titled “Wasted At Church” that build on a fuzzed-out loop and noisy blasts of distortion that look back on the sound of their early tapes. About half of the songs on this disc don’t break the “perfect pop song” length (2:42, duh). “Ball of Fame” and “Saint Peter Writes His Book” combined don’t even come close, but throw enough earworms out that anyone listening will hit <back> as the last note decays out the speakercone. And what about the gauzy, Archies-jangle of “Cement Surfboards?” Or the twilight blues of “Nathan Livingston Maddox?” Or maybe the fury of the MC5-like garage stomper “The First White Man To Touch California Soil?” There’s so much awesome packed into this package that it’s impossible to pick a “best.” So, person of discerning musical taste; remember when you digested GBV’s Alien Lanes? The noise, the variety, the hooks, the “Hey, I wanna try that!” feeling? Well here, feel it again. You’re welcome. (Drag City, www.dragcity.com) Patrick Michalishyn
Timmy’s Organism – Rise of the Green Gorilla
Okay, before we get on with listening to this album, let’s do a pre-boarding check: Do you like glammy garage rock? Good, good. Do you have your bong? Essential. Absolutely essential. The album’s called Rise of the Green Gorilla, for funk’s sake. Timmy’s Organism is Timmy Vulgar (I’m not sure that’s his real name), former frontman for some other bands you probably haven’t heard of (Human Eye, Clone Defects), and I certainly hadn’t heard of. However, after taking in Timmy’s Organism and witnessing (WITH MY EARS) the Rise of the Green Gorilla, I sure as shut am going to. This album is epic. It’s loud, scuzzy, noisy, lo-fi, overblown, and otherwise plain old shitty sounding, which makes it all the more impressive that I want to listen to it over and over. It really stands as a testament to an album when they do all they can to make the sound ugly and unpalatable and you’re still croaking and wailing along to the songs and generally causing everyone around you incredible distress. Stylistically, it’s like a magical collaboration that I wish had actually happened – if Captain Beefheart’s Magic Band had been sneakily replaced with T. Rex’s band and they recorded all their demos on a shitty 4-track in someone’s basement. Excellent glam stomp filtered though Beefheart’s raspy, acid-stained psychedelia, while aurally bringing to mind the resin-stained tape recordings of lo-fi paterfamiliases Sebadoh. Timmy takes elements that in the hands of a lesser artist would make this album completely unlistenable, such as ridiculous vocal effects (most tracks, most notably “Give It To Me Babe”) or just plain raunchy guitar noise (every track, but notably “Oafeus Clods”), and even downkey instrumental synth jams (“Building the Friend-Ship”), but makes it work. The music is so trashy-sounding you almost feel wrong enjoying it so much – like getting hot ’n’ bothered staring at an Aphrodite made of garbage. But damn, it’s so right. (Sacred Bones Records, http://www.sacredbonesrecords.com/) David Nowacki
Papercuts – Fading Parade
While listening to this album, I felt like I was in a dream. This album contains an open room feel the whole time, but it is filled to the brim quickly and strongly with a soft yet powerful playing style. Lead singer Jason Quever has the perfect voice for an open room sound. The echo of his strong but effortless voice creates an amazing atmosphere for the ear. The instrumental part of the music seems so lightly played, yet it fills up the room wonderfully with its soothing and full sound. The title of the album Fading Parade could very well be connected with the style of music. Although the feel is pretty close to having a Parade Fade away in front of you, at the same time it feels like you’re riding along with the parade the whole time. If you are in a party scene, I would recommend not spinning this album, unless it’s a relaxing party. The members of Papercuts have the perfect balance between sounding soft and rough, so if you’re in a relaxed mood, but also want some more upbeat music, Fading Parade is the way to go. The opener “Do You Really Wanna Know” starts of the album wonderfully, and I recommend you follow this Parade. (Sub Pop, www.subpop.com) Nicholas Van Doeselaar
Dum Dum Girls – He Gets Me High EP
This album poses, to me, an existential question—which is really ironic because this is the most over-produced album I’ve heard thus far this year. If I were to take every moment in my life that I had turned on Top 40 radio before boy bands and Spice Girls, it would vaguely sound like this album. The instrumentation is really distinct, Dee Dee’s vocals are blissfully ignorant and wrapped in notably less reverb than I Will Be, and Richard Gottehrer of the Strangeloves (who wrote “I Want Candy,” among others) produced this album, as he did Dum Dum Girls’ full-length. And to top it all off, it ends with a cover of “There is a Light that Never Goes Out.” Seriously. So, if this EP is pop perfection—the holy ghost of pop music, if you will, and I’m at the pearly gates, listening to this thing, how could it possibly be too perfect? (Sub Pop, www.subpop.com) Taylor Burgess
Death – Spiritual Mental Physical
A few years ago, Drag City released an album’s-worth of killer material by a ferocious punk rock band from Detroit from the ’70s that no one’s heard of. That band was Death, three brothers who got together to play funk and soul, saw an Alice Cooper show, and went headlong into the garage. That first one collected their single and some other tracks, and this companion piece of sorts collects the rest. The 10 tracks on this comp cover the “reel-to-reel” demos the guys recorded in the middle of the decade. “Views” starts off in full “1-2-3-4!!” mode, punk fury with vocals that alternate between Malcolm Mooney like stabs and Gino Washington falsetto. It sounds like the Damned and the like, thrashing away at power chords, pounding out a beat with every instrument. The stomper “Masks” will put a smile on your face after your brain take those few seconds to realize why you “know this song from somewhere.” They totally nicked the melody from the Beatles’ “Got To Get You Into My Life” and muscled it into a corner. Taking a quick turn into quasi-hypnogogia with “The Change,” an instrumental, two-guitar duet changes the mood completely and turns the woolly-rock into something of a psychedelic jam. The three tracks at the end aren’t so much songs, as they are each member noodling around on their instrument. Great noodling, but not really songs (although “David’s Dream” sounds a lot like “The Change”). My vote for the best song on the album though, is “Can You Give Me A Thrill???”, a leather jacket-wearing, jean-knee ripping, sneering, spittle on the audience slice of everything that is Detroit rock ’n’ roll. How these brothers went unnoticed, and almost undocumented, boggles my brain. But with this CD (along with “…For The Whole World To See”), you’ve found that chapter that’s been ripped outta the history books. Listen and learn. (Drag City, www.dragcity.com) Patrick Michalishyn
Obits – Moody, Standard, and Poor
The second Obits CD has absolutely killer packaging done up in the colours of bottled acrylic paint, with the sleekness of thick, pristine graphic novels. I don’t think anything could more predictive of how the music sounds. Guitars and drums lash out a web of dense and muscular garage rock that takes you cleanly and boldly out of your head. The members aren’t new to the music scene: there’s Rick Froberg of Hot Snakes and Pitchfork, guitarist Sohrab Habibion of Edsel, bassist Greg Simpson, and drummer Scott Gursky of Shortstack. All songs are timed to get just the right amount of suspense and perfect finish, as on “Standards,” which slows down like a marathon runner majestically breaking through the ribbon. Obits know they’re good, and they’re not afraid to proclaim it in the thickest musical equivalent of black Sharpie they can find. “Naked to the World” is purely joyful yawling. Froberg’s vocals “I Want Results” has a great, rolling, rumbling bassline, and hell, I don’t even know what kind of results I want after listening to this, but I sure know I want them. “Shift Operator” is slow and sparse compared to the other tracks (but by no means would you call this ‘slow’ out of context), which doesn’t work too well with the record as a whole. “New August” has a turgid undercurrent of wickedness, a touch of devious guitar riffing darkness. This is an exciting listen that’ll get you pumped up and ready for a comic-book-worthy adventure. (Sub Pop, www.subpop.com) Adrienne Yeung
In the Lair of the Tiger and the Bandit
By Kyra Leib
Andrew Courtnage a.k.a. Smoky Tiger is Winnipeg’s own psychedelic funk wizard. Smoky Tiger recently focused on writing music about Manitoban history. I was able to lasso him along with his partner in crime Josey Krahn for an enlightening interview. I walked up the metal stairs to the top floor studio loft of Winnipeg’s own mystical tiger man. Once inside, I was generously greeted by the offer of a berry smoothie and Smoky Tiger’s beautiful cat. Josey, a member of Smoky Tiger and the Manitobandits sat on a couch as I entered the living room with Andrew. As I struggled to withhold my berry smoothie from Smoky Tiger’s cat, I began asking questions.
Stylus: What are some of Smoky Tiger and The Manitobandits musical influences?
Josey Krahn: Disco, Pink Floyd, the Beatles, anything with a beat and some weird lyrics.
Andrew Courtnage: The circa 1991 Korean Mac laptop upon which I record all the Smoky Tiger music mysteriously resets itself to December 1969 every time I unplug it. This is a perfect metaphor for the vibration which influences the Smoky Tiger sound. I feel a kinship for the great visitation of energy which shaped the culture and society of the golden-classic era, yet I cannot deny the appeal of our space age bells and digital whistles. The Smoky Tiger is mostly about spiritually transformational, shamanically positive, Manitoban vibrations.
Stylus: Do you guys feel like there is a deficit of music coming out of Winnipeg which discusses Manitoba’s history and historical figures? Continue reading “In the Lair of the Tiger and the Bandit”
Gorge on This Fine Art
What do you do with an evening? Do you spend hours online with all your buds, looking up pr0n and cooking up steaks? Or watch prime time television rom-coms (or porn), wishing they were really starring you and your friends? Sir or madam, you really need to get out this Friday evening, and get a dose of the real world.
Gillian King, 24, and Kara Passey, 23, don’t mind that their art might be a little hard to digest.
“Most of my work is about personal experiences that people don’t want to talk about,” says Passey, “like being in an abusive relationship, or just having body image issues. People think that you just need to shut up about it. But, why? These are problems that people should be discussing.”
The two women have even found some resistance from their families to support the topics they tackle: Passey paints nude and semi-nude and portraits of herself and her friends, and King portrays female bodies melded together with factory-farmed animals, which has been an active feminist observation since Carol Adams’ 1990 book The Sexual Politics of Meat.
King says, “I’ve been a vegan since July last year, and a long-time vegetarian before that. As a woman and a vegan, I’m really interested in those similarities.” She says that she is getting more comfortable with the concept of feminism as she learns more about it, and she can relate it to her animal rights politics. “I think animals are very oppressed, and hopefully in the future, that will change,” says King, “and people will view them in a different way and not something to be slaughtered or taken advantage of or tortured. And women throughout history have been taken advantage of.”
In her abstract paintings, King draws from slaughterhouse pictures and feminine images. Racks of dead lambs and dead chickens are nearly indistinguishable from vaginas and long legs.
Passey says, “I like the idea that I’ve made paintings that have made people turn to me and say that they could connect with it because they had similar problems. It just doesn’t make sense to me to keep things quiet, when talking about it could end up helping somebody.”
Passey is inspired by the idea of thrusting private emotions into the public eye, and by the relationships between specific people. She also says that those inspirations have recently included feminism, sexuality, and performative gender. And while much of Passey’s work involves showing off the beauty in everyone’s bodies, (like her nude self-portrait which graced the cover of The Manitoban, and the portrait of her boyfriend above) one of her new works is focused on the gluttonous: she dipped 12 cheeseburgers in wax. “I preserved these cheeseburgers in wax and it was symbolic of this person I had dated. I was like, ‘What was something about him that really disgusted me?’ And it was the amount of McDonald’s he ate.”
But the two are excited for their opening this Friday at the Edge Gallery, where they will being having a vegan potluck starting at 7 p.m. As Passey coolly put it to King, “Our colour palettes are going to look awesome together.”
Small Black – New Chain
As far as finding and signing solid indie is considered, Jagjaguwar is a ‘Jesus of Nazareth’ type figure to the music scene. Leading us out of the darkness with artists like Bon Iver, Black Mountain and Okkervil River, Small Black is another one of gems in the Jagjaguwar trove. Released in November of 2010, New Chain is 10 tracks of elctro-rock goodness. Complex and absorbing, I can’t deny that this album is a dream for anyone looking for something solid for his or her “Recently Added” list. I won’t pretend like I know exactly how they make their stuff so freaking good – my best guess is that little aliens were in the recording studio, shooting laser guns of cool while Small Blackness got hit by a few while jamming, using their bleeps and buzzes all along the way. The album flows with a distinguishable sound common to each track. Smooth yet edge-frayed vocals, sharp beats and casio (a la ’80s inspired) all adds up into one polished LP. As far as favorite tracks go, “Hyrda,” “Goons” and “Invisible Grid” are all on repeat for me. (Jagjaguwar, www.jagjaguwar.com) Victoria King
Admiral Radley – I Heart California
Aaron Espinoza and Ariana Murray (of Earlimart) together with Jason Lytle and Aaron Burtch (Grandaddy) have got together under the moniker Admiral Radley. It’s hard not to feel sunny when Admiral Radley proclaims their love in phrases like “I’m citrus in summertime / You’re haggis and cider,” on the title track, but it’s just as hard not to feel the awkwardness of the oddly placed, whispered ‘yeah’s. This is how it goes for the rest of the album: What are decent guitar-driven pop/rock songs full of solid drums and clear piano are often gussied up with unwarranted effects or too much care to be completely effective or even memorable. The good points: “Sunburn Kids” is a sunny, head-bopping track; “Lonesome Co.” and “Ghost of Syllables” have good composition backed with pleasant instruments passing by in the background; and Murray’s voice stands out on the very pretty “The Thread,” which sounds like the actual music that ballerina on your sister’s music box dancer dances to. It’s gentle, paced, piano-based, and tells a story of two young people thinking about growing old side by side. On the next few tracks things speed up again – or at least they sound like they do, until a minute in, when you realise things are going to stay at the same emotional level for a while. There are great guitars and stirring bass, but there’s no musical revelation, no emotional current in the wires. “I’m All Fucked on Beer” is an obnoxious and fuzzy 4 minutes of frat-house noise and gratuitous nasal vocals. I Heart California has some great moments, but Admiral Radley makes it too easy to feel indifferent about the vast majority of the record. (The Ship, www.the-ship.com) Adrienne Yeung