by Sheldon Birnie
“Up in Brandon, Manitoba, I left 13 empty jugs / Canadian Women, lord, Canadian Club.” – Tom T. Hall, “Canadian Women” Continue reading “Hillbilly Highway – Visiting the Wheat City”
by Sheldon Birnie
“Up in Brandon, Manitoba, I left 13 empty jugs / Canadian Women, lord, Canadian Club.” – Tom T. Hall, “Canadian Women” Continue reading “Hillbilly Highway – Visiting the Wheat City”
Electropop pixie Grimes (a.k.a. Claire Boucher)’s angelic voice has captivated millions of pairs of ears in the past two years with her dark and sugary witch house beats. Less than a year after her latest release, the split LP Darkbloom (with d’Eon), the Montreal songstress is back with her most complex and lush sounding album yet, Visions. Stylus got in touch with her via e-mail, and this is what she had to say. Continue reading “The Visions of Grimes”
by Sheldon Birnie
Like The Boss said, “Summer’s here and the time is right for racing in the streets.” Continue reading “Hillbilly Highway – Back on the Road”
After a disturbingly friendly-weathered day, John K. Samson welcomes the subzero chill that we Winnipeggers are so familiar with. “I’m kind of relieved it’s getting a little colder. It was freaking me out yesterday. It was kind of unsettling… We need the real winter,” he explains over the phone. Continue reading “Citing Sources :: John K. Samson’s “Provincial””
by Sheldon Birnie
Ray Wylie Hubbard is a goddamn beauty, bottom line. Continue reading “Hillbilly Highway – Take heed of the Grifter’s Hymnal”
In mid 2010, I started billing myself as a DJ who played Solntsetsvety. Solntsetsvety – or Солнцецветы, a Russian word that translates to Sun Flowers (abbreviated СЦ in Cyrillic) – is an artist network which has been spawning lo-fi tracks and albums ranging from harsh noise and pure experimental to transcendental kraut jams and lo-fi reggaes since the late ’90s. Solntsetsvety is based – sort of – in cities Minsk, Belarus and Moscow, Russia, and sort of on their website, lesom.ru. The groups belonging to Solntsetsvety were hard to penetrate, even armed with digital translation and English articles on David MacFadyen’s Far From Moscow blog. Solntsetsvety was magic – and a mystery too intense to shrug off. Continue reading “.RU :: Underground tweenoise masters in the post-USSR”
by Sheldon Birnie
If you missed New Country Rehab at last year’s Winnipeg Folk Fest, now’s your chance to make up for that grievous error in judgment or scheduling on your part when NCR hit the Park Theatre on March 15. Continue reading “Hillbilly Highway – Checking in to New Country Rehab”
by Sheldon Birnie
Zachary Lucky is a soft-spoken, hard-working troubadour from Saskatoon, SK. No stranger to the Hillbilly Highway, Lucky has criss-crossed the country time and time again since the release Come & Gone in 2010. Continue reading “Hillbilly Highway – Zachary Lucky’s Saskatchewan”