You’ve probably never heard of the Diagram Brothers, so here’s a fast breakdown: four English lads who took the last name Diagram; played punk songs you could dance to, with simple lyrics set to a musical formula of discordant chords only; they only put out one album and a handful of singles (all of which were collected on Brit label LTM’s reissue, Some Marvels of Modern Science); and they sound like a mishmash of Devo, The Jam, and Man…Or Astro-man? While only being active for three years, they were invited by John Peel just as many times to record Peel Sessions. This CD collects them all. What’s great about these Peel Sessions (and the sessions in general) is that bands only have a few takes before they move on to the next song, giving each track the sound of raw and live immediacy. The album tracks “Those Men In White Coats,” “I Didn’t Get Where I Am Today by Being a Right Git,” and “My Bad Chest Feels Much Better Now” sound angrier, slashier and more paranoid than the versions that have been floating about for years, which only leaves me thinking, “How would songs like ‘Atom Bomb’ and ‘Bigger Box’ sound if they were picked for Peel Sessions?” The biggest treat (besides essential versions of album and single tracks reworked) is the third Peel Session. It contains five songs, three original and two covers, that haven’t been released in any form before this. The feel of the final session is looser and more fun than anything I’ve heard by them. “Hey Dad” is a call and response between a teenage girl asking his dad for things that a teenage girl would want, and the father shooting down every request (putting it over the top, dad sings back opera-style). And by far, the best tracks here are inspired covers: the first being “You’ve Got to Pick a Pocket or Two” from the musical Oliver!, replete with whistling and bouncy feel, it’s twisted into something that a droog would sing. The other cover is a completely hammed up-and-warped rendition of “You’ll Never Walk Alone” from Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Carousel. Wavering between a Nick Cave in the Birthday Party and drunken Elvis, it’s a total piss-take, and a window into a band that knew how to have fun. Essential. (LTM Recordings, www.ltmrecordings.com) Patrick Michalishyn
Chain & The Gang – Music’s Not For Everyone
“If you feel like you’re not good enough then you’re probably not / And you know what / You never, ever will be.” Singing this silently for a whole week may seem to be disparaging to the extreme, but after listening to Music’s Not For Everyone, it could hardly be helped. Chain & The Gang have written 14 catchy blues and garage rock tunes, each one with clever and simple lyrics that you will find yourself singing incessantly. On the surface, the defining themes of these lyrics would be drug taking, and music making, however, these guys are not some superficial rock & roll losers. When you listen to the lyrics of “Detroit Music”: “With all these factories closing down / Who is gonna make that sound!” You’ll realize that these guys have political and philosophical convictions. “Music’s Not For Everyone” is a Jim Morrison type psychedelic spoken word-and-musical piece about the appreciation of music. “Does a moth know a flame just because it’s drawn to it? / Does a body know a bullet just because it got hit? / Do people who are listening to music even like it? / Do people deserve it, even when they buy it?” Also notable is the theme of self-loathing in “Not Good Enough” and “Can’t Get Away From Myself.” This album is the band’s second full-length and I would be remiss if I did not mention that these guys are a bunch of filthy Marxists. Their first full-length album is Down With Liberty…Up With Chains! “Liberty” is used as a symbol of Western greed and capitalism. Ian Svenonius, the lead singer of Chain & The Gang has released a book called The Psychic Soviet which might well be worth a read through! I love every single track on this brilliant album. (K Records, www.krecs.com) Kyra Leib
Shannon and the Clams – Sleep Talk
Hunx and his Punx recently traded in the Punx for the Punkettes who include bassist Shannon Shaw, the lead singer of Oakland’s Shannon and the Clams. The band enters the spotlight with their excellent sophomore album in the congested genre of lo-fi/garage/punk/surf/rock revival. And while groups like the Vivian Girls continually release notable albums, including this year’s Share The Joy, the Clams come as a breath of fresh air (especially after the Dum Dum Girls and Best Coast put out kind of underwhelming albums despite crazy hype). At its core, Sleep Talk is a doo-wop cacophony that jumps from distorted jingles (“Sleep Talk”) to broken-hearted ballads (“Tired of Being Bad”), but the album really shines when Shannon unleashes her brash vocals and the Clams follow with their crunchy guitars and booming drums on “King of the Sea” and ”Toxic Revenge.” The beauty of the recent influx of revival bands is the fluidity among its members. While the genre’s hub bands are generally more well-known, their side projects like the Mayfair Set, Frankie Rose and the Outs, and, here, Shannon and the Clams become the gems that are proving their worth. Maybe I’ll start working on a garage revival Venn diagram to capture its incestuous behaviour… or maybe I’ll just go back to loving the hell out of this album. (1-2-3-4 Go! Records, www.shannonandtheclams.com) Andrew Mazurak
Absent Sound – Turn Them Off EP
The Absent Sound’s fifth release opens with “TV Song,” containing the simple and resounding message; “Talk back to your TV as if it had something to say.” The guys from Absent Sound have always put an astounding importance on community, having organized the semi-annual celebration of Element Sircus for years, and this album is a call-to-arms for those looking for more than a mundane electronic/escapist life. It’s obvious that Turn Them Off is the product of A.D.D.-free minds. Absent Sound negotiate these five-minute-plus songs in a pretty calm and collected (though energetic) headspace and the band’s songs turn slowly from start to finish, revealing more mysterious layers as they go along. The time signatures and tempos of “Occupying Home” shift prismatically like few other bands in the city (except maybe their peers Mahogany Frog) could replicate, and the self-effacing angst of “Stuck in Line” is for great dramatic effect. Closer “Hip Hop Knights” keeps its groove for a good seven minutes, making it a great ethereal pop song that closes the album and echoes off into the distance. (Independent, www.absentsound.bandcamp.com) Taylor Burgess
LOST: The Unicorns – Who Will Cut Our Hair When We’re Gone? // Islands – Return To The Sea
Two albums that I keep side by side on my usually-alphabetical and chronological CD shelf are The Unicorns’ Who Will Cut Our Hair When We’re Gone? and Islands’ Return To The Sea. They made a pop on the same radio stations paved the way for Broken Social Scene, Feist and Arcade Fire and that like, but then they kinda just… went away. Why? The Unicorns’ sole album was non-stop fun, twisted quirky pop that was never serious. Bent melodies, cheap instruments and toys, happily un-self-consciously weird rock. The Canadian outcast, the underdog hero. Listen to the abrasive, in-the-red synth of “Jellybones” crash into the drums and lift itself into classic rock territory. (Note: not ‘classic rock’.) Same with the recorder solo on “Unicorns Are People Too.” Maybe off-putting to the cool rocker, but if you quit worrying what everyone thinks, it’ll make you grin like a five-year-old on Trix.
After The Unicorns’ break-up, Nick Thorburn was the first to put out new music. Islands’ Return To The Sea sounded like Unicorns post-puberty: more mature, retaining the twisting structures but losing the screeches, squelches and burps that made The Unicorns so… special. It’s like that taking the little kid out of his backyard and showing him the world. “Rough Gem” was the first single off of the album that got some decent airplay on campuses across Canada and became the song that everyone would come out to see. Apparently they don’t even play it anymore. “Where There’s A Will, There’s A Whalebone” gets eerie about halfway through and pulls the rug out, having Busdriver spit rhymes and leaving indie kids wondering what the eff just happened.
I wouldn’t necessarily say that The Unicorns’ Who Will Cut Our Hair When We’re Gone? is an “overlooked” Canadian album. I mean, they’re no Arcade Fire or Broken Social Scene, but there is a solid cult following for this little band from Campbell River, B.C.
Since it’s release in late 2003, the cult of The Unicorns had already been growing at a steady clip. Costumes at shows, great banter, quirky-ass pop songs; the kids couldn’t get enough. Web sites on social networks had songs posted under various names by band members and side groups (All Makes Parts and Collision, Th’ Corn Gangg, Nick Common et al.) set people off on the hunt for everything this group of pervy popsters had recorded. There’s a good double-album’s worth of Unicorns material (at least!) that didn’t make Who Will (and that’s not even mentioning the limited-to-500 debut they released earlier that same year).
Like all things, they came and went. All you can do now is call up your local campus radio station and bring these wicked albums back up for air. (2003, Alien8, www.alien8recordings.com // 2006, Equator, www.equatormusic.ca) Patrick Michalishyn
The Weeknd – House of Balloons
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
Moon Duo – Mazes and Mazes Remixed
Moon Duo’s Mazes mixes elements of all of my late-night driving pleasures (Spacemen 3, Can, Eric’s Trip, V.U.’s “Sister Ray”) into a great listen, start-to-finish. The synth and guitar alternate between making the drone and taking the lead, hypnotizing you then smacking your face to get your attention back. The album kicks off with “Seer,” squiggly synths and a three-note synth pattern that carves out a groove for you and vocals that just haze about. Then this guitar solo comes out at you like a laser-pointer through a fog machine. Yee-owch!! The track (despite the ‘late-night’ stuff I mentioned) that got the most ear-play was the track “Mazes” with its cheery summer-crunch vibe. And, to me, “Run Around” sounds like a Bo Diddley number with Alan Vega on vocals, and “In the Sun,” with its heavily-reverbed vocals, sounds an awful lot like Rick White’s stuff. When I started listening to this album, I had several moments of, “Wow, I know this from somewhere…” Somebody’s created a Frankenstein’s monster of happy-psychedelic music. And if that’s not enough, the first run of this kick-ass album came with a bonus disc of remixes (plus one cover), and for the most part, it’s a pretty fine freebie. Standout remixes are the Psychic Ills’ remix of “Seer,” adding sitar and shruti to great effect, and brings in that eastern tinge that you felt was missing from the album version. Purling Hiss’s remix of “In The Sun” ups the hypno-qualities with the title repeating over itself and some stellar guitar work. There are three major parts which could be their own songs, but layer so well here, creating something that might surpass the original. And the reason I picked up this album: Gary War and his exclusive re-working of “When You Cut.” Completely gutting the song, manipulating individual tracks, then forcing it back together… It’s the oddest and the best track on this bonus disc. Find it before it’s gone. (Sacred Bones, www.sacredbonesrecords.com) Patrick Michalishyn
Suture – Live Fragments
This CD was recorded over five shows and six months—and a little bit of a warning—the music on this CD is freeform. It isn’t for the faint of heart or mind. But the music on Live Fragments every bit emotionally and cerebrally fulfilling as any other genre. Greg Hanec and Sarah Otsuji use both electronic and acoustic instruments; they electronically manipulate to the point of knotty loops and use their instruments like virtuosos, and drench it all in delay like Bitches Brew. It’s a solid set of improvisations and is highly recommended for putting you in alternative headspaces. The minor disheartenment of this disc is the “Fragments”—some of the tracks fade out to silence prematurely, and fade back in to a different part of the show. Given the post-modern nature of the music, the album could’ve been given a post-modern treatment like Burning Star Core’s Papercuts Theater, which was made up of 40 live recordings and arranged into four non-stop parts. This is totally nitpicking though, and Live Fragments is another find in Winnipeg’s lawless noise scene. (Independent, www.myspace.com/greghanec) Taylor Burgess
Tonstartssbandht – Now I Am Become
The emergence of artists that play polyphonic, vocal-led music like Julianna Barwick, Grouper, and now Tonstartssbandht, is a really exciting thing. Now I Am Become is a record that isn’t easily expressed in words, but that’s probably the best thing about it. The all-over-the-place-in-the-best-way nature of these tracks sees the band flying from chaotic, noisy, and kind of abrasive experimentation to glorious Animal Collective (or possibly Beach Boys, or probably both)-inspired hymns. This may be off-putting for some (which is probably why the band made its home on the weirdo/ultra-hip Montreal label Arbutus Records), not easily absorbed, or even understood, until after a number of repeated listens. “Shot To La Parc” nearly demands that you blast it through your headphones to soak it in. Intensely catchy guitar licks blast you from every direction, while vocal chants are shouted from the sidelines and slip easily through the mix. By the time the closer, “Orange Love You,” rolls around, the mood has shifted towards atmospheric. Splashes of soul, blues and gospel float around the room, amidst an ocean of reverb-inflicted vocals and filtered, processed instruments. But even when Tonstartssbandht pushes against the walls of their lo-fi, noise rock, the heat and friction they generate keeps them from ever sounding delicate. This is a rock band, but calling them that wouldn’t be giving them enough credit. Like all great music, Now I Am Become reveals itself slowly, asking you to meet it halfway, and giving only as much back as what’s being putting in. (Arbutus Records, www.arbutusrecords.com/) Kevan Hannah
Battles – Gloss Drop
New York’s Battles are a unique band. Their debut album, Mirrored, was full of ingenuity and things we hadn’t heard before from any of its component parts; even the last Don Cab album that featured guitarist Ian Williams, American Don, which had all the precursors and shades of Battles to come, wasn’t as varied and as multifaceted as the new group. Chalk that up to (now former) band member Tyondai Braxton, whose level of influence over the album’s sound may have been nebulous to first-time listeners, as Williams’ fits of fancy could take him any direction without seeming out of place. Upon hearing Gloss Drop, it is apparent how strong a voice- literally his voice- Braxton had in the band. Maybe not a consciously steering hand, but rather a catalyst for the rest of the band to be more audacious and a little more adventurous than they might have been. Now, without his presence, Battles have sunk into a routine, building a steady albeit unconventional rhythm, intertwining guitar and keyboard riffs, each component player riffing a bit on what’s been previously built, and then tapering out near the end. The riffs and rhythms are interesting, but often overstay their welcome, and as a whole start to blend into each other. The real highlights of the album come when they have a vocalist to play off of, Braxton’s hole being filled with four vocalists in this case: Matias Aguayo, synth-pop pioneer Gary Numan, Kazu Makino of shoegaze veterans Blonde Redhead, and Yamantaka Eye of Japanese noise weirdos The Boredoms. Each of these tracks stands as a more unique, more interesting piece of work than any of the non-vocal tracks on the album, and really illustrate how much a voice can add, or how much the lack of one can detract. (Warp, www.warp.net) David Nowacki