Album Review :: Dil Brito :: Fences Glimpses Glances

by Gabriel Fars

In most parts of his music, he doesn’t need lyrics; the melodies say it all. The small comforts of this album make it feel incredibly warm and welcoming. It has almost a nostalgic haze type of vibe to it. I think the best part about it is that this isn’t some pretentious ass shit. It’s complex and beautiful, but it still doesn’t feel as though it’s trying to aim too hard for that target audience of ‘snobby hipsters who listen to folk music and probably think that they’re both better than you AND too smart for you.’ 

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Interview :: Taylor Janzen

Supplied photo

by Myles Tiessen

The music video for “Designated Driver,” one of the leading singles from Taylor Janzen’s debut LP, I Live In Patterns, sees Janzen behind the wheel driving an old 60s-era motorcar. Artistically shot using a conspicuous green screen, Janzen traverses various landscapes, supermarkets, and cattle pastures, driving with no clear destination. As the chorus builds and melodies intensify, so too does the speed of her travels. Like a bullet through a desolate purgatory with nothing to arrest her motion, Janzen cycles and flips through the pain and regret in her mind. “I swear to God I’m trying/ Not to ruin our plans/ I made myself a martyr with the holes in my hands,” she sings. 

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Album Review :: Living Hour :: Someday is Today

Living Hour Someday is Today album cover. White shirt covering white jeans with exposed belly button

by Daniel Kussy

I’ll remember Living Hour’s performance at the Winnipeg Art Gallery at the tail end of last year for two reasons: those spinning chairs the audience was seated in and the sonic expansion within the band’s sound across a collection of new songs that dug into my brain. With the release of Someday is Today, the Winnipeg indie darlings’ third LP is their most diverse release yet. My brain rests easy knowing the songs recorded sound just as good as they did in the Muriel Richardson Auditorium.

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Concert Review :: Winterruption :: Thursday Janurary 26 :: Bedtime, Virgo Rising, Motherhood

Photo of Motherhood

by Mike Thiessen

Energy was the theme of the night on Thursday, January 26 – both the respective energies of the bands themselves and the overall dynamic flow of the evening. Amping up for the second weekend of Real Love’s Winterruption, the Good Will was taken over by Bedtime, an up-and-coming dream pop duo, the thoroughly-beloved Virgo Rising, and New Brunswick’s very own “deep-thinkin’ rippers,” Motherhood. What appeared at first to be a somewhat bizarre (albeit fascinating) lineup proved to be a show for the ages.

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Interview :: Matt Foster :: True Needs

Photo of Matt Foster, lying on their back? smiling

by Jesse Popeski

Stylus: You have your take on “Billy in the Low Ground” on the album and fingerpicking guitar on songs like “Don’t Lie About Your Dreams. How does folk music fit into the picture?

Matt Foster: Protest music would’ve been how I found folk music. The power of bringing people together, politically throwing a wrench in the gears. There are all kinds of things in folk music that I love, how you don’t have to be good in terms of playing to get up on the stage; it’s very equalizing; it’s everyone’s music. In terms of direct influences, I don’t pull on it directly. Live, I’ll slow “Billy in the Low Ground” down and play a crooked version. I’ll reference the tune, but I’ll play the B section first, I’ll play it super slow. No one plays fiddle music really slow; everyone’s racing to be that athlete. But if I just let the strings ring, let them create chords in the sustained spots, there’s a beautiful harmonic sadness. I try hard not to define anything lyrically, harmonically, I try not to let anything get boxed in, so the ear settles – I like this sense of the unsettled.

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