Whenever I think about the pursuit of fame (the pre-Kardashian era), my mind automatically tracks back to reruns of the 1980s TV show Fame, and Debbie Allen warning Leroy et al about the price of pursuing your creative dreams. “Fame costs and right here’s where you start paying – in sweat,” Allen warns her students, […] More »

Grungy, seductive, and lusciously poisonous, Winnipeg’s This Hisses are a band I have been aching to see live for ages. They are often categorized as surf rock – as their album title Surf Noir alludes to – but there is more sepia than sunblock in their sound, as much cabaret as beach. Vocalist Julia Ryckman […] More »

Listen here: Biipiiwan — Nibaak — Kingmaker This crashing, abrasive piece is part of the 3-song EP Nibaak that Ottawa weirdos Biipiigwan released in March of 2012. Their sound is a combination of noise rock and sludge metal, disparate elements brought together sheer intuition. This song raises a racket, the acerbic vocals and clattering cymbals […] More »

Wondering how best to pay tribute to a musician who recently died? Just say no to holograms—please I beg of you—and instead enlist some adorable children to help you with your tribute. That’s what Portland filmmaker James Winters did. Winters got his kids and nephew to reenact the Beastie Boys 1994 video for “Sabotage” (directed […] More »

Occupying a wonderfully strange place on the Canadian metal landscape, one that combines great technical dexterity with the deep emotional reverberations of sludge (the band lovingly refer to this micro-genre as “swamp trench arithmetic”), The Great Sabatini have dropped a new mountain on their particular musical skyline with Matterhorn. “City Limits” is the opening track […] More »

I love writing album reviews. I end up turning out around five of them a week, give or take a few. I love the structure that records take on, the universal constraints of time and sound that bind the concepts. I love the sensuality of aural art forms, the wordlessness of music simultaneously defied and […] More »

You’d be forgiven if Tomboyfriend slipped under your radar the past year. With only one album (2010’s Don’t Go to School) and virtually no touring, the band can still be considered undiscovered territory. Tomboyfriend is a collective of “nonmusicians” led by Ryan Kamstra who just happen to make some of the most emotionally relevant, lyrically […] More »

Toronto’s Chris Cummings leads a double life. By day, he works at the Toronto International Film Festival as Assistant Manager, programming Norman McLaren shorts for the Bell Lightbox. By night, he slides into a white tuxedo to become Mantler, his broken-hearted soul-funk alter ego. Mantler has been a fixture of the Toronto music scene since […] More »

The Journal of Behavioral Medicine tells us what humans have always known—singing in groups is good for you. Sing and immune-boosting proteins come flooding through your bloodstream. Psychophysiological changes take hold. Your mood is elevated. Bruce Peninsula knows this intuitively. The band, which can swell to more than a dozen, mixes gospel, folk, and prog […] More »

Teenage Kicks represent a wonderful shift in popular music that’s been happening over the past year—a return to rock ‘n’ roll. Now, I’m not complaining about, nor am I apologizing for, all the non-rock music of recent memory. I’ve loved much of it, but it’s been a while since swagger and guitar solos have been […] More »

I realize I’m about two weeks late in mentioning this, but: Hey everyone, have you heard Matters?! If you haven’t, you might have heard them under their old moniker The D’Urbervilles, or maybe as front man John O’Regan’s one-man band Diamond Rings. Or maybe it’s all new to you—in which case, lucky you. Regardless, it’s good […] More »