Stylus Magazine -- Apr/May

Apr/May 2012

Volume23 Issue2

Published by the University of Winnipeg Students' Association

www.stylusmagazine.ca PROGRAM GUIDE INSIDE

December/January 2009 Stylus Magazine

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02 2009

Stylus Magazine

December/January

Stylus

Apr/May

On the Cover

Volume23 Issue2

NIGEL SUTCLIFFE is a british born freelance Illustrator and mixed media artist. He is a former Winnipeg resident of 14 years, and a 2011 BFA grad from the UofM. Currently working from a studio among the Gulf Islands of B.C. he produces work that mixes both digital and traditional media.

He also enjoys old bicycles, sea turtles and Earl Grey tea.

Production Team

Check out more of Nigel’s work at www.nigelsutcliffe.com

Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sheldon Birnie Art Director . . . . . . . . . . . . Andrew Mazurak Assistant Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . Darcy Penner Advertising Manager . . . . . . . . . . Ted Turner

204-786-9779, outreach@theuwsa.ca

Distributor . . . . . . . . . . . Patrick Michalishyn Cover Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Nigel Sutcliffe Printed by Copy Plus Inc. . . . . . 204-232-3558

Contributors Kent Davies Taylor Burgess Kristal Jax Victoria King Melanie Lemoine Leif Larsen Devin King Scott Wolfe Matt Perrin Nigel Sutcliffe Kabir Kaler

Stylus is published bi-monthly by the University of Winnipeg Students’ Association, with a circulation of 2,500. Stylus serves as the program guide to 95.9FM CKUW and will reflect the many musical communities it supports within Winnipeg and beyond. Stylus strives to provide coverage of music that is not normally written about in the mainstream media. Stylus acts as a vehicle for the work of new writers, photographers and artists, including members of the University of Winnipeg, of CKUW and of the Winnipeg community at large. Stylus reserves the right to refuse to print material, specifically, that of a racist, homophobic or sexist nature.

All submissions may be edited and become the property of Stylus.

All opinions expressed in Stylus are those of the contributors and do not necessarily reflect those of the editors. Contributions in the form of articles, reviews, letters, photos and graphics are welcome and should be sent with contact information to:

Stylus Magazine Bulman Student Centre, University of Winnipeg 515 Portage Avenue, Winnipeg, MB, R3B 2E9 Phone: 204-786-9785, Fax: 204-783-7080 editor@stylusmagazine.ca www.stylusmagazine.ca Contributions will be accepted in the body of an email. No attachments please. All submissions may be edited and become the property of Stylus. Unauthorized reproduction of any portion of Stylus is strongly discouraged without the express written consent of the editors.

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TableofContents Blah, Blah, Blah Events around town . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Forty-Seven Thoughts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 CKUWho The World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 CKUW Program Guide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Local Spotlight Brothers // Salinas // FMSEA // Kayla Luky . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Root Cellar Chuck Prophet // Ray Wylie Hubbard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Iconoclast The Menzingers // A Name Unheard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Ulteriors Lafidki / Orphan | Oliver // Laura Warholic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Under the Needle Leonard Cohen // Sleigh Bells // Pujol . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Live Bait Propagandhi + Dreadnought // Damo Suzuki . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Kontroller The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 Fear of Music Explaining the Vocabulary of Explaining Grimes . . . . . . . . . 27 Weird Shit with Kent Davies An Elephant never forgets...to ROCK! . 28

Features Rob Crooks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Viridians . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Greg Rekus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Frank Turner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Boats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Rae Spoon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

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Apr/May 2012 Stylus Magazine

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NEON INDIAN RETURN WITH LEMONADE THAT’S LACED WITH ACID TO THE PYRAMID ON MAY 3RD

Blah, Blah, Blah Welly, welly, welly well friends. Spring is here. Time to get wild in the streets of Winnipeg. Plenty of good music coming out of the woodwork, so strap on your bike helmet and pull up those pants. It’s party time! *** Wednesday’s make sure to haul your sorry ass down to the Standard Tavern to catch Andrew Neville & the Poor Choices. *** Thursday’s in April, JD Edwards Band is rocking the Times Change(d), while Scott Nolan shows the Standard what’s up. *** Sundays are the Lord’s Day, but if you’ve got a hankering to sin, head to the Standard for Bad Country, or the Times for Big Dave McLean’s weekly blues jam. *** April 13 we got a lot on our plates, with Wind-Ups at King’s Head; Our Lady Peace & CKUW favourites Pack AD @ the Garrick; Dust Adam Dust, Vampire, Ex-Modern Teen @ Ozzys; From Giants @ Lo Pub, and Bog River @ the Times. For something truly strange and awesome, though, make your way to Negative Space where the almighty Breath Grenades, The Trapezoids, LazyHorse, and 77 Guns are gonna get weird as fuck, folks. Wear depends, and prepare for your motherfucking minds to melt.

You have been warned. *** April 14 Hannah Geogas & Kathleen Edwards woo the Garrick, while Romi Mayes rocks the Times Change(d). *** April 17 Japanther, Boys Who Say No, Bokononists get sweaty at Lo Pub. *** Looking to get your headbang on? Headbang on down to the Pyramid April 18 for Death Angel, Havok & Sepultura. *** April 19 we got Kittie at Park Theatre, while Nashville Pussy & Supersuckers get good & greasy down at the Pyramid. *** If you can find your way through the haze on April 20, check out Eamon McGrath at the Lo Pub, or Liqurd, Psychotic Gardening, Agony Spawn @ Ozzy’s. If you’re weird into birds in a big way, you got Eagle Lake Owls, Feed the Birds, From Giants @ Pop Soda’s. If you’re looking for something a little bit country, don’t miss

Dollyfest at the Times Change(d). If you’ve got to keep the dope-train puffing along, you don’t want to miss Ras-Tamils EP release party smoke show at Exchange Community Church. Puff puff pass, pal! *** April 21 we got SitDownTracy’s album release Lo Pub, and Frank Turner & Joel Plaskett Emergency at the Garrick. Thar she blows! Said the Whale & Chains of Love play their first of two nights at Park Theatre, while Dollyfest finishes up at the Times. *** Veteran punk rockers Social Distortion tear up the Burton Cummings April 23. *** April 24 James & the Giants play the Royal George. *** April 27 over at the Park Theatre Transistor 66 Rock N Roll Weekend gets going with The Gunness, The Thrashers, Bloodshot Bill, The Angry Dragons. *** April 28 Transistor 66 Rock n Roll Weekend continues with The Lonely Vulcans, This Hisses, Meisha & the Spanks, and Microdot; West End Cultural Centre hosts a Prairie Kitchen Party with Emma Clooney, Patti Lamoureux, Rambling Dan Frechette, & more; and The F-Holes play two show s at the Times Change(d). *** To cap the month off, fucking Dragonforce are prepared to blast the roof off of West End Cultural Centre Holy shit. Now it’s May. Queen Victoria’s Birthday Bash is coming up. Save up your pennies for all those drinking in public tickets you’ll rack up, boyo. Summer’s here, fuck! God save the Queen! *** May 2 Melodies on Mecredi presents This Hisses and Federal Lights at the WECC. *** Get your dancing shoes on and keep your self-hydrated on May 3 for Lemonade and Neon Indian at the Pyramid. *** The water might be a touch too cold yet on May 4 for Great Lake Swimmers at the WECC, but as they say, God hates a coward. *** May 8 the good Reverend Horton Heat gets spiritual as shit at the Pyramid. *** Talk about spiritual, on May 9 Ron Sexsmith plays the Westminster United Church. *** May 10

PHOTO BY TEEJ UNDERWATERTIGER.COM

The Perms are rocking the Cavern, Rammstein rocks the MTS *** May 11 Take off, hoser. 8 Days in May, Eh! gets going, with performance throughout the week by Don Amero, Little Hawk, Katie Murphy, Wab Kinew, the Dusty Roads Band, Mariachi Ghost, Split Crooked, and many, many more at venues across the city. Plenty to see and do there, eh. If you’re looking for a laugh, Norm MacDonald is performing at the Burt. Or so the Germans would have us believe..., also Buck 65 rocks the Pyramid *** May 14 the Black Keys and Arctic Monkeys do up the MTS Centre. *** May 17th the WECC host Woody Guthrie’s 100th Birthday. Happy Birthday, you old dog. *** May 16 BB King is playing the Concert Hall. *** Jump!

May 17 Van Halen gets hot and heavy at the MTS Centre with Kool and the Gang. *** May 19 Andrew Neville & the Poor Choices rock the Times with Scarlett Jane. *** Check back on May 24 as the Times Change(d) hosts at Million Dollar Bob Dylan Birthday Bash. Plenty of special guests and good times galore. *** May 25 you got Romi Mayes at the Cavern, with Cheering for the Bad Guy, or the Noble Thiefs at the Times. *** May 26 The Skydiggers play the WECC. *** Closing out the month, you can see Del Barber & Old Man Luedecke at the Park Theatre on May 28th. Or, if hard drinking tunes are more your flavour, George Thorogood and the Destroyers will be ripping shit up at the Concert Hall. What a strange choice of venue.

Last time I seen George & the boys, the floor was one middle-aged fist fight after another. It was awesome. Hooo-eee, that was something! *** Finally, getting trippy as shit, Roger Waters brings the Wall to Winnipeg, May 31 & June 1. Don’t drink the Kool-Aid, unless you’re well prepared. That’s it!

Y’all come back, now. ***

RASTAMILS EP RELEASE PARTY Friday, April 20th @ the Exchange Community Church

PRESENTS: GARNET ROGERS Sunday May 27th @ WECC BANDS VS FILMMAKERS CINEMATHEQUE FUNDRAISER Thurs May 31st @ WECC RUN FOR RIGHTS Sat June 2nd @ Kildonan Park ELLICE STREET FESTIVAL Sat June 2nd www.stylusmagazine.ca

SITDOWNTRACY CD RELEASE Sat April 21st @ Lo Pub JEZABELS Mon April 23rd @ WECC WCWRC: HOW SOLO CAN YOU GO? AN EVENING OF STORY AND SONG Sat May 5th @ WECC JANE SIBERRY May 6th @ WECC DAN BAIN Friday, May 11th @ Boa Lounge WINNIPEG ZINE FAIR Sat May 12th & Sun May 13th @ 253 Princess St. TEDDY BEARS’ PICNIC Sunday, May 27 @ Assiniboine Park Apr/May 2012 Stylus Magazine

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FORTY-SEVEN THOUGHTS 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 35 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 46 45 43 42 41 40 39 38 37 36 35 34 33 32 31 30 29 28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1...

1. this edition of stylus came together quickly, with some confusion, and surprisingly painlessly. perhaps a case of whiplash or two was suffered, but no lasting injuries. no scars. 2. my name is sheldon dean jensen birnie. pleased to meet you. 3. i am the new editor of stylus magazine. i was previously the assistant editor.

4. thoughts # 1 & 3 are still sinking into the grey matter remaining behind my thick skull. it may take me some time to fully comprehend this new reality.

5. our new assistant editor’s name is darcy. perhaps you’ll meet darcy’s 47 thoughts next edition. 6. andrew is still our design editor. he has a small child, these days. 7. last night i woke to the sound of thunder.

8. some folks call me shelly, brad boston, or sheldonia. you can call me pal, if you like. 9. i was not born in the viscount gort, but rather in victoria bc. i grew up in dawson creek bc. it’s not like the popular television series, but it was a lot of fun. i’ve lived in winnipeg for almost six years now. i like winnipeg.

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the music’s good here, and the beer is cheap. 10. my favourite band from winnipeg could very well be kittens. i never got to see kittens. i once almost saw one of their reunion shows, but cursed fate was against me. i would pay dearly for a chance to see them live. first-born-dearly. 11. for a six-stringed instrument, the guitar can certainly draw plenty of blood. 12. playing the six-strings-that-draw-blood at the Albert once, i received a nasty infection on my middle finger from a broken beer bottle. it took weeks to heal. long live the royal albert arms. 13. i have a signed photograph of prime minister steve harper on my bureau at home, though we are far from pals. 14. me and whisky used to be pals, but these days we’re not much on speaking terms. 15. i enjoy the summertime here in manitoba, drinking diesels and burning gasoline. 16. fish ought to keep to the waterways in this world, lest they taste the barbed point of an arrow, or a fate far worse. take for instance a wrecking ball. 17. friendship is fun.

18. but if you don’t like bryan adams, well… 19. croquet is a sport fit for kings and queens, but only a poor sport or a small child holds a mallet with both hands. the other is reserved strictly for road pops. 20. lumbercats unite! rec hockey rocks! 21. oh, look. it’s snowing outside. 22. my buddy brad says i once kissed mr chi pig on the lips. while i’m not sure i believe him, it is certainly within the realm of possibility. 23. if you are entering a legion or veterans club, remove your hat, or prepare to buy the house a round.

24. scabies are a nasty affliction. 25. jesus is my drinkin’ buddy. 26. while it certainly is hard to pen words to describe the beautiful or cacophonous sounds made musical instruments and arranged by sentient life-forms, it certainly is fun to give it a go. 27. besides, god hates a coward. 28. i once had my foot crushed in a moshpit in a living room in a

house near winfield. it was my fault. i wasn’t watching the action, but was concentrating hard on my old pal whisky. 29. i’m a honky-tonk man. 30. i enjoy the bold flavours of a cold one or three. this is well known. 31. railway crossings are excellent spots to observe comings and goings along the hillbilly highway. 32. pissing in the wind isn’t half as dangerous as it’s made out to be. 33. patrick roy was a mean s-o-b between the posts, but i always favoured felix the cat. 34. have you met my friend squirrelman? my associate, woodtick? good? 35. there’s more than one road to cold one city. 36. there’s no such joy in the tavern as upon the road thereto. 37. my pal karl’s often spot on the money, especially regarding the springsteen/seger ticket for 2012. 38. if you swear you’ll catch no fish. 39. i wouldn’t advise proposing to a gal with a head full of horse tranquilizer and high powered mood enhancers. nothing good will come from such a witch’s brew. 40. i got a ten-speed in working condition, with a basket that carries eight road pops. can’t argue with that math. 41. if you’re intent on catching a fish after all this, you ought to think like a fish. 42. can’t respect a government that doesn’t respect you. 43. once tattooed with a sewing needle and left-over india ink at a party at my pad. my old pal whisky was lurking around. we were still speaking, back then. 44. never shot a hand gun.

45. you ever drink so much malt liquor it come bleeding out your pours? another thing i might not recommend. 46. i hope you’re having a good day, but... 47. you can’t win ‘em all.

- sheldon birnie

Apr/May 2012 Stylus Magazine

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ROB CROOKS Breaking boundaries with Hearts

By Kent Davies

Rob Crooks has been a music making machine since the fourth grade. He’s been rapping, battling, making beats and sampling before he even hit high school.

He’s been an integral part of Winnipeg’s burgeoning hip-hop scene, having a hand in everything from collaborating with Pip Skid on his Skid Row album, to ripping up the stage with rap-act The Fucking Retards, to writing the bulk of Magnum K.I.’s acclaimed debut album. Whether he’s rapping in viral videos about Jets games or posting the next fresh piece of local music as a contributor on the witchpolice blog, there’s a chance you’ve been exposed to the infectious creative prowess of Rob Crooks. However, unlike his previous projects, his solo debut EP Hearts doesn’t fit in the realm of conventional hip hop. Armed with drum machines, samplers, keys and a commanding growl, he’s managed to redefine himself with a solo sound that can’t be pinned down. Combining groove-laden soundscapes and ferocious lo-fi post punk, Crooks has managed to create an EP that appeals to an audience beyond the hip-hop community. Recently Stylus interviewed Crooks before his EP launch at the Lo Pub on March 15.

Stylus: Your new EP is a really interesting mix of not just hip-hop, but indie-rock and pop. Was it important for you to not only stick to one genre with Hearts?

Rob Crooks: When I wrote the songs I wasn’t looking for a specific genre. It wasn’t what it was about.

It’s kind of freeing that way. With Hearts I wasn’t so worried about pleasing anybody or sticking to any constrained formula.

Stylus: How do you differentiate your solo sound from your group projects?

RC: I’ve always been writing weird rock or pop songs just on my downtime. I never really took

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them seriously but with this one it was different. I was pretty much using the same methods to make the music I usually make. Sampling records, looping, manipulating the samples into my own sound and then putting it all together. The way the songs came out with Hearts was really organic. I wasn’t really thinking about should I have 16 bars and a rap verse here and chorus there and then another verse.

The songs just kind of came out easily. I like the fact you can slow it down and have less words and be more vague. With rap or hip hop the tendency is to be really literal. With pop songs you can let people interpret it their own way.

Stylus: I understand that this has been a long process in creating Hearts. A lot of these songs were originally demos you had been working on for a while?

RC: The songs have been around for a long time but it didn’t necessarily take that long to put the EP together. I think I was a little hesitant to push them and put them out as an actual project. It did take a while for me to be confident in the project and to get behind it enough to actually put the time and effort and money into putting it out as a release.

Stylus: You’re known for doing more than a few projects at once. Was it difficult to take the time to do the solo thing when you have so many other commitments?

RC: Sometimes you have a solo project as default because you have other commitments. When you belong to a group some of those people have other projects too and other lives and they may not be around when you’re ready to go and make music.

When I go out and make music with the other bands I’m in, it’s kind of like you set a time and hang out. The solo stuff I do is when I’m at home alone.

Stylus: Is the process more personal because of that?

RC: Definitely. I think there are no walls up when you work by yourself. It’s just very raw. I’m not worried about what other people think. You’re free to let yourself get caught up in them. You’re not really expecting the reaction you get once they’re pushed out. You’re the only audience.

Stylus: “Hey Hey” is probably the catchiest song from Winnipeg since “Taking Care of Business.” Are you interested in exploring more indie-rock and pop music with the success of that song?

RC: I’m going to continue in this vein wherever that goes. I don’t know if the future is going to hold a bunch of “Hey Heys” but we’ll see.

Stylus: What are you working on outside the solo world of Rob Crooks?

RC: Well, Magnum KI has an album that is complete and we’re just waiting for a time when all four of us can coordinate our efforts and put that record out. It will probably be in the beginning of summer. As for the Fucking Retards we have some new songs. Mikel Rondeau (Fucking Retards) just put out his own mixtape and he has a full album coming out later this year. It’s really good and I think it’s going to get a lot of attention. So I think he’s going to be busy promoting that. Eventually we’ll make another record. He’s my friend and it’s just fun rapping as hard as you can, but in the meantime I’ll just be working on my stuff for now.

Keep up with the world of Crooks at www.robcrooks. com.

Apr/May 2012 Stylus Magazine

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YOUR EARS GOTTA EAT TOO Food for Thought with Viridians

By Victoria King

Local act Viridians release their debut full-length al-

bum at the Lo Pub on April 12th. We sat down with Neil Exell and Joseph Péloquin-Hopfner of Viridians at Carlos & Murphy’s and ended up with a hankering for their sweet new music. And nachos.

JPH: And you start salivating just thinking about it, before even pressing play . . .

Stylus: What should people eat as they’re listening to the new album (Again, Dangerous Visions)?

JPH: Man, there’s definitely some nacho parts in the album . . .

NE: I’m leaning more towards a breakfast vibe . . .

Maybe like a breakfast sandwich, because you have all of these meal pieces reappropriated into a lunch item, but put for breakfast. Right? Cause you’ve got your bagel, which is a breakfast staple, and your egg, which is a breakfast staple, but then you’ve got some salad components and maybe your meat as well.

JPH: You’re talkin’ a brunch. Like, it can count for a breakfast and a lunch at the same time, and it’ll get you all the way to supper.

NE: I think that undeniably we have some meat and potatoes, where it’s heavy and thick, but then we also have a lot of light stuff that goes around it, which would be like fruit that goes around your breakfast. We’ve got those strawberries that sit at the side of the plate, and you pick at them every once and a while.

JPH: Yeah, and we’ve got the filler too – a little bit of onion, a little bit of green pepper, and there’s a little bit of milk from time to time.

NE: And the last track definitely ends with a bit of whipped cream. [Laughs] It’s very gratuitous, borderline masturbatory on our part in writing it.

It was like, “Yeah, yeah, let’s do that. Let’s do it one more time, but twice as slow.” That would definitely be like your “treat.”

JPH: I think breakfast is a really good describer. The core of it, the bagel, takes a lot of prep and specific ingredients, and you need to take time till it’s supreme. But when you bake it, it smells so good.

Viridians are currently hitting the road hard in support of Again, Dangerous Visions. They’ll be back in Winnipeg to serve up tasty portions of tunes for hungry listeners in June.

PHOTO BY KEVIN LEGGE

Neil Exell: Homemade goods. Can’t beat that. Everything’s factory now.

Joseph Péloquin-Hopfner: Yep, that’s true.

Stylus: Could that be applied to your music as well? Homemade goods?

NE: Our music is 100 per cent homemade . . . through instruments made mostly in factories.

That’s our approach.

JPH: Yeah. “Home-composed,” I ‘spose you could say.

Stylus: Makes it sound like a recipe, eh?

JPH: That’s a pretty good analogy actually. Every song is a different type of meal. There are several different, definitely “heavy carb” meals in our songs . . .

NE: Yeah, and we know how to achieve the desired result. Like, “Awe this isn’t sticking together, and we need some more egg,” and we know that egg part for us, and we know how to make that little ambiance happen.

JPH: Yeah, our kitchen is kind of special. We don’t really know what the end result is going to be.

Sometimes it’s an omelette but we didn’t know it was going to be an omelette and other times it’s like some type of . . . delicate dessert that’s very precise, and baked . . . Yes. And we didn’t know, but it turns out pretty good.

NE: Always.

Stylus: And in an omelette, you can put in so many things.

JPH: That’s true . . .

NE: I can’t say “equally necessary,” but my consumption of food and my consumption of music probably match one another on a daily basis.

JPH: Like you consume about 2000 calories of music per day?

NE: Yeah, at least. And I feel like I start my morn-

ings in a similar way, where I need to consume some sort of breakfast but I also have a music breakfast.

Like what am I gonna listen to when I walk to the bus, or as I get dressed? Makes a big difference to your day.

JPH: Your ears gotta eat too.

Stylus: What do you pair together, food and music wise?

NE: I mean, it depends on the dining experience more than the food, I think. So if we’re having, barbecued meats . . . you’re definitely thinking more of a thrash metal vibe, something that’s meaty and heavy but still playful and pretty silly as an end result. But then maybe you’re dining on some nice ravioli with a spinach mix and some red wine vinaigrette, then you’re going to go for something really light, a little bit of ambient music.

JPH: And then sometimes you gotta go for a glass of wine and some Sigur Ros. After a long day at work, or long week . . . And to go back to that high carb thing, sometimes you just gotta go back for that second bowl of pasta, you know – some heavy music can definitely be consumed more than once, if there’s not too much cheese on it but just enough sauce and enough pasta.

NE: Totally. That’s like Isis. Like, when you haven’t eaten for six hours and you think, “I need the biggest bowl of pasta I can get,” that’s Isis: I need a nine-minute epic that just never ends, and gets bigger. Perpetually.

[SERVER WALKS BY WITH A BIG PLATE OF NACHOS] NE: As we watch the Nachos go by . . . what are the nachos?

JPH: Hardcore, man, for sure . . .

NE: I was thinking almost like, sludgy metal, because the cheese is dripping and it’s like, something that’s gooey . . . but also gets on your fingers and makes you feel greasy and dirty in the best possible way. That’s how I feel when I’m listening to sludge metal: like I’m getting greasy doing this but in all the right ways.

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Apr/May 2012 Stylus Magazine

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GREG REKUS Hardcore Troubadour

BY SHELDON BIRNIE

When Greg Rekus’ long-running, hard-touring punk

band High Five Drive went on indefinite hiatus recently, Greg wasn’t willing to hang up his stompin’ boots. Instead, the singer/guitar-player set about writing songs he could deliver himself, and then set about conquering North America. With the release of his debut full-length The Dude Abides, Rekus has been on the road more or less non-stop since. Stylus caught up with Greg just before he flew over to tour Europe.

Stylus: You’ve been really busy lately Greg. Can you tell us a little of what you’ve been up to?

Greg Rekus: Yeah, about a year ago I started a solo project that sort of a folk/punk/stomp/sing-a-long sort of thing. I did a demo and hit the road coast to coast in Canada, which went alright. Then I did a full length, which I recorded with J.P. [Peters] from Private Ear. Then I ended up doing another coastto-coast thing, then headed down into the States. I did the East Coast, then just this past January did the West Coast. So, I’ve somewhat conquered North America at this point, so I’m headed to Europe this spring, and I’m pretty excited about it. It’s pretty fun over there.

Stylus: You’ve done lots of touring with your old band High Five Drive. How does touring solo compare or differ from touring with a full band?

GR: With a band it was always tough to be as effective as you can. With four people on the road, if you want to say, run some errands or whatever, or just do other things, everyone might not be on the same page. That was one of the hard things. One of the easier things was driving. I find on my own I’m doing most or all of the driving, with a band there’s lots more drivers.

There are certainly ups and downs to both, but I’m really liking this solo thing right now. It’s nice to be able to get away whenever you can, and not have to try to coordinate four other people’s schedules.

Stylus: You recently put out a full-length – The Dude Abides – how has the reaction been to that?

GR: Pretty good, for the most part. I didn’t want to go too too crazy, adding tons of instruments. I really wanted to do what you hear live. We added some back-up vocals, and some hand-claps, that sort of thing, besides that it’s just singing, guitar, and stomp.

JP’s a really nice guy to work with, we get along pretty good. It was fun. Sometimes you go into the studio and it’s just a horrible experience, like a giant microphone on how bad of a player you actually are, but this was totally different. I got in there and it was fun.

Stylus: Any plans at this point for a new album?

Any new material?

GR: I’m already thinking about a new record. I probably won’t record it until 2013, though. I really want to do the rest of this year promoting this record. It’s coming out in Europe on March 7. I’d like to do some more touring in North America in the fall, and if it’s in the cards go back to Europe, maybe not. There’s this guy in Russia that got a hold of me last minute and said he wanted to book some dates in Russia.

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This tour is already pretty full, but that’s a good reason to go back soon, if it makes sense financially of course. I still have a day job, that when I come home I work as much as I can to try to fund these things. But if everything goes well, I’ll definitely go back to Europe, and some time after that start work on a new record.

Stylus: For most folks, a busy schedule like this would be a lot to handle. How do you keep it going?

GR: It is intense, man. My job is a big help. I work as a sound-guy, which isn’t easy.

It’s long hours and that, but I really enjoy it. If I was still at the call-center or something, a job that was horrible, I think it would be tough to come home and work that many hours and then boom back out on to the road. But this is a nice balance. I come home, work a bunch of hours, then when I start to get tired of it, I already have another tour booked. That’s kind of it. It’s not easy, but it’s what I really like to do, so I just find a way to do it I guess.

Follow Greg Rekus’ relentless touring at w w w. g re g re k u s . com.

Apr/May 2012 Stylus Magazine

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FRANK TURNER

no rest for the wicked

Frank Turner is a hard-traveling, hard-rocking English

folk singer. His latest release, England Keep My Bones (Epitaph) is full of tunes about love, politics, and rockn-roll. With another stop in Winnipeg on the horizon (Turner played to a packed crowd at the West End in October), Stylus caught up with the busy troubadour over the phone on a tour stop in Boston.

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by sheldon birnie

PHOTO BY ERIK WEISS

Stylus: I read recently that you’ve played over 1200 solo shows now. How do you keep going at that pace?

Frank Turner: I just kind of enjoy what I do. I feel like I’m incredibly privileged to do the thing I love: I play guitar and sing. The last full-time job I had before becoming a full-time musician was doing telesales. I was actually selling phones over the phone, which is one of the most indescribably thankless tasks you can imagine.

So, basically, every time I feel like complaining about my life today, I just shut the fuck up.

Stylus: You’re a pretty prolific writer as well. Do you write while traveling, or how do you manage that with your touring schedule?

FT: It’s not something I really have to concentrate on too hard, the stuff just kind of arrives, if you know what I mean? Which is fortunate, I suppose. There are always new ideas bouncing around in my head, so I write stuff down while I’m on the road. Every now and again I’ll actually take some time to sit down and work out those fragments into finished songs or whatever. But for the most part it’s an ongoing process.

Stylus: Now that you’ve circled the world a few times now, what are some of your favourite places to play?

FT: I love playing on the left-hand-side of the Atlantic.

I’m in the States right now with the Dropkick Murphys, which has been an amazing time. I mean, I know it’s going to sound cheesy right now, but I really do love playing Canada. I’ve always had a great time. Toronto has always been really kind to me. Australia has always been great, I love it down there.

Stylus: Could you talk a little about going from playing punk and hardcore music to your current folk sound?

FT: It was deliberately a kind of left-hand turn. I had been playing in noisy punk bands for a really long time and I just really needed to do something different. I felt I had said all the things I needed to say in the noisy hardcore format, if you like. I was also a band [Million Dead] that didn’t end well, the last band that I was in, and I just needed to clean my palate. So I tried something different. But you know, I grew up listening to heavy music, and it was only in my 20s that I discovered like early Dylan and Springsteen and anything like that.

It was actually quite a revelation to me to find out you could be just as intense as some hardcore bands without having to take your shirt off and scream at people.

Stylus: Somewhat touching on that, you’ve always been an outspoken fan of both Propagandhi and the Weakerthans. Can you talk about their influence on you?

FT: When I was growing up and getting into punk, Propagandhi were a big influence, and that of course led me to the Weakerthans, who I would actually say right now are arguably my favourite band. I absolutely adore the Weakerthans. I’ve met them before, and hung out a few times and they’re incredible people. Actually, John K just released his solo record [Provincial], and he gave me a copy a little while ago. I got so overexcited about it that I ended up writing one of the press releases for the album. I’m just sort of in love with it as a record. I think he’s one of greatest poets around right now.

Stylus: What can we expect from your stop in Winnipeg? Last time you were through [in October] you were with a full band. This time you’re on your own…

FT: Yeah, this is a solo show this time, which is a different vibe obviously. I’m opening up for Joel Plaskett, which is great and a fantastic privilege. I’m really looking forward to playing with Joel. My solo shows are the same kind of songs coming up, but the vibe is quite different, a little more relaxed. I tend to ramble a lot more, and switch up my set lists and tell more drunken stories and that sort of thing. It’s fun for me to go from playing solo shows to band shows and back again, it keeps things fresh. . . . I’m very excited to come back to Canada once again, I think it will be a really good time.

Stylus: What can we expect from Frank Turner in 2012?

FT: I’m going to be in the studio over the summer working on a new record, which will hopefully be out in January or February of next year. No rest for the wicked, you know. I’ll be keeping going on tour throughout the year, and keeping writing.

JU N E 14 j 23 2012

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December/January 2009 Stylus Magazine

015

ILLUSTRATION BY MATT PERRIN

BREAKING FINGERS, DESTROYING GUITARS AND TAKING NAMES

BY LEIF LARSEN

Fans of Winnipeg indie band Boats

BOATS, ON THEIR UPCOMING STUDIO ALBUM

cently started playing bass in a friends will be pleased to know that the band band, Scotch + Tape, he didn’t “really has been holed away producing their know what it’s like to play in a band.” third studio album, To a Fairway Full “You kind of realize what a shitty of Miners. While three records in five musician you are,” he admits. “It’s years may seem impressive to some, completely different from what I do.” frontman, Mat Klachefsky, doesn’t In terms of what he’s learned in think they’ve done enough. five years of making albums, Klachef“I work pretty slowly; write songs sky said he doesn’t know if Boats has pretty slowly. There’s not a lot of Blearned anything, but they have besides on these records.” come more efficient.

Klachefsky says he’s not afraid to “We’ve just spent four marathon abandon a song that he isn’t in to. days in the studio, to get everything Writing a new Boats song, accorddone instrument wise, but it’s kinda ing to Klachefsky, is pretty much a just doing the same stuff. We’re not solo effort. It begins life on his looper, the learning type.” then gets recorded again and again, Klachefsky says the next challenge growing each time. When the song will be getting the vocals. “There have makes sense, Klachefsky says, only been a few setbacks, and we’re just then does he show it to the band. In trying to find time for everybody and terms of the band’s input, he says that make it happen.” sometimes they have good additions, One of the setbacks was the breakbut Klachefsky always retains “veto ing of their engineer’s pinky finger in power,” so he can maintain his vision an unrelated dodgeball incident. for the song.

Followers of Boats on Facebook While the lack of collaboration may have come across a YouTube vidmay seem strange to some, Klachefsky eo of Klachefsky mercilessly beating a says it’s the only way he knows how to guitar into submission in the studio work, and one of the things new band — all in the name of capturing the members are prepared for when they instrument’s death throes. According join Boats. to Klachefsky this was an evolution of “That’s the only way I know how a technique he uses on stage. to write songs, on my own. So that’s “There’s just this part of a song what I do.” where I normally hit the back of Klachefsky says that before he rea guitar to get a sound, and we had 016 Stylus Magazine December/January 2009

this guitar no one wanted.” The video shows Klachefsky, wearing safety goggles, gloves and a hard-hat, beating on the plugged-in guitar with a hammer, and the sturdy instrument standing up surprisingly well to the abuse. “I was actually hoping that we could have destroyed it more . . . it was a pretty strong guitar.”

For those recoiling in horror at the destruction of an instrument, worry not; Klachefsky said that it was a no-name “imitation Les Paul” donated by a neighbour who told him it never stayed in tune. “One day he just showed up at the door, handed it to me and walked away . . . so I figured it was OK for me to smash it.”

“I wanted to hang it from the rafters and hit it like a pinata, but I was really worried about destroying some of the equipment [in the studio] — there was some pretty expensive stuff.”

Despite not getting to destroy it in his desired way, he says the guitar did not die in vain, and the effect “sounds great.”

Klachefsky was also polling Facebook in March for a “bowed Saw player,” so what will show up on the album at this point is anyone’s guess.

While he was vague in talking about a release date for the new album, Klachefsky pegged “fall” as the likely timeframe, and said the band is

now set to finish the album’s vocals at UMFM’s new recording studio at the University of Manitoba.

“It’s a nice little set up, and they’re giving us a pretty good deal.”

When asked what listeners can expect from the upcoming album, To a Fairway Full of Miners, Klachefsky says that Boats’s sound has evolved since their first album, Intercontinental Champion, and he went in “different directions” when writing and producing this album.

“I want to say that this is a more mature record, but at the same time there are songs that are completely out of control . . . insane and ridiculous.”

He says that there are also songs that are more “restrained and simple.”

According to Klachefsky the album itself embraces this dual nature, and plays it safe at times, but also takes risks at others.

“There are a few meandering fiveminute epics,” says Klachefsky. This might disappoint people who have fallen for Boats’ signature sound, but qualified it, saying there are also “some three-minute pop songs.”

Still, Klachefsky says that the it’s hard for him to put the completed album into perspective at this point, because there is still “a lot of room for completion.”

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The World with Rick Giguere

Mondays, 6:00p.m. & 7:30p.m. on CKUW 95.9 FM or streaming online at www.ckuw.ca

PHOTO

BY SHE LDON B IRNIE

Every Monday evening, CKUW volunteer Rick

Giguere takes listeners on a wild musical rollercoaster ride around The World.

“I’m French and Ukrainian, so French music has always been close to my heart, and Ukrainian music as well,” says the ultra-friendly, uberenthusiastic radio host, as he explains his lifelong love affair with world music. “In the 80s I got into reggae, and that took me into African music a little bit. I think the real eye opener was seeing the movie Natural Born Killers. There’s a scene in that when they’re freaking out in the prison, and in that there’s a song by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, a Pakistani musician who passed away in 1997.

In the early 90s, this was all new to me, and I was just like Whoa!”

A regular Winnipeg Folk Festival attendee, Rick G eagerly looks forward to the new world acts the Festival brings in each year. In our interview, he looked back fondly on the years of musical director Pierre Guérin.

“He brought in huge names,” Rick remembers.

“One year the Afro Celt Sound System came out,

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they blend African and Celtic music in this weird mishmash, and that is what I love. Mixing stuff together that you really wouldn’t expect, mixing the new with the old. Traditional music with contemporary sounds.”

On the air since 2006, every week Rick looks to recreate these special moments on his radio show, giving listeners a taste of diverse global musical climates. By sharing his love of world music, Rick G hopes to spread a message of music as a universal language.

Rick got his start at CKUW in 2005, when he sat in on a radio show his friend Mandy was running.

“She showed me how to work the board,” Rick recalls, laughing. “It was back in the days when we didn’t have a computer, all the commercials were on 8-track tape. It was hilarious!”

After a year or so of cataloguing CDs for the station, Rick popped his head into the studio one day at what turned out to be an opportune moment.

“There was a fella doing a world music show,

and that’s what I love! So I poked my head in one day and said ‘Hey, would you mind if I sat in on your show one day?’”

“He said sure, so he showed me what he was doing, and how to work things and what not.

Then he got me to come in the next week, and the next week, and then as it turned out about three or four weeks later, he was going to McMaster to do his master’s, and he asked me if I wanted his show. It was a Wednesday 6 to 8 am, so I had to be up at 5:30 in the morning. But it was a radio show!”

These days, Rick’s World music show has shifted to a less coffee-intensive timeslot of Monday evenings, but the energy and excitement of that first Wednesday morning are still there in full force.

If you dig eclectic world music, you’re probably already riding the World wave with Rick Giguere on Mondays. If not, tune in to 95.9FM Mondays between 6:00 and 7:30pm for a round-the-worldride you won’t regret.

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Stylus Magazine

December/January

Rae Spoon keeping no secrets

By Victoria King “I Can’t Keep All of Our Secrets” is the most recent release from Rae Spoon, and the most electronic album of Rae’s discography to date. Before my stupid computer crapped out in the middle of our interview (unbeknownst to me), Rae was kind enough to chat about the new album, Nirvana, and gendered pronouns.

Stylus: Was it a conscious effort to diverge from folk-pop to a more electronic sound?

Rae Spoon: I guess so. It’s like any process, like playing country music or bluegrass. It’s been over the last three albums that I’ve moved out of that.

My last two or three albums have been consistently more pop-ish. I wanted to make an electronic album, that’s where I was heading, but it just took me a while to get there.

Stylus: Is there any place you find yourself writing best?

RS: Ummm, not really. I’ve been on tour a lot for the last ten years, so if I need to write I can do it pretty much anywhere. Even when I’m travelling or on the train, I can write stuff on my computer which is really convenient.

Stylus: With writing more songs on the computer (as opposed to with a guitar in hand), has those means by which you facilitate your writing changed the content?

RS: Mmmm, not really. I try to make my content appropriate to the genre. I have to watch how country my electronic songs are (jokes) otherwise it doesn’t make much sense. But there are different places where I wrote things. I wrote most of that last one in Montreal, and then in Germany, and you can

”

kind of hear that. It just sounds more like Montreal and Germany. I guess for the country album I was in, like, Vancouver or Alberta and I think you can probably hear that influence.

Stylus: In one video-blog post, you mention that Lisa Loeb’s “Stay” came out the year you first started songwriting. Growing up, who were artists that you really spoke out to you and inspired you?

RS: I definitely listened to more Christian contemporary music, and then Nirvana cut through that.

I mean, even if you were in a pretty religious home it was enough to get through to you. So it was like Jesus, then Nirvana. So it was sort of like a Nirvana video. And then later on in high school, I got really into folk like Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell.

Stylus: Christian contemporary?

RS: Yeah, like, people who are “born again Christians” tend to only listen to that kind of music, and only let their kids listen to that kind of music. So I was in a house like that where it was like, “Yay, Amy Grant!” [Laughs] So Nirvana pulled me out of there . . . But there are Christian trans-people.

Stylus: Absolutely. Oh! Sorry, real quick - what was your favorite Nirvana song?

RS: I think I really liked “About a Girl” because that was like the first song I learned to play it off of tabs.

I actually still really like a lot of their songs.

Stylus: Forgive my ignorance with the Christiantrans question . . . But on that note, do you find that people tiptoe around you because they’re not sure what they can/can’t say, or do they ignore that altogether?

RS: No, not really. I mean, I think people generally really wanna make other people comfortable. I mess up people’s pronouns sometimes. I think that there’s this constant element of people pointing out to me that I’m trans, just by their “not being able to see it.”

[Laughs] They’ll be like, “She, he, they,” you know? I think people are genuinely trying, which is all you can really ask. I’ve played in a lot of smaller places, and for some of those people I’m the only transperson they’d ever met. I’m very understanding of that. I don’t hear people saying a lot of malicious things anymore.

Stylus: So for anyone that’s working out concepts of their own gender, what advice would you give?

RS: I guess just that if you want someone to use a certain pronoun, for example, it’s not my job to convince people of my gender. Anything you do it has to be for yourself. Because no matter what you do, maybe other people wouldn’t do that . . . and it’s not on you to convince people that you’re this gender. People should actually just respect other people.

And that’s a shitty thing and it’s taking a long time to change. I think knowing that in yourself makes it a lot easier to deal with. You can’t control the outside, and it’s a basic right to be called by whatever pronoun you want . . . Even for me, if I’m on tour and I don’t see many queer people or trans people for a couple weeks I start feeling a little weird.

[Laughs] You’re like, “Am I the only one?” You need a community.

I definitely listened to more Christian contemporary music,

and then Nirvana cut through that.

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Apr/May 2012 Stylus Magazine

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Local Spotlight

BROTHERS These Limbs; Our Firewood I had totally forgotten about music like this somewhere between my copies of At The Drive-In, Japandroids, Pretty Girls Make Graves and Fugazi, but Brothers Nick and Drex Serduletz make awesome heart-onthe-sleeve/clinical post-punk/emo which I have a tough time feeling any bit guilty about. The songs off These Limbs; Our Firewood are remarkably clean, yet that draws even more attention to their intricate technique like ghost beats and tasteful palm-mutes.

Nick’s lyrics are full of personal experiences (“November twenty-second, 2006 / I remember it like yesterday”) odd turns of phrases (“I’m the receiver of bullshit threats / So sick of no man’s land”), and abstract, hard hitting images (“O endless years I’ve endured this guild / Endless jeers over spilled milk”). The words fly by rather quickly with the multiple movements in each song, making repeated listens worth finding this disc. (Independent, brotherswinnipeg.bandcamp.com) Taylor Burgess

KAYLA LUKY The Time It Takes The sophomore release from local songstress Kayla Luky is a crisp, twangy prairie affair. Beautiful ar-

rangements, tight instrumentation, and Luky’s great voice all combine on The Time It Takes for an enjoyable ten tracks. With a focus for detail, Luky brings rural prairie life into sharp focus, pulling a Faulknerian “world in a grain of sand” trip on listeners.

Hailing from Grandview, MB, Luky recorded The Time It Takes in the depths of winter at her family home there. The space of the house is audible, giving the album a decidedly open quality, and her songs the room to expand and breathe. “My Flowers Are Empty” is sure to tug on listeners’ heartstrings, while “You Won’t Find Me” is a haunting tale of fugitive love.

Overall, Luky’s songwriting is strong, though a couple tracks are a bit too cliché for my tastes — opener “Cowboys Are Coming” being a good example of this tendency. Regardless, this disc is a beauty, and I would expect to hear more from Kayla Luky around Manitoba’s vibrant folk and roots scene soon. (Independent, kaylaluky.ca) Sheldon Birnie

FMSEA Static If cooler heads prevail, this’ll weather

the coldest fronts. On this four track disc, Hudson Fedun gets his guitars to slide on historically-mapped euphoric frequencies and his keyboards to whorl ever-inward to your secret, happy place. His post-dubstep beats have short attention spans, blinking themselves out of existence and snapping back into fully-realized cognizance nanoseconds later. Considering that youngster Fedun’s other musical project is an overpowering loudQUIETloud band Narwhal Strike, you could take him as an oddity, a merging of two worlds in one body, and this disc as entry point to the negarealm to North American “indie.”

(Woven Records,wovenrecords.ca) Taylor Burgess

SALINAS All These Choices Formerly known as The Furr, this Winnipeg indie quartet aren’t nervous, quirky, violent, or sarcastic — nor does their music suffer from the lack of it. What they are is endearing and considerate (which, in this case, is a warmer term for “calculating” — their title All These Choices brings light to this) thematically as well as how they can bounce two guitars and a bass line off one another without fatigue or cliché. Mostly slogging through courtship issues, they come off as a C86 pop band or contemporaries like Pains of Being Pure at Heart. And benefitting from studio

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magic of Michael Petkau Falk (of Head in the Sand Records) this threetrack CD definitely sparkles like that of an exciting seven-inch back in the heyday of NME. It’s obvious when listening to Salinas on any track, but especially on this disc’s longest track “Insufferable,” that they have a number of pop/rock/indie/shoegaze hooks and tricks up their sleeves but choose to show them very carefully, one at a time, and it’s a pretty rewarding listen. And with the handcrafted silkscreened felt case, it’s quite the artifact. (Independent,salinasmusic.ca) Taylor Burgess

Dec 2011/Jan 2012 Stylus Magazine

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Root Cellar bad record, but on this release he really shows off his musical chops. Each song tells an intriguing story linked to San Francisco, delivered in a rock and roll style that he makes his own. The first three tracks start off in a big way, all upbeat and peppered with handclaps and catchy sing-alongs. “Museum Of Broken Hearts” slows things down with some nice guitar work and the groovy addition of strings, giving it an atmospheric and ultimately sad feel. Do not fear! Chuck builds things back up slowly with “Willie Mays is Up at Bat,” “The Left Hand and the Right Hand,” and then the keen little back and forth number “Little Girl, Little Boy” - again with all that damn catchy shit. The narratives and emotion that Chuck pours into his music makes for an interesting listen.

Coupled with a raw and gritty style,

CHUCK PROPHET Temple Beautiful Chuck Prophet is by no means new to the music scene, and his 12th album (holy shit!) proves his musical prowess in both songwriting and lyrical maturity. Temple Beautiful finds Chuck writing some of his best material, all paying homage to San Francisco. Chuck has never written a

Chuck gives listeners a great record.

(Yep Roc Records, yeproc.com) Scott Wolfe RAY WYLIE HUBBARD The Grifter’s Hymnal If you’ve never heard Hubbard’s particular brand of “deep-groove-in-theblood-masterless-samurai-folk-poetblues,” then it’s about time you did.

His latest studio release, The Grifter’s Hymnal, is a beauty, pure and simple.

Man, is it good. Hubbard’s sound has changed since his “cosmic-outlawcowboy” stuff of the early 70s, through to more singer-songwriter-stylings in the late 80s and into the 90s. But it’s been in the new millenium that he’s really found his groove, and this release is the culmination of a sound he’s been mining since 2005’s Snake Farm. The tunes of Grifter’s Hymnal

are classic Hubbard. Tales of strippers, cards, chickens, guitars set to open-tuned blues riffs and spiced up throughout with literary allusions to the Bible, the old god’s the blues and rock n roll, and modern prophets like Martin Luther King Jr. On the opener, “Coricidin Bottle,” Hubbard “lays down a groove like monkey getting off.” “New Years Eve at the Gates of Hell” sees Hubbard playing the Dante game, dragging the rock gods and the record execs that made/leached-off them through the river Styx. “Coochy Coochy” features none other than Ringo Starr, a big Hubbard fan himself, rocking along and getting down and dirty with Ray and the boys. Get this disc, fire up the BBQ, and prepare to get greasy. (Bordello Records, raywylie.com) Sheldon Birnie

Iconoclast

THE MENZINGERS On The Impossible Past The Menzingers have done it again.

2010’s Chamberlain Waits was unreal and after signing to Epitaph, you better believe expectations were high for their follow up. There was a risk that these Pennsylvania boys would play it safe and release another Chamberlain Waits, but instead they took what made that album great, reevaluated their strengths, and came out with On The Impossible Past. Slowing things down on a few tracks, their impressive lyrics and storytelling abilities shine through on “Gates,” “Ava House,” and “Freedom Bridge.” The punk roots did not escape the songwriting entirely as album opener “Good Things” demonstrates. On The Impossible Past finds the band pushing themselves in a different direction without sacrificing their roots, allowing their fans to grow with them while picking up

new ones along the way. A nice rock record for the summer as it is thought provoking while still remaining fun.

The harmonies and songwriting are all theirs and it seems to me that the band is heading the way of Gaslight Anthem by letting their singing chops and songwriting abilities take a more prominent role over their punk rock base. In “The Obituaries” the lyrics claim “I will fuck this up, I fucking know it” - well, they fucking didn’t fuck up here. (Epitaph, epitaph.com) Scott Wolfe A NAME UNHEARD Human This eight tune offering from young Vancouver based rockers is a tight unit. The arrangements are solid, the vocals well delivered, and the album well mixed on the whole. Tracks like “1000” and “Brothers” showcase these strong points well, while cuts like “Human” and “Kind Tiger” show a versatility to their playing and songwriting chops. The product of years of gigging, and more than one lineup change, Human shows A Name Unheard as a band that is confident, polished, and ready to rock n roll.

Hopefully they’ll pass through the Peg sometime this summer. (Independent, anameunheard.com) Sheldon Birnie

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Ulteriors LAFIDKI / ORPHAN | OLIVER split LP My friends in Belarus just met Saphy Vong of Lafidki and had this to say: “[Vong] is utterly crazy; we enjoyed talking to him about his music, which [Simptom Pogremushki] described as Cambodian New Year.”

Cambodian New Year might never be a genre, but it’s ultra apt for Vong’s work here. The often masked Cambodian born, Paris/Nancy/Berlinbased musician has a unique sense for abstract electronics, bringing with him an energy and joy rare in such deeply experimental psychedelia.

Lafidki’s blend of noise and sequenced multi-layered rhythms is a captivating solo listen, but this music’s also begging for a spot at your next dinner-party-turneddance-off.

Orphan | Oliver’s side is unassuming after the celebratory nature of Lafidki’s,

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creeping forward through simple, blurred pop songs that seek lovers of heavy, lo-fi dirges. Opener “Cherry Belly” is a slow and sensual piece that sleepwalks undisturbed from one end of a haunted forest to the other – nothing much happens, but the mood is thick.

LAFIDKI

Toronto’s Sabarah Pilon has a mastery of atmosphere, and her tracks match Lafidki’s in their ability to explore experimental regions while remaining utterly listenable. Two very different artists achieve balance: Cambodian New Year and Canadian winter night: yin and

yang. (Steak Au Zoo, steakauzoo.bandcamp.com) Kristel Jax LAURA WARHOLIC What Comes Before the Word??

Laura Warholic is Merv Glisten of Angels in America. Warholic’s definitely got its own vibe, but AiA’s Moppy makes a vocal appearance on here too. These two can’t stop soundtracking the end of the world, and it almost makes you hope the end never does come so you can just exist and listen to the sounds of doom coming down on the trailer park forever. This is pure American lo-fi: this is someone taking your old Shrimper cassettes out back and pumping them full of evil. Tapes are sold out, so just search it on Free Music Archive. Long live Moppy & Merv. (Faux-Pas Recordings, fauxpaxrecs.blogspot. com) Kristel Jax

Under The Needle

LEONARD COHEN Old Ideas Leonard Cohen’s latest studio release, Old Ideas, is vintage Cohen in all the right ways. Tight, sparse arrangements; beautiful female back-up vocals; poetic lyrics delivered in Cohen’s inimitable style. Themes common throughout Leonard’s oeuvre pop up throughout. As expected, Biblical imagery is explored and interspersed with verses of lust and longing. “Going Home” opens the album with Cohen exploring his own legend, while “Show Me The Place” makes effective use of strength of Cohen’s aged voice, rather than exposing its weaknesses. “Banjo” is a fun little number that finds Leonard exploring the tiny rays of light that we often hold onto in this “dark infested sea” we are all wading through. The best part of this mix is, despite the very obvious title playing on the fact that this is really just another chapter in Cohen’s catalogue, is that none of these old ideas come off as trite or rehashed. If you’re an old convert, you’d be crazy not to have this one already.

If you’re new to Cohen, this isn’t a bad place to start. Recommended if you’re anywhere in between, too. (Columbia, leonardcohen.com) Sheldon Birnie CLOUD NOTHINGS Attack on Nothing For most bands, creating a nine minute track (here, “Wasted Days”) that only has approximately 45 words and is mostly instrumental would seem overly indulgent. But in the hands of Cloud Nothings – releasing a darker, out-of-left-field album compared to their previous effort – it’s almost an exercise in frustration and rebellion.

“Wasted Days” features the chorus “I thought! I would! Be more! Than this!” which seems to channel the feelings of a significant set of the popula-

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tion, giving the ideas room to seethe before they come crashing back towards the end of the song.

These ideas repeat throughout the album. In fact, every song title is a downer. Starting with “No Future/ No Past,” to “Stay Useless,” and “Separation,” every track has some sort of emphasis on the idea of doubt. Dylan Baldi, who started the band in 2009 while at university, seems to be going through a bit of retrospection and questioning of his past (like so many students mid- and post-university).

This is in contrast to the music, which sounds extraordinarily brash and assured. Despite the angst and thoughts of uselessness and failure, Attack on Nothing is one of the best indie guitarrock releases in a long time. (Carpark, carparkrecords.com) Devin King SLEIGH BELLS Reign of Terror Reign of Terror is about a struggle.

From album and interior artwork (drops of blood on a pair of Keds, explosions, and World War II memorabilia) to song titles (“Born to Lose,” “End of the Line,” “Comeback Kid,” “You Lost Me,” “Never Say Die”) we see this theme play out again and

again. The aggression of the music itself, though not as pushed-intothe-red as their previous album, only complements the feeling of a great struggle. But with who or what? And is it victorious?

The lyrics are peppered with indefinite references to being in conflict with “you” or “the kids” or “them/they,” though we don’t know exactly who these would be. There are a few moments of triumph in these songs, with tracks like “Crush” asking “Who you gonna run to now?” Escape is another theme that runs darkly throughout.

Self-destructive thoughts manifest recurrently. Tracks “End of the Line” and “Born to Lose” seem particularly hopeless, whereas “Never Say Die” implores the individual to not “give up the ship.” A sort of meta-insecurity appears as well in “D.O.A.” (“how come nobody knows the chorus”) and in “Road to Hell” (“we can learn how to take apart this verse again”).

Reign of Terror doesn’t viscerally hit as hard as their previous album; there’s no “Infinity Guitars” or “Rill Rill.” But Reign of Terror is a much more clearly thought-out album, and what it lacks in visceral punch it makes up in emotional punch. (Mom + Pop, momand-

popmusic.com) Devin King THESE ESTATES “Soiled Hands” b/w “Autumn in a Foreign Country” This seven inch from Regina’s These Estates is a nice little disc. Lyrics, by singer John Cameron, are expansive and literate, painting two tales more akin to short-stories than those commonly penned by indie pop or post-punk acts. (I can’t tell which category These Estates fall into, as they effectively blur the line between the two camps on these two offerings.) “Soiled Hands” reminds me of a cross between the angrier output of Winnipeg’s Painted Thin and the less straight-forward hardcore of Vancouver’s Manner Farm, with vocals and guitars bursting with barely controlled rage. “Autumn in a Foreign Country” is more subdued, reminding me of another Winnipeg indie act of the late 90s, the Bonaduces. The vocals and lyrics both steer into that poetic-pop sound that the Bonaduces did so well, and These Estates pull off quite nicely.

I’m keen to hear more. (Urban Planning Records, urbanplanningrecords. com) Sheldon Birnie

CLOUD NOTHINGS

PHOTO BY LAURA M. GRAY

December/January Apr/May 2012 2009 Stylus Magazine

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PUJOL Nasty, Brutish, And Short Daniel Pujol is a Nashville musician with a fine punk spirit, pursuing a masters in global affairs through the University of Denver. He often collaborates with his girlfriend, Alexa Sullivant, on various writing and illustrative projects.

Pujol’s latest release (his tenth in two years), Nasty, Brutish, and Short, follows acclaimed singles, full lengths, and EPs, on labels Thirdman, Turbo Time, Infinity Cat, Evil Weevil, Jeffrey Drag, and Velocity of Sound. With a title that couldn’t be more fitting, he describes the life of mankind in its rawest form. Pujol uses uncomplicated, repetitive ‘60s surf-psych and british rock influences throughout the record, with crunchy and crispy guitar chords. The EP begins with a psych warp intro on “Mayday,” setting an upbeat rock anthem to head bang to. “Scully,” shows a softer side of Pujol that manages to embody the same rock and roll vibe with a slower pace.

“On Tiny Gods (Singularity),” he begins to show a slightly more melodic side of his guitar riffs and flashes a bit more solo work rather than chords.

Nasty, Brutish, and Short encases a punky, colorful vintage sound. I recommend this album to any fan of classic or modern rock. (Saddle Creek, saddle-creek.com) Melanie Lemoine

BOYS WHO SAY NO Contingencies Boys Who Say No’s Contingencies is sewn together in an indie angst fashion, embedded with a sense of urgency, general dissatisfaction and lo-fi fun. Which sort of all makes sense, considering its production notes: recorded on a family farm using a borrowed mixing board, with a little bit of recording done in an apartment and finally mixed in Trenton, Ontario and Montreal. This album swims in some of the same waters as Modest Mouse’s early 2000s chaos, and is reminiscent at times of the echoing yelps of Frightened Rabbit’s Scott Hutchison.

The big punch to this album comes right at the beginning, with “Atonement” starting things off with steady

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drum beats, a scratchy irritated guitar and similar vocals. The next heavy hits come in tracks three, four, and five: “Ms. Lee,” “56k,” and “Working Weak,” respectively. Building off the aggressive momentum built collectively and rolling throughout, Contingencies is fun stuff for these gray days. Make sure to get down to the Lo Pub on April 17th to check ‘em out with the Bokononists and Japanther. (Independent, boyswhosayno.com) Victoria King GRAND DUCHY Let the People Speak This sophomore release from the poppy husband-wife project of everprolific Black Francis and Violet Clark got right on top of me. Presented throughout by Phoenix DJ Jonathan L, Let the People Speak is a strange trip though familiar territory for fans of Francis to completely left-field expeditions into Party Town. While Francis’ classic guitar riffs abound, arrangements run the gamut from slow-burners to full on ragers, complete with plenty of synths, dance-beats, weird sound effects, and spacey vocals. Stand out tracks for this listener include the weirdo-dance-rocker “White Out,” glammy space party “Silver Boys,” and the rocking “Shady,” though really the whole disc is one non-stop event. Definitely worth checking out, whether or not you’re a fan Black Francis or not. (Sonic Unyon, sonicunyon.com) Sheldon Birnie EAMON MCGRATH Young Canadians Coming on slow and soft to start, Eamon McGrath’s new disc Young Canadians is all over the map musically. And this is a good thing. From soft, acoustic numbers to balls-out distorted rockers, McGrath displays versatility and depth in his songwriting. Tackling a country as vast as Canada, and trying to capture the spirit of youth that stretches from sea to sea to sea, McGrath’s vision on Young Canadians is bold. Sometimes this doesn’t work for me, in the case of Side B’s opener “Great Lakes,” but overall the effect is a well played. Tracks like “Instrument of My Release” and “Rabid Dog” are rocking, while tunes like “Johnny Brought the Bottles Back” and “Saskatoon, SK” hit home in all the right places. While this likely won’t make my Top 10 list of 2012, I’m real glad I chanced across Young Canadians. Definitely worth repeat listening. (White Whale Records, whitewhale.ca) Sheldon Birnie

DAMO SUZUKI HAS HIS WAY WITH WINNIPEG AT THE WECC ON MARCH 22ND

Live Bait RED RIVER RAMPAGE w/ Propagandhi, Dreadnought, Asado, and More @ Burton Cummings Theatre Friday, March 23, 20112

By Sheldon Birnie After months of delay and plenty of confusion surrounding venue location, ticket exchanges, and lineup, the Red River Rampage finally hit Winnipeg like a ton of fucking bricks on Friday, March 23.

Settling heavy into the floor and first balcony of the historic Walker Theatre, the show went off smooth - as far as I could tell - and fairly well attended.

I must admit that I missed the bulk of the show, as I had a do-or-die rec hockey game to play against our division rivals Les Jets. We took the number one seeded team down a peg or eight, defeating them 4 to 3 in the end. This left just enough time to shower, pound a couple celebratory diesels, and hit the road to the Burt.

While I missed Asado’s set, I have it on good authority that their set was fast and tight. I came in about half-way through Dreadnought’s set, and while the crowd was rather thin, the group sounded spot-on from the unbearably long beer line in the foyer. The PA at the Burt is certainly top-fuckingnotch, and Dreadnought’s tunes came barreling in clear as a freight train on a cold Winnipeg winter’s night.

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Propagandhi took stage at the scheduled time, and ripped right into it with “Night Letters.” Me and my pals had a good spot up front, just left of the pit that raged throughout the band’s set. Mixing plenty of tunes off of Supporting Caste and Potemkin City Limits with older barn-burners like “Back to the Motor League” and “Fuck the Border” and a healthy dose of older Fat Wreck classics like “Stick the Flag Up Your Ass,” few if any in the audience left disappointed by the set list.

The crowd sang along to dang near every tune, and tore their throats apart to “Dear Coach’s Corner,” an impassioned plea for sanity in the oft-crazed world of professional hockey, and a fitting tribute by Winnipeg’s favourite skids to what Peter Gzowski once called “The Game of Our Lives,” a game which many in the crowd also have a problem “letting go.”

Throughout the tight set, Chris, Jord, and the Beave each took turns sipping beer from cup of the trophy to an annual unsanctioned rec league outdoor Apukalpse Now classic, which their Caress of Winter squad took home this year. Rec hockey rocks!

Closing in on the release of their fifth studio album later this summer, the boys treated those in attendance to three brand-spanking new offerings of breakneck rock n roll. One, with vocals courtesy of Todd Kowalski, had a particularly rocking riff pushing along the tale of cyclist terrors. The bicycle theme came up again at the end of the show, as Chris Hannah waved goodbye to the crowd and cycled away on his ten-speed, child-seat secured to the

PHOTO BY ANDREW MAZURAK

back. The lights went up, people stood, drenched in sweat and reeking, grinning from ear to ear. What a fucking night.

DAMO SUZUKI w/ Sound Carriers Thursday, March 22, 2012

By Andrew Mazurak I walk into the middle of an experience. Heads sway on close-eyed bodies. Damo mulches those medicated beings with help from his Winnipeg sound carriers: Greg Hanec, Chris “Mama” Bauer, Jay Taylor and Rob Menard. They flow in and out of consciousness seldomly glancing at one another and inducing excited smirks. Incredible musicianship by the boys that night. Damo himself is reserved or possibly humbled by his gatherers. Both sets have been moderately tame but the drums are coming in fast for a fucking jolt of improvised mayhem right now.

Looking around I see individuals. Most probably came with someone but all are separated now.

Enraptured like a good film that people agonize to find companions to go with, yet never speak a word to during or after. They just walk back to however they got there and remain spellbound by what they just witnessed.

It’s raining under the red lights above us as we leave.

What the fuck it’s March.

Apr/May 2012 Stylus Magazine

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Kontroller The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

By Kabir Kaler After a highly anticipated wait, our friend in green is back to save the world in an all new adventure called Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword.

Link’s back and this time he lives in the skies with his family and friends not to mention his best friend Zelda.

This small flying island has all the necessities: food, water, even giant domesticated birds. Your day starts off normally: sleeping in and getting a wakeup call from a giant bird, meeting friends, training with deadly weapons - the usual. While flying with your childhood friend Zelda, both of you get swept up in an ominous tornado. Zelda falls to the earth while Link gets sent flying, only to wake up in bed. Now, like every Legend of Zelda, you will have to go to strange lands, fight awesome bosses and save the girl.

The visual design is artistically done by adding cell shading, which makes the visuals pop with life and color (imagine a painting that can move). There are roughly four main areas where you will travel: a forest, a volcano, a desert, and of course the sky. Each area is vastly different in not just the way you see them, but how you’ll get there. There is also a tone that is area specific. For example, the sky is very open with a handful of other floating islands, but only one with an abundance of life, which gives off the feeling that this is something that is precious.

The people are drawn in an anime style with each of the 20 people being different. Usually, with such a small amount of people to interact with there is no connection with them. However, this is not the case. Each of the people helps you with tasks by giving you a hint or quests themselves. The monsters are also area specific and react differently and must be handled as so. For example, you can’t take a metal shield to attack an electric crab, but you can use it to block fire. The animations are clean and glitch free for both the people and the monsters.

As with every Legend of Zelda game, Link has a variety of tools to use in his battle against evil and those tools look both wicked and practical. The bomb, for example, looks like an actual plant you pick up instead of something you buy and is very round.

The game play is easily the best I’ve

26 Stylus Magazine Apr/May 2012

seen for Wii since Red Steel 2. The main way you attack is with your sword and this time your Wiimote is actually a sword. You can swing your sword in any way you want: from up, down, left and right or diagonally, and also forward for a stab. This is because the motion control is 1:1. However, it is not that accurate, but it is close enough that you don’t really notice unless you start swinging your sword like a maniac. Other than the sword, your other weapons get a control upgrade too.

The way you move hasn’t changed from previous Legend of Zelda games, but in addition you get a sprint meter which helps you

get where yo u ’re g o i n g faster and is also used for climbing. There is a fruit that replenishes the meter and it is on every surface that you climb so as to not make you enraged.

Since Epona, our favorite horse, doesn’t have wings, we get a giant bird instead.

You fly across the sky to get to other islands and to the ground via giant holes in the sky.

The store situation is simpler than in previous titles as everything you buy is in one building. In that one location you can buy equipment, potions, house your extra equipment, and upgrade your items. In order to upgrade you will need ingredients which you can find everywhere you go.

For potions you will need insects and certain collectibles for your weapons.

The monsters are better than previous ones because they react to the way your sword is positioned. Now you must wait for an opening and attack with precision. The further along you get in the story, the harder some enemies get.

The boss battles are well done to say the least and very memorable.

My favorite (SPOILER ALERT) is the golden one with the multiple arms and swords. You will need to use a weapon you find in the dungeon, but its only 50 per cent now, with your sword accounting for the other 50.

Now the biggest change in the game is the way the dungeons have been made.

The whole world in which you travel is actually one gigantic dungeon. Each area is vast, with secrets and special areas where you need a certain weapon to advance or get that heart piece. In order to make sure you don’t get lost they put in markers you put anywhere on the map. The dungeons themselves haven’t changed that much from the usual design of advancing from

room to room, except that this is less frequent and the rooms are larger in size and detail.

The game is presented as a story. You see the emotional connection between Zelda and Link, not to mention all the people who help him and the bad guys you have to fight. The soundtrack is awesome and came with the game via a separate disk.

Overall, this is a game that every Wii owner should have. This is a game that Nintendo wanted everybody to play and they have succeeded. The visuals are popping with color and life, the game play is the best so far on the Wii. Since this version of Legend of Zelda was a first there is less content compared to Twilight Princess, but the motion controls and the game play make up for it, making this an excellent game. I give Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword 9 skyward strikes out of 10.

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of harmony, and expression of emotion

Explaining the Vocabulary of Explaining Grimes

By Devin King Grimes’ (the project of artist and musician Claire Boucher) latest album, Visions, is one of the most interesting releases of the year, for several reasons. Perhaps the most interesting is not the album, but the publicity and promotion around the release, particularly the language used to describe the music and the artist herself. Part of the problem with understanding – even enjoying – the album relies on understanding the vocabulary used to describe Visions, and Grimes’ broad approach to art. Here, then, are some of those words, and how they relate to the overall sound of Grimes.

Post-Internet – After proclaiming herself to be “post-internet,” she elaborated by saying “the music of [her] childhood was really diverse because [she] had access to everything, so the music [she] ma[d]e is sort of schizophrenic.” When people talk about the temporal aspect of her music – being simultaneously futuristic but also touching on sounds and ideas from the past – they refer to this as being post-internet. One of the important functions of being postinternet would refer to the fact that, as Boucher addressed above, unlimited knowledge rests at your fingertips from a variety of places and times around the world. In some ways, being post-internet exposes you to too much knowledge and touchstones.

By virtue of the fact that so much exists in so many cultures, being postinternet affords opportunity to know a little about a lot. This leads into the second part of Grimes’ quote from above, where she states that “basically [she’s] really impressionable and [has] no sense of consistency in anything [she] does.”

Pastiche - While many will speak positively about the aesthetic of postinternet music, some critics speak www.stylusmagazine.ca

negatively of the same idea. For these critics, the post-internet sound is nothing new. They would state, along with Simon Reynolds (author of Retromania, which discusses this topic), that these are just reappropriated sounds from the past. But moreover, they would call this a pastiche. By this, they refer to the multiple touchpoints as being a jumble of sources – not necessarily cohesive, but certainly not explored in depth. So with specific relation to Grimes, they would suggest that the praised-by-some qualities are derivative, random, and not explored in any depth – sort of like a clicking through a variety of hyperlinks as you go through connected Wikipedia pages. Pastiche could be perhaps

considered the negative flipside to the coin of “post-internet.”

Tumblrfied – It’s been mentioned that Grimes has been “Tumblrfied,” referring to the fact that Grimes’ music has been blogged and reblogged constantly, and how her own sound draws from many of these multimedia posts on Tumblr, creating a sort of internet ourobouros. This is of course one of the complaints of the internet world: that too often it is concerned with, and feeds, only itself. So in some ways it is appropriate, if Grimes is a part of this futuristic genre based more around an internet culture than simply a sound. Yet again, this demonstrates the deep complexity of

sound, or possibly how the music may simply be a series of vaguely related hyperlinks.

Feminism – This is not an uncommon word, but understanding the role of feminism in Grimes’ music and art may help to understand the music.

The most obvious indicator of this is the video for “Oblivion,” a song which appears on Visions. It’s been noted by Pitchfork writer Ryan Dombal that “with the ‘Oblivion’ video, the [director and Grimes] wanted to convey a feeling of female empowerment while not being too overt or didactic about it.” Pitchfork writer Mark Richardson notes that the video is “saying something about gender, but it’s hard to say exactly what, which is part of what gives the video a peculiar power.” We are, again, presented with what might be a well-intentioned pastiche (“saying something”) or insightful comment on gender relations. Clearly, we see something at play in this video, but it’s not entirely clear what. That may simply be directorial choice. The ambiguity of what’s going on may be a conscious choice to allow us to question openly the ideas of gender that are at play. Or, it might be simply another important idea, not deeply explored.

We could continue to explore the aesthetics of her sound and look at words such as “Ethereal” to explain the strange futuristic modernity of her sound, or also “Art” when looking at Boucher’s past in Montreal’s “DIY loft culture” and how that has influenced her. These, though, are not only the keywords to understanding her work, but also the tension created in describing her work. Everyone – reviewers and Grimes included – seem desperate to unearth (or create) their best possible words as they struggle to describe music that seems so consciously something. Perhaps though, the important question left to ask about post-internet is this: is the post-internet ethos to be anything at all?

Apr/May 2012 Stylus Magazine

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Weird ShitwithKEnt DAviEs An Elephant never forgets…to ROCK!

ingly unique collection of rhythmic melodies.

With the recent release of Water Music on Mulatta records, the third and supposedly final album from the TEO has received even more attention for how it was conceived. Recorded live without edits, overdubs or any human accompaniment (excluding a short Buddhist monk prayer), the album features 14 elephants playing traditional Thai instruments in long sustained takes in the middle of the jungle. The tracks vary from what sounds like an eerie score for a suspense film to slow burning experimental jazz.

Overall you wouldn’t know it wasn’t human until you hear the occasional Elephant trunk trumpet in the mix. Although the Water Music album is consciously hands-off in terms of direction from Lair and Soldier, the original TEO documentary reveals that’s it has taken them countless years of working with the elephants to have them achieve this level of independent musical ability. Soldier and Lair’s ingenuity, curiosity and patience is as remarkable to watch as their unconventional musical protégés.

While it’s unseen if elephant mood-music could have a serious commercial future, the scale of TEO album sales and other elephant led artistic endeavors have managed to help keep the Conservation Centre going for over a decade. Check out TEO documentary and their wonderfully strange and crafted music at http://www.mulatta.org/

Move over Hatebeak, Caninus, the Jingle Cats and any other animal fronted acts. Prepare to be trampled by the talented trunks of Thailand’s Elephant Orchestra.

I recently stumbled across a fascinating documentary that tells the story of Thailand’s magnificent musical elephants. While elephants are considered the national animal in Thailand and protected under the law, most of them are usually kept in poor conditions for tourists and circuses. This is not the case for the elephants living at the Thai Elephant Conservation Centre. This park in Northern Thailand is home to the Thai Elephant Orchestra a musical ensemble consisting of as many as sixteen musically inclined elephants.

The orchestra is the creation of American elephant expert Richard Lair and David Soldier, an experimental musician and neuroscientist. The two built custom percussion and wind instruments for their trunked friends in order to create what Soldier calls “Elephant mood-music.” However, unlike conventional whale music, the elephants are doing more than singing for human-made cheesy-listening backgrounds for yoga classes. The elephants produce almost all their own music using everything from a xylophone to giant harmonicas to create atmospheric wonders of surprising precision. Instead of a barrage of random noise you’re given a surpris-

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1 ! John K. Samson 2 ! The Vibrating Beds 3 !

Mariachi Ghost 4 ! Rob Crooks 5 ! Greg Arcade 6 ! The Noble Thiefs 7 !

Cannon Bros 8 * Various Artists 9 ! The Lonely Vulcans 10 * Feist 11 Bjork 12 * Grimes 13 * B.A. Johnston 14 Florence and The Machine 15 * Leonard Cohen 16 ! This Hisses 17 Charlotte Gainsbourg 18 ! The Magnificent 7s 19 Ladytron 20 ! The Hoots 21 * Kathleen Edwards 22 ! Big Dave Mclean 23 ! Hatcher-Briggs 24 * Samantha Savage Smith 25 * Plants and Animals 26 ! Rambling Dan Frechette 27 The Horrors 28 * The Ketamines 29 ! Smoky Tiger 30 Guided By Voices

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Provincial Sing The Blues 7-inch Machete Hearts Creature of The Night Beyond The 11th Deck Firecracker/Cloudglow Busy Doing Nothing Vulcan Cesspool Metals Biophilia Visions Hi Dudes!

Ceremonials Old Ideas Surf Noir Stage Whisper All Kinds Of Mean Gravity the Seducer Best Wishes Voyageur Outside The Box Getting There From Here Tough Cookie The End Of That Nothing To Lose But The Blues Skying Spaced Out Dragontiger Let’s Go Eat The Factory

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