February / March 2015

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Stylus

Feb/Mar Issue1 2015 Volume26

Production Team Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sheldon Birnie Art Director . . . . . . . . . . . . Andrew Mazurak Assistant Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gil Carroll Advertising Manager . . . Andrew Mazurak

andrew@mazmedia.ca

On the Cover

SUZIE SMITH is a print based artist. She has shown her work nationally and internationally and has had solo exhibitions at Atelier Circulaire (Montreal), Open Studio (Toronto), Malaspina Printmakers (Vancouver) and Ace Art (Winnipeg). Her work is available through Lisa Kehler Art + Projects. suzie-smith.com

Cover Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Suzie Smith Printed by JRS Print Services: 204-232-3558

Contributors Martyna Turczynowicz Danielle Marion Greg Gallinger Anastasia Chipelski Ginaya Jesmer Lisa Ewasko Daniel Emberg Harrison Samphir Devin King Sam Thompson Chris Bryson Sara Jay Victoria King

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 Live Bait Phantogram // DFA 1979 // Duotang // Blackalicious . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 CKUWho The Metal Lunchbox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 CKUW Program Guide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Nonstophiphop Ratking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Local Spotlight Oldseed // Mobina Galore // Camp David . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Ulteriors Shooting Guns // Vogue Dots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Under the Needle Replica Mine // Soho Ghetto // Coyote . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Fear of Music What we talk about when we talk about Data and Art . . . . 24

Features Single Mothers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Cootie Club . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Cantor Dust . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Richard Inman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Shooting Guns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Hey Rosetta! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

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Blah, Blah, Blah Every other Thursday is Real Love Thursday at The Handsome Daughter and Folk Fest Thursdays at The Good Will *** CKUW Fundrive Kickoff Party at the Handsome Daughter on February 7 with music from The Zorgs, Sapphire Empire, and M & M Meats. All proceeds going to CKUW. Also check out, on the same day, The Adventures of Prince Achmed with live score composed and performed

by Julia Ryckman and JP Perron at the WECC and the Zoo hosts Alestorm, Laika, Swashbuckle and The Dead Crew of Oddwood *** The Wilderness of Manitoba at the Park Theatre, presented by the Winnipeg Folk Festival Feb 8 *** The Zoo continues its rage with a stacked line-up including Napalm Death, Voivod, Exhumed, Iron Reagan and Black Crown Initiate on February 12 *** Fundrive Wrap up Party at The Good Will on February 13, Five Alarm Funk play the Pyramid on the same day, and over in St Boniface, the Festival du Voyageur kicks off with performances from 130 artists over the course of two weeks! Check out more info at festivalvoyageur.mb.ca *** Valentines Day at the Handsome Daughter featuring Holy Void, Steve Basham Band, and The Hours with proceeds going to Art City as The Hip return to

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Winnipeg and the MTS Centre! *** Cannibal Corpse, Behemoth, Aeon and Tribulation will all be in town at the Garrick on February 16 *** February 18 at the Garrick features Black Veil Brides, Memphis May Fire and Ghost Town *** July Talk rocks out at the Pyramid on February 20 as Solhounds, Kezdet, and Jacksonian March rumble down in the Cavern *** February 21 The Basement Paintings are in town from Saskatoon playing at the Cavern with Palm Trees, Ossific and Soul Killing Female or head to the Purple Room for Ghost Twin, Basic Nature and Mashed Topatos after you sway in the early evening to Stars and Hey Rosetta [pg. 19] o’er at the Burt *** Fuckin’ Cro-Mags are at the Park Theatre Feb 22 with Withdrawal and Solanum!!! *** February 25 catch The Elwins at the Park Theatre with Ozconscious opening or head to The Good Will for Single Mothers [pg. 5] with The Dirty Nil and Triggers *** Feb 27, it’s the Johnny Cash Birthday Bash at the Times Change(d) and Shred Kelly are at the Pyramid *** If you go to the Garrick on Feb 28 then you’ll probably see the Arkells *** There are Humans playing music on March 4 at the WECC *** On March 5 Dan Mangan +

Blacksmith and Hayden will be at the Garrick and Trent Severn will play the WECC *** Del Barber plays at the Park Theatre on March 6 *** March 7 Samantha Savage Smith plays the WECC with Living Hour *** Sharpen up your Language Arts skills at the Pyramid on March 11 *** March 12 has Alan Doyle at WECC *** March 13 has Ewan Dobson at WECC *** March 14 is The Best Party Ever at the Rudolf Rocker featuring Robojom, Uncanny Valley Girls, Champagne Years, and Mary Jane Stole My Girl which is a bold claim considering The Gaslight Anthem and Northcote return to Winnipeg; this time at the Burt *** March 15 will be loud with In Flames, All That Remains and Wovenwar at the Garrick *** The Real Mackenzies and the Isotopes play the historic Windsor Hotel March 21 while The Arrogant Worms frequent the WECC and The Watchmen and The Treble hit up the Burt *** Electric Six get sexy at the Pyramid March 22 *** The Once will be at WECC on March 24 *** Amelia Curran and Ryan Boldt (Deep Dark Woods) play the Park March 29 *** And OK Go will be fun as hell at the Garrick on March 31 as the snow continues dwindling ***

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04 Stylus Magazine Feb/Mar 2015

BY KAITLYN EMSLIE FARRELL

o you like mosh pits? Well you should. There’s no better way to enjoy violence than through the experience that is punk music.

Considering Single Mothers has had more than a dozen different members over the years, I should probably start by specifying that I spoke with Evan Redsky, one of the long time members. This page would be a mess of ink if I were on the phone with that many people and it’d be more of a puzzle than an article. I mean, it’d be pretty punk.

So let’s just get into it already. Evan Redsky, Drew Thomson, Mike Peterson and Brandon Jagersky are the four current members of Single Mothers.

This band is a true representation of life. They’re not hard to work with, the quantity of previous members is simply based off differences in musical taste, schedules and as Evan states so simply “people have lives.” It’s all typical “starting a band” stuff.

So don’t think messy when you think Single Mothers. That’s not an accurate synonym. Try words like fun and energetic. Or if you talk to Evan on the phone you’ll hear him use the word cathartic a lot. And he couldn’t be more right. If you put this music on you’re going to forget about your troubles.

Nothing matters as you bop your head back and forth while laying around in your apartment. You’re going to forget about your obligations too though so be careful. I put it on while watching a movie once.

That didn’t make much sense. But I felt like a badass doing it because that’s how this music works. Single

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Mothers sound better than troubles, obligations and shitty Netflix movies. This much I can say is true.

Single Mothers began their journey of broken beer bottles and loudly strummed guitars back in 2009. Evan heard them play when he was working on his own solo stuff and fell in love right away.

They needed a bass player so he joined. That’s how it works, right?

You’ve got to give them credit though. They named their band off the mad respect they’ve got for single mothers. Many members being raised by such, it only made sense to pay respect. I’ll admit that I thought their aim with the name was to be humourous but I was wrong. Punks love their moms and it’s great that they honour them on every t-shirt and gig poster. I know my mom would be proud.

The guys have two EPs out from back in 2010 and 2011, plus their newest album Negative Qualities (2014). According to Evan it took three years to make this album. In retrospect a lot of time and effort led to the completion. Anticipation was clearly built.

The music has changed over the years but that has come to be expected when a band has a long life.

But the key qualities that make this band great have stayed the same. Wild Party and their self titled EP are rowdy and mosh worthy. Negative Qualities has the same positive qualities of their previous album

with a tidier structure. The lyrics never disappoint.

They’re the kickers, where the songs literally kicks itself into your mouth and you can taste them for the rest of the day.

As for the bright future of Single Mothers, there’s going to be a new album. I couldn’t tell you when as they just started the writing. But it’s in the works and that’s nice to hear. But of course they’re also touring soon. The ideology for Single Mothers is to play a lot of shows. At the end of February they’re heading out to South by Southwest (SXSW) and all of North America. That’ll last a couple of months before they have a couple of weeks off in April to which they might head to Europe.

I tried to get Evan to sum up a Single Mothers show for me but he threw the question right back.

“I don’t know, I’ve never seen us play live.” Brilliant.

But neither have I. So the mystery is there and what better way to lure a crowd of cold Winnipeggers out on a February night than the promise of surprise?

Apparently the guys like it here. Evan calls it “great” and refers to our music scene as “solid.” We couldn’t agree more Evan. He knows it’s cold but that doesn’t make it any less fun. “We played a bike shop last time, it was awesome.”

Single Mothers will be at The Good Will on February 25th. The only way to make sense of all of this is to go check them out yourself.

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06 Stylus Magazine Feb/Mar 2015

BY DANIELLE MARION

ootie Club is a bi-monthly event that aims to C provide a safe space for women and non-binary

people to perform and be embraced by a supportive community. Each night begins with a community discussion, followed by the showcase, which welcomes all genres of performance. Typically three to four performers will be highlighted each night, with a DJ playing between sets.

Amidst preparations for the third edition of Cootie Club, two of its organizers, Kelly Campbell and Kara Passey, sat down to talk about the new project with Stylus. The two were inspired to organize the showcase because of a gap left by the end of Negative Space. The two recognized that conversations about gender equality in music had started to fade into the background in Winnipeg’s music community.

“The city was doing a lot better job of including women when [Negative Space] was putting on shows,” Kara explained. “It wasn’t just Negative Space. I was going to shows at other venues, and people were talking about this and proudly promoting women being on stage, and now it’s just not happening again.”

Cootie Club was created with the intention of rekindling these conversations, and to that end, each event starts with forums on issues that affect women and non-binary musicians. In the future the goal is to bring in presenters who are experts on the forum topics, to help connect Cootie Club to the wider community. This will also give experts a chance to share their knowledge.

“I would totally rather give someone else the floor to talk about something they know about,” Kara said “I feel like I get a lot of opportunities to

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talk and I want to start sharing those opportunities.”

Janis Maudlin of Ashtaroth believes that there is value in this goal. “It is exciting that it is a space intentionally encouraging music and sound by folks who are generally discouraged from having agency in these scenes.”

The community at Cootie Club is not only a safe space to discuss ideas – the second part of the evening gives people a chance to share their creative work.

“It’s supposed to be a supportive environment where you can go and do this sort of scary thing for the first time, and feel like you’re not the only one,” Kelly said of people who would like the chance to perform for the first time.

The event has already attracted a wide variety of talented performers, spanning many genres of music and performance art. This has included well established acts, like rockers M+M Meats and those with brand new projects, like Ashtaroth.

Cootie Club is always open to submissions from female or non-binary performers. They eagerly look forward to the day that showcases are comprised solely of people who have asked to participate, since their main goal is to provide a positive platform for Winnipeg talent.

Always conscious of of the barriers that may prevent someone from feeling comfortable at a show, Cootie Club strives to help make the experience positive, they have employed the aptly termed “Pink Bandana’s.” These are people who will circulate throughout the space during the evening to make sure that people have someone to talk to if they need. This is a resource that many people use, and the Pink Bandanas help keep the vibe of the

room safe and welcoming.

People are encouraged to come and go throughout the night as they please. You are welcome to stay for the whole night, but if you’re uncomfortable with the talk, then stop by after for the showcase. Alternatively, you should feel free to leave once the talk is done if that’s what you’re interested in.

“I would be bummed if someone didn’t come to the showcase because they weren’t comfortable with the talk,” Kara insists. “Just come after!”

However, they encourage anyone involved in the music community to come join them for their discussions. Maintaining a safe space will always be Cootie Club’s priority, but gathering a diverse group of people for these discussions will be instrumental in making Winnipeg’s music scene consistently accessible to female and non-binary performers and patrons alike.

The beauty of Cootie Club lays in the way that it is shaped by and responds to the community. The fact that you can go and have a discussion about the realities of the music industry and then collectively celebrate the talent that lies with the female and non-binary performers that grace the stage is worth celebrating and supporting. Winnipeg will certainly benefit from this space and from the conversations that Cootie Club fosters.

The next Cootie Club Showcase will be on February 13th at the Purple Room (318 Ross Avenue).

Admission: A suggested donation of $5. All are welcome to attend, and all female and non-binary performers are encouraged to apply to perform!

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CREATING A WORLD (UN)LIKE ANY OTHER

BY SHELDON BIRNIE

A

dark, all encompassing emptiness is creeping towards the world. Society’s minders have grown complacent in the decades since the world’s last great challenge. Now, before their greatest challenge, the police, the firefighters, the army and the national guard can do nothing to stop the encroaching darkness.

Where are the superheroes who saved the day so many times before? They’ve gone to fat in the pasture, crippled by their own anxieties, addictions, and lack of faith.

This is the world that Winnipeg’s Cantor Dust create in their latest epic, I Can’t Find My Cape. Soaring synths, choral ensembles, and a full accompaniment on percussion, brass, and strings bring this cinematic pop production to life over the course of nearly an hour. It’s a strange trip, let me tell you, buddy. But it’s one you won’t soon regret taking, and may even find yourself returning to again and again.

One cold and sunny January afternoon, Mark Klassen sat down with Stylus over a couple frosty pints to talk about the new record, and the impending return of Cantor Dust (rounded out by Jeff Konwalchuk, Justin Van Damme and Ashley Jonassen) to the local stage.

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Stylus: What is Cantor Dust all about? Can you give us some background on how the project started out, and what it has come to be over the years?

Mark Klassen: It started off very solo. I got a hold of some multitracking software and a synth, and started making music. I kind of couldn’t really stop it from happening. The songs started coming along, and I’d basically loop percussions. Initially, and this would have been back in 1999 or 2000, I would have been listening to a lot of Skinny Puppy and other industrial music, very heavily charged, so the songs kind of reflected that.

But as time went on, I started using music more as an imaginative vehicle. I found it harder and harder to write songs about deeply personal things. Not even using songs as metaphor, but using the imagination to tell a tale. I found that to be really rewarding. I could place myself in the role of somebody creating an environment, creating characters in some sort of wacky situation, and telling a story about it for the span of a 40-60 minute long album.

My background is as a pianist, so very soon after starting, I got myself a digital piano, so I could

actually play the instrument I was most comfortable with. So, over the span of multiple years I started playing shows out. When I started, I would have never been able to conceptualize playing shows out.

I thought it was too studio based. But I realized I could adapt the songs and make it work. So I started adjusting the rig, scaled the songs down to something I could do with two hands and using MIDI foot pedals, a loop pedal to add beat-boxing and vocal harmonies. So that was my thing for a while. But working with Jeff [Konwalchuk] was inevitable. We’d worked together in the early 90s.

He’s a fantastic guy to work with and we wanted to work together again.

That was about four years ago, with the last album Safaris I’ve Been On. I got Jeff and Natanielle Felicitas and Kelly Ruth, we did a very scaled down four-piece. That album had a lot of strings and horns and backing vocals. We scaled it back down, so that Jeff was just doing hand percussion, I was on a piano, Nat’s playing cello, Kelly on trumpet. So that’s been about three years that I’ve been working on these songs, the album is done, and I’ve got a little microworld that I’m happy with.

Stylus: The songs on I Can’t Find My Cape really do create their own world. What’s going on there?

MK: Well, it’s a world like any other: destined for destruction! [laughs] Basically, the world is about to end and we have these saviours that have taken us out of our peril in the past, these superheroes.

But whatever their bodies might be like, they have these powers that have rescued us. I guess it had been some time since the last catastrophe where the heroes had saved us. Now, we have policemen and firemen to put out the fires. We don’t need guys in capes to put out fires, we’re doing OK as a society. But then, the real poo hits the fan, and these sort of creeping decay, these galaxy monsters, this inexplicable doom start coming towards the town.

The town starts looking to its heroes, like, “if they don’t show up, we don’t know what we’re going to do.”

It also explores the innermost feelings people would feel as the end is nigh, the fear of death, fear of not having a spiritual salvation in the afterlife. Like, have I missed the spiritual boat here, by not believing my whole life? It’s a heartwarming tale, following a number of different avenues. And it’s a look at superheroes, and why ultimately they may not able to do anything to save the world.

Stylus: What is your process like for writing?

MK: It changes so much from song to song. Sometimes, a lot of these songs started off instrumentally, but as I’d listen to the songs, they started to transport me to this world. I’d be walking down the street, listening to the mixes, and these lyrics would just come into my mind. I think the first one was “Black Circles,” the song is bizarre.

It just formed as a seed, then it started growing at an exponential rate, and by the time I was home from my walk, the entire lyrical content was done. Sometimes, I sit down and write the songs, others are literally written in the shower or the garden. The names of the superheroes were kind of unavoidable. I mean, “Soup Loving Man”? How do you get away from that? It just kind of comes to your head. It’s a very organic process, very unpredictable. Sometimes it’s all encompassing, where it’s all I can think about. Other times, days or weeks go by and nothing happens.

Stylus: You have a few more people, rather than just yourself, performing on this record.

MK: Yeah. This is the second time I’ve done an album with any other musicians. I tell ya, it was monumental for me. I’d laid down a lot of the drum tracks, using MIDI

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and digital programs and stuff. To be able to say that I know one of the most competent drummers I’ve ever met, and that I could send him the songs and let him do whatever he wanted with them…

The things Jeff did... I mean, giving your songs to someone on such an important level as percussion is a very humbling experience. It had to exist outside of my own brain. Next thing you know, his creativity has come into the mix, and the songs are so much more powerful than before, because he’s come at them from his own view.

I was also listening to a lot of music that has really big choral parts. Spiritualized is one of the bands I really love for that. They have these massive choral backgrounds. So, for some of these songs, I didn’t want them to be just 15 Marks singing different harmonies. I wanted different vocal styles. So I invited a bunch of friends over to have a bunch of beers and get into the sound booth. I’m really happy with the way it has worked out.

A lot of this is sampled instruments, because I don’t have a string section at my disposal. But I know a very talented cellist, so interjecting that human element, the human emotion into a couple songs is enough to breathe a lot of life into those

songs. Working with other people is fantastic. I’d recommend it to any solo musician.

Stylus: What has the live aspect of Cantor Dust been, to date? You don’t perform a whole lot.

MK: That’s the thing. I guess we put a lot of thought into our set up. Our rig is getting pretty complicated, set up can take a good 20 minutes just to get everything set up and uncoiled. We have a hard time looking at playing shows, because everything exists so conceptually. So it’s kind of like we want to play the album, but once it’s done, we want to move on, try some new stuff so that 10 years down the road we’re not still playing Safaris We’ve Been On, as much as we loved it. So we don’t play a lot, which makes it hard because three years go by and you kinda fall off the radar. So when you have a new thing, and you’re looking to explore it, it’s always a bit of a challenge to get back into it.

Stylus: When can we expect to see Cantor Dust out around Winnipeg again?

MK: At our last practice, we unanimously felt like we were ready to play another show. We’re hoping

by February to start booking shows. We want to get in touch with some of the bands we played with before, and we’re looking to put together a cool show – I guess it wouldn’t be a CD release, because the album is already out, but a celebration kind of thing in the spring. We’re going to have a bit of a choir in the back, along with some videos that are being made right not to accompany some of the pieces in the background. It’s fun.

Being able to give the song to this guy, Tyler Funk , I basically just gave him the song and asked if he was interested. Being able to step back and give him the creativity to realize the song in his own way, that’s what you see out of it. It’s awesome to watch somebody else take your stuff and make it their own.

Stylus: What can we expect from those shows?

MK: Well, when we last did our shows for Safaris I’ve Been On, we encouraged the crowd to get into the spirit of the thing, to dress up in animal costumes or whatever. So, we’re thinking, for these upcoming shows, or at least the “release,” to encourage the same, only a superhero theme. Bust out your best superhero costumes, your best Spandex and capes, and try to have a fully immersive environment. It makes it a lot of fun.

Listen to Cantor Dust’s new album, I Can’t Find My Cape, at cantordust. bandcamp.com, and get working on your superhero costume today in anticipation of the record release party later this spring.

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Richard Inman REAL DEAL

ichard Inman is the “R real deal.” That’s a phrase

that’s repeated time and time again, when his name comes up in conversation.

Whether he’s performing his own tunes or footstomping covers of David Allen Coe’s “Long Haired Redneck,” his authenticity is undeniable. For Richard Inman, country music has been a lifelong affair, from town fairs to Sunday car rides home from church in Grunthal, where the country musician grew up.

“As a kid, I was always into country music. We used to go to church every Sunday and on the way home from church we’d listen to this radio station out of Portage la Prairie, they do a Sunday request show. It was old people phoning in all these old things, like Johnny Cash and George Jones. My dad had Johnny Cash’s Live at Folsom Prison on tape and he’d play that.

We were like five years old and that was the coolest thing, like a live concert in the living room. I just thought it was the best.”

With his teen years, and the rise to fame of folk-pop stars like Dallas Greene, he temporarily lost touch with his country roots. “When you’re a teenager, you don’t want to play country music. I was playing in a metal band. You want to do the ‘cool thing’ I guess.” Around the time he turned fourteen, he started writing his own music. The first songs were definitely country, but he didn’t let on.

“I started writing my own songs around fourteen.

Some of the first stuff I wrote was very country, but I didn’t let on. I made it as indie or as folk-pop as possible. Everybody was listening to Dallas Greene.

Bring Me Your Love just came out so we were all listening to that.”

Then in 2013, the opportunity to play at the Winnipeg Folk Festival’s Galaxie Young Performers program came, and Inman brought his songs to a fresh audience. One of the songs he performed was “The D-Day Dodgers,” a ballad about a group of soldiers, among them his own grandfather, who fought at the Battle of Ortona in Italy during the Second World War.

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BY MARTYNA TURCZYNOWICZ

Victorian Cross, which is the highest honour you can get. It’s important; it’s Canadian history that’s getting lost, which isn’t a good thing at all.”

Eventually, through opening for country musicians artists like Zachary Lucky, he came back to his country roots and fully committed to music.

“Slowly through the transition of opening for guys like Zachary Lucky, he’s my hero when it comes to playing live music -that guy just toured nonstop for like five years- I realized that’s what I wanna do: I wanna play in a room full of people, sing my own songs and get paid for it.”

So he started going back to those car rides home from church, Saturday nights listening to Johnny Cash and playing the guitar with his dad. “When I was a kid my dad would teach me to play chords, but I never knew how to play a song. Learning all those old country chords, it’s come full circle.”

These days, Inman is gigging all over and working towards releasing his first EP. It’s been a lengthy process, one that ILLUSTRATION BY SCOTT PETROWSKI began in December 2013.

Long process or not, Inman has plenty “That song in particular, is telling a story, not of support from the musical community. Local from my point of view but something that my musicians Aisha Belle, Jordan Bisonette, Matt grandpa saw. It’s a combination of stories he told Filopoulos and many others are on his upcoming me, stories that my grandma would tell me after he album. His band, The Madtrappers, opened for passed away.” the Crooked Brothers at their album release and Despite being an intense battle and having a are currently a weekly feature at Winnipeg’s most high death toll, the soldiers who fought in Ortona esteemed country haunt, the Times Change(d). were scorned as “D-Day Dodgers” and accused of “Three years ago, I was the weird guy in the taking the easy way out by not partaking in the background with the shitty guitar. Me and my invasion of Normandy. For Inman, it’s not only a friend Tyler, we’d go in and sit in on these crazy jam matter of family history, but a piece of forgotten sessions at Falcon Lake where the Crooked Brothers Canadian history. were living. I wasn’t very good at all when it came The name “Smokey Smith” was somebody that to jamming. Now I think I can call myself friends Inman’s grandfather knew, Ernest Smokey Smith, with them.” the last living veteran to be awarded the Victoria Cross. “There’s a reference to Smokey Smith in the Regardless of where Inman heads, there’s no doubt he’ll song. He was fighting in Italy as well. He died in go far.

2005, but he was the last living veteran who got the

DUOTANG

THE GOOD WILL

PHOTO BY GREG GALLINGER

BLACKALICIOUS PYRAMID CABARET

live bait

PHOTO BY ANDREW MAZURAK

DEATH FROM ABOVE 1979 GARRICK CENTRE

PHOTO BY GINAYA JESMER

PHANTOGRAM GARRICK CENTRE

PHOTO BY LISA EWASKO

The Metal Lunchbox Thursdays Noon-1:00pm on CKUW 95.9 FM or ckuw.ca

provides a lunchtime feast of LMetaliz Harte-Maxwell and balls-to-the-wall heavy music havoc. Stylus had the chance to pick her brain and taste her deathmetal carrot sticks.

Stylus: How did The Metal Lunchbox get started in CKUW? Liz Harte-Maxwell: Well, I had just finished my radio workshops and was offered to take over a noon hour metal show originally called “Rock N’ Roll Damnation”.

One of my first shows was actually a fundrive show, which is terrifying.

Fortunately, I had some CKUW vets helping me out like Kent Davies. Fun times. Rock N’ Roll Damnation is still on with the original host, but it’s now at 8 pm on Wednesdays.

I had that name for my show for a while, but eventually I needed to give it back. So I asked people what I should rename my show and a friend suggested it be the Metal Lunchbox.

So I was simply handed and excellent time slot and a metal show. CKUW is what dreams are made of.

Stylus: What Metal bands had a big impact on you as you were starting the show?

LHM: I guess I always had my staples.

Judas Priest was a pretty frequent band on my show. Once a show floor a while.

Coroner was also something I listened to a lot of at the time. Jeeze, Annihilator, Megadeth, Testament, Carcass, Bolt Thrower, Strapping Young Lad, lots of Swedish death metal... I’ve discovered more metal over the past three years, sort out of necessity for the show, but I’ll always listen to those staples.

Stylus: How has the show changed since the first show?

LHM: Not by much. I feel like I have a pretty good formula for getting a lot music

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into the hour. Just lots of music with some concert info, the occasional guest and maybe a recorded interview once in a while. I play a lot more Iron Maiden now.

Stylus: How has the Winnipeg Metal scene developed over the past five years?

LHM: The metal scene is a pretty stable thing, I feel.

It’s strong for a city our size. I mean, I’ve heard we’re

a pretty decent crowd. There are roughly the same groups of people at the shows I’ve seen. I also know a lot of people duck in and out of it, depending on how their life situation is and how they feel. Not that they don’t like the bands that are coming through town, but I guess concert-going can get boring? There are some pretty excellent line-ups coming through soon though. Some years are dryer than others. I don’t know if it’s gotten bigger or smaller. Bringing bands to Winnipeg can be a real crap-shoot.

Stylus: Do you have anything special planned for your Fundrive show?

LHM:Opening the gates of hell.

Possibly an on air goat sacrifice.

Are you down, Winnipeg?

Stylus: What is your most memorable CKUW experience?

LHM: The time I had Chuck Labossiere and another member of Eyam on my show for a live interview. We were talking and and I told them there shouldn’t be a lot of swearing on the air.

And I remember one of them said something like “Oh yeah, we shouldn’t swear. Shit. Aww, fuck. I swore.” y’know... Swearing because you swore. and then began to talk about the band Anal Cunt- saying the actual name. On air. After going to a song, Robin the program director peaked her head in and said in the nicest way possible “Could you guys... possibly clean the language up a little bit?” And we were all a little embarrassed, but it was pretty funny.

Have a satanic picnic with The Metal Lunchbox every Thursday from 12:00-1:00.

Feb/Mar 2015 Stylus Magazine

14

shooting guns opportunity is unpredictable

BY DANIEL EMBERG

Do you know Shooting Guns? Over the past couple

of years, they have seemingly become everybody’s favourite heavy rock band. There are a good number of devoted followers here in Winnipeg and the band loves coming here, though it has been over a year since they last made it to town. Drummer Jim Ginther apologized for that (“It wasn’t for lack of wanting to,” he insists) during a recent chat with Stylus at Amigos Cantina in Saskatoon, which he adds is the site of the first-ever Shooting Guns show. We met with Jim to pick his brain a bit about the band’s whirligig past year and get an idea of what is in store for them during 2015.

Jim Ginther is well aware of how far afield the love has been pouring in for Shooting Guns, the band whose heavy, often tense instrumentals ride on his propulsive drumming. While he wonders aloud whether the band has yet paused long enough to reflect on what 2014 meant for them, Ginther can readily identify three key moments over the past couple of years that have driven the surge of interest in the band.

He first cites the band being named on the Polaris Prize long list a couple of years ago, though nobody was starry-eyed about winning the sucker.

“Let’s be honest here,” Ginther guffaws, “Clearly, we’re not that… I think we set a record for making the list with the fewest jurors naming us. If we have a grant application, nobody’s gonna green-light it.”

But even getting tacked onto the end of such a list yielded some benefits. Ginther points to a particular night at the Windsor here in Winnipeg just after the announcement, when he noticed that suddenly the crowd included more than just friends of the band.

The second big turning point flowed from a cold call to Riding Easy Records (California), which quickly led to distribution throughout the United States and Europe. This helped put Shooting Guns on the radar of other bands and vinyl collectors.

Factor three was a phone call in early 2014 confirming that Shooting Guns would be creating a soundtrack for Wolfcop, an independent film made in their home province of Saskatchewan.

That project, in particular, contributed much to the frenzied pace of their year.

Shaking his head in awe at the memory, Ginther recounts. “When we did [the Wolfcop soundtrack] it was a crazy tight deadline, like two months from start to finish and we’d never done anything like that before. When we were contacted in early February, we didn’t even have a studio set up. I just told them we did!”

There had already been some studio planning afoot, but Ginther says landing Wolfcop shifted the band from the “maybe in a couple months” mentality to the “we gotta do this tomorrow” timeline. A spinoff benefit of all this is that the band now has an improved system for recording all the lengthy jams that will eventually find their way onto records.

Another chunk of the schedule is also now devoted to Pre-Rock Records, a distribution outlet that started in late 2013 to get Shooting Guns’ Brotherhood of the Ram record out there. As Ginther explains, “We looked around and realized

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if we wanted to get it distributed in Canada, we would have to do it ourselves.”

The band has since pursued one-off deals with whichever distributor makes most sense for a given format or region, and regularly find themselves in the thick of numerous projects with other groups. Early in 2014, Pre-Rock put out the House of Burners compilation, which features 16 bands from across Canada who are part of the heavy psychedelic rock community—including Winnipeg’s beloved Mahogany Frog.

While the band keeps itself quite busy, they also strive to avoid over- committing themselves. The past couple of years have surely underscored the value of staying flexible.

Although it already rates as one of Shooting Guns’ most important accomplishments, Ginther points out on more than one occasion that Wolfcop was not even in their plans at this time last year.

Accordingly, when speaking of future releases Ginther says part of the fun is never knowing what the next one will sound like. “We try to be conscious of trying not to make the same record every time, because I think as an all-instrumental band it can be pretty easy to do that.” Compounding that stated conscious desire, the band has experienced enough lineup changes that every release for 2015 will feature a different set of players.

The recent additions include Toby Bond, a classically trained viola player who has now joined Shooting Guns full-time. Ginther gushes about Bond’s chops, saying, “Toby brings a lot more to the table than the rest of us combined...so we never want to skimp on giving him credit.” Bond played a key role in shaping the sound of Wolfcop, with strings and electronics work prominent throughout.

The two confirmed Shooting Guns releases for 2015 are splits with ZAUM (Moncton) and Hawkeyes (Kitchener). Beyond that, Ginther

m e nt i o n s there are at least preliminary plans toward the band’s next full-length release but he has to play coy about future work because, again, the group is looking to stay flexible.

“We’re trying to just be friends with anybody that wants to be friends with us,” is where Ginther soon lands when talking about what is in store for the coming year. “If any band from Winnipeg wants to come to Saskatoon and spend a weekend having beers and laying down some tracks, we’d definitely have that conversation.”

The comment seems in line with the general approach of the band. Opportunity is unpredictable, so it can be helpful to reserve a bit of time and energy in order to be able to respond when something comes up. “We’re so grateful for the support we have,” says Ginther. “I think trying to expect anything more, we would be kind of presumptuous regarding how much [longer] people will stick around and listen to what we do. We do appreciate how lucky we’ve been and are trying to look at every new project as a fresh opportunity.”

While no tour dates are booked yet, he also made clear that a year and a half is long enough, so the band intends on coming back to Winnipeg as soon as possible.

Keep your ear on the ground for that, then find your way down and make a new friend.

Feb/Mar 2015 Stylus Magazine

17

BY ANASTASIA CHIPELSKI

Hiding in a stairwell of the Tide and Boar in

Moncton, NB, Hey Rosetta bassist Josh Ward began our conversation on a note of gratitude.

“We’re actually not playing tonight… We’re playing on Friday, but the venue was nice enough to let us set up in here and get ourselves all prepared for the upcoming tour,” he explains. “We’ve just done the first leg of this tour down to the US and it worked really well, so I’m really excited about going back out again.”

In support of their latest release, Second Sight, Hey Rosetta are sharing bills with Stars over the next few months, including a stop at the Burton Cummings Theatre on February 21st. Musically, Ward admits that it may sound like an odd matchup at first glance, but that after previous pairings, they won over many Stars fans, and paid their tourmates back in kind.

And, as bonus, they also get along. “They’re really such sweet people,” Ward explains. “And, you know, we’ve had a couple of late night hang out on the bus sessions, so it’s always really fun.”

Both bands project an ethos that is utterly lacking in posturing and cockiness, that projects a refreshing strain of caring and openness. Hey Rosetta have been playing for nearly a decade, while Stars have over 15 years behind them, yet they still show up to support each other every night.

“We’ll be out there watching their set every night, and we’ll look out and we’ll see them watching our set every night so I guess there’s a kind of mutual appreciation thing going on,” says Ward.

For this album, the band took a bit of a chance with a fresh approach. Going into the studio, they didn’t have an extensive plan for the album, and some songs were still just nuggets of ideas. A lot of the album was written on the spot, in full collaboration. If he had to choose a favourite track (yes, I asked him to), Ward names “What Arrows,” the fourth song on the album. It’s one of the ones that came together out of a studio jam, which made it particularly satisfying for him.

Evidence of that process comes out in the live show as well.

“You don’t often think about how you’re going to pull this off on stage when you’re in the studio laying down your 17 keyboard tracks or whatever, but yeah, there’s a lot of them. [You might] look up and see a lot of [us] running around on stage, playing different instruments,” Ward says.

Hey Rosetta has also recently signed on to publicly support the creation of a buffer zone around Gros Morne National Park, to protect the area from ill effects of fracking. “We’re all kind of similar in a way, I guess, ideologically speaking, so often it’s quite easy for us all to agree on a particular cause,” Ward explains.

The band isn’t looking to hold an overt political platform, but some concerns just feel like a natural progression. With their last album, Seeds, the band worked to build awareness about sustainability, “which was just the kind of thing that seems like a no-brainer at this point in the world,” explains Ward.

In a way, their ability and easy willingness to speak out about some of these issues is a logical development from the gratitude they express for their life’s work. Thinking about Winnipeg, Ward fondly remembers pulling through town in the middle of common deep freezes and finding comfort at Mondragon. “It was a really really sweet spot. It was nice to be welcomed somewhere warm in the midst of all the crazy, so I guess that’s kind of the Winnipeg vibe, you know? Cold weather in the winter and really warm people,” he reflects.

“People have to come together and buckle up, now that’s kind of cheesy, but we always have this beautiful experience of being on the road, there was a really good vibe and a warmth that came from people.”

And for a group of people who are more than comfortable expressing their gratitude, who have gained more humility than they’ve lost on the road, speaking out every now and then also seems like the obvious choice.

“As a musician, you’re walking around and you’re playing music for people, so if you can get the chance to do more than that, if you can make more people aware of something or maybe try to impact the world in some sort of positive way, then yeah I think it’s really your duty to go out and do that,” Ward explains. “If, you know, the world gives to us, then we’re giving a little bit back.”

Hey Rosetta! and Stars play the old Walker Theatre (aka the Burt) on February 21.

PHOTO BY SCOTT BLACKBURN

www.stylusmagazine.ca

Feb/Mar 2015 Stylus Magazine

19

nonstophiphop

BY HARRISON SAMPHIR

PHOTO BY JAMIE-JAMES MEDINA

RATKING, KID SKILLS AND THE NEW YORK RENAISSANCE

ut the city makes up for its hazards and its “B deficiencies by supplying its citizens with massive

doses of a supplementary vitamin – the sense of belonging to something unique, cosmopolitan, mighty and unparalleled.”

-E.B. White, Here Is New York (1949) The cover of Ratking’s debut LP, So It Goes, is a brown-tinged aerial drawing of New York City’s gridiron plan; its countless networked streets, alleyways and tunnels, and a lurking subterranean world beneath. It’s America’s first melting pot, and among the most iconic urban landscapes on Earth.

Known by many different names, Gotham is also a cultural mecca and the birthplace of hip hop music. From Kool Herc’s neighbourhood block parties in the 1980s to the ‘golden age’ of the mid90s, the Empire City enjoyed a long period as the epicentre of a burgeoning art form that, today, pervades mainstream radio waves, fashion and slang.

Yet in the mid-2000s, the refrains of “hip hop is dead” – spurred in part by Nas’ portentous 2006 record – hung like a spectre over the city. Rap success had moved west and then south, finding a new sound as R&B and electronica converged to transform Billboard hits.

In the words of Complex Magazine’s Ernest Baker, “by 2006, rap’s New York-centric status quo was a wrap. Three 6 Mafia took an Academy Award home to Memphis for their pimped-out Hustle & Flow soundtrack cut. Atlanta’s D4L scored a No. 1 hit with the snap-rap smash “Laffy Taffy,” and for the first time since 9/11, New York rappers were completely absent.”

Trends have a tendency to oscillate, however,

20 Stylus Magazine Feb/Mar 2015

and NYC is back on the comeback trail. Artists like Theophilus London, Action Bronson, Smoke DZA, Joey Bada$$, Vado and Roc Marciano are new cogs in a refurbished rap engine that’s propelling the city back to its rightful position of relevance and innovation.

Ratking is an indispensable component – and a youthful one – of this hip hop renaissance.

The group, comprised of rappers Wiki (Patrick Morales, 21), Hak (Hakeem Lewis, 20) and producer Sporting Life (Eric Adiele, 33) dropped an EP, Wiki93, in 2012 and followed it up in April, 2014 with an impressive 10-track full-length.

Its aforementioned cover artwork, sketched by creative director Arvid Logan, is a dignified piece of imagery: New York hip hop has returned, and it’s as gritty and raw as ever.

Like their recent touring mates Run the Jewels (Killer Mike, El-P), Ratking carries a distinct aesthetic powered by a confluence of influential sounds: Detroit drum & bass collides with chaotic, punchy breaks and the odd shade of Bay Areainspired hyphy crunk. It’s coarse, indelicate, and cluttered, much like the corrosive yet intricate rhymes overlaying the sonic surface. Lyrical themes of subway hopping, gentrification and autocratic cops weave urban tales that strike at the heart of contemporary issues. New York is a concrete, political jungle; Ratking envisions its present-day mythology.

“New York is a grid,” says Sporting Life, speaking with Stylus from his home in Brooklyn. “Everyone is moving along it in different directions. Sometimes, people on that grid clash for various reasons, that’s always been a part of the city. And, to a certain degree, every grid that people live on and have to interact on, under all the pressures of the things they have to do in their lives, those things clash

sometimes. Depending on what frequency you’re on, you’re going to come into contact with some of those things. Your New York can be anything you want it to be.”

Born in Frankfort, Kentucky, Sporting Life began making beats in 2005 and eventually followed his older brother to New York City a few years later. He met Wiki at a neighbourhood rap event and began collaborating on tracks that would eventually become Ratking’s first extended play.

With more than a decade of lived experience, Sport is seen as a big brother to the group’s two young emcees, both of whom still live at home with their parents. It’s an asset that’s allowed him to develop a distinctive sonic milieu while amassing a healthy collection of analog and digital equipment. He utilizes a mixer, delay pedal, preamp, keyboard stands, drum pad, SP-555 drum machine, Ableton Live and Push sequencers to contort samples, warp vocal tracks and

amplify drums.

“I like listening to Omar-S,” says Sport of the Detroit techno and house producer known for his DIY approach to sampling and beat recycling.

“That kind of thump that’s concurrent in Mobb Deep tracks… nowadays we have the technology to go into such a deep level of sample manipulation.

Once I found that out, it opened a whole new world of music for me.”

Standout track “Snow Beach” is an apt example.

Inspired by the Ralph Lauren pullover jacket worn

by Raekwon in the 1994 video for “Can It Be All So Simple”, the song was built to mimic the sounds of someone splashing around a pool.

“You can kind of feel the water at the beginning of that track,” says Sport. “It’s like Coney Island in early February.”

The video, directed by Dutch art house filmmaker and photographer Ari Marcopoulos, is filled with iconic New York imagery. It follows the crew as they ride the train to Coney Island, stopping at Stillwell and Surf, the world’s largest elevated rail terminal. As they jump off, the camera follows them to a deserted, snow-swept expanse of beach. Wiki raps “Tourists came, try to escape, admire the place, visit the Empire State/I prefer a roof, stoop, fire escape.”

Evidently, New York isn’t just an escape for visitors, but its inhabitants, too. For the members of Ratking, a trip to the island puts the city and its music in calming perspective.

“I just hope our music expresses a balanced photograph of an idea or a day out of someone’s experience” says Sport. “That’s what we’re trying to portray: a snapshot that captures a balanced image.”

Ratking’s second EP, 700 Fill, is out soon.

Local Spotlight

AUTUMN STILL Autumn Still Autumn Still is relatively new to the Winnipeg scene, but their eponymous debut release has the carefully crafted sound of a band that has been together much longer.

Putting quality before quantity, their EP clocks in at under 15 minutes, but certainly gives the listener a taste of the sort of dreamy indie-pop music that seems to suit them so well. The lyrics are disjointed, creating streamof-consciousness narratives, but the music is stylistically coherent throughout. The standout track here is “Bartholomew,” which seems to exemplify the pop-rock sound of the band, and features Bethany Swanson’s vocals floating effortlessly over old school guitar tones. Also of note are the beautiful harmonies throughout the album, which add space and dimension to each of the songs and are a testament to how well suited the members of this group seem to be for each other. With a debut release which demonstrates such a certain identity, things will surely continue to look up for Autumn Still. (Independent, autumnstill. bandcamp.com/) Danielle Marion

THE NEW WILD The New Wild Times are tough for bass players these days. It’s not enough that guitar-anddrums duos like the White Stripes

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and Black Keys were selling out arenas for the better part of the last couple of decades – local two-pieces are getting in on the act as well. While the Guezen brothers of fuzzed-out blues rockers The New Wild may not have as aggressive of a sound as fellow ‘Peg duo Mobina Galore, they have a similarly nuanced approach to their stripped-down setup. There’s certainly some modern-blues-twosome-bythe-numbers going on here, but it’s not the extent of The New Wild’s abilities. “No Cuts” is four-and-ahalf minutes of slow-burning, buzzy twang and the stand-out, “Play it by Fear,” exposes the raw blues roots of the grunge era. Surprisingly, those two highlights are the songs that could have used a bassist the most.

These guys can obviously bang out minimalist blues in their sleep, but the other tracks have a lot more depth and might sound even better fleshed out. Either way, the Guezen bros are doing something right here with a solid debut. (Independent, thenewwild.bandcamp.com) Sam Thompson

CAMP DAVID Babes Before Christ Dave Shaw is proving to be a difficult guy to pin down. One minute, you’ll find him crooning beneath the tense and gloomy electronics of his Glass Random moniker, the next he’s releasing a totally sincere and unwinking cover of Beyoncé’s “Drunk in Love.” His musical output over the last two years balances on a thin line between shrugging irony and playful sincerity. His latest release as Camp David, entitled Babes Before Christ, finds a perfect balance between these two seemingly irreconcilable styles.

The album, which disguises itself as a straightforward set of kitschy pop songs, is actually a tightly crafted arc, offering an earnest examination of

domestic love. The second song of the album, “Over and Over,” presents a relationship elevating itself from the shallow pools of infatuation, as Shaw laments “I feel low/but I want to feel your shoulder blades” before admitting to a desire for a deeper commitment: “stay with me, I want you to myself.” Late album cuts like “Sick Kissing” offer similar sentiments of domesticity, as Shaw describes an evening with his significant other: “Nobody knows what we’re about/ we’re making tea and making out.”

This quiet celebration of domestic romance provides the backbone of the album, but its strongest moments are actually found in its instrumental interludes. The amazingly-named instrumental cut “All-Horse Olympics 2044” displays Shaw’s effortlessly chilled sense of melody, as his kitschy synths groove over a loop of computer generated claves. Overall, Babes Before Christ is a fun, catchy, and highly danceable effort, and when I ask myself if this is Shaw’s strongest release yet, my body is telling me yes. (Independent, www.campdavid. bandcamp.com) Sara Jay

OLDSEED Kost The latest from veteran player and Winnipeg ex-pat Craig Bjerring’s solo project Oldseed, Kost, is a compelling, introspective full length that highlights both Bjerring’s songwriting and musical chops.

Tackling the mundanities of life in “Spring Cleaning” and “Car Trouble” with an eye for detail that many self-styled “singer-songwriters” lack, Bjerring’s game is on point throughout the 11 tracks presented here. The gritty stomp of “Play Cards Mama” and the irreverent yet touching “Bob Barker, You’re Golden” lift the album up through the middle, while the album closes emotive

“ooh,oohs” of “Awkward Apology” and the understated pickings “To Be is To Believe That You Are.” Bjerring’s voice and guitar playing are well in tune; at times plaintive, other times demanding, but always emotive.

The production throughout is never overbearing, giving each tune some room to breathe. Close comfort for long winter commutes, or early morning coffees by a cold window.

Enjoy. (Independent, oldseed.org) Sheldon Birnie

MOBINA GALORE Cities Away You’ve got a void in your life, I know you do. You go to work, school, whatever and you’ve got this little hole that keeps you mellow. If you found the right sized object to plug the hole, you’d be complete. But what do you put in there? A pillow?

Too soft, it’ll get wet. A cork? Too small and insignificant. How about Mobina Galore? It might pulse, bounce around and you’ll have a hard time sitting still, but they’ll satisfy you like the perfect amount of food at a fine dining restaurant.

Generally when you think of punk, you think of ill timed beats, power chords and yelling. Which sums up everything I love about it. Mobina Galore is a bit different however.

They’ve got the punk feel with the melodic drive that snags your heart.

You know that pull you feel from a song that just gets you? Cities Away does that for me through and through. I’m a big punk fan and you might be thinking “punk’s not my thing.” Doesn’t matter, trust me. I’ve just got one thing to say to Mobina Galore: What’s wrong with being 23?

(Independent,mobinagalore.com) Kaitlyn Emslie Farrell

Feb/Mar 2015 Stylus Magazine

21

Ulteriors

VOGUE DOTS Mauka Experimental pop duo Vogue Dots comes forth with their second EP, Mauka, the follow-up to their first EP, Toska, released in May 2014. In their most recent four-song EP, the New Brunswick duo of Babette Hayward and Tynan Dunfield has established a sound that’s rich, dreamy, and emotive. The first three songs, “Way With Silence,” “Tux” and “Jealous Arts” are pulsing, buzzing, wobbling, layered synth beats combined with percussive elements that provide the songs with light undercurrents of added momentum. All of this is encircled and entwined by Hayward’s lush, radiant, sometimes deadpan, pensive, shadowy, atmospheric vocals that weave, sway, and subtly bloom amongst the layers of glistening synth shifts and dream-pop aesthetics.

“Jealous Arts” comes in with a hectic beat almost like a voice gasping for air but being continually sucked back in by a synth vacuum. It soon slows down to Hayward’s supple purr, celestial notions flowing through her voice as it bounces and expands atop waves of

bubbling, trilling pulses and swathing electronic sizzles. “Way Out” makes the greatest deviation from the overall sound of the EP. It comes in with a rampant electronic percussive beat, static synth crackles, billowing hums, and streaming pulses, all recurring with stop-and-go impulses. It’s all at a minimalistic volume until – as if the first half of the song was on half mute – a wall of amplified sound comes in along with Hayward’s distant and muffled, speak-singing vocals that together bring the song to a climax of an escalated, florid, and ghostly cacophony of sound. For a second EP from a duo that just began releasing music, this is a good EP for any upand-coming and ambitious pop group to have in their repertoire, especially for one looking to explore some experimental styles and a seemingly broadening palette. (Independent, vogue-dots.bandcamp.com) Chris Bryson

SHOOTING GUNS Wolfcop [OST] Have you seen Wolfcop? Neither have I. Word has it there were only two

people in the crowd when it quietly screened in Winnipeg. While you wait for the next chance to see it, the film’s soundtrack offers a pretty sweet way to point your attention.

Dramatic and evocative, the tracks range from gentle electronic ambience to the insistent doom riffing the band has mastered. These tracks are also much shorter than we’re used to from this band, but it feels right. The pieces aren’t just short, they actually move quickly (the pulsing beats, the ominous electronics) and the whole record feels urgent. There are some curveballs to be found throughout, and approximately the middle third of the soundtrack is largely comprised of spacey, trippy pieces where the guitars take a backseat to electronics and string offerings from new recruit Toby Bond.

Oh, it also closes with one song that features vocals: “One More Day,” a sloppy, cheeky country track, takes a few hilarious swipes before fading into a reworking of the opening theme. Completely unexpected but it ties its shoes and sees itself out before the gag lasts long enough to feel forced.

Fun stuff, truly. There are a few recurring musical motifs to remind the listener this is a soundtrack, but even without the film as a reference point it’s an enjoyable series of tunes.

Clocking in at just 35 minutes, it also had me hitting play again as soon as the disc finished. The same will likely be true for most fans of the band.

(Sundowning Sound Recordings, shootingguns.ca) Daniel Emberg

VIET CONG Viet Cong Now here’s a name I’ve heard before but never actually listened to the music. I know, my bad. So let’s throw a hypothetical situation on the table.

Let’s say that you are lost. You’re lost outside in the middle of the woods, in the middle of winter. There is no hope that you will find your way in the foreseeable future. You’re not mad or sad, you’ve hit a point where you’re living second to second and all that matters is that you take the next step forward, repeat. Night comes and you put forth an extra second of thought to know you must settle for the night.

You find a cave, you enter it. The cave is small in every way. It’s probably the safest place to be from animals and wind until the sun returns. You sleep, unsure of the future. Morning comes.

The sun shines down across your face through the cave cracks and you hear footsteps. A hunter finds you and you are rescued. While you nurse your frostbite you tell the hunter about how you just experienced the worst couple days of your life. But once you’re healed and back to your regular routine, you remember it differently.

You remember this life changing experience that shaped how you view the world. And when you remember it like this, this album plays in your head. ( Jagajaguwar, www.jagjaguwar. com/) Kaitlyn Emslie Farrell

coupled with the anthemic nature of Coyote’s songs, makes the U2 comparison seem natural. Although there isn’t necessarily a standout track here, the songs on Proof of Life are full and lively, and more robust than those on their debut album Tracks, which is enough to leave me excited for whatever they will come out with next. (Fountain Pop Records, wearecoyote.ca) Danielle Marion

Adam Harmon brings forth his fifth album of recordings, Three Noble Truths, under his solo moniker Replica Mine. As a musician producing dark industrial music, Harmon has spent the last five albums circling the genre, spanning his sound to cover primarily heavier elements, mixing smoothness with stridence, intermingling softer points in between. Three Noble Truths stays within the industrial genre but remains more acoustically based, albeit his most acoustically based to date, coming off as more catchy and poignant than previous releases.

Under the Needle

COYOTE Proof of Life The second studio album from this PEI five-piece, Proof of Life is an

22 Stylus Magazine Feb/Mar 2015

indie-pop album that feels perfect for one of Winnipeg’s famously sunny winter afternoons. This is an album full of guitar-driven songs that range from urgently upbeat (like the title track) to restrained and cinematic, like “Toothache.” Coyote is unafraid to wear their influences on their sleeve.

In their press release, they cite LCD Soundsystem as a band that has had a big impact on their sound, which can clearly be heard on tracks such as “Your House.” Less intentional perhaps, is the undeniable parallel between Josh Carter’s voice and Bono’s, which,

REPLICA MINE Three Noble Truths Salt Lake City independent musician

Harmon’s guttural vocal cadence adds a grim overlay to the songs, sonically enhanced by southern sounding tweaks and twangs, intermittent synth pulses, sizzles, and zaps, humming drones, all interspersed between rampant drums and spatting acoustic strumming. As in “Fire and Brimstone,” taking allusions from the name itself, Harmon meshes flittering and eloquent finger-plucking with fluttering and emphatic drumming that’s overlaid with a rising-andfalling synth effect that harmonizes together creating a sound and feeling that is altogether foreboding and gritty. Other than having a knack for morose effects and synth sounds that bring a certain resplendence to this type of music, if not a simple elegance to fill in what would be darker, more absent parts of the songs, Harmon has succeeded in putting together an album that one could say amalgamates the sound and feel of similar bands within the acoustic-industrial genre, be it a distant apotheosis or something more germane. Three Noble Truths hits the mark in production and sound, admittedly being Replica Mine’s best release to date, but does little to further explore or go beyond the acoustic-industrial

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genre. (Endless Shadow, replicamine. net) Chris Bryson PAUL CARGNELLO The Hardest Part is You May Never Know I picked up this album because of the album artwork. A black and white photo of Paul Cargnello’s face split diagonally and shifted all about. I thought, “This guy knows things but he doesn’t have to tell you anything.”

In the hopes that he might talk about some of these things in his music I decided to give it a listen. I learnt that there is just no way you can’t be persuaded by the suave stylings of a mastered combination of slow and fast blues. I’ll admit that I was expecting to be disappointed. Naturally, I developed high expectations out of absolutely nowhere. Regardless, I wasn’t disappointed. Paul Cargnello’s tunes are that of a blues feel with folk sprinkled across the top. If you were to spend the summer travelling across the country by car and you wanted to feel as though you were playing out the story that cult classic films are based off, then throw this in your CD player.

Although a man of Montreal, most lyrics on this album are in English.

But that doesn’t matter because you’re

Canadian and you speak French anyhow. I dug this album, particularly track seven (“Sidewalks Curl”). It’s the dark and ominous side of the blues.

It’s strategically placed in the middle of the album so that by the time it all starts blending into one, the song shouts out “Hey, we’re still in this!”

(Stomp Records, unionlabelgroup. com/stomp) Kaitlyn Emslie Farrell SOHO GHETTO Thou or I or Both Halifax, Nova Scotia indie-orchestral pop quintet Soho Ghetto bring us their first full-length LP, Thou or I or Both, a sprawling, immersing album of powerful vocals and expansive sonic force. Thou or I or Both has the semblance of an album made with 80s pop-rock influences in mind, but the subtle intermixing of elements from psych music, dream pop, celtic rock (like the quiver-sprawl mandolin riff of “Sidekick”), contemporary indiepop-rock, and other genres make this album an enchanting mix. As with the opening song of the album, “One at a Time” crashes in with pummeling drums and bouncing keys followed by lead singer Marc-Antoine Robertson’s high falsetto. The whole mix screams throwback anthem but comes off as

elegant and lively, unique in its own right. Then with about a minute remaining after a brief piano slowdown the song takes a beautifully unexpected twist as Robertson’s voice floats in backed by a flittering, dreamy, almost psychedelic sonic embrace that ripples like a glistening current flowing around Robertson’s elegant, high-flying vocals. A lot of Soho Ghetto’s songs have a large-venue, anthemic feel to them. Not only due to Robertson’s bright and bold vocals but also by vivacious, fluttering, and lustrous piano melodies. Hardhitting, emphatic, frenetic drumming along with poised backup vocal choruses and opulent accents of guitar, synth, and other sounds and effects that glisten, percolating, creeping and crawling to provide the structural sinew that weave Soho Ghetto together. The diversity of sound and influence matched with instrumental, vocal, and lyrical talent give this album much added breadth and integrity. The overall orchestral effect is sumptuous, bold, and elevating in sound. The aesthetic and emotive force of the music certainly make this album something to experience.

(Independent, sohoghetto.com) Chris Bryson

Feb/Mar 2015 Stylus Magazine

23

WHAT WE TALK ABOUT WHEN WE TALK ABOUT DATA AND ART

By Devin King ata, for most of us, is just a concept: something D kind of maybe related to technology, and maybe also

just Star Trek. But in a lot of fields, data is highly valued – and rightly so.

Data is able to give feedback to gauge successes, failures or elements of both. Having this information allows you to retool and revise to improve whatever you’re doing. At a baseline, data gives accountability.

You said your new technique was going to boost sales? Well, we have data to back you up (or prove you wrong.)

Obviously, data is huge in business for that reason. You can streamline anything to make your content or advertising more effective. It’s not just in business where this is huge however. In fields such as mine – education – there’s a growing push to use data to prove that whatever your teaching method is has results on student growth. In university, there was debate over whether teaching is an art or a science, and the data driven discussions move it further into the science camp.

Music too is more and more in the science camp. The art of music is nestled in the basket of commercialism, of which the primary motive isn’t to foster the growth of art; it needs to foster the growth of sales. By using data, one can fairly assume, you can determine elements that are favourable to consumers and then develop and market those elements accordingly. Sounds easy enough. In the New Yorker, Andrew Marantz “imagine[s] that the vocals are mediocre in an otherwise amazing song. What if you could have forty people record different vocals, and then test it by asking thousands of people, ‘Which one is best?’” It sounds utopian – you could create the perfect songs.

This is where things get tricky, because data can be unreliable. Take education, for example.

Data should be easy to come by, since teachers are testing students regularly. However, as educational philosopher Alfie Kohn notes, when the emphasis is on gathering data, we may change our behavior to make the data collection simpler. Though tests may give good data, that data is sometimes incongruous to detailing the true understanding of a student. The data is unreliable, because the methods behind the data collection don’t paint an accurate picture. But in the quest for data and accountability, it is sometimes easier to shift methodology to a less effective model than implement different assessment methods to truly demonstrate learning. How can one assess a student’s understanding of human rights? Do they need to pass a quiz? Should they complete a diorama? Should they start a campaign? There’s no one answer.

Back to music. Ignoring the amount of money

24 Stylus Magazine Feb/Mar 2015

you’d have to pour into a single song to record forty different vocal parts, and ignore the money spent to bring in focus groups to analyze the songs and ignore the fact that you’d probably need to consider different choruses/verses and instrumental parts and not solely one vocal track…it sounds like this is foolproof. The trouble is that we muddy up the data collection when we say that certain things are “good” but the results sometimes show otherwise.

Conceptual artists Komar and Melamid surveyed the public to discover what was “the most wanted song” and “the most unwanted song,” then created both. Each ended up being quite unlistenable, with the “The Most Unwanted Song” – a 22 minute song featuring a childrens choir singing about various holidays, bagpipes, advertising jingles, and operatic rapping. This absurdity actually makes it the more interesting of the two as a result of it’s novelty.

“The Most Wanted Song,” by contrast is pretty bland, described as “Dion-esque” and is composed with typical musical instruments and production.

In spite of being “perfect,” the song failed to chart.

Anywhere.

Carl Wilson has written extensively on the idea of taste in his book Let’s Talk About Love. The book, about Celine Dion, details how though her pan-flute-featuring album is widely derided by critics, it’s still a global hit. In this case the data is clear; the sales are huge, in spite of massive negativity towards the song, the movie it was featured in, and the artist herself. Would anyone state that a pan flute is an integral piece to a smash pop hit? Likely not – but there it is, and it’s one of the most iconic pieces to that song.

All this by way of saying, firstly, that there’s a lot more that needs to be said when we talk about data and art. There are other aspects of data to consider, like those collected by Echonest, which analyzes aspects of popular songs such as “energy,” “speechiness,” and “danceability.” Want to have a hit song? Putting between -9db and -1db increases your chances. But most importantly, one must recognize the value of data as well as the simultaneous challenge of getting meaningful data. It may be that data itself is an art, one that defies common sense.

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