Stylus Magazine June/July 2023

Production Team

Editor Keeley Braunstein-Black editor@stylusmagazine ca

Assistant Editor . . . . . . . . . Myles Tiessen assistanteditor@stylusmagazine ca

Art Director Kelly Campbell design@stylusmagazine ca

Cover Art . . . . . . . . . . . James Turowski

Advertising Contact Rob Schmidt manager@ckuw ca

Print by JRS Print Services . 204-232-3558

Contributors

Michael Duboff

Rish Hanco

Mykhailo Vil’yamson

Rob Knaggs

Katie Kolesar

Laina Brown

On the Cover

JAMES TUROWSKI (he/him) is a Winnipeg-based artist and curator living and working on Treaty 1 Territory. He graduated in 2017 with his BFA Honours from the School of Art at the University of Manitoba. He works in craft mediums such as textiles and ceramics and challenges the expected traditions of those mediums while picking up on the queer issues surrounding craft mediums and identity. He utilizes text, symbolism, and queer history to provide a record of queer experiences in his work.

WastedYouthPhotography

Noah Cain

Gabriel Fars

Daniel Kussy

Mat Kleisinger

Albert Akimov

Stylus is published bi–monthly by CKUW 95 9 FM, 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

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Live Music Happenings

*** Tunic “Wrong Dream” Album Release + Blessed with Polyglots at The Handsome Daughter on June 9 *** Juvel at Park Alley on June 10 *** Ultra Mega, Mahogany Frog, & Bloc Parents at BLUE NOTE PARK on June 10*** MVLL CRIMES with Haters & Co Komono at the Good Will on June 15 *** Boniface with Virgo Rising and Syd Bomek at the Good Will on June 16 *** Gladly, VVonder, Sassy Mellows, The Benefits at BLUE NOTE PARK on June 16 *** Poodle Paddle, Synthetic Friend and Dayloft at the Handsome Daughter on June 17 *** Bob Log III plus The Lizzards and Blond

Goth at Blue Note Park on June 19 *** Bobby Dove plus Terry Savage at Times Change(d) on June 21 *** The Haileys Album Release with Llux & Jace Bodner at the Good Will on June 23 *** JD Edwards Band, Big Heist Brass Band at BLUE NOTE PARK on June 23 *** Nickybaby at the Handsome Daughter on June 24 *** Ninjacat Metal Fest! Feat Nocturnal Departure, Solanum “Mad Racket EP release,” Inhumed, Witchmayne at BLUE NOTE PARK on June 24 *** Love Letter Writers, Sandman, Boys Road and Sun Dayclub at the Good Will on June 30 *** Cindy Lee & Freak Heat Waves with Kandekt at

the Winnipeg Art Gallery Rooftop on Aug 7 ***

Festivals:

*** Cluster Festival June 2-11 *** Winnipeg Jazz Festival June 14-24 *** Sākihiwē Festival June 23-25 *** Ellice Street Festival June 2324 *** Winnipeg Folk Festival July 6-9 ***

Winnipeg Fringe Theatre Festival July 19-30 *** Real Love Sumer Fest July 28-30 ***

THANYA IYER PERFORMING APRIL 5 AT THE HANDSOME DAUGHTER

PHOTO BY MAT KLEISINGER

The Business of Music:

What Royalties are Generated and How Do I Get Paid?

BY MICHAEL DUBOFF, AN ENTERTAINMENT LAWYER AT EDWARDS CREATIVE LAW – CANADA’S ENTERTAINMENT LAW BOUTIQUE™

Today we’re going to look at the music industry from the perspective of a recording artist who either releases music independently or with the assistance of a record label and/or a music publisher.

First off, if you as a recording artist are having your music produced by someone else, you need to ensure you own the recording by way of an

Form of Royalty Payment Details

agreement in writing with the producer. On its own, simply paying a producer does not mean you own the sound recording copyright. Other names for a recording are sound recording, master recording, and master.

There are different types of record labels ranging from major labels to major indies to independent

Digital distribution Streaming platforms, digital downloads

Sound recording owner share of neighbouring rights music royalties

Master use license for music placements

Half of the “SoundExchange” music royalties – mostly based on plays from satellite radio stations

The right to have the recording be used in a moving picturehalf of the overall fee paid to have a song be in a TV show, film, ad, video game, radio airplay etc.

Physical distribution Vinyl

labels. Record labels act differently from each other but there are some generalizations that can be made about what role a record label takes in the distribution and exploitation of recordings you make and the basis on which they pay you.

How are Recording Royalties Paid?

Artist Signed to a Record Label

The label collects all this money, and pays the artist a share or royalty based on their written agreement

The record label collects all this money, and either shares it with the artist or not

The label collects all this money, and pays the artist a percentage (of the music royalties) based on their written agreement

Independent Recording Artist

Artist signs up with a distributor (DistroKid, CD Baby, etc.) who pays the artist streaming royalties based on streams, downloads, etc.

Registering with CONNECT or Re:Sound in Canada and/or SoundExchange in the US

Direct agreements with companies licensing music to appear in audio visual content. Sometimes an artist will have a sync agent who seeks placements for the artist. In those cases, sync royalties may flow directly to the artist from the companies licensing music or from the agent after the agent takes an agreed-upon commission, and possibly fees / expenses too.

The label generally sells your physical product and pays you a percentage based on their written agreement. For offstage sales and limited sales through your website, you buy the product from your label, and get to sell it at whatever price you want and keep the funds you received from sales without needing to pay the label anything else

Form of Royalty Payment Details

Share of neighbouring rights music royalties for the featured and on-featured artists

The other half of the “SoundExchange” music royalties - mostly based on plays from satellite radio

You make vinyl yourself and pay all costs to do so and sell on the road or online and retain all sales. Hopefully a profit is made.

Each recording has an underlying composition with music and lyrics. Every recording has one composition, but each composition may have many recordings – performed by the recording artist and others who cover the artist.

Generally, an artist will only have one main recording for each composition but sometimes they have multiple versions – such as a regular version

and an acoustic version, or a regular version and a version with a special featured artist.

The first item is what percentage you get as a writer - you need to establish your splits with other creative collaborators.

There are different types of publishers in the music industry from a co-publisher who would

How are Recording Royalties Paid?

Sign up with an organization that collects it such as MROC, ACTRA RACS, Re:Sound, or SoundExchange

co-own the compositions with you, to a publishing administrator who would not have any ownership but would have rights to collect your publishing music royalties. Publishers act differently from each other. The distinction between having a publisher or not includes some generalizations about how publishers operate.

Public performance royalties

The right to publicly perform a composition. Performance royalties are triggered when music is played on terrestrial radio, TV, and when publicly performed (in concert by the writer or anyone singing their music).

Writer’s Share of the performance royalties (50% of your entitlement as a writer) –Collected and kept by writer

Publisher’s Share of the performance royalties (50% of your entitlement as a writer) – The publisher (or publishing administrator) is responsible for collecting royalties – they pay the writer based on their written agreement.

Mechanical royalties

The right to digitally or physically reproduce the composition. This occurs when music is streamed, downloaded, and used on platforms like TikTok, or when “pressed” into vinyl records and/or CDs.

Mechanical royalties paid by publishing administrator are received from organizations such as CMMRA in Canada and the MLC in the US

The writer can sign up with organizations such as CMMRA in Canada and the MLC in the US to get paid mechanical royalties

Synchronization license for music placements

The right to have the composition be used in a moving picture - half of the overall fee paid to have a song be in a TV show, film, ad, video game, etc.

A publishing company would collect the royalties generated and pay to the writer their share based on their publishing deal.

A publishing administrator would generally not collect this money.

If you have any questions, Michael can be reached at michael.duboff@edwardslaw.ca

Direct agreements with companies licensing music to appear in audio visual content. Sometimes a writer will have a sync agent who seeks placements for the writer. In those cases, the royalties generated may flow directly to the writer from the companies licensing music or from the agent after taking an agreed-upon commission, and possibly fees / expenses too.

Artist Spotlight: Larysa Musick

KEELEY BRAUNSTEIN-BLACK

In March, Larysa Musick emerged onto Winnipeg’s music scene, releasing her first single, “Joan of Arc.”

Stylus: Tell me about your upcoming project

Larysa Musick: I came to music a little bit late. I was always writing, but I spent a long time in poetry slam. I was slam master for Winnipeg Poetry Slam for a couple of years in CreComm. And then I graduated CreComm and then realized, you know, I had completely forgotten about my love for music, and I just quit poetry slam.

I was ready to move on. And yeah, no, and from there, I just got back into writing, and then I met Sierra Noble at a music conference. I really wanted to work with a woman or a non-binary person for my project. I just had a gut feeling that would be the right thing to do for me, and I would feel more comfortable. They wanted to work with me, which is great, and they pulled in Madeline Roger, and one thing led to the next. We recorded a couple demos with funding from MFM, Manitoba Film and Music, and then we just finished recording the EP in August. And I’m releasing my first track this month, which is really cool and fun.

Stylus: Your first track, what is it called? What inspired it?

Larysa: It’s called “Joan of Arc.” Pretty famous historical figure from France. She was 16 or 17 when she led the French to victory in one or two battles during the Hundred Years’ War. I don’t know. When I wrote the song at first, it wasn’t about Joan. It was about me realizing that I had become a woman eventually at one point. I just woke up and realized, oh yeah, I’m not a little girl anymore, and I need to stand up for myself, and I need to start calling my own shots, you know? I recently moved out of my parents’ place, changed career paths, and started gunning for music. I realized that no one’s in charge of my life except me. I can start leading a team. I can start hiring musicians to play with me, which boggles my mind. It’s like, yeah! I look to Joan as kind of a role model from the past. If she could lead an army of men into battle at 16, I can certainly record an EP with very little money at 28. And yeah, that’s basically the track and the inspiration.

Stylus: I guess it informs the rest of your project because you said you have the EP?

Larysa: I’m releasing a single every few weeks until then. And there’ll be six songs. The themes are, it’s pretty much a coming of age theme, you know, imposter syndrome, like, who am I? You know, what am I supposed to do with my life? I’m still there. I’m older than you. Right? But, like, and it still creeps up sometimes, but I feel like these songs are me exercising that out of my body. It’s time to move on from that. I think they have helped me in that way. The themes are very similar.

The EP’s called Tomorrow is Bound to Come. It was all written during COVID. I think a lot of people just were able to turn inward and spend that time with themselves without actively touring or having to hustle. I saw it as a huge opportunity because I had built a name for myself in poetry slam, but I was no one in music because I had not touched gigging since I was 16, and I was now coming out of college at 25. Is that three years ago or more?

All of these music conferences moved online, so it was less of a cost barrier to attend and network. And I was like, okay, cool, this is perfect. I was definitely a fly on the wall and never turned on my camera, but one of the breakout light-off buttons or something.

I remember I decided I was going to actively go to these weird little mixers. You know, where you’re like a pod moving on the screen, and then you enter like a networking puddle. I met someone from across Canada Who’s a mixing engineer, and originally she was going to help me with my project. I was looking to literally to make the whole project all women or gender fluid. That became exceedingly difficult because it’s very hard to find a mixing engineer who

isn’t already booked up to the brim with work in Canada. Who is, yeah, I mean, the stats are pretty low. You really have to dig. So when I found her, I was like, okay, let’s do this. But she ended up being busy, and there were lots of other conflicts. That’s kind of what I went through with this project. That’s why it took so long. I was adamant. I’m sure lots of other creative people go through this where they have like an idea, and they’re like, no, it has to be this. The musical needs overlapped with the need for a woman-led or gender-diverse team. Because some of the themes were thinking about the ways I pigeonholed myself to what’s possible for me as a woman, which is kind of awful and very outdated. But those old beliefs still existed, which is like ... I feel like what I really love about the movement out of gender norms is the beauty that has come out of more people questioning it and supporting movement.

Larysa celebrated her first single with a soft release in an intimate house concert. Her second single, Blue Skies, was released on May 5. Both singles are preludes to her debut EP, Tomorrow Is Bound to Come, to be released in September 2023.

PHOTO: LAINA BROWN

Show Review: Anthony OKS, Snackie, Nú Baby The Good Will, April 8th

Winnipeg’s newest arrival brings an infectious amount of joy to the Good Will. Nigeria’s Tolu Ogunwomoju takes the stage as Nú Baby to perform his sweet music with charisma and charm, much to the visible delight of his friends and fans. Sultry, romantic lyrics are accented by a flowing pulse of keyboard-heavy afro-pop and dub as Nú Baby shuffles and slides through “Only

Fan,” “With You,” and “All The Love I Need.” His sleek recordings sound damn near sterile against this performance, escaping from the mechanic trappings of bit-crunched auto-tune to show off a livelier, raw character in his voice, breaming with a relatable excitement and personality. His set comes to a close with great appreciation before the crowd disappears into their respective phones to spread

the Easter Saturday gospel of Nú Baby to their own followers, and rightfully so. By commendation or commandant, watch for this rising star.

Watching Snackie’s artistic progression away from quirky folk to crushing, heart-aching R&B has been a trip, and if tonight’s offering is anything to go by, this year, we’re in for a ride. You might be accustomed to seeing Snackie in the vocal backseat with Begonia and Roman Clarke, and this is a served reminder that they can take the driver’s seat just fine. Supported by a live drummer and a series of backing tracks and samples, Snackie, feeling generous, announces that they’ll be performing their whole album in full. Complete with loungejazz intermissions with dryly delivered confessional spoken word, Snackie’s soulful songs carry a lyrical heaviness, sweetened by their colourful vocal melodies and disembodied harmonies. It makes for great break-up music.

It was halfway through Anthony OKS’s set when a friend splutters in my ear, “Everyone here’s the best. It really speaks to what a friendly and talented dude Anthony is.” Truly. Curator and tonight’s headliner, Anthony Sannie, opens with crooning romanticism in “Hid Your Love,” a smooth introduction to an evening of energetic hip-hop and narrational R&B. Sannie follows up with an impassioned “Boy From Freetown” to his father and his journey to Canada from Freetown, Sierra Leone while connecting the crowd through a celebrated love of family and positively charged rhymes and rhythms.

Sannie invites Snackie up for a duet of the devotional groove and chromatically creeping of “Fortified Bond” to close and then invites the audience to stick around while he DJs the night out, more evidence that Anthony OKS is the musical gift that keeps giving.

Snackie’s latest single “Could It Be” was released on June 3rd, and plans for an album are in the works.

Anthony OKS is currently recording new music, release TBA.

WORDS & PHOTOS: ROB KNAGGS

SNACKIE

NU BABY

ANTHONY OKS

CKUW Puts the “Fun” in Fundraiser

RISH HANCO

Friends and supporters of local “campus and community” radio station CKUW (95.9 FM) came out to the Good Will Social Club on Thursday, March 30 to wrap up the annual pledge drive in support of keeping CKUW listener-driven and free of paid advertising. It was an intimate gathering, and a great opportunity not only to support the continued work of CKUW and its in-house music magazine, Stylus, but for the staff and volunteers to celebrate that work.

Body Of Intrigue eased us into the celebration with

layers of music swirling up out of ambience. The sounds of water and birds settled all around the room. Listening, letting the music wash over you in waves, it becomes easy to forget yourself. I found myself transported (not for the last time that night) to a dream-world. I forgot the last lingering tendrils of Winter and felt the warmth of the sun shining down on my face.

The next band to take the stage was Campfire Sigh, bringing with them a joyful energy. They sang of trekking mountains and encountering

strange mystics, once again inviting us (the crowd) to lose ourselves in other worlds. A feeling of calm would break down into moments of heroism, every sound and movement of the band leaning toward some great quest. The unapologetic love of fantasy and play was infectious, and before long we were dancing with abandon.

The dancing continued as Tinge brought us back with a vengeance to reality. With riffs and lyricism reflecting deeply personal and real experiences, they captured our attention and our hearts. They revealed the universal in so many intimate moments, creating a space for gratitude and hope, despite the missteps and misgivings that come with learning to exist in a community of individuals.

Each moment on stage was a gift.

Pssst…

It’s not too late to support local music radio!

You can donate to CKUW year-round at ckuw.ca/donate.

CAMPFIRE SIGH

TINGE

BODY OF INTRIGUE

CAMPFIRE SIGH

PHOTOS: KATIE KOLESAR

Space Jam: MOSA

WORDS & PHOTOS: KEELEY BRAUNSTEIN-BLACK

“I didn’t think this would become such a public part of my life,” said lead guitarist and vocalist Staci Nault.

She is referring to her love of dinosaurs. The band, MOSA, is named after the mosasaur. The Mosasaur is Staci’s favourite exhibit in Morden’s Canadian Fossil Discovery Centre, and is also the largest in the world.

“They call it Bruce even though it’s actually a chick,” said Staci, “The smaller one they thought was the female is actually the male, so they named him Sally.”

Hannah clarifies that the band’s name is pronounced: “Mow-Z-AA.”

“When we picked it, we were worried people wouldn’t know how to pronounce it,” said Staci.

MOSA practices in Staci’s basement with its cabin-like walls and an unused bar with a hole in the ceiling for fishing out a cat named Carl.

Rachel Burns’s old Fender Jazz bass (J-bass, pictured left) sits on a rack

Staci bought it when

Rachel purchased her new Precision bass (P-bass, pictured below) that had the type of sound she was looking for

They had their album release show on June 3.

Staci shows off her cat socks and her favourite guitar pedal: her POG2 They are her weekend socks because “what’s the point if you can’t see them?”

A mosasaur decorates the bright orange piano with a collection of other dinos, instruments, audio equipment and candles

On brand, a dino mask hangs on the wall to Eric’s left

Rachel’s favourite pedal is Big Muff . “It makes it a little more raunch,” said Rachel . “The sound of rock n’ roll is actually just things breaking,” said Eric

Local Releases

many basement shows and sold-out gigs, singles, EPs, and even a Canadian tour, the band has finally released their first full-length effort titled sick of you. The album is heavy from start to finish, with a great lineup of new tunes and crowd favourites such as “wacky intro song” and “nothing to do, no one to love.”

HOPSCOTCHBATTLESCARS SICK OF YOU

Since 2021 when hopscotchbattlescars released their first widely available single, “god hates straight pride flags,” fans have been waiting and begging for a full-length album from the band. Hopscotchbattlescars, a metalcore collective consisting of members Simone, Wyatt, Jude, and Erik, have been a big name in the local hardcore/ metalcore scene for a number of years now and have been pushing the limits of extreme music since day one. After

Every song has a hard and cutting sound with the highest recording quality the band has seen yet. Each song hits you with a wall of distortion and heavy tones. Hopscotchbattlescars has always been known for their clear values against many issues such as capitalism, homophobia, transphobia, and more, and this album is no exception, with many of the songs pushing these values. These issues are best felt in tunes like “capitalism: the world’s largest non-consensual findom” or “dropping dead to own the libs.”

If that isn’t enough, every song has killer riffs, and songs like “begin anew” bring back many of the mathcore

writings that older fans have been missing recently. The album does fall short in some areas as the re-recordings of “all the things you wish you had” and “nothing to do, no one to love” are missing some of the original feel and grit, worrying some fans of an even further stray away from the refreshing mathcore that the group was known for on older releases. This album is in no way bad. It is a great listen and a great first full-length album any band could dream of, but nothing can be perfect. Luckily the album doesn’t fall short on many things, but for longtime fans, it can seem underwhelming. This is an album that takes multiple listens as every layer uncovers more of the technical writing the band is known for.

Long-time fans or newcomers to the scene: I do urge you to listen to this release; it is hard, wild, and wacky and encapsulates an amazing renaissance in Winnipeg’s extreme music scene. James

Baines

(guitar), Brian Gluck (drums), Jensen Fridfinnson (keys/vocals), and Jordan Cayer (bass) achieves a massive sound on this album. They blew the roof off a sold-out West End Cultural Centre on May 6, alongside special guests Boy Golden, Taylor Janzen, and Tired Cossack, in what was one of the most energized, intimate, cathartic concerts I’ve experienced. They leave on a Western Canada tour near the end of May.

Nadlersmith’s great accomplishment as a songwriter is to create from the place where language emerges. He distills the longing, love, anger, and pain that fuel this album into a wordless, cathartic bridge of the opening song “World Burn.” In this song, and across the album, he connects with listeners with an experiential grammar outside of the confines of ‘proper’ English usage.

AMOS THE KID ENOUGH AS IT WAS

Because I care for Amos Nadlersmith, the front man of Amos the Kid, and we’ve fussed around with songs over the years, two of which ended up on this album (I don’t write about those here for obvious reasons), don’t read this as a review proper, but as an appreciation of Amos’s songwriting and an interpretation of his work from my subjective position.

Amos the Kid’s debut album, Enough as it Was, opens with the world on fire. Smoke hangs in the sky like clouds. In the choking heat, The Kid— the moniker I have for the album’s hero—feels drawn away from the city, to return home and reckon with what’s transpired, to square what he was taught about the world with his experiences in the world, to digest it all before riding out into a future all his own.

Unified by the production of Adam Fuhr at House of Wonders, Amos the Kid, which also includes Fuhr

The central image of “Hang Your Head” is The Kid with his head slumped in his chest, having given up on ever getting his point across successfully. Where before there was ease and excitement at the thought of an audience, now there is frustration and despair. He’s frustrated with the gathering, but he’s also frustrated with himself. While The Kid desperately wants to be seen and understood, there may be no thought more terrifying. Thankfully, The Kid is not left alone in this moment. Another voice enters to provide comfort and lift him from despair: “Cool it man you’ll be fine, everyone grows up in his own time.” There is no easy solution to the difficult, but there is hope in the support of those who care.

In “Well Water,” my favourite song on the album, The Kid has made it home. Here, the images become even more intensely elemental and concrete. Sensory snapshots hold decades of history and emotion:

“Red rust it bled from the faucet seal And the birdhouse view from the windowsill

I still remember that metallic taste

From the old pipes at my parents’ place” This image is emblematic of how memory functions across the album. As rust eats metal, causing seals to leak, the past bleeds into the present. Rusty water finds a way out. Memories surface. A sip of water can transport you back to childhood. After finding a sort of acceptance in “Well Water,” the raging song that follows, “Enough as it Was,” which I discuss in a previous review, gives The Kid the catharsis he needs.

Biblical imagery and characters blend

HOPSCOTCHBATTLESCARS WASTEDYOUTHPHOTOGRAPHY

in and out of The Kid’s journey. He takes on the destructive implications of contemporary constructions of heaven and hell in “World Burn” and “Point of Beauty.” Despite what he’s been taught to know, The Kid strives to live free from damnation’s trembling anxiety and salvation’s neutered anticipation, accepting the reality of death and finding beauty in his place in the family of things:

“One day I’ll die. The plants will grow all through my hands, between my ribs, around my face and then my bones will fade away from where I came. Dust is where I’m gonna go.”

The album’s closing song, “Western Store,” finds The Kid heading west. The tensions between rural and urban and the questions of authenticity that resound throughout the album come to a head in the concluding image of The Kid, hands softened by the city, wearing boots bought for him by his beloved’s mother, declaring he is worthy of love:

“I went to the Western Store With your ma’s money I bought boots Now I look the part, I do.

I don’t own no horse, I don’t own no land.

My hands are soft as silk, But I can be your man”

The final line repeats as the song and album move towards finality. The “Your man” is cut off from the last repetition, the album ending with The Kid, having reckoned and reminisced and wrestled, triumphantly declaring: “I can be!” Noah Cain

to this after a couple of edibles.” Even after listening to the ending short story and the explanation after that (which only made me more confused), I was still incredibly puzzled about what the deeper meaning of this album could be. Maybe I just have to keep listening to it, create my own meaning, or attach my own meaning to the work.

“Supremacy of Significance” talks about humanity’s constant drive to find or create meaning in our seemingly meaningless lives. The multiplicity of different meanings that we have created throughout history across a wide variety of cultures and religions. We are always seeking this meaning for ourselves. Closetjudas crafts a fascinating narrative throughout his work and lyricism on this album.

Lowkey, almost Camus-esque philosophical ideas. An absurdist view on life, possibly, would be my own takeaway from this. I feel as though you can hear this, particularly in lines such as “I regret all the hours that I wasted with you/every moment is lost to time/but soon it won’t matter, cause we won’t exist.” Gabriel

Fars

they could have been composed by the great Greig Nori and Bill Priddle. 10/10 has huge old-school indie vibes, and if the mid-to-late nineties are now the new “retro,” this project is nostalgically fresh. Accordingly, were Booter to find a way to time-machine their music back to that era, there’s no doubt that they would have been signed to the iconic Sonic Unyon label of yesteryear.

Me Upset,” which has been in Walker’s repertoire for at least four years but is now fortunately available as part of this album. Booter is Alannah Walker (songwriter, vox, guitar), Brendon Yarish (guitar and writer of “Seventeen”), Ian Ellis (drums), and David Schellenberg (bass). Mykhailo Vil’yamson

CLOSETJUDAS ENTELECHY

An incredibly crafted album. You can really tell that the artist chooses his words carefully. It’s both experimental and enchanting. The more rock or alternative style guitar riffs are also an excellent stylistic choice. It’s also important to note that this album is meant to add to the narrative from Closetjudas’ 2019 album Lunacy + The Second Naivete

This album feels trippy as fuck. When I first started listening to it, I thought to myself, “Maybe I should come back

BOOTER 10/10

While absolutely everywhere beyond the middle province is unfamiliar with the pedestrian use of the Manitoban term, this four-piece pop-punk outfit – formerly known as Spooky Eyes –has claimed “Booter” for their own, and with their debut release 10/10, they are set to become its primary definition far and abroad. The word “booter,” of course, is akin to “soaker” - the latter of which is also a Treble Charger song (from their first album, nc17, back in 1994). Perhaps this is no coincidence since these thirteen songs sound like

More than half of the songs on 10/10 are fleet-footed sunny tunes – the candy floss pink of Booter’s vinyl being an accurate embodiment of these predominantly two-minute tracks. The median length of these is actually 2:05 on this 30-minute and 33-second LP, making it a crushable release for anyone wanting to listen to it in its entirety. What’s more, these hook-ridden songs with repetitively catchy lyrics about relationships and the like will guarantee their place in many-a-playlist. Although it’s the only song not written by frontperson Alannah Walker, the line “I will always be seventeen” from the fourth track probably best describes the entire collection. In fact, the album almost sounds like listening to a box of personal notes – written back in high school but never sent – set to music, which makes 10/10 extremely accessible to both younger and older audiences alike. Because there’s something unique about one’s midto-late teens that never quite leaves a person: feelings of infatuation and regret, of things, said and other things left unvoiced, of trying desperately to be in control but of complete satisfaction always somehow surpassing our reach. All in all, 10/10 is a hi-fi combination of fun and thoughtful indie rock songs that have high replay value – especially the slower, more pensive feature track on their Bandcamp site; namely, “Call

ZOON BEKKA MA’IINGAN

If Daniel Glen Monkman’s debut album Bleached Wavves could be described as elementally waterbound – saturated and immersed in dense reverb and sonorous with echo - their sophomore LP Bekka Ma’iingan both soaringly transcends and at times hovers just over the surf of what came before. The latest release by Zoongide’ewin (pronounced “Soon-guide-a-win”) is airy, textured, complex, meditative, and positively stunning. Anchored in the depths of past recordings, Bekka Ma’iingan is also an emergence into another realm of sound. And amidst the sundry, mindfully bright orchestral tones that ebb and flow throughout, listeners are moved to pause and gaze upwards with their mind’s eye in absolute wonderment at the swirling, manylayered, multi-hued audio skyscape

created by Zoon.

Still primarily guitar-based, the ten songs on the album are surrounded and supported by a variety of other instruments – including an E-cello played by Michael Peter Olsen and strings by FAMES Skopje Studio Orchestra. The opening track, “All Around You,” gives a glimpse into the palette of colours that Monkman uses to craft their masterpiece, and a similarly ethereal ambient feel can be found in “Brave New World (Without You),” the other instrumental song “Niizh Manidoowig (2 Spirit),” and the closer, “Ashes in A Vase.” These are balanced out by the most distortionheavy songs on the project, namely, the hazy west-coast shoegaze “Care” and the beautifully repetitive “Gaagige” that sounds like it starts halfway through the song (and aptly means “forever”). As for the four remaining songs, they are absolutely captivating each in their own way: “Dodem” has a vibe akin to gliding peacefully above the Pacific Coast Highway, the dual vocals in “Awesiinh (A-Way-See)” are blissfully comforting, “A Language Disappears” is extremely chill and instantly appealing, and everything about “Manitou” is invitingly haunting, enticingly unsettling, and gravely introspective (including its music video, which provides a thoughtful window into the significance of acceptance, family, tradition, and nature in surfacing from what so often engulfs us as humans).

All in all, Monkman has succeeded once again in crafting a sonic environment that gives people space – along with them – to both courageously escape and to humbly stop running; to honestly deal with hurt, unrequited love, and the great mystery of life; and with respect to old versions of self, to be true to who we are today as people (individually and collectively). Bekka Ma’iingan is the perfect companion to Bleached Wavves and is deserving of all the accolades it will receive, and these

songs bode well for whatever new music Zoongide’ewin will release next.

Mykhailo Vil’yamson

BRAIDS

Secret City

Raphaelle Standell-Preston cries aloud a prolonged “Oh My God” to

SOFTSWITCH S/T

Softswitch—consisting of Suzy Keller on drums, Rob Hill on guitar, and Ryan McPherson on bass and vocals— takes you to the centre of a universe at once recognizable and surreal with their new self-titled EP. Mundane activity is set against a background of questionable perceptions of self and reality. “Memoriam,” the first track on the album, displays this uncertainty with lines like “Was she even real?” and “It was like a faded page somewhere in our cursive memory.”

Bleeding out of this uneasiness is an urgency that permeates the album, reflected in the lyrics of the second track, “Jupiter Machine:” “We awoke to the orange light, streaming through the blinds, persistent, persistent, almost as if, almost as if it wanted an answer.” We are transported to a place shaken by apocalypse but peopled with those who cling to familiar habits: “Dazed, we reached for our phones.”

This theme comes up again in the album’s closing track, “Best At Art:” “It’s the end of the world, and you wouldn’t want to miss a thing like that, just don’t forget to feed your cat.” The song gestures cynically at a return to

that which is commonplace, despite internal and external crises. This is especially clear in lines like “Don’t worry, we’ll get you through it, just get out your wallet, there’s always a price to pay” and “Get home, get high, get scrolling.”

Each song is pierced through with a sensation of dread, fed by hazy guitar riffs that drone out like sirens, crashing, bellowing drums, and bass lines that weave between them like dissonant heartbeats. These layers of sound seem like a warning—a great and terrible anxiety looms. At times, it seems as though the music reaches a peak and threatens to crash and topple before ultimately returning to harmony and regaining its grip on reality: “So we laughed, and moved on” (“Memoriam”).

This album is a trip that will leave you exhilarated. Rish Hanco

harmonized, reverbed vocals, and winding solos. In the same vein, they released “Stranger,” which touches on topics like unrequited love and ends with a beautiful guitar solo. “Water” is their most recent single, which has a calming, meditative vibe and continues to express a dysfunctional partnership that, ultimately, does not work out.

On June 19, 2022, the group of four, including Sophie George, Hailey Hunter, Sage Stoyanowski, and Ellie Ratel, released their debut EP, Stages, and the first two tracks began with their original first two singles. However, the energy-packed third song, “Black Hole,” infuses electric guitar distortion and rock goodness to give the vitality a track about a chaotic relationship deserves! One of my favourites is “These Four Walls,” which describes an isolated life where someone cannot force themselves to step out of their comfort zone, and it seems they are desperate to break their bad habits and step outside. The songwriter and lead vocalist, Sophie George, unequivocally demonstrates a deep connection with her lyrics and music: they complement each other perfectly.

STELLAR STAGES

STELLAR: Reviving the New Vintage Attitude

STELLAR’s distinctive vintage aesthetic infuses a united message in its music and visuals, a message about the past and what it could have been. Released in 2021, their first single, “Call Me Goodbye,” is a touching, melancholy track about heartache, with shimmer acoustic guitars,

Releases From Away

introduce the space-y free-flowing “Left/Right.” A sudden blink in lyrical flow once “illuminated on the mountain top: Mont Royal” spills like a panic of spacial hyper-awareness as the strings wash over the synth floor, the acknowledgement of footsteps which the song title points to. A track with such spontaneity feeds into a theme within Euphoric Recall; the abandonment of strategy, burning away the structures and embracing the impulses, and welcoming imperfections. A move seemingly

necessary to exercise the pandemic demons many artists endured, Euphoric Recall follows 2020’s “Shadow Offering,” one of many albums created with hopes of support in the form of performances and subsequent touring that got washed out in the pandemic noise. In the demand for patience and space, this album is also an urgency for movement, injected from a lingering groove-based pulse from StandellPrestons’ fluid-motion side project Blue Hawaii.

The arpeggiated melody of “Retriever”

My favourite song, though, would have to be “Reflections”; I knew it would be from the first few seconds of listening. It contained fingerstyle guitar, layered vocal harmonies, exquisite lyricism and poetry, and the atmosphere of a million butterflies fluttering through the sky on a starry night. The pacing of this song was flawless!

The EP ends with “Living Without You,” a gorgeous closer that ends Stages in resolution because it describes the end of a relationship and moving on, with cheery production, contributing to the overall optimistic vibe.

I highly recommend listening to Stages because it includes a variety of songs ranging from deep cuts to vibey hits! Stages is going on my summer playlist.

Albert Akimov

is relaxed and weightless in its atmospheric exploration as the nearly 10-minute track expands. The percussion breaks nearly halfway, draws down the sun, and as another melody sinks in, a starry blanket of voices envelope the listener into stillness, and as the melody oscillates into the closer “Euphoric Recall,” the vocal performances of StandellPreston submerge the listener until the melody begins to fade away.

For fans of: Toro Y Moi, Purity Ring, Eurythmics. Daniel

Kussy

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