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Oct / Nov 2017 Stylus Magazine
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CONCEPT/SCRIPT: PANCHYSHYN - ART: HOURIE
OCT/NOV 28 NO. 5 2017 VOL
Production Team Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gil Carroll Assistant Editor . . . . . Kaitlyn Emslie Farrell
On the Cover KATRINA MARIE MENDOZA is a Winnipeg artist who combines schematic digital drawings with found material in continual reassembly. Her interests lie in drawings as projections of space, the possibility of their becoming objects and the limits of their fragmented vocabulary.
Art Director . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Kelly Campbell Cover Art . . . . . . . . . Katrina Marie Mendoza Advertising Contact . . . . . . . . . Rob Schmidt manager@ckuw.ca Print by JRS Print Services . . . 204-232-3558
Contributors Charlie Fraser Alfred Hermida Rachel Andershuk Marie-France Hollier Patrick Harney Neva Wireko Chris Bryson Monica Frisell Topher Duguay Alec Ruest Phil Enns Sean Newton Colton Siemens Jen Doerksen
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 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 Writing submissions: editor@stylusmagazine.ca Graphics submissions: design@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.
Table of Contents Blah, Blah, Blah Events Around Town . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . CKUW Program Guide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . CKUWho Psycle Radio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Reviews The National // Avec Le Soleil Sortant De Sa Bouche // + more . . . . . . . . CKUW Charts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Features Wares . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 04 Faith Healer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 06 Jo Passed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 07 Slow Dancers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 08 Cold Specks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 The Vangoras . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Space Jam: Animal Teeth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Bill Frisell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Prarie Punk Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 F.C. Coconut . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
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BLAHBLAHBLAH Summer is over and gone. Winnipeg must find a way to go on. Live music and fun is the answer ***Catch Jay Arner from Vancouver at the Windsor on October 3 with locals Human Music and The Pinc Lincolns or head to the West End Cultural Centre for the Justice for Errol Benefit Show with John K. Samson, Mulligrub, and Well Sister***October 5 at Times Change(d) catch Trampoline and Ponemah***October 9 at the Windsor catch California, skate/surf punk innovators Agent Orange with Flatfoot 56 and Get Dead (SF)***Head down to Times Change(d) on October 12 for Kakagi and Alex Vissia***October 13 at the Windsor catch Mung, Suburban Hypocrites, Yer Mum, and Chernobyl Wolves or
over at Times Change(d) Cheering For The Bad Guy with Poor Choices or even Foonyap, A La Mode, Johnny Sizzle and Hello Moth at Crescent Fort Rouge***October 14 at Times Change(d) catch Stonypoint and Roaring River Rangers or over at The Park Theatre Endless Chaos are releasing a CD with Vathek and Eyam in support***October 17 at the Windsor is Penske File with Gaff & the Slasher***October 19 at the Times Change(d) Jaxon Haldane and Gordie Tentrees hit the stage*** Blend into the crowd at the Windsor on October 20 with Camo Night or get american at Tom Petty’s Birthday Party at Times Change(d)***Oh Susanna performs at Times Change(d) on October 21***On October 22 Wares, Mulligrub, Mujahedeen
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and Pleasure Dens are making noise at The Good Will***Get dirty with Mud Men at Times Change(d) on October 24***Single Mothers return to Winnipeg at The Pyramid October 25***October 26 at Times Change(d) is Kim Beggs***October 27 at Times Change(d) Red Moon Road and Matt Patershuk take the stage or catch Fear the Skanking Dead at The Windsor with Minus 40, Suburban Hypocrites and Dinner Club***JD Edwards Band is at Times Change(d) on October 28**Halloween at the Windsor with The Creepshow (Montreal) with Sammy Kaye***Casati plays at Times Change(d) on November 2 and the next night is New Orleans Night at the same spot***Local legends The Perpetrators perform at Times Change(d) on November
4 * * * G WA R will soak the floors of The Pyramid November 8 with Ghoul, He is Legend and U.S. Bastards***November 9 at Times Change(d) in Velvet Black***November 10 and 11 at Times Change(d) head down by the river with NEILFEST***November 17 at Times Change(d) check out Ellen Froese and Cary Buss***November 18 Romi Mayes plays at Times Change(d)***Be sure to check out Punk Fridays every Friday at The New Club St. B featuring locals and touring bands***Support local music***
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BY CHARLIE FRASER
Creating intimacy at a live performance can seem like an impossible thing. There is this very distinct separation between the musician(s) on the stage and everyone else on the ground below them. The space where the audience members are is very dark so the musician(s) can’t see them; meanwhile, the musician(s) are lit up with intense fluorescent lights illuminating every single one of their features and even, flaws. It can feel like a very separated experience being at a show, the musician is above you almost on a pedestal and you’re on the ground below them forced to look up at them through these heavy lights; it can be kind of unsettling. Cassia J.Hardy, creator of the musical project Wares does all she can to eliminate this dynamic of separation and instead tries to create an intimate connection at every live performance. Being a solo musician you are able to control all of the dynamics while playing live, one of these dynamics being level of intimacy, and that’s one of the reasons Cassia enjoys playing solo sets so much. Cassia elaborates, “It’s easier with a solo act to bring more intimacy to a show, if you’re responsible for all the sound on the stage you can make it as quiet or as loud as you want. If you can control the dynamic
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PHOTO BY KAITLYN EMSLIE FARRELL
you can turn your guitar to just a whisper volume level or you don’t really need a mic, you can just sing right to people; that’s how I really like to operate” What Cassia does to create that connection is to ditch the bright fluorescent lights and bring her own. “Intimacy is a big part of my set so I ask for all of the lights in the house to be turned off and it’s just these four bulbs in each corner of the stage. It’s mostly for my comfort; it makes the room, it makes everything feel a lot closer even if it’s not. I have no problem playing big rooms or anything, that doesn’t make me nervous, it makes everybody in the room feel more involved.” Intimacy isn’t just about turning off the lights though, intimacy is about feeling safe, if you don’t feel safe, you won’t be able to achieve that connection. Cassia realizes this and always makes sure that the venue Wares is playing at is a safe space and that everyone can feel included and safe, free from hate or discrimination. Cassia says that the performer on stage should be cognizant of how everyone is doing and what vibe the crowd is giving off and if you see or hear something bad to call it out. It’s easy for Cassia to do all of this because Wares has in the past primarily been a solo project and she
is the person making all of these decisions. “For the longest time my earliest records were bedroom recordings and for the longest time the idea of this project was it would just be my songs and me on stage performing so it would be portable in a way that a band isn’t and that’s gotten me this far.” But, Cassia has been thinking about adding more folks into this musical project. “Wares, as of just talking to you right now, it’s starting to expand. I’m entertaining the idea of involving other people in the level that I involve myself.” One thing that Cassia finds difficult is how hard it can be when trying to organize a band and finding times that work for everyone’s schedule to practice and do shows, and organizing a group of people who have the same level of passion as you. In that way being solo is portable and very easy to organize but, when you’re solo you don’t get to have the same songwriting experience, and working with other musicians to write a song can be a very rewarding and introspective experience; you get to look at topics and issues through not only your musical lens but also through someone else’s. Wares has started playing shows with more people. “We did a couple (shows) over the summer. We played Sled Island to-
gether, that was a really fun show, we opened for the band Cloud Nothings.” Wares is still continuing to grow and will be going on tour as a band October 11th and will be at the Good Will Social Club on October 22nd. Cassia proves that you don’t have to keep doing the same thing just because that’s what you started doing at the beginning of your career and that you are allowed to add more or less people into your projects. If it’s your project, you have full control but it is always a good experience to work with like-minded people and be able to collaborate creative thoughts. You should try both before sticking to one, and never stop doing what you are passionate about. Whether Cassia is playing with a band or by herself, she won’t ever stop making music. “I see myself making music and being creative musically for my whole life. Whether or not I am doing the band thing or criss crossing the globe and really pushing records or whatever, remains to be seen but I’ll never stop writing songs.”
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Faith Healer BY RACHEL ANDERSHUK Just four days into touring their second EP Try ;-), Edmonton-based pop-rock duo Faith Healer ( Jessica Jalbert and Renny Wilson) had already seen improvements in their live show. With the help of bassist Jenni Roberts, keyboardist Ross Nicoll, and drummer Mitch Holtby, Faith Healer embarked on a month-long Canadian tour promoting the much-anticipated album. “We only started rehearsing less than a week before tour, and it was the first time we’d played these songs all together. We definitely notice improvements each time,” said Jalbert. “The first show was really good though,” said Wilson. “We started off on a high note, which is hard to pull off on a big night, when I find that I let my nerves get to me. Not that night. It’s an unusual feeling.” Before Try ;-), which was released September 8 by Mint Records, Faith Healer was Jalbert’s solo project. Although Wilson helped record both albums, he became an official band member this year. Faith Healer performed the entire album at The Handsome Daughter, sharing the bill with Juniper Bush and housepanther. Before their set, I got a chance to sit down with both Jalbert and Wilson to discuss life on the road, loud music, and the importance of record shops. Stylus: Noisey recently reviewed the video for “Try”, calling it “one of the strangest video [they’d] ever seen”. What are your thoughts on that? Jessica Jalbert: Hyperbole. I don’t think it’s that strange. It’s a bunch of normal people in extraordinary situations, eating bananas, hanging out on a hill. Renny Wilson: It’s very much a headline type of thing to say. Like, “the craziest thing you’ve ever seen!” JJ: “My jaw literally dropped to the floor when I watched this video!” RW: “My fidget spinner came to a halt when I saw that!” Stylus: I take it you have fidget spinners on tour? RW: (laughing) We have two of them. JJ: One’s broken though.
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PHOTO BY RACHEL ANDERSHUK Stylus: Who’s the best fidget spinner? JJ: I think our keyboard player Ross has more experience with it. Renny has been catching up. He’s trying to do some tricks and stuff. Earlier today, I was like, “What is that hissing sound? Is there a hole in the tire? Fuck.” And then I was like, “Oh it’s just a fidget spinner. Never mind.” Stylus: Are you listening to any albums on tour? JJ: We’ve been listening to podcasts, which seems so dull to me. We’ve also listened to Erykah Badu. RW: Only one song though. JJ: Well, we listened to two songs. Remember? Because we were A/B-ing them and everyone was arguing about which song was better: the meaty beefy one or the tinny Prince one. (laughs) We argue about music a lot. RW: I really love Erykah Badu’s album Mama’s Gun. I’ve been listening to it recently, and the first song is really bangin’. It ramps up. It’s so long and in your face. JJ: Like Betty Davis style – kind of shocking. RW: But it sounds distorted and really intense. It’s funny because that’s a quality that I love in music. We argue about it a little bit, like when we mixed this album. We considered the amount of ugly distortion that’s audible in the mix. I’m a junkie for the distortedness, so I don’t always hear how harsh it comes off to other people. It definitely needs to be tamed. I liked that Erykah Badu track more though. JJ: I did too. Stylus: I understand the argument. I like distortion too, but I find some live sets too loud from all the noise. JJ: You might be pleased with us because we’re quiet. We play loud music – well, some of it’s quiet and some of it’s loud - but we are all about quiet. Then you can hear everything. And making the set quiet yet still really energetic is like a workout in a way. You’re really holding back but really going for it at the same time. I like that. It’s more intense. RW: I try to strum it lightly yet still keep the rhythm. It’s like a light strumming that’s still precise. You know what I mean? So it is intense. I’m flexing all the muscles in my body. JJ: But it’s not loud. That’s what I’m saying. I find
that, sometimes – not because the bands aren’t good – live music can be so punishingly loud that it’s exhausting to listen to as an audience member. By the end of the night, you feel like you just got smacked over the head or something. RW: But the kids love it. JJ: It’s also its own kind of energy, and I like that too. I just wanted to rein it in. RW: I think we’re reining it in pretty good. JJ: Totally. Stylus: What has been your favourite song from the new album to perform? JJ & RW: “Try” JJ: So far, it’s been “Try” for sure. It’s fun because it starts out as a regular song and then it turns into a jam. I never solo live, but I’m trying to double Renny’s solo for this one. It’s fun. RW: We perform the album front-to-back as recorded. When we were sequencing the album, “Try” became a centerpiece, and it’s very much the same effect live. This is the first time we’ve performed a piece of music as an album before. JJ: It’s been really neat. RW: It’s like listening to the album every night, but you’re performing the whole thing in the same sequence. It’s weird but cool. JJ: It’s satisfying. Every night we remind ourselves of the work we did. RW: Totally. All the little details. Stylus: After the show tonight, where can people find your records? JJ: I’m a big believer in record shops. I’ve worked in them for over ten years, so I would love to see people go to the record store and ask for the Faith Healer EP. You can SoundCloud or Bandcamp if you want - I mean that’s the way of the future. I just want a place where you can buy physical music, because it’s a visceral experience. RW: …Or you can stream it on Spotify with ads for Diet Coke. For those who missed Faith Healer’s reined-in performance, Try :-) is definitely worth a listen, and be sure to check out Faith Healer next time they’re in town (December 20).
Stylus: I see you were recently on tour, how was the tour? Where did you go? What are some memorable events from this past tour? Do you prefer touring or playing at home to local crowds? Jo Passed: We went down the west coast to LA and came back up! It’s always such a fun time, I feel so fortunate to have the bestest buds, Bella, Daniel and Spencer who play with me in my band and I love them so much. I formed this band on tour so it’s hard to say what a home crowd is, playing in Vancouver feels like I’m playing on tour these days and usually is part of a tour. I sold all my stuff a couple years ago and live out of a rat infested cardboard box that costs $500 dollars a month. Stylus: How/when did you get your start with music? and from there when did you decide on progressing into songwriting if you didnt song write from the beginning? JP: I started playing Taiko Drums when I was 4 but I think the dancing part of it reminded me too much for my parents who are dancers. I used to take naps and feign sleeping to not have to do the Taiko Drum classes, eventually I switched to piano which was A Ok! I later quit piano to form jo passed and devote more time to songwriting, but I’ve started playing the piano again. I also noodled my own little tunes and songs when I was a kid, but they were more like funny movie classical themes then rock music. Stylus: How long have you been playing music live? What made you make the transition from bedroom music to playing on the stage?
JP: I’ve played live shows since my teens. Bedroom jams and live music have never existed independently from each other for me. I’m usually writing in bedroom dreaming of what they’d sound like live. Stylus: You recently(ish) made the transition from a member of a band to a solo artist, how has this transition been? What are some of the pros and cons of solo work vs group work? JP: I do have a band so it’s not so black or white. I don’t like most ideas so it’s nice to confine myself in demo land and just be negative by myself. I like to hear full releases as I’m writing so it was hard working with the uncertainty of another songwriter or with jamming parts out. One song leads to the next for me, but I can get kind of stopped by an unpredictable song by another writer. I’m starting to open up though and wanting to form more collaborative bands now that I have my own thing going. But ya, I like feeling free to fuss over every instrument and write arrangements that work with the full band together. I think it’s a byproduct of growing up as a piano player and spending most of my life by myself in front of a machine, now the machine is a laptop as well as a keyboard and all those other instruments.
Stylus: You said you have been playing since your teens, how has developing your style in the public eye felt? JP: I’ve changed approaches and styles a lot. The good news is, so has the public and the public themselves have even changed. So often, I don’t know how consistently they are considered the public anymore. My friends give me shit for singing softly sometimes. Stylus: What were some of the key moments/ realizations you have learned to help you move forward with your sound and your musical career? JP: When I started to allow myself to love, guilt free, my guiltiest of pleasures. Stylus: Is there anything in particular that keeps you wanting to write/play music after all this time? An event/quote/person that you look to or does it change from day to day? JP: There’s literally nothing else I could do but keep going. Jo Passed plays the Handsome Daughter on October 26 with local bands Human Music and Heinrichs Maneuver.
BY PATRICK HARNEY PHOTO BY ALFRED HERMIDA
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SLOW DANCERS BY CHRIS BRYSON Slow Dancers recently returned to Winnipeg to release their newest mini album, Philadelphus. The new album returns to Slow Dancers’ expansively emotive folk – slow and dreamy, sparse and serene, vocals atop a whisper, with stories to make the mind wander. Jesse Hill, songwriter for Slow Dancers, is joined in the band with Marie-France Hollier and Cole Woods. Hill’s love for poetry extends beyond academia and literature and into his worlds of music. He moved from Winnipeg to Toronto for grad school in Latin poetry and although he’s had some personal qualms along the way, his return to music hits a mark for something more. “The first couple years of my program were super demanding and I basically didn’t do anything but work in the library. But I was pretty unhappy, so it’s really been like, part of doing music again has been like I’ve been wanting to have a more balanced life,” explains Hill. “So I’d really like going forward for the rest of my Ph.D. to be able to both do the academic stuff and also create music.” There’s an importance placed on lyrics in Slow Dancers songs. “I’ve been a reader of poetry since my adolescence. And the more I’ve done that the more importance I’ve placed in lyrics in other people’s music and thus I’ve found myself putting more and more focus on it as I’ve grown up,” says Hill.
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PHOTO BY MARIE-FRANCE HOLLIER “You know it’s not something that music needs. There’s lots of good music that doesn’t have much depth lyrically. I think it’s like the relationship between music and poetry can be exploited more often than it is, and so yeah I think there’s lots to be done there.” Slow Dancers took a different route recording this time around, opting for lo-fi out of convenience and a desire to get the songs out. “The last album we recorded it in a really fancy professional studio and then it took forever to release because we sort of ran out of money,” explains Hill. “But for this one we mostly recorded it ourselves to 4-track cassette machines so it’s lo-fi and quick and relaxing and then we had our friend Joel help us with the mix and record the vocals.” “It’s a three-month versus a four year (recording) process for this release,” says Hill. “I like lots of albums that are recorded (in lo-fi) like that. It’s not something I demand of music. It was really just this is what we have, we know how to do this. So it was a mixture of both convenience and desirability in itself.” In discussing some of his artistic developments over the years and influences that have affected his work outside of music and literature, Hill says that “I used to sort of have my exclusive subject be love, when I was younger. But now more and more as I’ve grown older I’ve sort of sought more diverse subjects.” Hill
says that he finds inspiration in memories and the world around him, in family and experiences. In discussing the importance of making an album that’s cohesive, Hill says that he really values “the whole cohesive album. And that’s certainly something that I think a lot about. I’m very conscious that these four songs (on Philadelphus) worked well together,” explains Hill. “It’s just one good way of putting music out into the world. You don’t necessarily need your album to be totally cohesive to make an exacting statement. But for the kind of art I like to consume I like really thoroughly thought through works of art. So that’s what I kind of aim to do.” Hill says that he hopes to do a weekend tour in Toronto and Montreal sometime this fall, and says Slow Dancers will probably play another show around Christmas time in Winnipeg. With playing their most recent show since 2014, Hill says he also has some songs well in the works, enough for a new album, and hopes to record them sometime in the not so distant future.
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COLD OLD C SPECKS SPECKS
B R IN G IN G BRINGING B E A U T Y BEAUTY
BY PATRICK HARNEY “Bringing beauty from ashes” is the mission statement from Juno award nominee Ladan Hussein a.k.a. Cold Specks in regard to her upcoming album Fool’s Paradise. A Toronto artist in the most technical forms of the word, Hussein has always seen the suburb of Etobicoke as her true home. “The most interesting stuff is found in the suburbs outside the downtown. Kids get lots of Youtube views but no radio play.” Says Hussein, showing her slight bitterness toward the Toronto music scene, “I had to leave Toronto, no one gave a damn after I tried, it wasn’t until I moved to the UK and got press coverage there did I get any attention. It’s a classic story, you have to leave the city to become successful, which is kinda sad.” After getting her start in the UK music scene Hussein felt she had to leave after seeing the gentrification rip the area apart. “It’s very sad. I watched rent prices skyrocket, I watched low income areas become infested by hipsters and I watched cute working class cafes turn into chic wildly expensive coffee shops,” comments Hussein, reflecting on the very place she left. She commented on the most interesting work in the UK being their working class grime scene. “The best art comes from people that aren’t really trying to be something that they are not,” similarly to the suburbs of Toronto “it’s exciting that it’s coming from the hoods.” Coming home to newly found fan fare, Hussein has had the opportunity to work with and learn from many different artists. “I have been able to work with a number of artists. For me, recently working with Moby has helped shaped some of the songs,
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FR OM FROM
A ASHES SHES
PHOTO BY NEVA WIREKO namely “Solid”. On the record after I had a session with them, I just became obsessed with Shara Nelson’s voice and the way that she projected but still had so much control.” Stating some of her favourite memories to be working with others she speaks of how, “[Working] with Ambrose Akinmusire was a wonderful session lasting an hour and he didn’t tell me what the subject matter of the song was. Afterwards he asked me what to call it and I said “ceaseless inexhaustible child” and he told me that it was about a 16 year old child prostitute who murdered a [man], it was really quite special that we could just kind of hit something really wonderful in that hour.” Despite having great experiences working with other artists Cold Specks has been first and foremost a solo project. “I could never be in a band. In school next to works well with others it would say: needs improvement.” Working with only a small team on her upcoming record “I did work with a couple of people, Tim Anderson (producer) and Josh MacIntire (additional production) also La Timba (additional production), a kid from Toronto who we will be touring with; it was just the four of us.” Constantly having to move schools since her youth, Hussein has always viewed playing music as a form of escape and Fool’s Paradise will be carried by that idea of “detaching during the apocalypse as a means of self care.” On Fool’s Paradise Hussein takes a departure from her earlier work attempting to shed the “Doom Soul” moniker she had gained when she started in 2011. Hussein never truly understood the “Doom Soul” title, understanding there was both a dark side
and a light side to her work but seeing it more as a label that doesn’t fit. “I used to be quite a pretentious lyricist but on this new record I don’t think that is the case any more. On Wildcard (one of the singles) the chorus is “I’ll be there for you” I don’t know why it’s just one of those things that fits.” One of Hussein’s greatest influences for Fool’s Paradise was a series of VHS tapes of her father performing in Somalia during the 1970’s. After gaining independence from Britain in the 60s, Somali began to swarm with art and culture and by the time the 70s rolled around Somalia had a deep rich art and music scene which people began to flock to. Hussein became obsessed with analyzing the VHS tapes, causing them to have a huge impact on the lyrical and sonic quality of her upcoming album referring to them as her “number one influence”. This isn’t a recent thing for her though - she has always been connected with her heritage, saying “It’s always been something that has affected me, my songwriting has only recently reflected it because I have become obsessed with these VHS recordings but it’s always been a part of me, it’s just who I am.” Fool’s Paradise enters a world in a state of turmoil and with bans to muslim immigrants and the rise of the extreme right, artists are moving to politicize their music, and Cold Specks is not left behind. Hussein explains “as a black muslim woman who is a songwriter I just wouldn’t know how not to reflect on the times.” With allusions to Somali mythology Hussein is finding power in the characters of her past. In a time that she refers to as the “apocalypse” she believes that self care is what is most important.
Vangoras The
BY TOPHER DUGUAY
The Vangoras are a new Winnipeg supergroup featuring members from Marshall & The Buddy System and The Psychics. We are excited to see how they make their way into the local scene. We caught up with them to chat about how the band got started. Stylus: So what made you switch over from The Buddy System and The Psychics for this project? Paige Drobot: Dave and I played in The Buddy System together, and that’s probably the closest bridge to this project. Stylus: I haven’t actually heard anything by them, do you have a Bandcamp? PD: We have a Soundcloud, we’re just finishing recording an album that we’ve been working on over the past year. David Skene: So that was over the last year. I was always a big fan of The Psychics from when I first saw them, so I think for a long time I was like “I gotta play in a band with Paige”, because she fucking gets it. Stylus: The surf rock thing you have going on is pretty different from your other stuff, like Close Encounters, which I thought was basically the opposite of what you’re doing here. What sort
of bands were influencing you when you were recording the single? DS: When we started the band we started with really specific genre parameters that we set for ourselves - it was like garage rock, psych, think Hunx and his Punx, Shannon and the Clams, Peach Kelli Pop, etc. Working with Paige, the way I’d describe Paige’s playing is that every riff she plays can have ten thousand genres playing at the same time, with a little bit of jazz, a little bit of psych, a little bit of funk... So what we decided was that we were going to just take the garage rock part of Paige’s playing and isolate that. PD: And as a music nerd, it’s really fun for me to set parameters for myself sometimes. It’s a really good exercise! Stylus: Is this a long term project or is this a temporary thing? Also do you have any releases coming down the pipeline? DS: I’d say it’s a long term project. We’ve been working on it for about a year now. I think we’re all committed to trying to do as much as possible with it, we’re definitely going to be recording in the next year. The songs we’re working on now will be in that recording - we’ve got some plans for what we want to do with it. The two songs that were on the single
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PHOTO BY ALEC RUEST
were home recordings; we wanted the freedom to experiment. PD: The projects that tend to be a shorter projects are the ones where one person writes the songs and everyone comes in to play their songs, as opposed to a collaborative thing. Stylus: Related, when’s your next show? PD: Our *first* show was on September 21st at the Handsome Daughter. Stylus: How’d you pick the name? DS: It’s inspired by a Finnish cat appreciation club that only focuses on two kinds of cats - the Angora and the Turkish Van - and since we’ve been following it for a while and we all loved it we decided to make it the name of our band. Stylus: Wacky question time. You get to pick between two superpowers - the ability to copy people’s dreams, or the ability to talk to clouds. Which do you pick, and why? DS: I’d choose talking to clouds. I don’t think we’ve really explored what we could learn from them, so the ability to converse with gaseous anomalies would be fantastic.
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Space Jam
with
BY CHARLIE FRASER
Animal Teeth PHOTOS BY CHARLIE FRASER
The jam space where Animal Teeth practice is shared by four bands; Iansucks, Animal Teeth, Scab Smokers and Pleasure Dens; and on top of that, Hut Hut keeps their equipment there. With that many people and groups all sharing one space you might think that it would be extremely chaotic and messy, but somehow it is fairly easy to navigate their room and the items and instruments which they are fond of are easy to spot and visible, whereas other things are out of sight. They each seem to have a small nook in the space they each migrate to most and are particularity fond of, like their space, all of the members are extremely kind and warm and greeted me into their space with smiles and stories. PA: Stefan Hodges: It’s kind of a pain in the butt trying to buy PA’s cause they’re really expensive so most bands will share the PA’s and stuff like these huge speakers, those are pretty expensive but we managed to find this on kijiji and it’s just an old PA from the 50’s that was made in Manitoba and it was used in a dance hall in Brandon for a long time. It’s sweet and it’s got these speakers that are from the CBC, I guess the CBC used to make electronics. Very strange but it’s cool.
Kick Drum with Christmas supplies: SH: This is from when we did this thing for Stylus, where Adam dressed up as Santa and it’s just provided us a nice drum tone ever since. Stylus: So you just keep it in? Ian Ellis: Yeah, in the spirit of Christmas! As a kid I used to store my liquor in my bass drum because who would think to look there, and I kind of got in the habit of it.
Stefan’s guitar: SH: This is a guitar that a guy in Hadashville built for fun. He built a bunch of them and tries to sell them but no one ever buys them because it’s a total crap shoot, because you don’t know what it’s going to be like cause it’s just this guy’s hobby and you have to drive out to Hadashville to try it out. It was kind of fucked up, the neck started losing it’s frets so I got another neck for it so it was kind of silly in hindsight but I like it a lot.
Carpet/Hardwood floor: SH: This used to be all this crappy carpet which you can still kind of see here, it has this horrible dust it leaves like sand, it makes you sick because it gets into the air so we’ve been slowly trying to remove it because it’s just disintegrating and there’s this cool floor under it. It’s cool because you can see the paint where the walls were kind of divided because this used to be apartments.
Ian’s studio. SH: This is Ian’s studio. He sits there on his desk made up of kick drums and other people’s drums. IE: Yeah I don’t know whose those are… SH: There are a lot of leftover drums in here. IE: It’s great, in the winter I just fall asleep, right there. SH: Yeah it’s kind of nice having it so close to the university, it doubles as a study spot. IE: It was my locker this past year. Animal Teeth are releasing their sophmore album on local label Slow Shine Records on November 4th at Forth.
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BILL FRISELL BY PHIL ENNS Bill Frisell. Perhaps you’ve heard the name before. And yet there’s just as good a chance that you haven’t. For the past 35 years or so, Frisell has been quietly building a legendary career for himself. He has collaborated with an increasingly diverse roster of artists, including Norah Jones, Emmylou Harris, and Paul Simon (to name but a few). In recent years, his music has been described as hearkening back to classic Americana. And while it is true that he has dived headlong, at times, into folk and country music, he is still a jazz guitarist at heart. Born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1951, Frisell began his musical education on the clarinet. Yet even as a small child, he was enthralled by the look and sound of the guitar. The story goes that he was first exposed to the guitar by watching Jimmie Dodd on The Mickey Mouse Club (on the show, Dodd would sing and play original songs on his famed “Mouse-guitar”). By his mid-teens, Frisell picked up the guitar and never looked back. As a child of the 1950s and 60s, he was initially enamoured of rock and roll, listening and playing along to music of the Beatles and the Beach Boys: bands he still cites as major influences (see 2011’s All We Are Saying… and 2014’s Guitar in the Space Age). Frisell finally broke into the jazz scene in the early 80s, his signature otherworldly guitar tone already firmly established. At that time, he became the “house” guitarist for the ECM label after Pat Metheny famously recommended him for a gig. It was there that he recorded for the first time with such visionaries as drummer Paul Motian and saxophonist Jan Garbarek. These initial encounters led to enduring gigs with Motian in particular, as well
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PHOTO BY MONICA FRISELL as a celebrated early 90s trio with Kermit Driscoll on bass and Joey Baron on drums. The late 90s and early 2000s brought an increasing awareness of folk and country into Frisell’s already expansive musical vocabulary; a tendency to write for and record with some fairly odd musical configurations; as well as a number of commissions to write music for film and other media. His is a soft-spoken, humble approach to life and music that belies his status as a living legend. When introduced in interviews as said legend, he will often come back with a response like, “Hey, we’re all in this together.” It is this nature of humility that has most endeared him, and his music, to me. Growing up, I had heard Frisell’s name floating around for a number of years (I vaguely knew him as a jazz musician), but I did not become fully cognizant of Frisell as an artist until I heard his 2013 effort Big Sur, essentially an album-length suite of music commissioned by the Monterey Jazz Festival, and scored for the unlikely ensemble of guitar, violin, viola, cello, and drums. Quite literally, from the first chord of its opening track, “The Music of Glen Deven Ranch,” I was hooked. This was also the moment I discovered Frisell as a composer. Here was over an hour’s worth of original compositions that, on first listen, took me to a place of unexpected comfort, as if I had been familiar with the music my whole life. But, of course, it was wholly new, beautiful, and haunting. This led, inevitably, to an enthusiastic search for more of his music. The sparse and dreamlike Disfarmer (2009), another commissioned piece, plays itself out like a rock opera (without lyrics, of
course). It takes as its subject the life and work of a reclusive photographer from the American South, and employs a pedal steel guitar, exuding a moody country twang throughout. Next in my search came the equally sparse Beautiful Dreamers (2010), which pairs Frisell with Eyvind Kang on viola and Rudy Royston on drums. Sure, all this music might have been described as “Americana,” but to me it felt much deeper, more personal, and far less “categorizable” than that. The other thing I loved about Bill Frisell was that I could play a little “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” with his credentials. He has played with Charlie Haden; who had played with Keith Jarrett; who had played with Miles Davis; who had played with Charlie Parker, etc. This was some serious jazz history! Admittedly, being a fairly new fan, my knowledge of Frisell’s music has been limited primarily to albums recorded since 1999. This does not even begin to take into account the many albums he has recorded as a sideman. However, thanks to websites like Youtube and Spotify, I have been able to get a better glimpse into his early career (even pre-1982, the year he supposedly “broke out”). All this is to say that this October, your friendly neighbourhood Cinematheque will be showing a documentary (made last year) on Bill Frisell and his music, complete with interviews from many of Bill’s contemporaries, which will serve to shed more light on his life and music than this short article has accomplished. Check out Cinematheque’s website for showtimes. Perhaps I’ll see you there!
ckuwho? Listen to: Psycle Radio
Mondays at 3pm
BY COLTON SIEMENS Every week, Psycle Radio’s Colton Hutchinson delivers audial oddities to the listeners of CKUW. Compiling tracks that range from hardcore punk to ambient, from drone to grindcore, even clips of early synth music featured on a nearly 50-year-old episode of Mr. Rogers. Although the genres visited by Psycle Radio may vary, there is generally one pervading theme. They are almost always strange, experimental, and otherworldly. Every episode is laced with a feeling of the unknown. Underground tapes with no online presence are played next to industrial titans Throbbing Gristle. A broken cassette by Gheorghe Zamfir, The Master of the Pan Flute, finds its way into the background of one episode, while a Children’s Christian musical radio show find its way into another. Sonically, listening to Psycle Radio is a trip into the noisy margins of music that is not to be heard on most other stations. Speaking to Colton, we find out more about Psycle Radio and the voice behind it. Stylus: How long have you been doing Psycle Radio now? Colton Hutchinson: Psycle Radio started just a few months ago actually. It’s a fairly new show. I just moved from Saskatoon in January. Back in Saskatoon, I hosted a jazz show, which definitely isn’t my first pick of music. So it was interesting to pick music that I wasn’t really familiar with but once I got involved with CKUW, I put in a show pitch for music I enjoy and it got picked up fairly quickly. Stylus: What are your plans for the future of Psycle Radio? CH: I like the idea of having live guests and bringing people in and promoting local experimental music. There’s not a ton of it that’s being produced in Winnipeg all the time, but there’s definitely some local labels. We just did a showcase with Male Activity, which is a friend of mine that does noise music. But generally I just like freaking people out. Especially with it being an afternoon show, with people just switching their dial or flipping through channels on their radio and coming across something that makes it sound like their radio is just melting on the dash. In the future, I’d like to do a podcast or just like a longer form, more
PHOTO BY SEAN NEWTON spoken word piece as well, but I like playing tunes so Psycle Radio will stay a music show for the foreseeable future. Stylus: Do you create music as well? CH: Yeah, the idea of the show kind of came out of my project. It’s called Dinosaur Dragonfly. When
I was in Saskatoon I was making noise music and experimental stuff for the last five or six years and started playing shows in 2016. I was playing so many shows it was getting kinda out of hand and I was starting to take it too seriously. I felt like I was getting a little too political and a little narcissistic with my performances. When I moved out here I just shut it all down. Now I’m just focusing on
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learning a lot more about music, looking into other people’s stuff. I just want to play music with minimal listenership and showcase that. Stylus: On the show, you speak about energy at live shows and sometimes being disappointed with crowds, especially at festivals. What do you want to see when you go to a show? CH: It depends on who’s playing and the atmosphere but I think there’s a lot more room for an interactive experience at a show. I was just at Against Me! over the weekend, a punk band that I’ve enjoyed since I was a young teen. There was a very diverse crowd but everyone was meshing and moshing and singing along. I think people are just done with having fun sometimes. You’ll hear in every era or every city “aw man you don’t know what it was like 15 years ago”. That’s fine you had your time, but there’s room for growth and there’s room to make something new happen. I think that Psycle Radio tries to do that as well. I feel like it does more than just play new music. It’s newer energy. A newer atmosphere that I’m trying to create with the show. Stylus: Do your listening tastes ever lean towards more mainstream genres, or do you mostly listen to experimental music? CH: I program music on CBC, so a lot of music listening has been revolving around what I play on the CBC morning show. So my listening habits tend to be more poppy. My record collection isn’t hugely experimental, so when I’m listening to records at home it’s a lot of punk and metal. I couldn’t even say I find myself sitting down and listening as a casual listener. There’s always a time and a place for it and for me it’s late at night of weekends in that kind of weird space of the night when it’s like everything is kind of falling apart in my psyche, so static and loud crashing noise are the things that keep me together. Tune into Psycle Radio on CKUW 95.9, Mondays at 3pm to hear what Colton Hutchinson’s noisy show has to offer.
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PRAIRIE PUNK PERSPECTIVE
KAITLYN EMSLIE FARRELL
It’s early in the morning, too early. You drag yourself out of the house into the smoke filled city streets of Winnipeg. Summer is burning it’s way out across the country. Nothing but the quiet lull of traffic is to be heard as there hasn’t been enough time for humanity to consume their coffee intake just yet. Whether going to school or going to work, you have somewhere to be. As the days go on these mornings get darker, and colder. The smoke clears and invites a mist of frozen water to crystallize on your scarf as you continue to go, still needing to be somewhere. Tis’ the season of obligation with few distractions from the burdens of life. This is the season we all dread, here comes winter. Your summer likely wasn’t obligation free but it was warm and sunny, happiness in the air. The defining difference between the seasons is the opportunity that comes at shift’s end. As the skies grow grey and the air frigid, there’s no weekend camping festival, no running to the beach or grabbing a few friends for backyard beers. It’s basement or bust. You’re trapped. And as we progress into this natural shift nature brings on gloom and people become miserable. It’s dark when you leave the house and dark when you return. It’s draining, exhausting, and hard to stay motivated. But you’re the same person, bursting at
F. C . CO CO NUT BY TOPHER DUGUAY
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the seams with all that you are, with all that you were able to release these past few blissful months. But it’s okay, we’ve been here before. It hurts but its familiar. Despite the misery that is Winnipeg from November to March, the shows don’t stop, music knows no weather. When the frost coats the city the punks pull out all their benefit shows. Last year saw shows in support of the Mood Disorders Association of Manitoba and Cancer Care, as well as Winnipeg Harvest. I can say that Fuck Hunger’s annual banger is going to be a good one this year with two dates back to back. I know what everyone really misses from last winter is Punk Fridays. With weekly slots, and the same setup every Friday, it was really easy to get a variety of bands out and regular crowds. They were shows just the same, but with the consistency it basically became a hangout spot with guaranteed tunes and pals. Well it’s coming back! Crazy Maiden is resurrecting the ever popular Punk Fridays at a whole new venue. The spot is The New Club St. B located at 171 Dumoulin Street, just a rocks throw from The Forks. If you’ve ever been to a Crazy Maiden show, and I’m sure you have, you know that the venues are always cozy and the sounds always very on
point. So let’s fucking do this, again. Albums are still being released of course and you should do your best to fight the weather and continue going out to these shows. The best way to get through winter is distraction, and sweaty mosh pits will heat your blood for an easy walk home. So as the sun spends less time with us and the walks become hikes through the massive piles of snow, we must continue to travel beyond the comfort of our homes. And as the snow banks become walls and the roads layer with ice, visibility reduced to near zero and frostbite on every extremity, we must continue to enjoy our lives in the outside world. If the bands hauled their gear through the snow you can haul your butt in support. We can all do this. Eventually it will end, the snow will melt, the air will warm, and the sun will show itself more. Then we’ll catch up for lost time, lost hours of sunshine, and we’ll forget the pain just enough to complain about it all over again. But until then, let’s make the best of it. Let’s stand in the face of winter and do it all anyway.
Stylus: Our editor apparently just found out about you randomly from Bandcamp, How long have you been making music for (I saw the demo from 2014 but was there, like, an F.C. Young Coconut)? Ali Can Cekirge: That stuff ’s actually from earlier, around 2012. I just uploaded them in 2014 because I didn’t have much else to do. Some of that stuff I recorded at the radio station at the University of Manitoba. Stylus: So why FC Coconut anyway? ....And the pho tag on your bandcamp. AC: No particular reason. I was joking with my friends about how it sounded like a name a French house DJ would have, and when I started uploading music I decided to use that. FC stands for Flavour Crafts, actually, with the flavours being the samples I use. My music’s really sample based, where you can take anything and make your own craft out of it. I also always wanted to have my own football club too. Stylus: What have you been listening to lately? AC: Mostly records. I don’t have any internet so I’ve been going through my record collection - lots of John Coltrane, Alice Coltrane, Chick Corea, [the label] CTI’s stuff, lots of jazz fusion. Robert Glasper too. Stylus: Since you have your email listed on your twitter for beat enquiries, have you been collaborating with anyone lately? AC: I’ve got a secret project. I’m working on a beat
tape with this rapper, although I can’t give any more details. You’ll hear about it soon. Other than that, I collaborated with this other Turkish dude a while ago, and I’ve been meaning to ask some people about collaborating. I’ve done stuff with Errol from 3Peat - they’re my favourite hip-hop group in Winnipeg. I want to do stuff with more people here, since I’m leaving after the winter. Stylus: You release music pretty quickly. Do you have anything new coming down the pipeline? AC: Yeah, I’ve been working on a project for a while. The thing is I record to cassette and use an SP-404 sampler to produce. I’ve got an MPC too, but the SP-404 gives me a better workflow. I’ve got two beat tapes, actually, I just haven’t had a chance to structure them properly. I’m thinking I’ll have a tape release party in mid-October. Stylus: Wacky question time. You have to pick between having to phrase everything you say as a question, or you have to phrase any question you have in such a way that it isn’t in the form of a question. Which do you pick and why? AC: I’m not sure what you mean. Stylus: It’s okay, this wasn’t one of my better ones. This is what happens when you try writing your questions at three in the morning. AC: I might just not speak at all.
Under the Needle
THE NATIONAL Sleep Well Beast The National’s latest album, Sleep Well Beast, is a streamlined return to their earnest, weary, and obliquely optimistic form of chamber infused post-punk revivalism. The martial punch of the drums and fluidity of singer Matt Berninger’s rumbling baritone combined with screechy and rugged guitars mark the band’s return with added depth and layers. Sleep Well Beast is a grandiose statement that could only come from a band like The National, and although it feels darker and more sparse than previous albums, it’s the band’s intricacies and the smaller features of the album that make it feel like it adds up to so much more. With all of the songs on this album holding their own markedly indelible place. Album standout single “The System Only Dreams in Total Darkness” finds The National’s signature martial drums opening the song alongside
Ulteriors
FAITH HEALER Try ;-) Faith Healer, the Edmonton duo consisting of singer/guitarist Jessica Jalbert and multi-instrumentalist Renny Wilson, is the exact opposite of similarly-named 90s noise rock group Th’ Faith Healers, which is to say that their music is much more informed by seventies AM pop and roots rock than whatever it is that Th’
churned metallic guitar chords and fluttering staccato trumpet that billows atop the mix. The track is fraught with squirrely and scrappy guitar riffs, a mournful pacing, and guitarist Aaron Dessner fills out the midsection with a fiery solo as Berninger’s melancholic wail leads the way, singing “I cannot explain it, any other, any other way.” His words can be felt, and despite the ambiguity of the lyrics, you can sense their heft in Berninger’s emotive conviction – inescapable once you’re there. There’s “Dark Side of the Gym,” whose meditative and mournful melodies move with swagger and sway and hit with a bold emotional force. The guitar chords shimmering and searing all at once. It’s a feeling of the band struck in unison, and Berninger, as he always does, singing to the stars, to curiosities, paradoxes, life’s loves and controversies. Or there’s “Guilty Party”, a soft ballad that opens with sparse yet sprightly clattering percussion, slowly plodded piano and a warming electronic pulse, as Berninger’s baritone leads the pack with his sometimes cryptic, always affecting lyrics. The song meanders and grows, filling in space here and there with instruments and elements that phase in and out. The effect is monumental, and the atmospheric weight of the song can almost tangibly be felt. This same sense of emotional weight has been a defining feature of The National’s music, and Sleep Well Beast
brings further darkness to their feverishly affective sound. As a band that now hold their own niche space in the echelon of indie rock, Sleep Well Beast’s post-punk revivalism meets with seasoned experimentalism, and with this album, in a darkened space in a newly cathartic way, The National have found a new place to call home, for now. Chris Bryson
Faith Healers were on. This is a good thing. Immediately before listening to this album, I was complaining with a friend of mine about how popular music now is a lot simpler/much less jazzy, harmonically, than popular music in the seventies (Before you accuse me of being a “Sigh...I was born in the wrong generation....” kind of person, Tjil de Bie’s published a body of research about this, so hmph), so upon hearing the smooth guitar chords of “Waiting”, I was immediately won over. The album is simultaneously as smooth as butter and as tasty as what happens when you put butter on things. If you’re into that sort of thing - which I am, hence the positive review - Try ;-) is exactly the sort of thing you’d be into. Also the self-referential song rating at the end of “Such A Gemini”
is very cute. Recommended Tracks “Waiting”, “Try ;-)”, “Such A Gemini.” Topher Duguay
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THE LINECUTTERS ANTHILL It’s always smart advertising for bands to hand out stickers, everyone loves a sticker. And it helped me remember in the haze of chaos that ensued at Las Vegas’ Punk Rock Bowling that Arizona’s The Linecutters were a piece of promotional material I wanted to check out later. I was at their show but I missed their set bribing the doorman to let me in. So when I saw this new album release I had to check it out. Your life sucks, your job sucks if you have one, your friends are assholes
AVEC LE SOLEIL SORTANT DE SA BOUCHE Pas pire pop, I Love You So Much Avec Le Soleil Sortant De Sa Bouche’s thing, other than having an extremely long name, is playing, in their own words, “Kraut-funk”, which is to say that they play trance-inducing multi-part motorik suites self described as being “angular” (which is to say, sounds like bands that get called “angular”) and “rubbery” (which presumably means in this case that their music has a rhythmic OOMPH to it). Essentially they are Stereolab on Stereo-oids. Pas pire pop, I Love You So Much consists of three long musical suites
and your family is distant. You don’t give much of a fuck because you thrive in the chaos. You drink beer and rage in the sweaty pits of dive bars on the weekends. Your clothes stink and you haven’t been called cute in twenty years but it doesn’t matter. You throw on The Linecutters’ Anthill and bash around to the sweet relief that is aggressive punk. You’re making it through life, you’ve got friends, family, and a job. You’ve done what you’re supposed to but you’re far from satisfied. Your success feels like nothing more than obligation and you get no pride out of a ‘job well done’. You need this album. The release of aggression that you can’t expel in any of your day to day activities is acknowledged with classic punk rhythms. We are animals in nature, we are primal. And there’s no better way to feed the required chaos than to play the motivational soundtrack of banging around in a sweaty mosh pit. But it’s 2017 and things aren’t so specific anymore. So The Linecutters will slow it down for you a bit here and there to soothe all of your moods. Because it’s not all bad, sometimes it’s also dance worthy. My personal favorites of this well blended album are “Anxiety” for thrashing and “Leafy Greens” for the sentimental times. Kaitlyn Emslie Farrell
more or less arbitrarily cut into shortish chunks for fun-size consumption. I say fun-size because they are a significantly more fun band than most music labelled as Krautrock, with their pre-perforated individual song nuggets being somewhat easier to put on while DJing at a very hip event than, say, notable Krautrock band Can’s equally funky, yet exactlytwenty-minutes-long opus, “Bel Air”. This is an important innovation in Krautrock. Avec Le Soleil Sortant De Sa Bouche are easily the most eccentric band on Constellation and if you’re the kind of person who is a unique soul and who also likes music along the very long mostly instrumental rock axis of Krautrock and PostRock, you’re more or less obligated to give this a spin. Topher Duguay
Oct / Nov 2017 Stylus Magazine
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Local Spotlight
SOLHOUNDS SEPT 22 AT THE GOOD WILL PHOTO BY JEN DOERKSEN
THE FAMOUS SANDHOGS Study of the Tasman Episodes The album cover for this CD was, and still is, a drawing of a red guy done in marker with the name of the band and album taped onto it. This is because The Famous Sandhogs are a Wacky Band. You know this because this album is simultaneously described as being Experimental Folk, Folk-pop, Folk-punk, folk-rock, folktronica, AND a symphony on their bandcamp. You may be wondering what a symphony as realized by an experimental folk group would sound like. The answer to that question is that it sounds like a twenty-three-part more-or-less atonal accordion more-or-less solo (a panoply of exciting instruments come in after part iii). Things take a change for the not-atonal-accordion-solo after part 16 - or iii-vii, which is a bombastic MIDI organ march. The remaining tracks are equally bombastic, equally wordless, and equally short (most of the tracks on Study of the Tasman Episodes are under two minutes). Ultimately this album is a masterpiece of atonal accordion solos and you can download it for free on their Bandcamp. This is an anomaly in their catalogue - Theia’s Mammon: Pulul’s Battle of the Brunes, which is their newest album, which, in turn, was released three months after Study of the Tasman Episodes, is not a symphony for accordion but is instead an extremely self-consciously quirky concept album. It’s fun, though. Topher Duguay
20 Stylus Magazine Oct / Nov 2017
95.9 FM CKUW CAMPUS/COMMUNITY RADIO TOP 30 ALBUMS ( July 26 - September 20, 2017) !=LOCAL CONTENT * =CANADIAN CONTENT re=RE-ENTRY TO CHART #
ARTIST
1 ! Figure Walking 2 Ondatropica 3 * Whitehorse 4 ! Slow Leaves 5 * Ron Samworth 6 ! Ghost Twin 7 ! Black Cloud 8 ! Slow Dancers 9 * Radiation Flowers 10 * Austra 11 Steve Earle & The Dukes 12 * Johanna Sillanpaa 13 ! Spacebutt 14 ! Smoky Tiger 15 * Whitney Rose 16 * Stompin’ Tom Connors 17 * Alvvays 18 ! Beth 19 ! Cassati 20 ! Bicycle Face 21 * Do Make Say Think 22 * Cellos 23 * Faith Healer 24 * Sick Boss 25 Beach Fossils 26 Actress 27 * Various Artists 28 * Sianspheric 29 Royal Blood 30 ! Mise En Scene
RECORDING
LABEL
The Big Other Baile Bucanero Panther In The Dollhouse Enough About Me Dogs Do Dream Plastic Heart Void Philadelphus Summer Loop Future Politics
Disintegration Soundway Six Shooter Self-Released Drip Audio Head In The Sand Transister 66 Self-Released Sunmask / Cardinal Fuzz
Paper Bag So You Wanna Be An Outlaw Warner From This Side Chronograph All The Deer Speak Portuguese Last Ditch Great Western Gold Transistor 66 South Texas Suite Six Shooter 50th Anniversary Ole Antisocialites Polyvinyl Beth Self-Released There Will Be Days Self-Released Bicycle Face Self-Released Stubborn Persistent Illusions Constellation The Great Leap Backward No List Try Mint Sick Boss Drip Audio Somersault Bayonet AZD Ninja Tune Boiled Records Sampler 2017 Boiled Writing The Future In Letters Of Fire Sonic Unyon How Did We Get So Dark? Warner Still Life On Fire Light Organ
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Oct / Nov 2017 Stylus Magazine
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WINNIPEG FOLK FESTIVAL
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22 Stylus Magazine Oct / Nov 2017
WEST END CULTURAL CENTRE
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