Archives : all posts by Sean

Efrim Manuel Menuck - "chickadees' roar pt 2". This is the smallest and in some ways the largest song on the debut solo album by Efrim Menuck, co-founder of Silver Mt Zion and Godspeed You! Black Emperor. It is not the shortest song, but it is the lightest, the dawnest. It leads into the album's fanfare closer, its song of rousing & outright triumph, "i am no longer a motherless child". But before we get there, these roaring chickadees, this song without words, this blush of sounds - birdcalls, strings, kindly ghosts, summoned without computers, from strings & wire. High Gospel is a record of strife and surmounting, of findings, and on "chickadees' roar" the epiphanies come most easily. Like fireflies rising in the fields. Or maybe a more humble metaphor: like a train coming in.

It's beautiful. It reminds me of Stars of the Lid, Philip Jeck, but mostly of night rides, screened windows, the change of light on the inside of an arm, of a highway barrier, of a tentsheet. Yet this isn't a stodgy, countryside, Walden dream: the chickadees fly up over fluorescents, lost credit cards, heavy phone-calls. This music, I think, was imagined in a city. Our backs to concrete, we could use its help.

[Efrim Manuel Menuck's plays "High Gospel" is released May 24 / pre-order available soon]

Timber Timbre - "Bad Ritual". He had eyes like garnets., He threw these across the room, like dice. When he murmured in a woman's ear she wilted or she bloomed. He bit her with his teeth, circled her wrist with finger & thumb. Whenever he lit a fire, it sputtered and spat, like it was resisting. He breathed in the smoke, eyes open. He spoke. [Creep On Creepin' On is out tomorrow / buy]

The Donkeys - "I Like The Way You Walk". He knew that she was too cool for the song, so he never gave it to her. He'd be listening to it on repeat, cranked, with the windows open; then he'd hear her at the door and lunge for the iPod, switch it to Beach House or Emeralds, get up to meet her with a bouquet of kisses. He'd listen to it in the car, cranked, with the windows open. He'd listen to it on the way to get groceries. He'd hear the bit at the end, with men sorta yelling I love you with all my heart!, and he'd feel that hoarse feeling in his chest. Even if she was too cool for this song. Even if she listened to different things, cranked, with the windows open. But it wasn't until he left her, on the 13th of July, that he really understood what this song was for. He came home to his empty apartment, and it was raining, and he put on the country song that wasn't true any more. [buy]

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Elsewhere: For Matt Perpetua, the final LCD Soundsystem show provokes some reflections on Fluxblog.

(photo by jchotz)

Mozart's Sister - "Single Status".
Mozart's Sister - "Contentedness".

LOOK OUT. Sometimes I think that Montreal needs to be festooned with warning signs, like the alerts for avalanches and deer crossings. Yes, for ice-patches; yes, for croissant and pupusa joints; yes, for places you ought not leave your bike locked up. But mostly it's just LOOK OUT, YOU ARE ABOUT TO HEAR SOMETHING MAGNIFICENT THAT YOU HAVE NEVER HEARD BEFORE. It's like sticking your hand in the water and catching a bucking trout, or sitting on the dock of the bay and getting a flying fish to the temple. It's not that you don't have to dig & hunt, it's not that Montreal lacks mediocrity, and it's not that discoveries are common. It's that the rarenesses are everywhere. There's something precious in the water. LOOK OUT!

All this to say: Mozart's Sister!

Mozart's Sister is Caila Thompson-Hannant, whose free debut EP, measuring three songs, was released on Tuesday. It was self-recorded. Download it. Previously, Caila has written songs with Shapes & Sizes, played bass for Think About Life. She sings like Lesley Gore, Avey Tare, Debbie Harry, Rivers Cuomo, Erykah Badu, Cher Lloyd, Bill Callahan. She does not have a label.

And these songs are many different things - klaxoned electro-pop, surfer lope, whistling whimsy, coalmine funk. While "Single Status"'s tingling synths send it air-mail to the dancefloor, "Contentedness" is patient, weird, plaintive. With glittering guitar-line, crossed-eyes spoken-word, this track feels like a particular & chafing dream, fumy and erotic. It's not a single, but it's the best kind of b-side. You can imagine it hiding birds, mice, boyfriends.

These three songs are various yet unscattered. They are roving and mischievous. They are pierced with arrows and jumping into trees. Mozart's older sister was called Marianne. And she was better at harpsichord than Wolfgang Amadeus you-know-who.

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Elsewhere:

New Miracle Fortress single! It's "Raw Spectacle" (MP3). It's gorgeous, overblown, half-crazy. Graham Van Pelt has been listening to Kate Bush, Daft Punk, Peter Gabriel and Lebron James. Probably. (He should definitely get that new Katy B record.) You could dance all night to this. Or you could listen to it alone in your room, perched by a bay window, watching the wagging willows - and imagining that dancing. I look forward to hearing the rest. (Was I The Wave? due April 26. (!) Pre-order.)

James Irwin has released "Blue Dust" (MP3), a song from his upcoming debut. I have written a couple times, recently, about James. His spectral, unwavering folk is some of my favourite new music in this city. "Blue Dust" is the first taste of what's to come. Produced by Pat Jordache's Pat Gregoire. Stunning music video forthcoming. Longing and certain, rich with jangle and (yes) squeezebox. Like I said, go get it at Bad Panda.

Finally, amid all these other Montrealers, let us not forget the incredible new work of Adam & the Amethysts. MONTREAL WILL ELECT HIM MAYOR, I wrote in that post. That was a figure of speech. I meant: LISTEN TO THIS GREAT MUSIC. LOOK OUT!

MOZART'S SISTER, JAMES IRWIN AND ADAM & THE AMETHYSTS ARE UNSIGNED. HOLY SMOKES I DON'T GET IT.

(image - which is not real, constructed in PhotoShop - by Steve McGhee)

Britney Spears - "How I Roll" [buy]
Fucked Up - "The Other Shoe" [more]

There are several ways to:

• tie your shoes;
• quit a job;
• pot a plant;
• break a window;
• reach the moon.

• spill a drink;
• win a friend.

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CONTEST - Destroyer in Montreal! This Friday April 1, promoting the exquisite new album Kaputt, Destroyer is coming to Cabaret Mile End. We have one pair of tickets to give away. To enter, leave a comment on this post with an imaginary Destroyer song-title, all in caps. Here is an example: YOUR LETTERS, JOSEPHINE. Enter as many times as you like, with separate comments. Merge will choose their favourite. Contest closes at 11:59 am on Wednesday. CONTEST CLOSED: Merge are picking a winner!

(image source)

I started working on it last week, traipsing through the slush & sleet, wishing for some rock'n'roll to just blast this season away. I love winter, I love the Montreal winter, but come March I'm always ready for whatever's next. Bring on spring, bring on summer, bring on autumn and the thing that follows. So I started making this, a mix full of shouts, noise, bashed electric guitar. And then the weather got nice, the bikes came out, and it seemed for a few days that my mix might be obsolete. But today: there is a blizzard in Montreal. The streets are blanketed. So I'm going to turn on this mix, put it in my ears, and have a snowball fight with the cowed & cowardly sun. POW, BANG, CLANG. No more carrot - it's time for the stick.

(image source)

Jon Spencer Blues Explosion - "Full Grown". Before I ever give a woman flowers, I put them in the oven. I give them to her hot. [buy]

The Beatles - "I've Just Seen A Face". Each time I fall in love, I write a beautiful song, one of the greatest-ever songs. It's just what I do. With my heart so rosy in my chest, I throw a dart at a chart on the wall; it lands on the name of an artist, Mastodon, Tupac or Simon & Garfunkel. And then I make that artist redundant, writing a song so good that they simply ought to retire. I guess some people write poems, buy bouquets, gorge on ice-cream. But when I fall in love I just can't help myself. I write a song which will soundtrack ten thousand weddings, which will sound from radios for a thousand years, which will earn me & my baby ten million dollars. It's the only thing I know how to do. Every time I fall in love. [buy]