Thursdays Canadian Triple Play

The Boxcar Boys - Hindustan (from the album - Cicada Ball).

Background - The Boxcar Boys create their distinct, energetic and at times maudlin sound by weaving together a captivating bevy of folk traditions, Dixieland jazz and Klezmer performed with a good ole time New Orleans spirit. Their presence on the Canadian music scene over the last 5 years, including 2 full length albums Don’t Be Blue (2011) and Rye Whiskey (2012) has earned them a Canadian Folk Music Award nomination as well as a place on EJazzNews list of Best Canadian Jazz Bands.

This Toronto based six piece is comprised of clarinetist John Williams, violinist Laura C. Bates, trombonist Karl Silveira, accordionist Kelsey McNulty, sousaphonist Rob Teehan and washboard player Justin Ruppel.   The band’s close-knit dynamic is clear on their third full length album, Cicada Ball which will waltz you across genres with whimsy and humour and dip you back in time. The title track of the album is a sonic interpretation of Cicadas giving up their tireless singing in the heat of the summer to instead throw down and party.  In the spirit of celebration, the Boxcar Boys included some talented friends on selected tracks throughout the album including Lotus Wight on vocals and cello banjo (Sheesham and Lotus), Adrian Gross on mandolin (The Slocan Ramblers) and Michael Eckert on dobro (The Double Cuts).

The album launch and official release party will be marked by a hoedown and concert at the Burdock Music Hall in Toronto on September 11th. Canadian bluegrass super-band, The Slocan Ramblers will ready the stage and warm up the dancers. The Boxcar Boys will follow this release with an east coast tour in mid-late September including a performance at the notorious Deep Roots Music Festival. Upcoming tour dates include:

9/11 - Burdock Music Hall (Toronto ON)
9/19 - Boscawen Inn (Lunenburg, NS)
9/20 - Parrsboro Music Hall (Parrsboro ON)
9/22 - Baba's Lounge (Charlottetown PEI)
9/23 - Red Herring Pub (Saint Andrews, NB)
9/24 - Cafe Cempoal (Halifax, NS)
9/25 - 9/27- Deep Roots Music Fest (Wolfville, NS)
9/28 - All City Music Program (Halifax, NS)
9/29 - The Townhouse (Antigonish, NS)
9/30 - House Concert (Cape Breton ON)

What's not to like about this band and this album. It's refreshing, timeless, has a blend of styles that can charm your socks off, and the musicians create something quite sublime.


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Grounders - Bloor Street And Pressure.

Background - This spring, the Toronto-based band - Andrew Davis (vocals and guitar), Daniel Busheikin (keyboards), Mike Searle (Bass) and Evan Lewis (guitar) - released their first full-length album, a collection of dense and intricate pop music under the gauzy veil of krautrock and psychedelia. In the time between releasing the Wreck of a Smile EP in 2013 and laying demos for their debut album, Grounders rediscovered their love for classic pop music, an appreciation that had waned over the years as they became obsessed with circumventing the conventional. They listened to pop staples like David Bowie and Devo, and revisited old favorites like Velvet Underground, Neu! and the Zombies. When Grounders finally came up for air, they had a newfound love for pop and a glut of ideas for a debut LP.

Meanwhile, Meditation for Dummies and David Lynch's self-help guide Catching the Big Fish, on transcendental meditation and the creative process, were passed around the van while touring through North America. As Davis's interest in meditation increased, his lyrics began to reflect his search for serenity and inner peace. The album came to life in two distinct spaces: Davis's bedroom in Toronto's sleepy High Park neighbourhood; and a spacious two-car garage packed with vintage gear from various pawn shops and second-hand stores across the country.

After recruiting DIANA's Kieran Adams to handle drums, the band headed into the studio with longtime pal Marcel Ramagnano (Born Ruffians, Absolutely Free) to record. Months of tracking, tinkering and layering later, Grounders enlisted the incomparable David Newfeld (Broken Social Scene, Holy F) to give each song the bombastic, fried analog treatment he's become known for.

Tour dates:

8/21 Sudbury @ The Townhouse
8/22 North Bay @ Raven and Republic
9/10 Toronto @ The Silver Dollar 
9/14 Winnipeg @ The Handsome Daughter
9/15 Saskatoon @ Vangelis
9/16 Edmonton @ Wunderbar
9/17 Calgary @ Broken City
9/18 Revelstoke @ Harvest Festival
9/19-9/20 Victoria @ Rifflandia
9/22 Vancouver @ The Media Club
9/23 Bellingham @ The Shakedown
9/24 Seattle @ Rendezvous
9/25 Eugene @ Luckey's
9/26 Portland @ White Eagle
10/1-10/2 San Francisco @ Culture Collide Festival
10/8  Los Angeles, CA @ Culture Collide Festival
10/11 Denver @ Moe's
10/13 Chicago @ Schubas
10/14 Pittsburgh @ Spirit
10/20 Boston @ Great Scott
10/23 Moncton, NB @ Plan B
10/24-10/26 Halifax Pop Explosion

There is a real indie rock feel going on here, no harm in that, for me what sets the band apart, as demonstrated on the featured track, is the delicious guitar sound that works off so well against the vocals.

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Nick Diamonds - Witch Window.

Background - Nick Thorburn (aka Nick Diamonds) is a Canadian musician, composer and producer best known for starting and co-fronting the cult indie rock band The Unicorns when he was still a teenager. The band's first full-length album Who Will Cut Our Hair When We're Gone? was named one of the Top 10 Albums by Pitchfork in 2003, receiving critical praise from around the world. After only one year of touring, the band imploded on stage in Texas in 2004, due to internal friction. Thorburn immediately went on to form the band Islands, signing with Anti- Records and eventually releasing 5 full length studio albums and touring the world, with appearances at festivals as diverse as Coachella, Primavera Sound and La Route Du Rock. 

Over the years Thorburn has released more records, collaborating with various artists on projects like Mister Heavenly (with Honus Honus of Man Man), El-P, Human Highway, Reefer, and others. While City Of Quartz is Diamonds' first solo release since 2011's highly-praised I Am An Attic, he's kept busy fronting Islands, playing 2014's reunion shows with his first band The Unicorns, and contributing the theme and original music to the hit podcast "Serial."

Tour Dates:

8/22: Montauk, NY @ Sole East   
9/4: Tucson, AZ @ The Flycatcher
9/5: Phoenix, AZ @ The Rebel Lounge
9/6: El Paso, TX @ Bowie Feathers
9/8: Austin, TX @ Holy Mountain
9/9: New Orleans, LA @ Gasa Gasa
9/13: Washington, DC @ DC9
9/14: Allston, MA @ Great Scott
9/15: Brooklyn, NY @ Rough Trade
9/16: New York, NY @ Mercury Lounge
9/17: Philadelphia, PA @ The Boot & Saddle
9/18: Hudson, NY @ The Half Moon
9/19: Montreal, QC @ Rialto Hall (POP Montreal)
9/20: Toronto, ON @ The Mod Club Theater
9/23: Fort Wayne, IN @ The Brass Rail
9/24: Chicago, IL @ Empty Bottle
9/25: Cincinnati, OH @ MidPoint Music Festival
9/26: Champaign, IL @ Mike and Molly's (Pygmalion Festival)
9/27: Iowa City, IA @ The Blue Moose Tap
9/29: Denver, CO @ Hi Dive
9/30: Salt Lake City, UT @ Kilby Court
10/1: Boise, ID @ The Watercooler
10/2: Seattle, WA @ Barboza
10/3: Portland, OR @ Bunk Bar
10/4: Vancouver, BC @ The Cobalt
10/6: San Francisco, CA @ Rickshaw Stop
10/7: Santa Cruz, CA @ The Crepe Place
10/9: Los Angeles, CA @ Culture Collide
10/10: San Diego, CA @ Bar Pink

There is something playful in the music that contrasts head on with the lyrics in the featured track. It's got so many hooks that playing it again is unavoidable.


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Wednesday's Selection - Three Fine Contenders

Luna Sands - Wake Me From Sleep.

Background - Luna Sands began as a studio project in late 2012, and after reworking and refining their sound for two years, they have completed recording their debut album "Tales of Night” in 2014. The first half of 2015 has seen Luna Sands demonstrate their style of psych grunge across prominent Brisbane venues such as The Zoo, The Triffid, and The Brightside. Now they are releasing their third single ‘Wake Me From Sleep’ through Sydney based label The A&R Department. The song wake me from sleep was recorded in 2014 at Recording Oasis, Taliebudgera Valley, Gold Coast, as well as Alchemix Studios, South Brisbane. The song was produced, and mixed by Rob Sharpe, and mastered by DOMC Mastering, Margate, QLD.

The song takes on the concept of dreaming, and being truly alive in our dreams. Front man of Luna Sands, Allen Ellis explained his inspiration for the song as:

“In a place some call the dreaming, between the borderlines of the awake and slumber you may find your lucid self. Here you are released to live out your dreams and desires where unrequited love and deeper longings are made perfect. How you get here may require a spell of medicine, a kiss from hades and for others the hand of midnight! Returning to your daily routine a tired reality sets in which suggests that maybe we are sleepers waiting to feel awake, made only possible in our dreams.”

A gentle song for a band described as psych grunge, this has more of an indie ballad meets alt rock feel to it, whatever it's a catchy little tune and the vocals are just right.

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The Demon Parade - She's Dope.

Background - Almost a Melbourne institution in their own right, let alone the gigging and recording mentors of many of Melbourne's world conquering psychedelic garage bands; The Demon Parade have a brand spanking new EP, Stone Circles, released earlier this month.

Bringing it all back home to the sound of their first homemade demos at the turn of the decade, which would see them hand-picked by the likes of the Brian Jonestown Massacre and Swervedriver for tour supports, the new tracks see the band eschewing the dense and layered production of previous releases, deliberately keeping the knob twiddling behind the studio desk to a minimum. Instead, they've focused on song structures and creating a cohesive narrative between the songs to deliver their most fully formed release yet.

Inspired by the ancient stone circles of Southern Africa, which some researchers believe were used to create free energy with mind boggling frequencies and electro-magnetic fields more than 300,000 years ago; the EP ties together otherworldly, interstellar drones with sharp dirty guitar hooks. ‘She's Dope' extends a backwards glance to the pretty girl hanging out with Brian Jones in Marrakesh, front man Michael Badger wringing eastern mysticism out of a boy meets girl raga that's as old as time.

The featured track from the EP has a classic almost 60's psychedelic vibe to it (maybe Traffic's 'Hole In My Shoe') Having said that, the EP takes us in different directions with some harder edged songs and fine harmonies.

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Century Thief - Pillar - from the album 'Reverie'.

Background from the band - We've taken a collective approach to our new album 'Reverie' it features songs from four different members. These songs show a lot of diversity without comprimising on the unity that binds it all together. 'Reverie is out September 10th
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The studio allowed us to experiment as a band and brought us closer together as a unit. We ended up with a 13 song album about fighting stagnation. It’s an honest attempt to understand the boredom and comfort of unhealthy situations, poisonous loves, cruel social structures, doubt and dead end routines.

There’s a resistance to action that prefers a daydream. Although there is frustration in this, there is also solace in community that makes it more of a celebration of the struggle and our ability to persevere through love and acknowledgement. The music is sometimes upbeat, sometimes somber, and occasionally veers into manic noise, but we loved making it and we hope you'll enjoy listening to it.

There's only so much one song can provide as an idea of what an album might sound like. So 'Pillar' is just a hint of what amounts to a really fine collection of tracks. The songs take you in different directions, styles and vocals. If you like 'Pillar' then I have no hesitation in recommending the whole album.

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Tom Tom Club - Stella Blue 2001 (Internet Archive)

From the Internet Archive this is this Tom Tom Club live at Stella Blue, in Asheville, NC, USA. The band undertook a US tour in the fall (autumn for us Brits) of 2001, this concert was on the 25th September. Describing that tour their timeline states - 'The group tooled the East Coast from Maine to Florida, searching out the hip and the compassionate. They were not disappointed'.

The tour was partly in support of the group's album, 'The Good, the Bad, and the Funky', which was released in 2000 and featured cover versions of Donna Summer's "Love to Love You Baby" and Lee "Scratch" Perry's "Soul Fire." One of the album's tracks, "Who Feelin' It," was also featured in remixed form in the soundtrack album of the 1999 film American Psycho. Among the musicians on The Good, the Bad, and the Funky are Jamaican singer Mystic Bowie, Charles Pettigrew and Toots Hebbert of Toots and the Maytals. The album's release was followed by one European and several American tours, of which this gig is sourced from.

Recording Technical Details: AKG C1000s (hypercardioid) > Denecke AD-20 > Sony TCD-D8 Lineage D8 > Midiman CO2 > Zoltrix Nightengale > CD Wave v1.43 > Soundforge XP 4.0 (fades) > mkwACT v0.97 > xACT 1.4b28 (shn > flac encoding level 6, batch rename, shntool len).

Sound Quality: Very Good - a very strong, powerful and clean recording reflecting the bands live talent.

Set List:

1. Suboceana
2. Time to Bounce
3. Punk Lolita
4. Soul Fire
5. Who Feelin' It
6. Happiness Can't Buy Money
7. Sand
8. She's Dangerous
9. The Man With the 4-Way Hips
10. Genius of Love
11. Band Intros > You Sexy Thing
12. Holy Water
13. Wordy Rappinghood (plus encore break)
14. As Above, So Below
15. 96 Tears > Take Me to the River

Website: Official Here.

Comments: There are FLAC, Ogg Vorbis and mp3 files along with the streaming material over at the Internet Archive (here).

Stream Below:

Sundays Alternative Take - From 'Free Form' To 'Top Form'

Trancescapes - Anima (from the album 'Gaia Sadhana').

Background - The members of ‘new age’ musical group Trancescapes view free and open improvisation as an authentic connection to the holistic nature of music for meditation.  Like great jazz or blues, free improv is best recorded 'live off the floor'.   Capturing the essence and magic that is brought forth spontaneously moment by moment, coloured by the musical influences and the unexpected developments of open-minded musicians, the music is as stimulating for the listener as it was while being performed live by the musicians.

Welcome to the world of Trancescapes, whose debut album, ‘Gaia Sadhana,’  (loosely translated from Hindi and Greek words meaning ‘earth’ and ‘instrument’)  - is being released September 4th world-wide via Spring Hill Records. Recorded live off the floor on a magical evening in early 2015, the album is a collaboration with multiple Juno award winning singer - songwriter Bill Bourne leading a diverse group of Edmonton based Canadian musicians including Miguel Ferrer, Shannon Hambler, Izumi Kurybayashi, Bria Lizotte, Dr. Kevin Sisk, and Lisi Sommer, performing all organic instrumentation including guitars, percussion, violin, Tibetan singing bowl, vocalisations, and a variety of drones. The open improvisational musical group began creating music together in the summer of 2013, and will be performing select concerts in North America in 2015 – 2016.

Now this is different even for our 'Alternative Take' feature. The presented track is slower than most of the others however gives a flavour. Rhythms, textures, instruments and ideas come together and in the main really work well. For those who crave something fresh and different, this is well worth further investigation.

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James Vincent McMorrow - How To Waste A Moment.

Background - James Vincent McMorrow shared the track “How to Waste a Moment” via Soundcloud. The new song hints at a continued evolution for James adding more beats to his layered, production and soulful vocals. McMorrow has been hard at work on the follow up to 2014’s Post Tropical and the track is a pivot from the ethereal moods of the previous album to something more direct R&B based.

US Tour:

8/17 - Boise, ID - Knitting Factory - w/Blake Mills
8/18 - Salt Lake City, UT - The Depot - w/Dawes
8/19 - Fort Collins, CO - Mishawaka Amphitheater - w/Dawes
8/20 - Denver, CO - Bluebird Theater - w/Blake Mills
8/22 - Salida, CO - Gentlemen of the Road Stopover - w/Mumford and Sons, Flaming Lips tUnEyArDs, Jenny Lewis
8/24 - Apple Valley, MN - Weesner Amphitheater - w/Kevin Garrett
8/25 - Madison, WI - Majestic Theater - w/Kevin Garrett
8/26 - Chicago, IL - Thalia Hall - w/Kevin Garrett

James has a voice created for soulful renderings. Add a soundtrack like this and you have a superb song.

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Express Rising - Spirit Darts.

Background - Express Rising is the long-running project of musician and polymath Dante Carfagna, whose abilities as a composer have yielded an expansive discography of meditative instrumentals. Express Rising's latest collection, Fixed Rope, is set for an October 2 release via an exclusive distribution deal with Numero Group.

The album is comprised of twelve single-take ambient instrumental excursions, composed in strict committee by the trio of Kevin Blagg, William Suran, and Carfagna. Recorded spontaneously in rural Arkansas, bulging sub-woofers lope through fissures of skeletal banjo and pitched down pedal steel, while delicately arranged basins of synth and guitar reverberate, providing a steady stream of granular epiphanies. Utterly faded, yet still possessing crystalline clarity, these twelve songs continually attain summits rarely reached within the span of four-minute transmissions.

Well I have only heard this track so far, so making me wait until October for more is a real tease. This is both cool, expansive and relaxing and I love it!

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NERVO - Rainham Road.

Background - Amsterdam Music Festival has another big name in store for all the fans with NERVO being added to the line-up for Amsterdam Music Festival 2015. On Friday the 16th of October, NERVO will make their long awaited debut at Amsterdam ArenA for the first day of Amsterdam Music Festival, the biggest event during Amsterdam Dance Event (ADE).

In demand and loved across the globe, NERVO’s non-stop schedule takes them from the magical island of Ibiza, to their studio in their home-away-from-hometown of London, to every major Festival in the World. Everywhere the girls go, their infectious energy, fearless personal style, deep love and understanding for music precedes them.

This summer, NERVO released their new album ‘Collateral’, performed at Tomorrowland, Ultra Music Festival and have up-coming shows at Creamfields and ElectricZoo. It is with great excitement that we welcome the talented and stunning ladies to Amsterdam during ADE to perform at Amsterdam Music Festival.

Pulsating rhythm and beats are the bedrock of the highly talented and popular NERVO. Their attention to detail and an instinct to know what to put in and what to leave out, makes each song exciting, as you wait to discover, what's around the next corner.

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2015 - Out Of Our Inbox - August - One

Moke Hill - Doing It Wrong.

Background words - With the stark contrast between their home bases in Detroit and LA informing the laid-back melancholy of the music, Moke Hill’s smoothly polished rock reverberates with both the blue-collar work ethic of their Midwestern roots and the sunny optimism of the West Coast.  

Their collaboration unfolded organically through the cloud, which sounds oxymoronic, but such are the times in which musicians now connect, both with each other and with fans. There is an undeniable craftsmanship to these melodies, coupled with a probing lyrical earnestness that speaks to the virtues of suiting up, working hard and sticking with it until you touch people with something beautiful.

Ben Berry and Drew Phillips first began writing and recording together as Moke Hill in 2013.  Despite a friendship that dates back to their Detroit grade school days, they didn’t get serious about making music together until Berry was in Chicago and Phillips in Mokelumne Hill – a northern California gold country town, from which the band took it’s name. 
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The self-release of Moke Hill’s debut EP and its sparkling single “Detroit” coincided with the dawning of the streaming era, enabling Berry and Phillips to access digital tools for sharing their music that were as intuitive as the tools for making the music had been.  They set about being proactive in the streaming space in a natural yet industrious way and were able to connect with fans, resulting in “Detroit” garnering over half a million plays on Spotify.

In 2015, with Berry settled back in a freshly energized Detroit and Phillips in Los Angeles, the pair again worked remotely to write the material for Time Stops Moving. After teaming up with Phillips’ former Eulogies band mates Peter Walker, Tim Hutton and Chris Reynolds, along with long time friends Dash Hutton (HAIM) and Ben Roche, Time Stops Moving became a sort of homecoming for far-flung friends. Beneath upbeat melodies, gorgeous guitar textures and choruses that reach for the skies, Time Stops Moving explores dark themes in turbulent times.

Slick and professional Ben Berry and Drew Phillips are also notable for the songs they pen and record. Easy enough on the ear, I can hear the competing background influences. It's tight and polished music that thankfully also has plenty of heart and real personality.

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August Eve - Ghost.

Minimalist background info - "Ghost," a new track from 17 year old August Eve from LA - we were sold off of the first listen to this song. She's got an incredible voice, some early buzz and she's unsigned. She's an old soul with great style and wrote this herself.

With that limited info and a link to her web-place (here) it was just a case of listen to the song. And wow, what a beautiful song, what an incredible voice and the production is superb. I highly recommend you listen to this, if no other song today! It's an old saying and a cliche to, but August Eve really is 'one to watch out for'.

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Klee Shade - Beg For Rain.

Them there promo words - Klee Shade is some music from a guy with stuff. An ever curious fan of rock, hiphop, the loud, the soft, the angry, the happy, the constructive and the destructive. A self taught multi-instrumentalist, a poor audio production ex- student and an avid studier of all things that lie between a song being written and a song being enjoyed on an international scale. Out to bring the smiles! Just happy to be here. 

‘Beg For Rain’ is a simple song about gratitude, endeavour and release. Being thankful for what you have, but wanting something more and having the strength to push on forward until you find that you've pushed the weight of the journey off your shoulders all together - and you've arrived. 

This slow jammer of a song sits upon primitive, pounding drums and bass, and is headed by rich, articulate guitar harmonies and melodies. The down-played vocals course through the gaps to act as the spinal structure of the composition, allowing the rhythm section to pulse in the chest and the intertwining guitar harmonies to play about within the ear canals. This all culminates into a show stopper of a finale section, which is sincerely unlike any arrangement of guitar parts I know of - it is to be heard to be understood for its full uniqueness and scale. Klee shade's first single. Turn it up, tune out. 'Take it slow, settle in for the ride.'

Well fair dues to the writer above, which summarises this fine song so very well. All I will add is I found myself listening a few times to take everything in, it's a little bit like a wall of sound with intricate details peppered throughout.


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The Persian Leaps - Dottie, Queen Of The West.

Background info -  "The Persian Leaps" began as a phrase singer/guitarist Drew Forsberg doodled in a notebook margin during a college Greek Archaeology course. He wrote music independently under that name for years, until finally assembling a full band in 2012 to perform and record driving, chiming music influenced by My Bloody Valentine, The Smiths, Guided by Voices and Teenage Fanclub.
    
In 2013, the Persian Leaps released debut EP Praise Elephants, which the NME described as a “celestial guitar jangle”. The band completed a follow-up EP Drive Drive Delay in 2014, praised by XS Noize for its “instantly catchy melodic harmonies layered on top of droning guitar.”
    
The band recently completed their 3rd EP, High & Vibrate. The EP features five short, infectious songs dripping with divine guitar noise underpinning gorgeous vocal harmonies. Land Ski Records releases High & Vibrate on September 25, 2015.

Energised indie rock and five fine tracks - 'High and Vibrate' is a smart EP. There is variety between the songs, however guitars and harmonies reign supreme.

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