austra

Ricky’s Favourite Songs of the Year

Posted on by Ricky in Everything, Year End Reviews | Leave a comment

Here we go. This year I basically just listened to whatever my friends and Spotify told me to listen to. The days of digging through the crevices of the music underbelly to find the next big bands are over – I leave that to the kids. My time is now consumed weaving through corporate bureaucracy, stuck in an endless cycle of self pity while collecting a decent paycheque.

Phoebe Bridgers – I Know the End
Don’t we all want to just scream at the end of a perfect folk song? I know I do. This song and/or other songs off the Punisher album was probably on everyone’s list. It’s a great record and this song just captures this year really nicely.

Khruangbin – Pelota
Few discoveries were more enjoyable than that of Khruangbin, the Texas trio whose music can’t be described as much as it has to be experienced. Maybe I miss traveling to my second home of Spain this year or something, but this track (sang in Spanish) has got a ton of funk and travel nostalgia attached to it. A pleasant diversion on an otherwise gloomy year.

Jayda G – Both of Us
This is the song you’d play in 2020 if you were hosting a big party and it’s the first hour and you want people to mingle and feel cool about being at your party. Obviously I am not having a party this year, but if you thought the virus was fake and didn’t give a shit about everyone else like half the people in the States, this is the track you’d put on in that precious first hour to set the table.

Su Lee – I’ll Just Dance
This super cute song may have my favorite music video of the year, and really captures that Covid feeling and the uncertainty of everything these days. But this music video is something else.

Austra – I am not waiting
I wouldn’t call this a comeback, because for me to say that I would have to know how successfull/unsuccesful Austra has been in the many years since they stormed the Toronto music scene. What I will say is that this year Austra released a stellar album and “I Am Not Waiting” leads the way. This is essentially just a great pop song but as is the case with Austra, Katie Stelmanis’s amazing voice always adds that extra bit of depth and drama to the song, it’s like the fish sauce of music pop world, just adds umami.

Jessie Ware – Spotlight

It’s been fascinating watching Jessie Ware morph from gentle ballads to dancefloor fillers. I guess she is in the drink a bottle of wine a night part of her life, and I’m here for it. This track, as with anything that is on her most recent record, just mooooooooves, but at the same time does not betray her sense of writing hooks. A great combination.

Concert Review: Austra, May 27, Echo Beach

Posted on by Paul in Concerts | Leave a comment

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Last year, the CBC Music Festival really came through with an impressive lineup featuring such names as Alvvays, Tanya Tagaq, and The New Pornographers. By comparison, this year’s lineup left a little something to be desired. Walk Off The Earth? I get that they’re quite popular but that popularity is largely built on gimmicky YouTube videos and live, they’re so relentlessly cheerful that they make Up With People seem like GG Allin. It’s not my cup of tea by a longshot, but hey, give the people what they want I guess. Regardless, there were still some intriguing names on the lineup, and in my books, the highlight of the day was easily Austra’s performance on the Q Stage.

After an introduction by Q host Tom Power, (who seemed strangely preoccupied with a t-shirt cannon) the band started things off with the title track off their excellent new album Future Politics and definitely made a strong impression on both the uninitiated and the hardcore fans up front. New songs like “Utopia” and “I Love You More Than You Love Yourself” blended seamlessly with earlier tracks like “Lose It” and “Beat And The Pulse.” And while the band’s moody electronic sound is probably better suited to a late night performance in some dimly lit nightclub, they still put on quite the show and the songs sounded just as good during daylight hours on an outdoor stage.

Also, I’m not gonna lie – that t-shirt cannon was a little bit cool.

Osheaga 2012 Review/Recap: Florence, Of Monsters and Men, Dum Dum Girls, M83, Austra

Posted on by lauren in Concerts | Leave a comment

Photo By: Jordan DiCecca

Osheaga has easily become the largest music festival in Canada. This year’s fest on Parc Jean-Drapeau in belle Montreal, hosted a three day music festival to over 120,000 people. That’s a huge jump from the 80,000 of 2011. It’s a festival  I have frequented for the past 4 years, and I prefer to the hot and dry backdrop of say, Bonnaroo or Coachella.

So what were the highlights and lowlights of this year’s Osheaga? Well, I’ll begin by saying, I missed Justice and it’s now on a list of small regrets I plan to rectify in the near future.

FRIDAY

Photo By: Jordan DiCecca

Highlights

Of Monsters and Men: Straight out of Iceland, these guys warmed our hearts with their melodic folk-rock. They were the first band we managed to catch of the day in the delicious blistering heat, and it was definitely a great start.

Dum Dum Girls: These girls are fantastic live, all dressed like a sexy Lydia from Beetlejuice. I officially have a girl crush on every single one of them. Even though they suffered through technical problems and their set was cut short, it was still worth every second of that surf punk.

Florence and the Machine: Every time I see Florence Welch make a television appearance, I’m left breathless by the power of her vocals, and the ethereal witch-like presence she evokes, however I have never seen her really do much on stage other than wave her arms around in a flowing gown. This performance was manic, she was all over the place, in the crowd, jumping, yelling, twirling, you name it. She played mostly her new album and a few well known hits from Lungs, and she didn’t miss a beat.

SATURDAY

Photo By: Jordan DiCecca

Highlights

SBTRKT: These guys brought a serious fucking dance party on Saturday afternoon in that almost unbearable heat. Highlights included people climbing the tree to get a better look at the stage, security having to climb said tree to get them down. Sadly Little Dragon, whose set was after SBTRKT didn’t join for Wildfire, but their live rendition of it blew the pants off of the very little amount of people wearing pants.

Yeasayer: Caught half of their set, but they were the highlight of Saturday. Playing old hits and new songs from the upcoming Fragrant World, Saturday was a day of drinking, dancing, and being merry. If you haven’t seen Yeasayer, add them to your list.

SUNDAY

Highlights

Austra: Classically trained Canadian musician Katie Stelmanis has had a myriad of musical projects on the go, but latest band Austra, formerly known as Private Life, until discovering another band under that name, they changed their name to Austra – Katie Stelmanis’ middle name. It was brutally hot after the rain that early afternoon and she brought a pretty big dance party to the table.

Buraka Som Sistema: These guys are out of Portugal but generally create a variation of African beats called “Kuduru”, the final product is a percussion heavy non stop EDM project that you can’t stand still to.

Bloc Party: It was raining heavy during their set, but that didn’t stop the massive crowd from going absolutely nuts. Bloc Party has finally reunited after a long hiatus, and we couldn’t be more excited. They put on a hell of a show despite the shitty weather, and I have never seen that many people crowd surf in the middle of the day since my Warped Tour Highschool days.

M83: THE HIGHLIGHT OF THE WEEKEND. I said earlier in the Osheaga 2012 Preview, that come hell or high water, I would not miss these guys and I sacrificed seeing the Black Angels to squish my way up front, waiting 45 minutes for M83 to begin. The unbelievable light show, coupled with the EPIC performance made them the last set I saw that night, because… nothing could top it.  Just, speechless.

Low-lights of the weekend: 

Missing Justice: My own fault. Forever a regret.

The set up: in 2011 there was 80,000 attendants over the three day fest, this year it jumped up to 120,000 people. This required larger capacity areas for the stages, which is understandable. However, they set up sketchy ass staircases that you had to use to get from stage to stage. Besides the fact that they wobbled when you used them, it bottlenecked the crowd and made travel time between stages twice as long as normal. I managed to only see a quarter of the bands on the schedule because of this, and would have to leave 3 songs into a bands set to make the next band.

The crowd during M83: If anyone was near the front and can attest to this, please do. Seriously, what the fuck was that. I have never seen people my age (26) behave so moronically. There was a group of about eight people that were so high and drunk out of their minds that they decided a mosh pit and crowd surfing were great ideas, however they were so fucked up they couldn’t support anyone surfing over them, or stand their ground so they caused a lot of injury. Also, a guy ended up collapsing unable to stand up and his girlfriend kept jumping on his head behind us…

Security: To continue with the rant above, security was pretty awesome aside from this set. A dude collapsed, couldn’t get up, and about ten people in the crowd tried to get security in to pull the guy out and they wouldn’t do it. He was literally getting trampled on by his own girlfriend.

Lessons learned: If M83 plays next year I will lay on the grass from afar, enjoy the light show and enjoy my beer.

 

Osheaga 2012 Preview! Part 3 What to see on Sunday!

Posted on by lauren in Concerts | Leave a comment

So Sunday, the last and most exciting day of the festival is also calling for thunderstorms and 20mm of rain. When have mudfights and soggy clothing ever slowed concert goers down before?

Here’s who I will be checking out Sunday, as they are far more important to name than others.

1) Doe Paoro – Playing the earliest slot, this girl’s talent promises that she will be a headliner in no time.

2) Zola Jesus – Not much needs to be said about her, gothy, ethereal, beautiful voice.

3) Aloe Blacc – Rocketed to popularity when his song was used as the title sequence for the now defunct How To Make It In America (RIP)

4) The Airborne Toxic Event- Heard them on a show that will remain nameless (guilty pleasure), interested to see what their live show holds.

5) Tame Impala – I describe them as genre and decade bending psychedelic 60s indie… How could you miss that.

6) Austra – While I despised Katie Stelmanis as an outfit, Austra is smooth danceable electronic, Paper Bag Records newest success.

7) Santigold – Not much needs to be said about her. Always brings it, great stage presence and her song featuring Karen O is one of the best on the new album.

8) The Shins – Stoked to cross these guys off the bucketlist. Mercer’s voice sounds impeccably clear on all live videos I’ve watched.

9) Buraka Som Sistema – My go to exercise album at the gym. African based EDM trumps dubstep any day.

10) Bloc Party – Kele! Yes! Excited to see these guys back together. Sunday promises to be a day of dancing.

11) The Black Angels – Listening to these guys is like traveling back to the 70’s. It’s grungy, dirty psychedelic. I also heard they killed it at Lee’s Palace their last tour.

12) M83 – In torrential downpour, lightning and whatever else that day will throw at us, I will fight tooth and nail to get to the front at their set. M83 created one of the best albums of the year and the best way to describe their sound is “cinematic”, and “epic”.

Notables: Zeus, Common, Black Keys, Dan Mangan, Metric.