Fonkyson is a rising Montreal-based future house and electro funk DJ and producer, who has released a full-length album — 2016’s #followme — and a handful of singles through Lisbon Lux Records. The Montreal-based DJ and producer’s latest single “You Got It” is centered around Vaness’ sultry and soulful, come hither vocals, a sinuous bass line, handclaps and finger snaps, shimmering synth arpeggios and tweeter and woofer rocking 808s and an infectious hook with the end result being a summery, club friendly anthem that seamlessly meshes 80s synth funk and 90s house.
“During the creation process of the album, I had this beat I composed, kind of sunny chill 808 bass-driven track with a relaxed west coast vibe,” the rising Canadian producer and DJ says of the song’s creative process. “I firstly aimed for an instrumental but tried some acapellas quickly on the track to have a hint of where it could go, a pretty nice producer trick I often do. Then I fell in love with that R&B vibe a female voice could bring to it. I began to search for an artist to ask for a feat, and saw Vaness’s profile on Soundcloud. I loved her vibe, her range, the vocal fioritures that reminded me of 90s R&B divas. She loved the instrumental and said yes. She took quite some time to record a demo, but I remember when I finally got it, I opened the file and it was exactly what I hoped for and way beyond. It wasn’t a demo, it was the final song. Touchdown.”
CHAII is a rising Persian-born, New Zealand emcee and producer. When she was eight, her family migrated to New Zealand — and as it turns out, she was first introduced to hip-hop through Eminem, who at the time had just released The Marshall Mathers LP. Fueled by a growing interest in his music, the rising Persian-Kiwi emcee and producer was rhyming along to his work before she really learned how to speak English. “Mr. Eminem was my English teacher, CHAII recalls in press notes.
When she was 11, she stated to write her own rhymes to express everything she was feeling at the time — from being a confused third culture kid to her troubles adapting toa new way of life. As a high schooler, the rising Persian-born, Kiwi-based emcee started to make beats to accompany her rhymes. At that point, she realized a deep love for all aspects of creating and writing music from writing, producing, recording and mixing, And after several years of experimenting, CHAII developed her own sound, which feature elements of traditional Persian music, extra pop and hip-hip, eventually releasing material material that she says is “the closest music to me and who I am.”
As an adult, she developed an interest in film, and that has created a synergistic approach to her creative efforts, centered around a decidedly DIY ethos. With the release of her debut single “South” earlier this year, which was featured by FENDI, the Persian-born, Kiwi-based emcee exploded into the international scene. Building upon a growing profile, CHAII recently released her latest single, the urgent and defiant “Digebasse,” the second single off her debut effort Safar (Journey). Interestingly, the track features tweeter and woofer rocking beats inspired by a Southern Iranian drum patterns, skittering hi-hats, buzzing synths and a rousing hook — and while being a propulsive club friendly banger, the track which features a guest spot from Australian emcee B Wise sees CHAII delivering an uplifting and defiant commentary on millennial social pressures in English and Farsi that CHAII says “is a positive and uplifting song to say ‘enough’ and to stand up for your rights.”
B Wise’s guest verse highlights the need to be unified for a single purpose and the desire to be free, adding that “The song hit me from the first listen. It had an anti-establishment vibe to it, yet uplifting and uniting with a great message. The song is a major culture clash, so i had to jump on it!”
The recently released video was directed by the rising Persian-Kiwi artist and was shot guerrilla-style in Oman with a cast of close friends and locals as extras. Featuring a vibrant and explosive color palette within a slick and modern production, the video reveals an ambitious and talented young artist ready to take over the world — and an intimate view into the world and culture that influenced the rising artist so deeply. In a larger sense, the song and the video are a larger reminder of the fact that hip-hop is the linga franca of the contemporary world. In Frankfurt-am-Main I’ve heard vendors playing Biggie’s “One More Chance” In Amsterdam I went to the Sugar Factory and heard young Dutch DJs spinning NWA and A Tribe Called Quest. And in Montreal, I heard local rappers spitting fire in French. If that doesn’t convince you, this will. Hip hop ain’t dead y’all. It’s as vital as ever.
Over the past few months, I’ve written a bit about the rising synth-based act FORCES. Although it’s a relatively new project, it’s centered round the 20+ year collaborative and romantic relationship between its creative masterminds — Jess and Dave — who may be best known in their native Canada for their previous project, The Golden Dogs. And with Golden Dogs, FORCES’ creative duo wound up working with a virtual who’s who of contemporary, Canadian indie rock including the then-future members of Zeus, Wax Atlantic and Brave Shores, along with Taylor Knox and Stew Heyduk — while opening for Sloan, Feist, Bloc Party, The Libertines, Kaiser Chiefs, Thurston Moore and Roky Erickson.
In 2017, Jess and Dave went into the studio and began working on what they thought would be the next Golden Dogs album — although in some way, deep down they both realized that they kind of knew that it wasn’t. What they started working on was a decided and radical sonic departure from the driving rock sound they’ve long specialized in and were known for. At the time, they found that they were increasingly drawn to a number of a different production styles including The Dead Pets, Liquid Liquid, New Order, The Cure‘s Close to Me and Timbaland. Interestingly, as a result, the duo, which currently splits its time between Montreal and Toronto began to openly experiment with synths, beatmaking and funky rhythms.
As they began changing their sound and approach, Jess boldly stepped up into the role of frontperson, taking on a sultry vocal approach paired with layered, punchy female-led harmonies while Dave began to focus on guitar textures and melodies. The material that they started to write during this new phase was centered around metronomic loops and electronics rather than the drum-bass guitar arrangements they had long relied on. Now. as you may recall, I’ve written about the projects first two singles: the glittering, club banging “Stay On Me,” and the early 80s Madonna-like “Step In A Sway.” Building upon a buzzworthy profile, the Canadian duo’s latest single is the bombastic, grunge rock-influenced “Say It Now.” Starting with dissonant chords, boom bap-like drumming, the track is centered around a quiet-loud-quiet grunge rock song structure featuring a rousingly anthemic chorus and achingly intimate lyrics. And while sonically the song will bring Beck and Dirty Ghosts to mind, the track is an urgent call to the listener that seems rather fitting considering the state of our world right now — simply put, if you have feelings for someone, it’s best if you say it not and shoot your shot, because you may not have a chance later.
Directed by the band, the recently released video for “Say It Now” was shot on an iPhone and features the duo (mostly headless) performing the song in their video — with playful and mischievous nods, including subtitles in different languages, and footage superimposed on their amps.
“What do you do when in you’re in coronavirus isolation?” the band asks. “Make a video! May this track to bust out of your speakers, and then pull you in nice n close. We hope it can be a reminder – to us and others – that in any loving relationship, growth and change are inevitable. Keeping the lines of communication open – don’t hold anything in. But, be kind, be honest and speak without ego.”
Over the past year or so, I’ve spilled quite a bit of virtual ink covering the acclaimed and rising Montreal-based indie rock act Corridor. The French-Canadian JOVM mainstay act, which currently features longtime friends and collaborators Dominic Berthiaume (vocals/bass) and Jonathan Robert (vocals/guitar/synths) along with Julian Perreault (guitar), Julien Bakvis (drums) and the band’s newest member Samuel Gougoux exploded across the Francophone world and elsewhere with 2017’s sophomore album Supermercado, which received glowing praise from from NPR and Vice, who referred to the album as “the best French record of 2017, 2018, 2018, 2019, 2020 2021 and even 2022 . . . ”
Building upon a growing profile, the band signed to Sub Pop Records, who released their third album, last year’s excellent Junior, making the band the first Francophone act ever on the world renowned label. Continuing their ongoing and highly successful collaboration with their friend, producer (and occasional roommate) Emmanuel Ethier, the album found the band jettisoning the languorous creative process of its predecessors — out of inspired necessity. Although the members of the band had only just signed to their new label home at the time, they had firmly committed themselves to releasing a new album worth of material every two years. And the band fully intended on fulfilling their long-held commitment. Naturally, when the folks at Sub Pop were informed of this, they gently warned the band that if they wanted to release new material that fall, they needed to send the label a completed album by early May.
With the ink barely dried on the finalized record contract, the band rushed into the studio and recorded Junior in an inspired and breakneck blitz, finishing the album in mid-April: Six of the album’s 10 songs were conceived in a single weekend — with the album closer “Bang” being written the night before they were to start recording sessions. Reportedly, Corridor’s Jonathan Robert wrote that song’s lyrics while panicking over the possibility of not being able to properly finished what they started.
Because of the quickened nature of the Junior sessions, the material features fewer expansive jams and less reliance on overdubs. Even the album’s artwork managed to come about in the nick of time. In spite of other more meticulous and gorgeous artwork they received as potential album art, Robert’s “shitty last minute” collage of an egg saying hello was the one his bandmates wound up approving. “Part of the beauty of the thing is that we didn’t have time to think about it,” the band’s Berthiaume says of the Junior recording sessions.
Album tracks like Topographe,” “Pow,” album title track “Junior” “Goldie” and Domino” manage to reveal a wide range of influences: a bit of post-punk here, a little bit of XTC over there, a little bit of The Beatles, a dash of The Beach Boys here and so on. And with some deft craftsmanship and musicianship, they manage to whimsically and mischievously create something novel out of the familiar.
Late last year, the Montreal-based JOVM mainstays went on a West Coast tour, and during their tour they made a stop at Seattle’s KEXP where they performed songs off Junior in one of the better live sessions I’ve seen in some time — and it the session included “Agent Double,” the gorgeous krautrock-like album title track “Junior’ (one of my favorite tracks on the album), the brooding “Grand Cheval” and the explosive and jam-based “Domino.” Of course, like most of the KEXP sessions, there’s a playful interview with the band, in which they reveal that the album and its title is a loving homage to their guitarist and friend Julien Perreault. They also talk a bit about the band’s formation and their creative process — while touching upon how they came about their unique sound. It’s a fascinating look into a band that personally has stolen my heart quite a bit.
Dave Chose is a L’Ascension-De-Notre-Seigneur, Quebec-born, Montreal-based singer/songwriter, whose work is thematically focuses on poetry of the mundane with material that celebrates the taste of convenience store iced tea, and the pleasure of knowing how to roll your own cigarettes among other things. Playing with a judiciously loud backing band, Chose’s work sonically is a sort of sensitive pop punk. Building upon a growing profile in his native Quebec, Chose wrote the theme song for Puisqu’on se tue toujours trop tard, a short film directed by Jean-Martin Gagnon
Last week, Chose released a double single, which featured two very personal and distinctive tracks — “Poffes” and “De l’inconvénient d’être nê,” which were recorded his backing band and longtime collaborators Nicolas Beaudin, Jonathan Bigras and Benoit Bouchard. “Poffes,” the latest release off the double single was originally written while he was working on his first album — but after some time and perspective, he revised the song, pushing the song and its sound to where he felt it needed to go. Centered around fuzzy power chords, forceful drumming, an unerring knack for infectiously melodic and enamors hooks, Chose’s latest single reminds me quite a bit of early Foo Fighters — in particular, their self-titled debut and The Colour and the Shape. But interestingly enough, the song features paradoxical lyrics that deal with self-destruction and the urgency of living. Simply put, the song fucking rips. Nuff said, folks.
Initially created as a solo project by its Pembroke, Ontario-born and-based creative mastermind, multi-instrumentalist and singer/songwriter Jordon Zadorozny, Blinker The Star eventually expanded into a trio by the time they signed to A&M Records, who released the project’s first two albums — 1995’s self-titled debut and 1996’s A Bourgeois Kitten. During that period, the band toured steadily, building a profile nationally and elsewhere.
In 1997, Zadorozny relocated from Montreal to Los Angeles, where he worked with Courtney Love, helping craft songs for Hole’s acclaimed Celebrity Skin. While in Los Angeles, Zadorozny began soaking up new influences and became increasingly fascinated with production. Signing with Dreamworks in 1999, the band, which at the time featured Zadorozny, Failure’s Kelli Scott (drums), longtime bassist Pete Frolander and a rotating cast of Southern California-based session musicians recorded and released their critically applauded third album August Everywhere, which they supported with touring across North America with Our Lady Peace, Sloan, Failure and The Flaming Lips.
Returning back to Pembroke in 2002, Zadorozny built his first commercial recording studio and began working with Sam Roberts, contributing drums and producing Roberts’ breakthrough debut EP The Inhuman Condition. Zadorozny also worked on albums by Melisa Auf der Maur, Chris Cornell,Lindsey Buckingham and others.
During the Winter of 2003, Zadorozny wrote and recorded Blinker the Sky’s fourth album Still In Rome as a duo with Kelli Scott. Following a brief tour to support the album, the Pembroke, Ontario-born multi-instrumentalist and singer/songwriter quickly settled into the production side of the things working with an electric array of artists, including collaborative projects like Digital Noise Academy, SheLoom, and Abbey and The Angry Moon.
2012’s fourth album, We Draw Lines was the first Blinker The Star album that Zadorozny wrote and recorded since he started the project — and it began a rather prolific period that included 2013’s Songs from Laniakea Beach, a one-off single “Future Fires” 2015’s 11235 EP, 2017’s 8 of Hearts and last year’s Careful With Your Magic. Interestingly, after completing a short run of shows last fall, Zodorozny began working on new music at his Skylark Park Studio. The solitude of his environment helped informed his forthcoming Blinker The Star album JuvenileUniverse, which is slated for release this summer.
Juvenile Universe‘s first single “Way Off Wave.” Centered around a dense arrangement of shimmering guitars, sinuous bass lines, a blazing, distortion pedal-fueled guitar solo, atmospheric and droning synths and an enormous, arena rock friendly hook “Way Off Wave” brings Station to Station-era David Bowie to mind. “The song touches on the things we do and think to ourselves after a period of great change: our impulse to seek out new external realities, while internationally returning to stuck patterns and thoughts, which inhibit growth and acceptance,” as the Pembroke, Ontario-born and-based multi-instrumentalist, producer and singer/songwriter explains in press notes. “It is almost a dreamlike state we find ourselves in trying to move forward while mentally sloshing about in the past, looking for new answers that will never appear.”
Formed back in 2018, Ivytide — Adam Nutbey (keys), John Zambito (drums), Jamie Snytte (lead guitar), Kyle Ruggiero (bass) and Nathan Gagné (vocals, rhythm guitar) — is an emerging Montreal-based indie act. The band will be releasing their debut EP Pardon our distance this year, and the EP’s first single is the washed out “Blurr.” Centered around glitchy, blown out and distorted beats, shimmering and wobbly synth arpeggios, whirring electronics and dreamy vocals, the narcotic new single evokes the feeling of things slowly fading out of distance. Interestingly, as the band explains in press notes, the song is “about the feeling of losing touch, and reflects the distance between two people that comes from a disparity in perceptions, emotions and perspectives.” The band adds that “the production on ‘Blurr’ embodies the feeling of distance with the dreamy and washed out qualities that pair with lyrics describing the struggle of self-identification.”
The recently released video for “Blurr” features the band’s Nathan Gagné standing alone in a wintry Montreal park and as he sings the song’s lyrics, the camera pans in and out in perfect timing to the accompanying song’s glitchy beats. “Our lead singer, Nathan, developed frostbite while filming the song’s video, shot at 7:30am in -18 degrees Celsius. After taking a break in a cafe, he toughed it out through the rest of filming, where we made sure he was warm and cozy in between shots,” the band says of the video.
Laura Gagné is a young, emerging Montreal-based singer/songwriter, who has received attention across Quebec for crafting sweetly earnest material centered around the deep and spiritual reflections of a modern, young woman -with a disarming sense of humor and playfulness. But at the core of her work is her deep belief that God’s love is accessible to all.
Her latest single is the playful and coquettish “Loveland.” Drawing from 50s and 60s pop including period specific finger snaps, twinkling keys and reverb-drenched guitar, the song finds Gagné crooning singing about a desire to escape the world to be surrounded by love. Considering how bleak things are the moment, an escape seems more necessary than ever, doesn’t it? In the song’s case it’s a bit of a double entendre: the song and its accompanying visual clearly talks about faith and church — but it also possess a sultry coquettishness.
Over the better part of the past year or so, I’ve written quite a bit about the rapidly rising Montreal-based indie rock act Corridor. And as you may recall, the French Canadian act, which currently features longtime friends and collaborators Dominic Berthiaume (vocals/bass) and Jonathan Robert (vocals/guitar/synths) along with Julian Perreault (guitar), Julien Bakvis (drums) and the band’s newest member Samuel Gougoux first received attention across the Francophone world and elsewhere with 2017’s sophomore album Supermercado, which glowing received praise from NPR and Vice, who referred to the album as “the best French record of 2017, 2018, 2018, 2019, 2020 2021 and even 2022 . . . ”
Corridor spent the following year touring across Europe with stops at London Calling Festival and La Villete Sonique Festival, and the States with appearances at SXSW and Northside Festival. They followed that up by touring with Crumb on a sold-out Stateside tour.
Building upon a growing profile, the band signed to Sub Pop Records, who released their third album, last year’s Junior, making the band the first Francophone act ever on the world renowned label. While continuing their ongoing and highly successful collaboration with their friend, producer (and occasional roommate) Emmanuel Ethier, the album found the band jettisoning the languorous creative process of its predecessors — out of inspired necessity. Although the members of the band had only just signed to their new label home at the time, they had firmly committed themselves to releasing a new album worth of material every two years. And the band fully intended on fulfilling their long-held commitment. Naturally, when the folks at Sub Pop were informed of this, they gently warned the band that if they wanted to release new material that fall, they needed to send the label a completed album by early May.
With the ink barely dried on the finalized record contract, the band rushed into the studio and recorded Junior in an inspired and breakneck blitz, finishing the album in mid-April: Six of the album’s 10 songs were conceived in a single weekend — with the album closer “Bang” being written the night before they were to start recording sessions. Reportedly, Corridor’s Jonathan Robert wrote that song’s lyrics while panicking over the possibility of not being able to properly finished what they started.
Because of the quickened nature of the Junior sessions, the material features fewer expansive jams and less reliance on overdubs. Even the album’s artwork managed to come about in the nick of time. In spite of other more meticulous and gorgeous artwork they received as potential album art, Robert’s “shitty last minute” collage of an egg saying hello was the one his bandmates wound up approving. “Part of the beauty of the thing is that we didn’t have time to think about it,” the band’s Berthiaume says of the Junior recording sessions.
Album tracks like Topographe,” “Pow,” album title track “Junior” “Goldie” and Domino” manage to reveal a wide range of influences: a bit of post-punk here, a little bit of XTC over there, a little bit of The Beatles, a dash of The Beach Boys here and so on. And with some deft craftsmanship and musicianship, they manage to whimsically and mischievously create something novel out of the familiar.
Last year, I caught was luckily to catch the band live twice — a Union Pool set shortly after the release of Junior and a headlining M for Montreal set at Montreal’s Le National that was in my opinion one of the best live sets I caught that year. The band is creating up for a headlining, Stateside tour that begins with a show at Rough Trade tomorrow night, as well as appearances at this year’s SXSW and their first ever shows in Florida. The band recently extended its international tour to support their critically applauded third album, with an extensive series of UK and French dates. (You can check out the tour dates below.)
In the meantime, Junior’s latest single is the slow-burning “Grand cheval.” Centered around shimmering guitars, a propulsive and steady bass line and drumbeat, the band’s gorgeous harmonizing and atmospheric synths, “Grand cheval.” may arguably be the prettiest song on the album — and the most bittersweet. “The song is inspired by a grumpy old man, who came to bother us in a park once,” Corridor’s Jonathan Robert says in press notes. “He talked about mediocre poetry and philosophies of life, while asking us for cigarettes and beers. When we asked him to leave us alone, he became angry, climbed on his high horse (grand cheval) and became this old demagogue belittling the youth.”
Directed by and featuring animation by Chad VanGaalen, the recently released video is a surrealistic and hallucinogenic fever dream set on a brightly colored alien world with rising snow, where we follow a lonely alien gatherer. “I sewed a jacket, pants, and hat to rotoscope myself as this alien gatherer,” Chad VanGaalen explains in press notes. “Everything was drawn onto a malfunctioning 15-year old Cintiq. You can buy them for $20 on eBay, although I wouldn’t recommend it. The music made the snow fall up and not down. No matter what I did on Final Cut, it would always fall up. I filled my body and mind with many ingredients in order to go from monocular to trinocular, now my vision is blurry but my tailored clothing feels amazing. I can’t believe it is finished.”
With the release of their critically applauded mini-album, 2014’s Traitement Deuxluxe, the Montreal-based psych rock duo Les Deuxluxes, vocalist and guitarist Anna Frances Meyer and multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Etienne Barry, quickly exploded across Quebec’s music scene. Building upon a growing platform across the province, the Montreal-based duo released, their critically applauded full-length debut, 2016’s Springtime Devil.
Since the release of Springtime Devil, the duo of Meyer and Barry have released a handful of attention grabbing singles, including the French translation of album title track “Springtime Devil,” “Diable du pringtemps.” Along with that, they’ve made appearances across the province’s major festival circuit, playing sets at Montreal Jazz Fest, Festival d’ete de Quebec, POP Montreal and M for Montreal — and they’ve opened for the likes of Lisa LeBlanc, Marjo, and Jon Spencer. They ended 2016 with a mini-tour of South America that included stops in Santiago, Chile; Valdivia, Chile; Buenos Aires, Argentina; and Sao Paulo, Argentina.
Written in the remote Quebec countryside, where the duo isolated themselves and recorded live to tape in a 19th century church, Meyer’s and Barry’s latest album, Lighter Fluid, the duo’s first album in over three years was released last Friday through Bonsound Records. Centered in old school rock ‘n’ roll riffage, the album’s 11 tracks draw from psych rock — while arguably be some of the most eccentric material they’ve written and released to date. Interestingly, the swaggering album title track “Lighter Fluid” is a perfect example of the album’s overall sound and aesthetic: power chord driven riffs, thunderous kick drum and enormous arena rock friendly hooks with boy-girl harmonizing paired with Meyer’s powerhouse vocals. The end result is a song that seems — to my ears, at least — indebted to classic AC/DC, JOVM mainstays White Mystery and The Black Angels. Simply put, this one fucking rips.
Directed by Ariel Poupart, the recently released video for “Lighter Fluid” is a mix of the fittingly flamboyant and psychedelic with the occult, as the band performs the song in front of a boiling cauldron and in front of some trippy and mind-bending backdrops.
FORCES is a rising synth-based act, comprised of romantic couple and collaborative duo Jess and Dave. Although their latest project is a relatively new project, it’s centered around the 20+ year relationship and collaboration between its creative masterminds, who may be best known in their native Canada for their previous project, The Golden Dogs. With Golden Dogs, Jess and Dave wound up working with a virtual who’s who of contemporary, Canadian indie rock. including including the then-future members of Zeus, Wax Atlantic and Brave Shores, along with Taylor Knox and Stew Heyduk — while opening for Sloan, Feist, Bloc Party, The Libertines, Kaiser Chiefs, Thurston Moore and Roky Erickson.
Back in 2017, Jess and Dave went into the studio and began working on what they thought would be the next Golden Dogs album — although in some way, deep down they both realized that they kind of knew that it wasn’t. What they started working on was a decided and radical sonic departure from the driving rock sound they’ve long specialized in and were known for. In fact, they were increasingly drawn to the a number of different production styles — in particular, The Dead Pets, Liquid Liquid, New Order, The Cure‘s Close to Me and Timbaland. And as a result, the duo. which currently splits its time between Montreal and Toronto began to experiment with synths, beatmaking and funky rhythms.
At the same time Jess stepped up into the role of frontperson, taking on a sultry vocal approach paired with layered, punchy female-led harmonies. Simultaneously, Dave began to focus on guitar textures and melodies. Along with that, the material they started to write was primarily based around metronomic loop and electronics — instead of the drums-bass-guitar arrangements they had long relied on. Now, if you were frequenting this site late last year, you may recall I wrote about the FORCES’ debut single, the glittering dance floor friendly bop, “Stay On Me,” which was centered around a funky Nile Rodgers-inspired guitar riff, layers of arpeggiated synths, thumping beats, a propulsive club-rocking groove and Jess’ sultry vocals that builds up to a cathartic sense of release.
The Canadian duo’s second single “Step In A Sway” is ironically enough the first they recorded as FORCES, and the single finds them openly embracing straightforward pop. Much like its predecessor, “Step In A Sway” features a sinuous bass line, Nile Rodgers-like guitar work, twinkling synths and fluttering electronics but it manages to sound as though it were indebted to early 80s Madonna — in particular “Everybody.” “The song is an ode to all of those who are first on the dance floor giving the rest of us wallflowers the courage and inspiration to do the same,” the Canadian duo say.
“The song was inspired by a simple drum lesson we gave to a good friend,” the member of FORCES explain. “As she struggled to stay in the groove, the goal was to get her out of her head and into a rhythm where her body danced with the music. Later, as we were writing it, we realized her journey through that lesson — the struggle to get from panic to flow (or ‘sway’ as we call it here) — is a universal one, and it became an exploration of that them in both words and music.”
The recently released video follows FORCES’ Jess playing out the song’s central theme, as we see her walking through the city with her headphones — literally being in her head — and finding that “sway” in the forest scenes, where she finds her inhibitions dissolving, moving along with the thumping beat.
Jonathan Emile is rising Montreal-born and based, Jamaican-Canadian singer/songwriter. Emile’s latest album, the Paul Cargnello and Christopher Cargnello-co-produced Spaces In Between finds the Jamaican-Canadian singer/songwriter delving deep into his roots with the album’s material borrowing from several styles of Jamaican music, including acoustic and traditional roots, reggae pop, Dancehall, dub and hip-hop. Released through Montreal-based record label, MindPeaceLove Records, the album is the first album by a Quebec-based artist to be distributed through Bob Marley’s Tuff Gong International.
So far two singles off the album have been released to praise by the media internationally — the energetic “Savanna” and the gospel-folk influenced, acoustic ballad “Moses.” The album’s third and latest single is the hook-driven and breezy dancehall anthem “Just A Likkle More.” Centered around bursts of shimmering guitar, thumping beats. an upbeat riddim, and Emilie’s easy-going and mellifluous vocals, the song is a blast of summer warmth — and perhaps more important, an old-school, feel good love song. It’s the sort of song that will make you find that special someone and do that old-school two-step with them.
Directed by Pete Beng, the recently released video for “Just A Likkle More” was cinematically shot in Westmoreland Jamaica. Throughout the video, the viewer gets a taste of daily life in Westmoreland, as we follow its protagonists — a beautiful and madly in love Black couple. And much like the accompanying song, the video is upbeat and playful.
Dana Gavanski is an emerging Vancouver-born, Toronto-based singer/songwriter, who grew up in an artistic home — her father is a filmmaker and her mother is a painter. Gavanski has long harbored a desire to sing. The rising Canadian singer/songwriter relocated to Montreal to study, and as the story goes, during her senior year of college, her former partner left a guitar behind, and she decided to that it was the perfect time to re-learn the instrument. Ironically, she didn’t immediately go into music: she spent a summer as her producer father’s assistant in the Laurentians, working a derelict hotel-turned office that according to Gavanski looked like something out of The Shining.
The long days behind a computer cemented her her desire to make music, “because it was impossible to play that I needed to, in order to feel like it was real,” she says. The income she earned and saved that summer, funded a year of writing religiously, eventually leading to her debut EP, 2017’s Spring Demos, which the rising Canadian singer/songwriter describes as “whatever was coming out of me. A flood.”
Slated for a March 27, 2020 release, Gavanski’s full-length debut Yesterday Is Gone reportedly reflects her aim “to make something bigger, more thought through.” Steeped in determination, uncertainty and a simple desire to write a good song, the album’s material took shape after she returned from a writing residency in Banff, Alberta. She left the residency resolved not to worry about her songs being “too obvious.” She also began to learn the art of empty time, of being alone with her emotions, of losing herself in a landscape. And naturally, she considered how she might be able to use writing as a way to make sense of her life after a tumultuous breakup and a relocation to a new city.
Feeling adrift in Toronto, Gavanski struggled to make herself feel at home and connected, but her solitude allowed her to develop a grounding writing routine: she kept office-style hours at her bedroom desk, writing every day until she felt that she was starting to understand the writing process — and more important, to see that transforming a burning desire into something clear and tangible is a delicate and vulnerable act. That it often means letting things happen as they’re meant to happen, to accept losing some degree of control.
Yesterday Is Gone is co-produced by the Vancouver-born, Toronto-based singer/songwriter, Toronto-based musician Sam Gleason and Tunng’s and LUMP’s Mike Lindsay. While Gleason helped Gavanski bring out the tunes, Lindsay’s input marked “the beginning of developing a sound that was closer to what I had in my head,” Gavanski explains. Excited by the other elements of a song introduced during production, Gavanski and Lindsay were keen on finding essential things, not overblowing, keeping things bare and letting the elements speak for themselves.
The album’s material shapeshifted as it passed through the hands of its production team, taking on different tastes, feelings and visions. When Gavanski performed the songs with a band, they found a new and very different form. She was intrigued by performers like David Bowie and Aldous Harding, who inhabit different personalities on stage, physically tuning themselves to their music. “Watching these kinds of performances,” Dana says in press notes, “I feel my body longing to express myself in exaggerations … to leave behind self-consciousness and become this energy.”
Interestingly, a three-month trip to Serbia in late 2018 pushed performance to the forefront of Gavanski’s mind: she took singing lessons to learn how to sing with the resonance that defines traditional song. Inspired by the bombast of the country’s music of the 50s, 60s and 70s, including the high-energy kafana or cafe music, all which were rooted in expressive pouts as it was in vocal resonance, the trip created a yearning to completely inhabit herself on stage. “I often feel we’re all just these controlled bodies,” she says. “Sometimes I just want to make a snarl with my lip and keep it there.”
Expressive urges run all throughout the album’s material with each component being meticulously and purposefully placed to yield a deeply sincere response to the chaos and uncertainty of human emotion. “Often we have to go a little far in one direction to learn something about ourselves,” the Vancouver-born, Toronto-based singer/songwriter says.
Album title track “Yesterday Is Gone” is a hauntingly gorgeous yet highly unusual song: centered around a playful 7/4 meter, the song is actually a bittersweet meditation on longing, nostalgia and the passing of time that sonically recalls Man Who Sold the World-era David Bowie, late 60s pop and fellow Canadian folk act Loving. “‘Yesterday Is Gone’ is more of a straight pop song than the others on the album,” says Gavanski. “It’s about the intractability and muddiness of time passing. At the time I wrote the song, I was super into 60s pop music and the idea of what makes a classic song classic. I was toying between being more obvious in my lyrics and progressions while still tending to feelings hard to describe.”
Directed by Nina Vroemen, the recently released and gorgeously shot video for “Yesterday Is Gone” is set in Montreal’s Metro. We follow the emerging Canadian-born singer/songwriter in brightly colored 70s-styled through the Montreal transportation system’s colorful, modernist, late 60s-early 70s architecture. The video feels like feverish dream punctuated by loneliness and the gentle hum of the trains pulling in and out of each station. Of course, commuting underground is where space and time are endlessly distorted: everything is a constant state of arrivals and departures. (Unsurprisingly, the video immediately brought back memories of commuting from my hotel room to various venues and events in Montreal. I think I’ve been in two of the stations featured in the video, too.)
Interview: A Q&A with Corridor’s Dominic Berthiaume
Photo Credit: Dominic Berthiaume
Over the better part of the past year, I’ve written quite a bit about the rapidly rising Montreal-based indie rock act Corridor. The French Canadian act, currently featuring longtime friends and collaborators Dominic Berthiaume (vocals/bass) and Jonathan Robert (vocals/guitar/synths) along with Julian Perreault (guitar), Julien Bakvis (drums) and the band’s newest member Samuel Gougoux received attention across the Francophone world and elsewhere with 2017’s sophomore album Supermercado, which glowing received praise from NPR and Vice, who referred to the album as “the best French record of 2017, 2018, 2018, 2019, 2020 2021 and even 2022 . . . ”
The members of Corridor spent the following year touring across Europe with stops at London Calling Festival and La Villete Sonique Festival, and the States with appearances at SXSW and Northside Festival. They followed that up by touring with Crumb on a sold-out Stateside tour.
Building upon a growingprofile, the band signed to Sub Pop Records, who released their third album, last year’s Junior, making the band the first Francophone act ever on the world renowned label. While continuing their ongoing and highly successful collaboration with their friend, producer (and occasional roommate) Emmanuel Ethier, the album found the band jettisoning the languorous creative process of its predecessors — out of inspired necessity. Although the members of the band had only just signed to their new label home at the time, they had firmly committed themselves to releasing a new album worth of material every two years. And the band fully intended on fulfilling their long-held commitment. Naturally, when the folks at Sub Pop were informed of this, they gently warned the band that if they wanted to release new material that fall, they needed to send the label a completed album by early early May.
With the ink barely dried on the finalized record contract, the band rushed into the studio and recorded Junior in an inspired and breakneck blitz, finishing the album in mid-April: Six of the album’s 10 songs were conceived in a single weekend — with the album closer “Bang” being written the night before they were to start recording sessions. Reportedly, Corridor’s Jonathan Robert wrote that song’s lyrics while panicking over the possibility of not being able to properly finished what they started.
Interestingly, because of the quickened nature of the Junior sessions, the album’s material features fewer expansive jams and less reliance on overdubs. Even the album’s artwork managed to come about in the nick of time. In spite of other more meticulous and gorgeous artwork they received as potential album art, Robert’s “shitty last minute” collage of an egg saying hello was the one his bandmates wound up approving. “Part of the beauty of the thing is that we didn’t have time to think about it,” the band’s Berthiaume says of the Junior recording sessions.
Album tracks like Topographe,” “Pow,” album title track “Junior” “Goldie” and Domino” manage to reveal a wide range of influences: a bit of post-punk here, a little bit of XTC over there, a little bit of The Beatles, a dash of The Beach Boys here and so on. And with some deft craftsmanship and musicianship, they manage to whimsically and mischievously create something novel out of the familiar.
Last year, I caught was luckily to catch the band live twice — a Union Pool set shortly after the release of Junior and a headlining M for Montrealset at Montreal’s Le National that was in my opinion one of the best live sets I caught that year. I recently caught up Corridor’s Dominic Berthiaume, as the band gears up for a headlining, Stateside tour that begins with a March 4, 2020 at Rough Trade, includes appearances at this year’s SXSW and their first ever shows in Florida. Adding to the growing buzz surrounding the band since the release of Junior, this tour finds the band playing at some larger venues.
In the meantime, with this Q&A with Corridor’s Berthiaume, we speak a bit about Montreal’s food and music scenes, the aforementioned Union Pool and M for Montreal sets, their influences, the upcoming tour and more. The interview is below the jump, as they say. I’ve personally been in some of the spots Berthiaume has mentioned — and they give you a unique taste of Montreal and its people. And some of them I’ll have to check out on a return trip.
Mar. 04 – Brooklyn, NY – Rough Trade NYC *
Mar. 07 – Orlando, FL – Will’s Pub *
Mar. 08 – Tampa, FL – Hooch and Hive *
Mar. 09 – Miami, FL – Shirley’s at Gramps *
Mar. 13 – San Antonio, TX – Paper Tiger *
Mar. 14 – Houston, TX – Satellite Bar *
Mar. 16 – Austin, TX – SXSW
Mar. 17 – Austin, TX – SXSW
Mar. 18 – Austin, TX – SXSW
Mar. 19 – Austin, TX – SXSW
Mar. 20 – Dallas, TX – Nasher Sculpture
Mar. 21 – Austin, TX – SXSW
Mar. 22 – Hot Springs, AR – VOV Festival *
Mar. 23 – Nashville, TN – DRKMTTR *
Mar. 24 – Atlanta, GA – 529 *
Mar. 26 – Richmond, VA – Poor Boys *
*w/ Deeper
______________
WRH: I understand that this is a hotly debated question around Montreal, but who has the best poutine and why?
Dominic Berthiaume: Well, I’m not a poutine expert, but the “Patatine” at Patati Patata is pretty bonkers. They just add few veggies and a single kalamata olive in it (lol). Close to my place there’s Le Nouveau Système restaurant that is a landmark, its poutine and hot dogs are really legit. The most famous would be La Banquise, a bit overrated, but it’s opened 24 hours. I know for fact that the best pho is at Pho Tay Ho and the best pizza at Pizza Bouquet.
WRH A lot of my readers are based in the US – an overwhelming portion of them, are based in New York. What’s one spot that New Yorkers should go to get a real taste of Montreal?
WRH: Where’s your favorite place in Montreal to catch live music? Why?
DB: I guess my favorite would be Brasserie Beaubien. It’s literally a 1 min walk from my place. Great place to see up and coming bands. Service is great. Slot machines at the back. Cheap ATM fees. It’s “divey” and low key, I love it. Order a tall Laurentideand you should fit in.
WRH: Montreal has a very vibrant and interesting music scene. Is there an act from the city that should be getting more attention and love that isn’t at the moment?
DB: I think Cindy Lee are now based in Montreal. They move every 4 months lol, but their brand- new album What’s Tonight to Eternity is mind blowing.Our dear friends Chocolat released Jazz engagé last year, huge piece of rock. We just played a show with Reviews, they’re great too. You’ll hear about Population II pretty soon since they will release an album on an American label later this year, be sure to check them out. The list could go on and on.
WRH: For a band who sings and writes completely in French, Corridor has received quite a bit of attention in the States and elsewhere. How does that feel? Do you feel any pressure to start writing songs in English?
DB: It’s special to see that our band is getting this attention in the States, quite unusual I’d say. It’s cool though. If we ever write in English it will most probably suck, so we won’t go there.
WRH: A musician couple I know saw you in Philadelphia during your Stateside tour last year. They raved about that set, at one point saying that it was the best show they saw all year. I saw the and for the first time, the following night at Union Pool. After the show, I had a spirited conversation about the show, and it got into this argument about the influences we thought we heard in your sound. They mentioned Stereolab and Slowdive. I mentioned XTC and The Beatles. We went back and forth on it for a while. So, we need this debate settled: Who are your influences?
DB: All of the above and none of them at the same time. We started this band after listening to too much Sonic Youth and Women. Then we moved on finding our own sound. I think Supermercado and Junior sound like Corridor records. I personally didn’t know Stereolab, Slowdive and XTC back when we started to write songs, so none of you were right in the argument ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
WRH: Last November, I caught the band play what was the one of the best sets of M for Montreal, and one of the best sets I caught all year. The Le National set just had a much different energy than the Brooklyn one. Some of being that it was a hometown show in front of longtime fans, friends and family, which gave it this triumphant, local heroes have finally come home sort of feel to me. Everyone in the audience knew every single song and they were desperate for more in a way that doesn’t seem to happen much in New York. There’s something about the building, too; it has an important place in the city’s culture and historical and you can feel it everywhere. How did it feel to one of the headlining acts of M for Montreal? And how was it like to play at Le National in front of the hometown crowd?
DB: The Union Pool show was a little bit tricky. It was the second time we were actually playing the new Junior material live, so we were all focused on playing the right thing. It was less spontaneous than what it became by the time we played at Le National. Playing in that venue was kinda insane. I saw Deerhunter, Ariel Pink,Thee Oh Sees and so many other great acts perform there. It felt like we’ve accomplished something. I think that it was the fifth time we played M for Montreal, being one of the “headlining acts” felt good too. After all, we’re starting to become some kind of “veteran band” in our hometown, which I don’t know if it’s good or bad because old bands usually suck.
WRH: Your latest album Junior found the band adopting a completely different creative processor – out of necessity. According to press notes, you signed to Sub Pop and you had every intention of continuing your commitment of releasing a new album worth of material every two years. And in order to do so, your new label told that in order for you to continue that commitment, you needed to submit a completed album by May. The ink’s barely dried on the contract and you run into the studio to furiously write and record material. Was there any point in which you felt like maybe you weren’t going to make your deadline – or where you maybe regretted being so firm in your commitment?
DB: I think our biggest regret is that we toured for two weeks in the U.S while we were in the middle of the recording/editing/mixing process. The tour was fun, but kinda exhausting and frustrating because all we had in mind was finishing that album. When we came back from this tour, we had a very short amount of time to actually finish it. Now I feel that we should’ve taken this “tour time” to work on the album instead. Still happy with what came out of it, but I don’t know. The first six months of 2019 were very intense. Being in a band is a constant “hit or miss” experience, gotta live with your good and bad decisions and move forward.
WRH: With the time crunch involved in the writing and recording of Junior, when did you know that you had finished material? Would you return to such a creative process?
DB: By the time the Sub Pop contract was inked, we had four finished song and a lot of incomplete ideas. We took a month to write new songs, practice and fine tune them. Then we just played all of the finished and “almost” finished songs to our producer Emmanuel Ethier and he helped us select which ones we would record in the studio the next month. Not sure if we would return to such creative process. We like to try new things. I don’t know what we’ll do next, but I’m pretty sure we’ll take more time to write the fourth album and return with something fresh.
The band features longtime best friends Dominic Berthiaume (vocals, bass) and Jonathan Robert (vocals, guitar, synths). To me Junior’s material and your live show seems to reflect that sort of deep and abiding closeness – that sort of unwritten and unspoken connection really shines between the duo and the rest of the band. How is like to write, record and perform with your best friend?
DB: We’ve had punk and hardcore bands together. I think some of the live energy still come from there. Performing live is all about fun, I think the moment we won’t be enjoying ourselves on stage we’ll just stop playing shows. I personally never had a band without Jonathan, so writing, recording and performing music with my best friend is kinda all I know. It’s been great, I’d say we agree on most of the things, when we don’t, the other guys settle it. Corridor is democratic, the majority always wins.
WRH: Corridor is about to embark on a Stateside tour, that will include a March 4th stop at Rough Trade. You’re starting to play larger venues on this run, and it feels like there’s some serious momentum surrounding the band. How does that feel? And what should we expect on this run?
DB: Since last fall we’ve added new live member Samuel Gougoux, it’s been great to rework some of the older songs with him. Hopefully we will play a different set from what we played at Union Pool; I should keep track of what we play in the cities we tour lol. I guess playing in larger venues is cool, sound systems are usually better quality and it makes Miguel (our sound engineer) happy. I like when Miguel is happy. We’ll tour Florida for the first time, I’m always excited when we play places we’ve never been before. Escaping to the south from a winter month in Montreal is pretty awesome too.
WRH: After you finish this run of tour dates, what’s next?
DB: Some rest in April. More runs of tour dates in May, June, July and August and maybe more in the fall. 2020 will be a touring year. Hopefully we’ll write some new stuff between tours. We’ll see how it goes.
