Tag: Montreal QC

News/Announcements by William Ruben Helms

M for Montreal — M pour Montreal in French — is an annual conference, which takes place over the course of four days in late November in Canada’s second largest city. Since the inaugural conference back in 2005, M for Montreal has quickly expanded to feature a selection of over 100 emerging, buzz-worthy and/or breakout acts from across Quebec, the rest of Canada and internationally playing in showcases in some of Montreal’s top venues.

The annual conference also welcomes over 300 music industry professionals to Montreal for professional programming and networking tailored specifically for folks in the industry. This year, conference delegates will be able to attend a full slate of panels and workshops that address some of the most pressing issues, trends and talking points in the music industry today, including copyright in the Metaverse, the impact of international A&R, and the industry’s relationship with mental health, among others. The conference will also host several keynote sessions led by some of the industry’s major players, including Sub Pop Records‘ CEO Megan Jasper.

This year also marks the return of additional activities and events for delegates to partake in throughout the conference’s four days. Past favorites like the Music PEI Brunch Club, Artist Lab, co-presented by TuneCore and QUB musique and M for Marathon presented by SiriusXM all return this year. Additionally, there will be a variety of professional networking opportunities, including in-person mixers for delegates — or through the virtual M for Mixer platform. Partner delegations from Wales and the Czech Republic will also be in town to present activities for Pro badge holders. Of course, hopefully the delegates will have some free time to eat a couple of smoked meat sandwiches, some poutine and maybe even some bagels while in town. (I attended in 2019 and stopped at La Banquise for some late night poutine — and I’m still dreaming of it. Seriously, it was that good!)

M for Montreal’s organizers announced the first wave of showcasing artists earlier this year. But as they’re gearing up for the conference, they recently announce the full lineup of artists in its 2022 Official Selection series. Now spotlighting 29 of Canada’s most exciting, buzz-worthy acts (up from 20 last year), this year’s Official Selection embraces the conference’s values of equity and inclusivity, featuring artists from a diverse spectrum of identities, backgrounds and genres.

Some of the Official Selection acts include Quebecois experimental indie rock outfit Bibi Club, acclaimed Belgian-Canadian singer/songwriter Cedric Noel, Vancouver heavy shoegazers Kamikaze Nurse, and Ontario Anishinabe indie duo Ombiigizi. (The full lineup is right below.)

The 17th edition of M for Montreal will feature two portions — a virtual conference that will take place from November 9, 2022 – November 10, 2022 and an in-person conference that will take place from November 16, 2022 – November 19, 2022.

Passes for this year are on sale right now and are available in two tiers: All-access Pro badges and Melomaniac badges available to the general public — but quantities are limited. Check out the following link for information and to purchase: https://mpourmontreal.com/en/billetterie/

News/Announcements by William Ruben Helms

12 years ago, I started what has been for me — my life’s work.

And honestly, when I started this site, I couldn’t have imagined three-quarters of the things I’ve done and experienced over JOVM’s history to ever happen. 

  • I’ve covered roughly 1,100-1,200 shows in NYC, with a handful of shows in Chicago, Baltimore and Philadelphia.
  • I’ve covered about a dozen or more festivals, including traveling to Montreal for M for Montreal back in 2019. 
  • I’ve been a panelist at Mondo.NYC Festival and at New Colossus Festival, speaking about PR, promotion and press for indie artists, giving my perspective as a indie blogger. 
  • A few years ago, I made a cameo in a JOVM mainstay’s music video. It’s a very noticeable spot towards the end of the video. It was a fun experience, but so far no one has called me about acting gigs. Maybe I need to stick to the writing and photography? 
  • I couldn’t have imagined photographing George Clinton, Patti LaBelle, Snoop Dogg, Blondie, Nile Rodgers, Roky Erickson, Philip Bailey, Blind Boys of Alabama and so many others, as well as this site’s countless mainstays.
  • I wouldn’t have met the countless colleagues and musicians, who have become supporters and friends. And by far, music friends have proven to be the very best of friends. 

JOVM turned 10 in June 2020. And during the middle of the very worst of the pandemic, things seemed — understandably — bleak. And although we’re slowly managed to claw our way back to a degree of normalcy, in which gathering together can happen, things across the music industry still seem rather bleak: Touring has always been a big financial risk for musicians but COVID-19 has made it even more complicated, because musicians are out there risking their health and lives — because they need to make money to live. 

We’re all trying to figure out how to maneuver in a new, confusing and uncertain landscape that may well be with us for an indefinite period of time. But with these past 12 years under my belt, I have no intentions of going anywhere. 

I strongly believe that I’ve managed to carve out a unique spot in the blogosphere, a place that I feel is desperately necessary because both the music and media worlds are often so incredibly homogenous. Someone out there has to do something different. And representation in every aspect matters. So in many ways, this has to continue. 

As I do every month, I want to thank the following folks and organizations. Without them this past few years — and especially this year — wouldn’t have been remotely possible: 

Sash

Alice Northover

Bella Fox

Jenny MacRostie

Janene Otten 

All of those folks have been generous Patreon patrons. Of course, feel free to check out the Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/TheJoyofViolentMovement. And if you’re able to support, your support will be greatly appreciated and continuously shouted out. Any amount really helps. Seriously. 

I must thank the folks at Creatives Rebuild New York. I’m relieved, proud and humbled to be included in their Guaranteed Income for Artists program. The money I’ll receive over the next 18 months will be put to good use — keeping this little dream of mine going. I don’t think there’s enough words to thank them — or to show how grateful I am. (I’ll keep trying, of course!) 

There are other ways you can support. 

You can also support by checking the JOVM shop: https://www.joyofviolentmovement.com/shop 

You can also support my following me on the following platforms:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/william_ruben_helms 

Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/yankee32879 and https://www.twitter.com/joyofviolent 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheJoyofViolentMovement

And you can hire me for headshots, portraits and events. Seriously, I’m available for that, too. You can click here: https://www.photobooker.com/photographer/ny/new-york/william-h?duration=1?duration=1# or you can contact me directly.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Jonathan Personne Shares Gorgeous “À présent”

Montreal-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, animator and visual artist Jonathan Robert may be best known for being a co-founder and co-lead vocalist of internationally acclaimed JOVM mainstay act Corridor. But Robert is also an acclaimed solo artist, writing and performing as Jonathan Personne.

Robert’s solo debut as Jonathan Personne, Histoire Naturelle, sonically drew from desert dream pop, Western Spaghetti rock and jangle pop. Thematically, the album’s material focused on the potential end of the world. Of course, with the album’s timing, it might have hit the nail a bit too hard on the head.

His sophomore Jonathan Personne album, 2020’s Guillaume Chiasson-product Disparitions was primarily written while the Montreal-based artist was touring with Corridor, and came about in a quick and fluid fashion. While the album saw Robert continuing upon the hook-driven yet intimate and sensitive songwriting that has won him acclaim as a solo artist, Disparitions was largely inspired by moment when music became a source of profound disgust. “I spent a lot of time touring away from home. Towards the end I felt like I was reluctantly going to do something that I had longed wished for,” Robert explained in press notes. 

The Montreal-based singer/songwriter began 2022 by signing with Bonsound, who will be releasing his third Jonathan Personne album, the Emmanuel Éthier-produced Jonathan Personne on Friday. Written alone on an acoustic guitar in a cottage, the album took an unexpected turn, when the Montreal-based artist went to Quebec City-based Le Pantoum with his friends and frequent collaborators Samuel Gougoux (drums), Julian Perreault (guitar), Mathieu Cloutier (bass) and the aforementioned Éthier (violin, synths, mellotron, vocals and production). The album’s material features arrangements centered around electric guitar, 12-string acoustic guitar, Rhodes, timpani, mellotron, synths, violin and even samples, the eight-song album continues Robert’s reputation for crafting material inspired by 60s pop and Spaghetti Westerns but with samples from obscure TV shows and movies, blistering rock grooves and extravagant guitar licks, the album features a more polished production than previous releases. 

Packaged with a Jonathan Robert illustration in which two children discover the remains of a dead body, the album thematically is rooted in duality: While continuing his reputation for breezy guitar pop, the album’s material is simultaneously brutal and sinister, yet candid. The album’s material evokes a mysterious world where ghosts, the supernatural, fate and broken characters with broken lives all intertwine and interact.

Featuring a Jonathan Robert illustration in which two children discover the remains of a dead body as its album cover art, the album thematically is rooted in duality: Continuing his reputation for breezy guitar pop, the album is also brutal, sinister yet candid. The end result is an album that evokes a mysterious world where ghosts, the supernatural, fate and broken characters with broken lives intertwine. 

In the lead-up to the album’s release later this week, I’ve managed to write about two album singles:

  • “Un homme sans visage” a deceptively breezy song centered around an arrangement of gorgeous Mellotron-driven melody, jangling guitar, simple yet propulsive rhythms, bursts of lap steep, big hooky choruses and Robert’s plaintive falsetto. While continuing to be lovingly inspired by the sounds of the late 60s, the song is a bittersweet, modern fable of sorts that tells a story about a man, whose face is badly burned in a fire. 
  • “Rock & roll sur ton chemin,” a deceptively straightforward rocker centered around a loose and breezy surf rock-like riff and a churning groove paired with dreamily delivered falsetto harmonies and Robert’s penchant for big, catchy hooks paired with subtle amounts of bongo, Mellotron and whistles. But despite it’s breezy air, the song is bittersweet and drenched with irony with the song being a tribute to dying art forms and those, who still practice them. “Devoting oneself to a genre destined to failure, there’s something pathetic about it, but also something very beautiful,” Robert says.

Jonathan Personne‘s third and latest single, “À présent” sounds indebted to Scott Walker‘s orchestral pop and Phil Spector‘s famous Wall of Sound production but with a greatest emphasis on the jangling rhythm section, which subtly pushes the whole affair into more contemporary realm. Thematically, the song depicts a world where excess, speed and love coexist in a setting that’s kind of a synthesis of Romeo and Juliet and James Dean’s life with the song’s central couple dying in a horrific accident.

Animated by Mathieu Larone and Henry McClellan, the accompanying video for “À présent” is abstract but centered in dualities, evoking the album’s themes: the animation is both childlike and disturbing, broodingly dark and colorful. But throughout, the intention was to present the optimistic vision of a new beginning.

“Mathieu and Henry were able to translate the song into images, and it’s just beautiful! It’s like an excerpt from the movie Fantasia, only weirder, darker, and done by the NFB rather than Disney,” Jonathan Robert says.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Julia Jacklin Shares Hazy and Earnest “Be Careful With Yourself”

With the release of 2016’s full-length debut, the folky Don’t Let The Kids Win, acclaimed Melbourne-based singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Julia Jacklin quickly carved out a reputation for being a direct lyricist, willing to excavate the parameters of intimacy and anger with songs that were simultaneously stark and raw, loose and playful. 2018’s sophomore album Crushing managed to draw the listener in even closer. 

Jacklin’s third album PRE PLEASURE is slated for a Friday release through Polyvinyl Record Co. Conceived upon returning home at the end of an extensive world tour to support Crushing, PRE PLEASURE‘s material was finished in a frantic few months of recording in Montreal with co-producer Marcus Paquin. “The songs on this record took either three years to write or three minutes,” Jacklin says. 

Jacklin teamed up with her Canadian touring band, which features The Weather Station’s Ben Whiteley (bass) and Will Kidman (guitar), Folly and the Hunter’s Laurie Torres (drums) and Adam Kinner (drums), as well as string arrangements by Owen Pallett recorded by a full orchestra in Prague. 

“Making a record to me has always just been about the experience, a new experience in a new place with a new person at the desk, taking the plunge and just seeing what happens” Jacklin says of traveling to Canada to work with a new producer for the third time in as many albums. “For the first time I stepped away from the guitar, and wrote a lot of the album on the Roland keyboard in my apartment in Montreal with its inbuilt band tracks. I blu-tacked reams of butcher paper to the walls, covered in lyrics and ideas, praying to the music gods that my brain would arrange everything in time.” 

The album reportedly sees Jacklin expanding upon her signature sound while thematically conjuring the ripples and fault lines caused by unreliable communication. 

In the lead-up to PRE PLEASURE‘s release, I’ve written about two of the album’s singles:

  • “I Was Neon,” a relentless motorik groove-driven track featuring buzzing guitars, Jacklin’s plaintive delivery and an enormous, arena rock friendly hook. And while being an anthemic bit of rock-leaning pop — or perhaps pop-leaning rock? — the song is rooted in earnest, lived-in lyricism that simultaneously expresses crippling self-doubt with a deeply, intelligent, almost winking self-awareness of how ridiculous it all is. 
  •  “Love, Try Not To Let Go” is a shimmering and swooning Fleetwood Mac-like track featuring Jacklin’s achingly tender delivery floating over twinkling keys, reverb-drenched guitars before exploding into thundering guitar chords during the song’s bridge. It’s a fittingly gorgeous yet brooding arrangement for a song that describes the confusing mix of hesitation and desire one feels towards love, heartbreak and moving forward. 

“Be Careful With Yourself,” PRE PLEASURE‘s is a hazy and dreamy slow-burner, centered around layers of jangling guitars, driving rhythms and ethereal harmonies paired with Jacklin’s effortless vocals and her unerring knack for anthemic hooks. At itNs core though, “Be Careful With Yourself” is an honest and vulnerable love song full of hope — hope for the longevity of the partner and the relationship in a way that captures the hopes of a fledging relationship.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Rising Paris-born, Montreal-based singer/songwriter and JOVM mainstay Thaïs specializes in an atmospheric and delicate take on pop centered around the French Canadian artist’s ethereal vocals. Thematically her work focuses on melancholy, loneliness and dysfunctional, confusing, heartbreaking love. 

Last year’s Paradis Artificiels EP featured two tracks I wrote about: 

  • “Boreal,” a track inspired by a trip she took to Iceland that evoked the awe-inspiring sense of being in a gorgeous, natural beauty and taking it all in deeply
  • “Sushi Solitude,” an atmospheric and delicate bit of synth pop that brought Washed Out to mind. 

2022 has been a big year for the Montreal-based JOVM mainstay: Earlier this year, Thaïs signed to Bravo Musique, who released Tout est parfait: acte un back in May. The EP features features two tracks I wrote about on this site:

  • “Arrête de danser,” a slickly produced bop centered around glistening and atmospheric synth arpeggios and trap beats that saw the rising French Canadian artist alternating between a syncopated trap-like flow for the song’s verses and ethereal cooing for the song’s hook and choruses. And while arguably being one of her most club friendly songs, “Arrête de danser” is a bitter tell-off to an unhealthy, dysfunctional lover that the song’s narrator knows deep down is wrong for her — and yet can’t quite quit. 
  • The Coeur de Pirate co-written, Renaud Bastien-produced “Vieux Port,” a danceable and deceptively upbeat bop featuring wobbling bass synth, glistening and arpeggiated synth melodies, twinkling keys, some brief bursts of industrial clang and clatter and soaring strings paired with Thaïs ethereal cooing. But just underneath the surface is a song that details a relationship that’s seemingly on the ropes while contemplating the passing of time and the desire to turn the clock back — with the knowledge you have now. 

The JOVM mainstays second EP of the year, Tout est parfait: act deux is slated for a September 2, 2022 release. The EP’s first single “Le vent” is a breezy pop song featuring twinkling and atmospheric synths arpeggios and skittering trap-inspired beats paired with Thaïs’ ethereal cooing.

The song’s title, which translates into English as “The Wind” is structured to evoke a gust of wind for the verses and a brewing storm for the song’s choruses. And at its core, the song continues a remarkable run of material imbued with an achingly bittersweet nostalgia over a long lost love that deep down she knows she can’t get back.


Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Montreal’s Dawn to Dawn Share Breezy and Nostalgic “Stereo”

When Montreal-based electro pop artists Tess Roby, Adam Ohr and Patrick Lee hung out together for the first time back in late 2018, they had no intention of starting a band together. The trio initially gathered at Lee’s Mile End studio with no expectations — but with a mutual admiration of each other’s work.

Interestingly enough, as the story goes, they stated playing and almost immediately felt a deep, musical kinship. Over the next few months, the trio became close friends, while finding themselves inspired again in a way that they’d all been long seeking.

Songs came flowing out of those informal sessions, with the trio writing and producing material communally, and in circadian rhythm. They released their first singles as Dawn to Dawn, “Meridian,” “A Colour Named By You” and “Care” between 2020 and 2021. Each of those singles found the trio quickly establishing a sound that has been described as sitting halfway between spectral dream pop and abstract dance-oriented soundscapes.

The band’s full-length debut, the nine-song, Postcards From The Sun To The Moon is slated for an October 6, 2022 release through Roby’s label SSURROUNDSS. The album reportedly features all-enveloping music that could only be made by musicians, who have complete trust in one another: Roby would write off-the-cuff lyrics in the room during their jam sessions. Then Ohr and Lee would take these versions and edit them, experimenting with processing, before bringing tracks back to listen together — and then distill into their final forms. Mixed by fellow Montreal artists Patrick Holland and Pierre Guerineau and featuring impressionistic album art by Hugo Bernier, the album is meant to enjoyed with — or without — a fixed destination in mind.

Postcards From The Sun To The Moon‘s first single, “Stereo” is an infectious and coquettish bop centered around glistening and atmospheric synths and thumping 909s paired with Roby’s ethereal and plaintive vocals. While being a summery and breezy bit of dance friendly pop, the song is rooted in nostalgia for carefree, sweltering summer nights.

“This song captures the sound of summer: sweltering nights, afterparties and playful romance. It was written deep in the 2020 winter lockdown, as we imagined the parties of summer’s past,” the Montreal-based trio explain. “A breaky, forward moving 909 beat carries airy synths that glide beneath Tess’ airy vocals. Weightless and captivating, Stereo is an anthem for years to come.”

Directed by Tess Roby and shot by Hugo Bernier and the members of Dawn to Dawn, the accompanying video for “Stereo” begins with following the trio as they walk through what appears to be Mont Royal Park to view the sunset over downtown Montreal, then to a local arcade, hangouts at bars with pals, stops at bodegas (well, the Montreal version of a bodega) to get booze, water and what not before heading to a late night after party. Throughout the entire video, there’s a playful and carefree air that’s only possible during the summer.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays Preoccupations Share Atmospheric and Brooding “Death of Melody”

Canadian post punk outfit and JOVM mainstays Preoccupations —  Matt Flegel (bass, vocals), Mike Wallace (drums), Scott Munro (guitar) and Daniel Christiansen (guitar) — will be releasing their fourth, full-length album Arrangements on September 9, 2022. Longtime label home Flemish Eye will handle the release throughout Canada while the band will self-release the album outside of Canada. 

Initial work on Arrangements began in the fall of 2019, when Flegel and Christiansen met up with Munro at his Montreal-based Studio St. Zo. The trio wrote the album’s material and recorded all of the bed tracks together. Wallace then joined in and recorded his parts. With all of the instrumental parts laid down, the band planned to reconvene in a few months and decided what else the songs needed.

When the COVID-19 pandemic struck, the JOVM mainstays’ plans to reconvene in person were halted. At the time Munro was in Calgary on tour with his partner when the shutdowns began, so he wound up staying with his parents for the next 16 months. He whipped up a make-shift studio in his parents house, and the rest of the record was finished remotely with Munro and Flegel sending tracks back and forth to each other: Munro’s vocal and keyboard parts were completed in that set up while Flegel’s vocal parts were laid down in New York. Holy Fuck‘s Graham Walsh mixed the record and Total Control‘s Mikey Young mastered it. 

Interestingly, pandemic isolation helped to encourage the band to reconnect with elements of their earlier releases: Munro, holed up in Calgary with endless weed gummies, obsessively doubled keyboards on guitars and vice versa, sampled the recordings using an old Ensoniq keyboard sampler and made new parts out of the samples. While on 2016’s self-titled and 2018’s New Material, Munro was committed to making keyboards the centerpiece, Arrangements sees guitar returning to the spotlight — an instrument that he describes as much more fun and visceral to play. Throughout most of the album, Christiansen employs a unique tuning that sees him blurring and smearing his parts while Munro’s standard-tuned riffs provide melody and clarity. The end result is an album that sonically will see the band weaving their guitar-heavy origins with their more synth-based recent work to create what may arguably be their most intense and playful album to date. 

Much like its predecessor New Material, Arrangements‘ title is simultaneously literal and cheeky — a sharp contrast to their overall aesthetic. Thematically, the album is dark and direct: “The lyrics are pretty conspicuous and self explanatory on this one, but it’s basically about the world blowing up and no one giving a shit,” says Flegel. 

Last month, I wrote about Arrangements‘ first single, ““Ricochet,” a murky and dark churner featuring layers of glistening and distorted guitar slashes, rolling and lashing snares,atmospheric synth arpeggios and a propulsive bass line paired with Flegel’s mournful, embittered delivery and their penchant for rousingly anthemic hooks. And while being a slick and seamless synthesis of their earliest work and their most recent work, “Ricochet” manages to evoke the creeping, existential dread we have all felt lately — and perhaps continue to feel — during one of the most heightened and uncertain periods in recent memory.

“Death of Melody,” Arrangements‘ second and latest single is a brooding and tumbling track centered around textured, reverb-drenched shoegazer-like haze, martial, machine-like rhythms paired with Flegel’s plaintive delivery fed through even more distortion. Sonically “Death of Melody” is a one-half funhouse in hell, one-half vacillating thoughts tumbling about in the mind of an anxious, uncertain person.

“It’s about having a song stuck in your head, and having no idea what it is, and driving yourself to the brink of dementia trying to figure out what it is” Preoccupations’ Flegel explains. “It’s about knowing and forgetting, existing in the middle ground between the permanent and temporary.”

Directed by Yoonha Park, the accompanying visual for “Death of Melody” features a black and white photo of the band that looks as though it were given a kaleidoscopic, funhouse mirror treatment in which makes the band look monstrous.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Julia Jacklin Shares Gorgeous, Piano-Driven “Love, Try Not To Let Go”

With the release of 2016’s full-length debut, the folky Don’t Let The Kids Win, acclaimed Melbourne-based singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Julia Jacklin quickly carved out a reputation for being a direct lyricist, willing to excavate the parameters of intimacy and anger in songs that are simultaneously stark and raw, loose and playful. 2018’s sophomore album Crushing managed to draw the listener in even closer. 

Jacklin’s third album PRE PLEASURE is slated for an August 26, 2022 through Polyvinyl Record Co. Conceived upon returning home at the end of an extensive world tour to support Crushing, PRE PLEASURE‘s material was finished in a frantic few months of recording in Montreal with co-producer Marcus Paquin. “The songs on this record took either three years to write or three minutes,” Jacklin says. 

Jacklin teamed up with her Canadian touring band, which features The Weather Station’s Ben Whiteley (bass) and Will Kidman (guitar), Folly and the Hunter’s Laurie Torres (drums) and Adam Kinner (drums), as well as string arrangements by Owen Pallett recorded by a full orchestra in Prague. 

“Making a record to me has always just been about the experience, a new experience in a new place with a new person at the desk, taking the plunge and just seeing what happens” Jacklin says of traveling to Canada to work with a new producer for the third time in as many albums. “For the first time I stepped away from the guitar, and wrote a lot of the album on the Roland keyboard in my apartment in Montreal with its inbuilt band tracks. I blu-tacked reams of butcher paper to the walls, covered in lyrics and ideas, praying to the music gods that my brain would arrange everything in time.” 

The album reportedly sees Jacklin expanding upon her signature sound while thematically conjuring the ripples and fault lines caused by unreliable communication.

Last month, I wrote about album single “I Was Neon,” a relentless motorik groove-driven track featuring buzzing guitars, Jacklin’s plaintive delivery and an enormous, arena rock friendly hook. And while being an anthemic bit of rock-leaning pop — or perhaps pop-leaning rock? — the song is rooted in earnest, lived-in lyricism that simultaneously expresses crippling self-doubt with a deeply, intelligent, almost winking self-awareness of how ridiculous it all is.

“I first wrote ‘I Was Neon’ for a band called rattlesnack, a short-lived much loved 2019 side project that I played drums in,” Jacklin explains. “I rewrote it for my album in Montreal, during a time when I was desperately longing for a version of myself that I feared was gone forever. I was thinking of this song when I made the album cover, this song is the album cover really.”  

PRE PLEASURE‘s latest single “Love, Try Not To Let Go” is a shimmering and swooning Fleetwood Mac-like track featuring Jacklin’s achingly tender delivery floating over twinkling keys, reverb-drenched guitars before exploding into thundering guitar chords during the song’s bridge. It’s a fittingly gorgeous yet brooding arrangement for a song that describes the confusing mix of hesitation and desire one feels towards love, heartbreak and moving forward.

Directed by Jacklin and Nick Mckk, the accompanying, playful video for “Love, Try Not To let Go” expands upon the color palette on the cover art and follows Jacklin skipping and dancing down a suburban Melbourne street while singing the song’s lyrics, with a stop to embrace a tree –and in the background, you can see peeks of the city’s skyline in the distance. The video also stars a neighborhood cat — because well, of course it would.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Montreal’s Teenage Witch Shares a 120 Minutes MTV-Like Ripper

Sabrina Coté is a Montreal-based singer/songwriter, musician and creative mastermind behind the DIY indie rock recording project Teenage Witch. Coté’s latest single “Jaloux” is a 120 Minutes-era MTV bop centered around a classic grunge song structure with alternating loud passages featuring fuzzy power chord driven riffage for the choruses and quieter passes with dreamy, shoegazer-like guitars for the song’s verses. It’s all held together by a simple yet thunderous backbeat paired with Coté’s icy delivery.

Sonically, the song features subtle elements of post-punk and grunge — while revealing an artist, who can shred hard and write an infectious hook.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Besnard Lakes’ Sheenah Ko Shares a Dance Floor Friendly Anthem

Montreal-based singer/songwriter and synth pop artist Sheenah Ko may be best known for being a core member of acclaimed Montreal-based shoegazer outfit Besnard Lakes. Interestingly, as a solo artist Ko has gained a reputation for being a fearless musical warrior, who marches to the beat of her own drum.

Ko’s recently released nine-song, sophomore album Future Is Now was written to encourage listeners to broaden their horizons, break the cycle, effect change and to live life to the fullest. Future Is Now‘s latest single “Wake Up” is a glittery dance floor banger seemingly drawing from Ray of Light-era Madonna and 90s house music: Thumping beats are paired with Giorgio Moroder-like oscillating synths, wobbling bass synths, Ko’s sultry pop star delivery, relentless four-on-the-floor and infectious hook.

But while being a dance floor friendly banger, the song is rooted in a much-needed, positive message: the time to change the world is now! There’s no time to waste!

Produced by Ken Atwind and Martine Groulx, the accompanying video for “Wake Up” follows a collection of corporate worker bee types, who are bored and dissatisfied automatons at their boring jobs. They slowly begin to wake up and connect back to their more youthful, fun loving selves in an epic dance party in the snow and in a club. But more important, by connecting with their youthful selves, they have hopes and dreams of a better world.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Jonathan Personne Shares Groovy New Single

Jonathan Robert is a Montreal-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, animator and visual artist, who is best known for being a co-founder and co-lead vocalist of the internationally acclaimed JOVM mainstay act Corridor.

Now, if you’ve been frequenting this site over the past couple of years, you may recall that Robert released his solo debut as Jonathan Personne, Histoire Naturelle, an album that sonically drew from desert dream pop, Western Spaghetti rock and jangle pop. Thematically, the album focused on the potential end of the world. (With the album’s timing, it may have hit the nail on the head a bit too hard, eh?)

Robert’s Jonathan Personne sophomore album, 2020’s Guillaume Chiasson-product Disparitions was primarily written while the Montreal-based artist was touring with Corridor, and came about in a quick and fluid fashion. While seeing him continuing upon the hook-driven yet intimate and sensitive songwriting that has won him acclaim,  Disparitions was largely inspired by a moment when music became a source of profound disgust for him. “I spent a lot of time touring away from home. Towards the end I felt like I was reluctantly going to do something that I had longed wished for,” Robert explained in press notes. 

Earlier this year, Robert signed with Montreal-based label Bonsound, who will be releasing his third Jonathan Personne album, the Emmanuel Éthier-produced Jonathan Personne on August 26, 2022. Written alone on an acoustic guitar in a cottage, the album took an unexpected turn, when the Montreal-based artist went to Quebec City-based Le Pantoum with his friends and frequent collaborators Samuel Gougoux (drums), Julian Perreault (guitar), Mathieu Cloutier (bass) and the aforementioned Éthier (violin, synths, mellotron, vocals and production). Featuring arrangements centered around electric guitar, 12-string acoustic guitar, Rhodes, timpani, mellotron, synths, violin and even samples, the eight-song album continues Robert’s reputation for crafting material inspired by 60s pop and Spaghetti Westerns but with samples from obscure TV shows and movies, blistering rock grooves and extravagant guitar licks, the album features a more polished production than previous releases.

Featuring a Jonathan Robert illustration in which two children discover the remains of a dead body as its album cover art, the album thematically is rooted in duality: Continuing his reputation for breezy guitar pop, the album is also brutal, sinister yet candid. The end result is an album that evokes a mysterious world where ghosts, the supernatural, fate and broken characters with broken lives intertwine.

Last month, Bonsound and Robert released the album’s first single, “Un homme sans visage” a deceptively breezy song featuring an arrangement of gorgeous Mellotron-driven melody, jangling guitar, simple yet propulsive rhythms, bursts of lap steep, big hooky choruses and Robert’s plaintive falsetto. While continuing to be lovingly inspired by the sounds of the late 60s, But the song is a bittersweet, sort of modern fable that tells a story about a man, whose face is badly burned in a fire.

Jonathan Personne‘s second and latest single, “Rock & roll sur ton chemin,” is a deceptive straightforward rocker centered around a loose and breezy surf rock-like riff and a churning groove paired with dreamily delivered falsetto harmonies and Robert’s penchant for big, catchy hooks. Along with that, the song features subtle bit of bongo, Mellotron and whistles, which add to the song’s breezy vibes. But much like its predecessor, the song is actually bittersweet: The song is a tribute to dying art forms and those who still practice them. “Devoting oneself to a genre destined to failure, there’s something pathetic about it, but also something very beautiful,” Robert says.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Julia Jacklin Shares Anthemic “I Was Neon”

With the release of 2016’s full-length debut, the folky Don’t Let The Kids Win, acclaimed Melbourne-based singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Julia Jacklin has carved out a reputation as a rather direct lyricist, willing to excavate the parameters of intimacy and angry in songs that are simultaneously stark and raw, loose and playful. 2018’s sophomore album Crushing drew the listener in even closer.

Jacklin’s third album PRE PLEASURE is slated for an August 26, 2022 through Polyvinyl Record Co. Conceived upon returning home at the end of an extensive world tour to support Crushing, PRE PLEASURE‘s material was finished in a frantic few months of recording in Montreal with co-producer Marcus Paquin. “The songs on this record took either three years to write or three minutes,” Jacklin says.

Jacklin teamed up with her Canadian touring band, which featured The Weather Station’s Ben Whiteley (bass) and Will Kidman (guitar), Folly and the Hunter’s Laurie Torres (drums) and Adam Kinner (drums), as well as string arrangements by Owen Pallett recorded by a full orchestra in Prague.

“Making a record to me has always just been about the experience, a new experience in a new place with a new person at the desk, taking the plunge and just seeing what happens” Jacklin says of traveling to Canada to work with a new producer for the third time in as many albums. “For the first time I stepped away from the guitar, and wrote a lot of the album on the Roland keyboard in my apartment in Montreal with its inbuilt band tracks. I blu-tacked reams of butcher paper to the walls, covered in lyrics and ideas, praying to the music gods that my brain would arrange everything in time.” 

Conceived upon returning home at the end of a mammoth Crushing world tour, and finished in a frantic few months of recording in Montreal with (“The songs on this record took either three years to write or three minutes”), PRE PLEASURE sees Jacklin expanding beyond her signature sound, while conjuring the ripples and fault lines caused by unreliable communication.

Sonically, PRE PLEASURE reportedly sees Jacklin and her backing band expanding upon the sound that has won her acclaim internationally while the album thematically focuses on the ripples and faultiness caused by unreliable communication.

PRE PLEASURE‘s latest single, the driving “I Was Neon” is features a relentless motorik groove, buzzing guitars, Jacklin’s plaintive delivery and an enormous, arena rock-like hook. And while being an anthemic bit of rock-leaning pop — or pop-leaning rock? — the song is centered around earnest, lived-in lyrics that simultaneously express crippling self-doubt but with a deeply intelligent, almost winking self-awareness of how ridiculous it is.

“I first wrote ‘I Was Neon’ for a band called rattlesnack, a short-lived much loved 2019 side project that I played drums in,” Jacklin explains. “I rewrote it for my album in Montreal, during a time when I was desperately longing for a version of myself that I feared was gone forever. I was thinking of this song when I made the album cover, this song is the album cover really.”  

Directed by Jacklin, the accompanying video for “I Was Neon” was shot in Melbourne and features the acclaimed Aussie singer/songwriter in an elaborate get up — a long dress, gloves, lots of rings and the like while playing guitar in a quirky and cluttered apartment that’s roughly the size of a box, and follows her as she bops around from room to room. We also follow Jacklin as she wanders a suburban, wooded area and swings near a lake. The video is a surreal fever dream in which its protagonist seems to be negotiating between stage presence and her real self.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Canadian post punk outfit and JOVM mainstays Preoccupations —  Matt Flegel (bass, vocals), Mike Wallace (drums), Scott Munro (guitar) and Daniel Christiansen (guitar) — will be releasing their fourth, full-length album Arrangements on September 9, 2022. Longtime label home Flemish Eye will handle the release throughout Canada while the band will self-release the album outside of Canada.

Initial work on Arrangements began in the fall of 2019, when Flegel and Christiansen met up with Munro at his Montreal-based Studio St. Zo. The trio wrote the album’s material and recorded all of the bed tracks together. Wallace then joined in and recorded his parts. With all of the instrumental parts laid down, the band planned to reconvene in a few months and decided what else the songs needed.

When the COVID-19 pandemic struck, the JOVM mainstays’ plans were to reconvene in person were halted. At the time Munro was in Calgary on tour with his partner when the shutdowns began, so he wound up staying with parents for the next 16 months. He whipped up a make-shift studio in his parents house, and the rest of the record was finished remotely with Munro and Flegel sending tracks back and forth to each other: Munro’s vocal and keyboard parts were completed in that set up while Flegel’s vocal parts were laid down in New York. Holy Fuck‘s Graham Walsh mixed the record and Total Control‘s Mikey Young mastered it.

Interestingly, pandemic isolation encouraged the members of the band to reconnect with elements of their earlier releases: Munro, holed up in Calgary with endless weed gummies, obsessively doubled keyboards on guitars and vice versa, sampled the recordings using an old Ensoniq keyboard sample and made new parts out of the samples. While on 2016’s self-titled and 2018’s New Material, Munro was committed to making keyboards the centerpiece, Arrangements sees guitar returning to the spotlight — an instrument that he describes as much more fun and visceral to play. Throughout most of the album, Christiansen employs a unique tuning that sees him blurring and smearing his parts while Munro’s standard-tuned riffs provide melody and clarity. The end result is an album that sonically will see the band weaving their guitar-heavy origins with their more synth-based recent work to create what may arguably be their most intense and playful album to date.

Much like its predecessor New Material, Arrangements‘ title is simultaneously literal and cheeky — a sharp contrast to their overall aesthetic. Thematically, the album is dark and direct: “The lyrics are pretty conspicuous and self explanatory on this one, but it’s basically about the world blowing up and no one giving a shit,” says Flegel. 

“Ricochet,” Arrangements‘ first single, is a murky and dark churn featuring around layers of glistening and distorted guitar slashes, rolling and lashing snare, atmospheric synth arpeggios, a propulsive bass line paired with Flegal’s mournful, embittered delivery and their penchant for rousing hooks. While being a slick and seamless synthesis of their early work and their most recent work, “Ricochet” manages to evoke the creeping, existential dread we all felt — and perhaps continue to feel — during one of the most heightened periods in recent memory.

2022 NORTH AMERICAN TOUR DATES:

Oct 19th – Loving Touch – Detroit, MI

Oct 20th – Grog Shop – Cleveland, OH

Oct 21st – Lincoln Hall – Chicago, IL

Oct 22nd – Racoon Motel- Davenport, IA

Oct 23rd – Turf Club in St. Paul – Minneapolis, MN

Oct 26th – Commonwealth – Calgary, AB

Oct 28th – Tractor Tavern – Seattle, WA

Oct 29th – Biltmore Cabaret – Vancouver, BC

Oct 30th – Doug Fir Lounge – Portland, OR

Nov 2nd – Rickshaw Stop – San Francisco, CA

Nov 4th – Echoplex – Los Angeles, CA

Nov 5th – Valley – Phoenix, AZ

Nov 8th – Paper Tiger – San Antonio, TX

Nov 9th –  Parish – Austin, TX

Nov 10th – Three Links – Dallas, TX

Nov 12th – Aisle 5 – Atlanta, GA

Nov 16th – DC9 – Washington, DC

Nov 17th – Johnny Brendas – Philadelphia, PA

Nov 18th Bowery Ballroom – New York, NY

Nov 19th – Space Ballroom – Hamden, CT

Nov 21st –  The Sinclair – Boston, MA

Nov 22nd – Bar Le Ritz – Montreal, QC

Nov 24th – Lee’s – Toronto, ON