Tag: Montreal QC

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 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: JOVM Mainstay Blinker The Star Teams up with Emmanuelle Boies on a Lush and Yearning Cover

Over the past couple of years, I’ve spilled a copious amount of virtual ink covering the Blinker The Star, led by its  Pembroke, Ontario-born and-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and creative mastermind, Jordon Zadorozny. Initially started as a solo recording project, Blinker The Star has gone through several different iterations throughout its existence, including being a full-fledged band, as well as featuring a rotating cast of collaborators and players.

Zadorozny’s tenth Blinker The Star album, last year’s Arista was a covers album that saw the Canadian artist tackling hits by Solange, ZZ Top, No Doubt, Eurythmics, Pet Shop Boys, Boz Scaggs, The Rolling Stones, Land of Talk, Aerosmith and others. 

Continuing upon his long-held reputation for being remarkably prolific, Zadorozny’s 11th Blinker The Star album is dropping later this year. The album’s third and latest single, “Touch” is a cover of a song originally written and recorded by Digital Noise Academy, a project that featured Zadorozny, Failure‘s Ken Andrews, Creeper Lagoon‘s Sharky Laguana and an acclaimed cast of collaborators. The song appears on the project’s only album to date, 2013’s Synemy.

The Blinker The Star cover, which features Montreal-based vocalist Emmanuelle Boies is a fairly straightforward cover of a criminally under-appreciated and lushly arranged pop ballad featuring some well-placed, razor-sharp hooks, twinkling keys, shimmering guitars and some Guitar Hero-like guitar licks paired with Zadorozny and Boies’ gorgeous harmonies. But underneath the careful, deliberate attention to craft is a song full of palpable, earnest longing.

“I’d always loved the song and thought it deserved more attention,” the Pembroke-born and-based JOVM mainstay explains. “Emmanuelle and I had a few days alone at the studio this past spring, so we decided to see what our voices would sound like together and thought that ‘Touch’ would be the perfect song. It was written to be sung as a duet and once we lined our phrasing up, I knew it was going to work. 

“It’s a very sensual song and not only was it fun to sing, I loved getting a bit loose with the electric guitars during the end part. A lot of my time in the studio is spent in a very sober, analytical frame of mind, so it was fun to chug a beer and put on my Joe Perry hat for an hour.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Jonathan Personne Shares Deceptively Breezy “Un homme sans visage”

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

Back in 2019 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. (Hitting the nail on the head a bit too hard, perhaps?)

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 with his particular brand of intimate and sensitive songwriting, 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.

When he was able to do, Robert went to Quebec City-based Le Pantoum, where he and producer Guillaume Chiasson used analog recording techniques to record the album’s arrangements of electric guitar, 12-string acoustic guitar, Rhodes and timpani, as well as electronic samples, mellotron and synths.

Robert recently signed with Montreal-based label Bonsound, who will release his latest single, the Emmanuel Éthier-produced “Un homme sans visage.” “Un homme sans visage,” sees the Montreal-based artist eschewing the dense and complex arrangements on his previously released material, and going for a simpler, almost minimalist approach. Centered around a gorgeous Mellotron melody, jangling guitar, a simple yet propulsive rhythm, bursts of lap steel, Robert’s plaintive falsetto and big hooky choruses, the new single manages to be breezy yet deliberately crafted — while being lovingly inspired by the sounds of the late 60s. But under the breeziness is a song that’s actually a bittersweet sort of modern fable about a man, whose face is badly burned in a fire.

Directed by Robert, the accompanying video plays with shadows and light, amplifying contrasts and the image’s grain to create a dusty, old-timey aesthetic, while capturing the artist performing the song.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Yoo Doo Right Shares Mind-Bending and Epic “Feet Together, Face Up, On The Front Lawn”

Deriving their name from one of Can‘s best known — and perhaps most covered — songs, Montreal-based Yoo Doo Right — Justin Cober (guitar, synths, vocals), Charles Masson (bass) and John Talbot (drums, percussion) — have developed an improvisational-based approach that features elements of krautrock, shoegaze, post-rock and psych rock that the band has described as “a car crash in slow motion.” 

Since their formation, You Doo Right have become a highly in-demand live act that has toured across North America, including making a run of the festival circuit with stops at Levitation, M for Montreal, Sled Island, Pop Montreal and New Colossus Festival earlier this year. Back in 2018, the Montreal-based experimental outfit was the main support act for Acid Mothers Temple‘s North American tour that year — and as a result, they’ve shared stages with the likes of DIIV, A Place to Bury Strangers, Wooden Shjips, Kikagkiu Moyo, FACS, Frigs, and Jessica Moss and several others. 

Their full-length debut, last year’s Don’t Think You Can Escape Your Purpose featured the slow-burning exercise in restraint and unresolved tension, album title track “Don’t Think You Can Escape Your Purpose,” and the forceful and trippy motorik groove-driven “Presto Presto, Bella’s Dream.”

Yoo Doo Right’s highly-anticipated sophomore album A Murmur, Boundless To The East is slated for a June 10, 2022 through Mothland. After premiering the album’s material for hometown fans at Société des arts technologiques de Montréal, the band knew that there was only one way to record the album — live off-the-floor at Hotel2Tango. The band recruited acclaimed producer Radwan Ghazi Moumneh to assist them in crafting their vision.

A Murmur, Boundless To The East‘s first single, the epic “Feet Together, Face Up, On The Front Lawn,” features a lengthy introductory section featuring oceanic guitar feedback paired with thunderous drumming before morphing into a brief krautrock section featuring oscillating synths, driving rhythms and glistening guitars paired with punchily delivered vocals. The song ends with a lengthy coda of oceanic guitar feedback and thunderous drumming.
The end result manages to be a brooding mix of malevolence and uncanny beauty.

Mackenzie Reid Rostad created an accompanying short film shot with thermal cameras, which gives the entire proceeding a spectral vibe. “We knew we wanted to explore a narrative or continuity with the film and in the end, this happened to be that of enclosure. It’s both a product and a process of something that itself has no end,” Reid explains. “The track’s title and those for the rest of the album really echo this general desire to transcend this something as manifest in the proliferating enclosures of the visible (fences, power lines, highways, etc.) and non-visible (frontiers, thresholds) world. The entire video was shot with a thermal camera and beyond the materiality of the image (light/heat and visible/non-visible), its very existence is a fragment of the latter, as this kind of technology has been developed and heavily deployed in the service of private property and national frontiers. These are the kinds of things I’m thinking about when listening to Yoo Doo Right anyhow and again this something, of which enclosure is an aspect, is a process. I started with this somewhere in the back of my mind and the music pulled this process out of everything that followed.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays Spaceface Share an Anthemic Banger

Formed back in 2012 by Jake Ingalls, a former member of The Flaming Lips, the self-professed “retro-futurist dream rock” outfit Spaceface is currently split between Memphis and Los Angeles, and features a collection of current and past members of The Flaming Lips and Pierced. In the decade since their formation, the members of Spaceface have developed a reputation for crafting catchy songs with elements of dream pop, funk, rock and post-disco.

Now, if you’ve been frequenting this site over the course of the past year, you’d recall that the JOVM mainstays sophomore album Anemoia was released through Montreal-based label Mothland. The album is the result of several months spent back in 2019 at Blackwatch Studios, where the band spent several months working with Jarod Evans writing material inspired by funk rock and the turn of the millennium psychedelia revival.

Although the material can be initially perceived as a feat of efficient and minimalistic songwriting by Ignalls and a cast of friends and collaborators, centered around slick melodies, lush arrangements and effortlessly flowing rhythmic grooves, each spin reportedly will reveal a new layer while painting a positive but somewhat critical portrayal of modern life.

In the lead up to Anemoia‘s release, Spaceface and Mothland released six singles off the album, including “Happens All The Time,” “Earth In Awe,” and “Piña Collider,” which featured samples and choir vocals from actual CERN scientists and “ were all previously released to praise across the blogopshere.

I’ve managed to write about three more released singles:

  • “Long Time:” a woozy and funky contemplation of life choices and alternate realities centered around a strutting bass line, glistening synth arpeggios and infectious hooks paired with guest vocals from Penny Pitchlynn, best known for her work with BRONCHO and LABRYS.
  • “Rain Passing Through:” an Oracular Spectacular era MGMT meets  Nile Rodgers-like bop with guest vocals from  Mikaela Davis about the fleeting moments one may have with former or future lovers in passing turbulent times, and despite knowing that it probably shouldn’t, wouldn’t or can’t happen, that it was okay to feel good and safe, even if it was for a brief, lovely moment. 
  • “Millions & Memes,” a hook-driven ear worm centered a buzzing, phaser-drenched guitar riff and funky boom bap beats that — to my ears, at least — sounds like a slick and seamless synthesis of Currents era Tame Impala, 70s glam rock and funk. Much its predecessors, “Millions & Memes” is rooted in deeply detailed psychological observation and overwhelmingly positive messaging. 

 Anemoia‘s seventh — that’s right seventh! — single “Classic Style” is an anthemic, hook-driven banger, centered around buzzing power chords, thumping beats, dreamy vocals and twinkling keys. While to my ears, sounding as though it were indebted to Lonerism and Currents era Tame Impala, “Classic Style” is a swaggering yet earnest pick up line to that pretty young thang at the club, who just caught your eye.

Directed by longtime collaborator Jarod Evans, the accompanying video for “Classic Style” features cameo from The Flaming Lips’ The Brothers Griiin and employs a rather simple concept: a sort of behind the scenes look at the shooting of a video, fittingly shot in a lysergic haze.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Rising Montreal Artist Naomi Shares a Sultry, Club Friendly Bop

Naomi is a Montréal-based multi-disciplinary artist, who first after studying theater made a name for herself when she started landing roles on both the small and big screen when she was 14. Because she has long seen art as a continuous means of expression, she went on to study dance at the École de danse contemporaine de Montréal.

As a dancer, the Montreal-based multi-disciplinary artist has appeared in and/or choreographed music videos for Rihanna, Marie-Mai, Coeur de Pirate and others, as well as for local dance performances.

While she was establishing herself as an actor and dancer, the Montreal-based artist quietly developed a passion for singing — without fully giving herself permission to explore it fully. Interestingly, Coeur de Pirate’s Beátrice Martin saw star potential in the Montreal based multi-disciplinary artist and took her under her wing.

Encouraged by Couer de Pirate’s mentorship and encouragement, naomi began to realize that she was never far off from making her own music. All that she needed was a little push.

Signed to Bravo Music, the Montreal-based artist began to write her own material and has taken a bold leap into a career as a pop singer. Naomi’s first two singles “Tout à nous” and “Zéro stress” have received airplay on WKND, Rouge FM, Arsenal, POP, CVKM and several other regional radio stations across Quebec.

Naomi’s third and latest single is the club friendly, Rowan Mercille and Naomi co-written “Semblant.” Centered around glistening synth arpeggios, skittering trap-meets-Caribbean beats paired with the Montreal-based artist’s sultry delivery and an infectious hook, “Semblant” is a self-assured summertime banger that reveals a bonafide superstar in the making.

The song’s narrator details a sensual encounter in which both parties have developed an inescapable and primal magnetism that draws them into a vicious yet irresistible cycle of sexual need and desire.

Directed by Élise Lussier, the accompanying visual for “Semblant” features a solitary Naomi sultrily dancing by herself — both for herself and for a possibly unseen viewer — while seemingly attempting to resist the irresistible.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstay Thaïs Shares a Glistening New Bop

Rising 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 will be releasing her newest EP Tout est parfait: acte un on May 6, 2022.

Tout est parfait: acte un will feature “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 EP’s second and latest single, the Coeur de Pirate co-written, Renaud Bastien-produced “Vieux Port,” continues a run of danceable and seemingly upbeat bops 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.

Directed by Jeanne Joly, the accompanying video for “Vieux Port” is a stylistically shot visual that features the Montreal-based JOVM in an art covered room creating her own art and dancing expressively.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Rising Canadian Artist Magi Merlin Shares an Unapologetic Black Anthem

With the release of her first two EP’s 2019’s On My Way to the Listening Party and last year’s Drug Music EP and a handful of standalone singles, the fairly mysterious yet rising Canadian artist Magi Merlin (pronounced MADGE-eye) has exploded onto the national scene: She has received praise from CRACK Magazine. Along with that she has opened for Lido Pimienta and played at Osheaga Festival alongside ODIE, Jessie Reyez and others. 

Earlier this year, the rising Canadian artist released the Funkywhat-produced “Free Grillz,” a track that featured Merlin’s mix of fiery, self-assured bars and sultry crooned hook gliding over icy, trap hi-hats, skittering snares, glistening synth arpeggios and a tweeter and woofer rattling bass line. “Free Grillz” found the Canadian artist hoping to aspire to at least some of the tropes of hip-hop fame while reflecting on a series of bitterly harsh and inescapable, daily realities, like having oblivious people carelessly mispronounce your name, misogyny, kicking clingy and stupid men out of your life and so on with a mix of humor and world dominating swagger.

Merlin’s third EP Gone Girl is slated for a May 27, 2022 release through Bonsound/AWAL. The EP’s material may arguably be the Canadian artist’s most personal and audacious effort to date: Merlin grew up in Saint Lazare, a suburb of Montreal, created by Nixon types in 70s. A Place of white folks by white folks. Much like in the States, the suburbs are viewed as the epitome of all that’s good and “normal.” Unless of course, you’re Black and Queer — and that perceived normalcy is challenged.

The EP, which continues Merlin’s ongoing collaboration with Funkywhat draws from 90s house, drum ‘n’ bass, Motown and acid flecked hip-hop to create a sound that evokes smoky, after hours clubs — but with rumbling bass lines and thunderous 808s. Thematically, the EP sees the rising Canadian artist touching upon generational angst, fake friends, casual racism and more.

The rising Canadian artist’s latest single “Pissed Black Girl” is a sleek and hyper modern pop song that features Merlin’s assured vocal delivery gliding over icy synth arpeggios, skittering trap beats and a sinuous bass line. Interestingly, “Pissed Black Girl” is rooted in a familiar pent up frustration with fake white progressives and phony liberals but instead of the cliched trope of angry Black woman, it’s a dance floor friendly banger that tells those fakes to go fuck themselves and sit down, while the rest of us get down.

“I wrote this song summer 2020,” Merlin says. “I was made to really look at my identity as a Black woman and what that identity means to the people I surround myself with. I didn’t realize a lot of the people I had around me at the time that identified as progressive, leftist and ‘allies’ were not as supportive as they made themselves out to be. Talking with them just resulted in arguments instead of compassion and understanding. This made me very angry and the only thing I was able to do to vent my frustrations and arrive at some form of catharsis was by singing about it.

“The title of the track references a story an ex-friend recounted to me as well as what I and many other black women who speak their minds are reduced to: an ‘angry black woman.’ This ex-friend told me about a time they went to a predominantly white party in the suburbs and one of the party-goers, while staring out onto the front lawn of the house, said: “wow, there’s a N***er on the lawn” – one of many atrocious acts that go unchecked in white suburbia and various other white spaces. If there is anything I’ve learned from my experiences with ignorant and bigoted people, it is how unapologetic I need to be about my existence. I’m a girl; I am pissed and I’m Black. What about it?”

The accompanying video features the rising Canadian artist being unapologetically herself — but at one point dancing in a circle of flames that reads “Pissed Black Girl.”