Tag: Toronto ON

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Two from Acclaimed Toronto-Based Producer Harrison

Harrison Robinson, best known as the mononymic Harrison is a 27-year-old, acclaimed Toronto-based jazz and R&B composer, musician and producer got his start making beats and uploading sample-heavy songs on SoundCloud, where he found a following and global community of like-minded producers and collaborators including Ryan Hemsworth, Star Slinger, and a list of others.

His first two critically applauded albums, 2016’s Juno Award-nominated Checkpoint Titanium and 2018’s Juno Award-nominated Apricity, which revealed his versatility as a musician and producer, lead to him producing for some of Canada’s most forward-thinking, boundary-pushing artists including al l i e, Daniela Andrade, DijahSB, Sean Leon and Juno Award-winning artist TOBi, among a list of others.

Over the past couple of years, the Toronto-based musician, composer and producer has been busy: He has released a string of standout songs, including last year’s “Outta This World” with TOBi. He also released a couple of instrumental singles, “Around You’ and “Like When We Were Kids,” which amassed over 3 million combined streams globally. The acclaimed Torontonian has also been busy with compositional work with Nintendo Switch’s LOUD and commercials for NERF and Play-Doh.

Harrison starts off 2023 with two releases:

  • “Float,” feat. Kahdja Bonet, a slow-burning, Quiet Storm-meets-throbbing funk number built around tweeter and woofer rattling boom bap-like beats, a sinuous bass line, glistening synths paired with Bonet’s ethereal and sultry cooing. Fittingly, “Float” is a seemingly effortless love song that captures the dizzy swooning of new love but while subtly acknowledging the inherent uncertainty and fear we all feel.

  • “A View From The Sky,” a J. Dilla beat-tape-meets-bop jazz instrumental rooted in a swinging arrangement of twinkling keys, stuttering yet propulsive drumming, fluttering synths that’s simultaneously meditative and head banging.

Both tracks see the acclaimed Canadian musician, composer and producer boldly pushing his sound into new directions while retaining the elements that have won him acclaim.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: La Faute Shares Haunting “Blue Girl Nice Day”

Peggy Messing is a Winnipeg-born, Toronto-based multi-instrumentalist, singer/songwriter and visual artist, best known for her solo recording project La Faute. The Winnipeg-born, Toronto-based artist’s work sees her exploring several different themes including surface vs. depth, longing, betrayal, mourning and desire.

Creating her sound with tenor eclectic guitar and obsolete hardware samplers, Messing released her debut EP just before the pandemic put a halt on everything. She chose to pause live performing due to her health, and returned to focusing on creating music, finding workarounds to the problem of isolation. She connected with fellow artists and producers in France, the UK, Canada and the States — and most recently, Los Angeles-based producer, Topher Mohr, who produced her forthcoming La Faute self-titled debut album.

“Blue Girl Nice Day,” the self-titled album’s atmospheric first single features strummed acoustic guitar, twinkling keys, Messing’s gorgeous and expressive vocal paired with swirling synths and military-influenced drumming. Sonically, “Blue Girl Nice Day” is blends classic, guitar-driven folk with shoegazer-like textures.

Messing explains that “Blue Girl Nice Day” was inspired by the Milgram Experiments of the 60s. Subjects were told to give ever-increasing series of electric shocks to a “learner,” who had to repeat word pairs” Blue/Girl, Nice/Day, Slow/Dance, Sweet/Taste, and so on. In the experiment, the “learner” was an actor, who purposely made mistakes. The subject had to decide if they should obey orders and potentially give a lethal electric shock to a person, who was crying out in the next room — or to refuse. Subjects were shaken to find that most people would obey the authority figure and give what they thought were lethal shocks to the learner, even against their own conscience.”The song reflects on how easily we can betray and hurt each other, and how we don’t necessary know ourselves and what we are capable of,” the Canadian artist says.

The accompanying video follows Messing outside in a field near power lines and on a hospital bed with a cold wind blowing around her. It’s hauntingly eerie.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Montréal’s Bodywash Shares Woozy and Uneasy “Massif Central”

Montréal-based shoegazers Bodywash — Chris Steward and Rosie Long Dector — can trace their origins back to when the pair met while attending McGill University. But when they met, the pair didn’t immediately share a common musical language: Steward grew up in London listening to celestial dream pop while Dector grew up in Toronto listening to folk and Canadiana. The music they began writing together saw the pair bridging their influences. And with the release of 2016’s self-titled EP and 2019’s full-length debut, Comforter, the Montréal-based duo firmly established their sound — slow-burning and dreamy material centered around ethereal vocals, intricate guitar lines and pulsating synths. 

The Canadian shoegazers’ sophomore album I Held the Shape While I Could is slated for an April 14, 2023 release through Light Organ Records. . When touring to support Comforter was cut short by the pandemic, the duo used the unexpected hiatus to write new material, which was darker, more experimental and more invigorating than its predecessor, and managed to reflect on Steward’s and Long Dector’s separate and shared experiences of losing a sense of place, the way something once solid can slip between your fingers, and their attempts to build something new from the psychological and emotional fallout.

Late last year, I wrote about the sophomore album’s expansive first single, “Kind of Light.” Beginning with a slow-burning and elegiac intro featuring glistening organ and a skittering yet propulsive kick pattern that slow builds up and breaks into a high energy boom bap-like breakbeat paired with scorching guitar squealing and wobbling bass synths. Long Decter’s ethereal and achingly plaintive vocals expressing profound, heart-wrenching despair — and hope. The song suggests that while loss is natural and sadly expected there can be hope; that there are only a handful of things in our lives that are truly permanent. And that ultimately for the most part, it can get better.

“I wrote ‘Kind of Light’ in bed,” Long Decter says. ““It was the fall of 2018 and Chris and I were both going through experiences of learning not to trust what feels like home. He sent me a plugin for a new organ sound, suggesting it might provide inspiration. I sent him back chords, a kick pattern, and some vocals about trying to pull your legs back; trying to take your energy out of the wreckage and put it into yourself. The process of deciding what’s worth keeping, what can be reworked and what gets tossed in the fire. A process that is devastating and also weirdly invigorating, because you can see new possibilities opening up in front of you. And you can start to look for light somewhere else.”

I Held the Shape While I Could‘s second single, the woozy “Massif Central” features glistening synth bursts, shimmering and angular post punk-meets-shoegaeze-like textures paired with a relentless motorik groove, stormy guitar feedback and Steward’s ethereal whispers recounting an experience of Kafka-esque, bureaucratic purgatory: a typo in a government letter caused Steward to lose his legal work status in Canada. The song manages to evoke the sensation of having your life flipped upside down, then being hopelessly stuck and having no say or agency in your situation.

“After eight years living in Canada, in the Spring of 2021, a government clerical error caused me to lose my legal status here,” Steward explains. “As a UK national, I lost my right to work. My savings trickled away during months where I could do little but pace the corners of my apartment. I was prepared to pack my bags and leave as the life I’d hoped to construct for myself seemed to vanish into a bureaucratic abyss.”
 
“‘Massif’ is the sound of wailing into a cliff and not knowing if you’ll hear an echo,” continued Steward. “The spoken word is inspired by a squirrel that was trapped in the wall behind my bed, clawing its way to salvation. With the help of friends, family, music, and a few immigration lawyers (and the rest of my savings), I’m now a permanent resident here. But this song remains as testament to my experience with an exploitative institution.”

Directed by Jordan Allen, the accompanying video for “Massif Central” is a dizzying collage of live footage, directed by Brandon Kaufman, distorted VHS-like visuals and eerie. retro-futuristic -inspired graphics. “With ‘Massif Central,’ we wanted to encapsulate the panic and urgency that Chris experienced, and have the abstracts portray the anxiety and hopelessness one can feel at the hands of bureaucracy,” Allen explains. “I chose graphics that heavily leaned into feelings of being lost in a maze, with towering structures and horizon lines pulling you into them. The idea was that the camera would be both a CCTV view of the band, but also glitching to reveal the more emotionally internal visual aspects.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Montreal’s Bodywash Shares a Meditation on Loss and Hope

Montreal-based shoegazers Bodywash — Chris Steward and Rosie Long Dector — can trace their origins back to when the pair met while attending McGill University. But when they met, the pair didn’t immediately share a common musical language: Steward grew up in London listening to celestial dream pop while Dector grew up in Toronto listening to folk and Canadiana. The music they began writing together saw the pair bridging their influences, and with the release of 2016’s self-titled EP and 2019’s full-length debut, Comforter Steward and Rector firmly establishing slow-burning and dreamy material centered around ethereal vocals, intricate guitar lines and pulsating synths.

When touring to support their full-length debut was cut short by the pandemic, Long Decter and Steward used the unexpected hiatus to write. And they wound up writing material that was darker, more experimental and more invigorating than the material on Comforter. Last year, they took the songs into the studio with longtime drummer Ryan White and The Besnard Lakes‘ Jace Lasek, who helped record and engineer the album, which will be released through Light Organ Records.

“Kind of Light,” the forthcoming album’s first single is an expansive track that begins with a slow-burning and elegiac intro featuring glistening organs and a skittering yet propulsive kick pattern that slowly builds up and breaks into a high energy, boom bap-like breakbeat paired with scorching guitar squealing and wobbling bass synths. Front and center is Long Decter’s ethereal and achingly plaintive vocals express profound, heart-wrenching despair, and hope. The song suggests that while loss is natural and expected, there can be hope; that there are only a handful of things that in our lives that are truly permanent — and that for the most part, it can get better.

“I wrote ‘Kind of Light’ in bed,” Long Decter says. ““It was the fall of 2018 and Chris and I were both going through experiences of learning not to trust what feels like home. He sent me a plugin for a new organ sound, suggesting it might provide inspiration. I sent him back chords, a kick pattern, and some vocals about trying to pull your legs back; trying to take your energy out of the wreckage and put it into yourself. The process of deciding what’s worth keeping, what can be reworked and what gets tossed in the fire. A process that is devastating and also weirdly invigorating, because you can see new possibilities opening up in front of you. And you can start to look for light somewhere else.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Although he’s best known for being one-half of Toronto-based indie electro pop duo Phédre, Dan Lee is also a solo artist in his own right, writing, recording and performing under the moniker Lee Paradise. And with the release of his Lee Paradise debut, 2020’s The Fink, Lee quickly established a sound that’s typically widescreen and is indebted to polyrhythmic psychedelia. 

Lee’s sophomore Lee Paradise album Lee Paradise & Co. is slated for an October 28, 2022 release through Telephone Explosion Records. The album’s material started off as a set of mood-focused instrumental sketches. But the sketches became fleshed out songs after he sent the tracks to a an eclectic array of collaborators including Jane Inc.‘s Carlyn Bezic, Scott Hardware’s, No Frills‘ and Ducks Ltd.‘s Jonathan Pappo, Scott Hardware, Isla Craig, New Chance‘s Victoria Cheong, Jay Anderson, Mother Tongues‘ Charise Aragoza and Lukas Cheung, and Moon King‘s Daniel Woodhead. The result is an album that sees Lee and company crafting material that defies genre and style conversations with a soulful panache — and in which every aspect of its creation became open to collaboration, from musical performances, lyric writing and vocals, all the way through mixing and mastering.

Late last month, I wrote about “Not Practical,” a woozy yet accessible synth pop-leaning banger featuring copious amounts of DFA Records/LCD Soundsystem-like cowbell, layers of glistening and whirring synths and skittering beats paired with Victoria Cheong’s beguiling vocal. And while being remarkably dance floor friendly, “Not Practical” evokes the swooning and illogical nature of love.

“Leaving,” sees Lee dialing into his self-described cyborg-funk with the song being centered around laser gun blast-like synths, twinkling keys, skittering and clunky thump paired with Lee’s dreamy and meditative delivery and a saccharine-laced, pop chorus. At points, the song evokes the dread and unease of the work week; the desire to escape that life and to never have to do it again; the desire to just up and leave.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Bruno Capinan is a Salvador, Brazil-born, Toronto-based queer, non-binary singer/songwriter and performer, who released their third album Tara Rara earlier this year through Lulaworld Records in Canada. Tara Rara, which translates to “rare desire” in English sees Capinan drawing from and highlighting their Brazilian roots with a strong focus on gender and racial justice, rooted in the Brazilian-born, Toronto-based artist’s experiences as a Black, non-binary person. The album features an orchestra of seven string musicians, 90% of whom are BIPOC and LGQBTIA+, including some of different generations and different cultural backgrounds.

Tara Rara‘s latest single, the breathtaking and effortlessly beautiful “Meu Preto” is arguably the most quintessential and classic samba song on the album. Featuring strummed acoustic guitar, shuffling Latin rhythms, a gorgeous and cinematic string section paired with Capinan’s expressive vocal delivery, full of aching and desperate longing.

Translated into English as “A Song About Two Black Lovers,” the song’s narrator laments the distance between them and their lover, while hoping for a reunion.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Toronto’s Shirley Hurt Shares Introspective and Gorgeous “Problem Child”

Sophie Katz is a Toronto-based singer/songwriter, musician and creative mastermind behind Shirley Hurt, her latest music project. Katz’s self-titled Shirley Hurt debut is slated for a December 2, 2022 release through Telephone Explosion Records.

Recorded with a highly-accomplished backing band that features Fresh Pepper‘s and The War on Drugs‘ Joseph Shabason (sax, flute), Chris Shannon (bass), Harrison Forman (guitar), Jason Bhattacharya (percussion), Jacques Mindreau (violin) and Nick Durado (piano), the Nathan Vanderwielen-produced, nine song album reportedly sees Katz and company traversing into the furthest corners of experimental indie folk, pop and country to create a singular sound that integrates elements of each with self-assured elegance, ease and unpredictability. Sonically, the album’s material is centered around skeletal arrangements that tastefully slink around Katz’s delivery, which subtly recalls the likes of Joni Mitchell, Carole King and others.

“This album feels lonely and roadworn to me. The woman who wrote this was definitely in the winter of her life,” Katz says. “The landscape feels blue and burnt orange. There is a wistfulness and longing, whether I like it or not.” The album’s persistent tone of propulsive contemplation wasn’t by chance; Katz came up with many of the album’s lyrical and structural ideas while on the road.

The self-titled album’s first single “Problem Child” is built around a 70s AM rock/troubadour-like arrangement featuring Bhattacharya’s assertive and propulsive percussion, Dorado’s dreamy and twinkling keys, meditative strummed and looping guitar lines and fluttering bursts of Shabason’s flute. The sparse arrangement allows Katz’s husky delivery and observant, longing and conversational lyrics to take the spotlight. The end result is akin to Nabokov being paired with gorgeous, spectral arrangements.

Directed and edited by Eli Spiegel, the accompanying video for “Problem Child” is set in a warm and gorgeous, suburban home, and features two women — presumably a grandmother and her granddaughter spending an afternoon together. The older woman is teaching the younger woman a recipe for pie. Throughout the video, there’s a palpable sense of tradition and love –and in a very lovely place.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Lee Paradise Teams Up with New Chance’s Victoria Cheong on a Woozy Banger

Although best known for being one-half of Toronto-based indie electro pop duo Phédre, Dan Lee is also a solo artist in his own right, under the moniker Lee Paradise. And with the release of his Lee Paradise debut, 2020’s The Fink, Lee quickly established a sound that’s typically widescreen and is indebted to polyrhythmic psychedelia.

Lee’s sophomore Lee Paradise album Lee Paradise & Co. is slated for an October 28, 2022 release through Telephone Explosion Records. The album’s material started off as a set of mood-focused instrumental sketches. But the sketches became fleshed out songs after he sent the tracks to a an eclectic array of collaborators including Jane Inc.‘s Carlyn Bezic, Scott Hardware’s, No Frills‘ and Ducks Ltd.‘s Jonathan Pappo, Scott Hardware, Isla Craig, New Chance‘s Victoria Cheong, Jay Anderson, Mother Tongues‘ Charise Aragoza and Lukas Cheung and Moon King‘s Daniel Woodhead. The end result is an album in which every aspect of its creation eventually became open to collaboration, from musical performances, lyric writing and vocals all the way through to mixing and mastering, all while featuring material that defies genre and style conventions with a soulful panache.

“Not Practical,” Lee Paradise & Co.‘s latest single is a woozy yet accessible synth pop-leaning banger centered around copious amounts of DFA Records/LCD Soundsystem-like cowbell, layers of glistening and whirring synths and skittering beats paired with Victoria Cheong’s beguiling vocal. While being remarkably dance floor friendly, “Not Practical” evokes the swooning and wildly illogical of love.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Tallies Share Shimmering and Uplifting “Memento”

With the release of 2019’s self-titled, full-length debut, Toronto-based dream pop outfit Tallies — Dylan Frankland (guitar), Sarah Cogan (vocals, guitar) and Cian O’Neill (drums) — exploded into the national and international scenes: The album received praise from the likes of Under the Radar, DIY Magazine, The Line of Best Fit, MOJO, Bandcamp Daily, Exclaim!,  KEXP and others. Adding to a rapidly growing profile, the Toronto-based dream poppers have opened for Mudhoney, Hatchie, Tim Burgess and Weaves, and they played at the inaugural New Colossus Festival.

The band’s Graham Walsh and Dylan Frankland co-produced sophomore album Patina was recorded at Palace Sound, Holy Fuck‘s Baskitball 4 Life and Candle Recording, and is slated for a Friday release through Kanine Records here in the States, Hand Drawn Dracula in Canada and Bella Union in the UK and EU. The album, which was understandably delayed as a result of the pandemic is simultaneously a labor of love and a bold step forward for the Canadian trio: Firmly rooted in their penchant in juxtaposing light and dark, the album continues to see the band drawing from Lush, Beach House and Cocteau Twins, but with a greater emphasis on shimmering guitars, earnest, lived-in songwriting — and a well-placed, razor sharp hook. 

The album will feature:

  • The previously released “No Dreams of Fayres,” an ironically upbeat single that sonically brought The Sundays‘ “Here’s Where The Story Ends,” while documenting Sarah Cogan’s struggles with depression — in particular, the moments, when she was trying to work it out, but just couldn’t find the energy to do so. “‘No Dreams of Fayres’ is a reflection of thoughts that I remember going through my mind when I stayed still in bed,” Tallies’ Sarah Cogan explains in press notes. “Feeling as though staying still in bed was the only thing that would help the sadness – basically, disconnecting myself from family, friends, and having a life. Finding the way out of depression was hard but possible. ‘No Dreams of Fayres’ is also about the realization of letting yourself feel real feelings but not mistaking them for emotions. I had to learn to get a grip of what I wanted out of life and go for it with no self-sabotage – which was music, as cliché as it sounds. It pulled me out of bed, physically and mentally.”
  • “Special,” continued a remarkable run of upbeat shoegazer-inspired jangle pop featuring Cogan’s plaintive vocals, Frankland’s shimmering, reverb-drenched guitar lines and O’Neill’s propulsive drumming paired with their unerring knack of razor sharp, anthemic hooks. Despite its breezy nature, the song is underpinned by an aching and familiar yearning: “‘Special,’ as Sarah Cogan explains “is about longing to be seen and heard by those who matter to you most. Sometimes, feeling invisible is particularly painful when the indifference comes from someone whose opinion means a lot to you.” 

“Memento,” the last single before Patina‘s release on Friday, is a slow-burning ballad featuring Cogan’s achingly plaintive and soaring vocal, Frankland’s shimmering and reverb-drenched guitar lines, and O’Neill’s simple yet propulsive time-keeping paired with the band’s penchant for rousing hooks and choruses. While sounding inspired by 120 Minutes-era MTV college rock/alternative rock, “Memento” is centered in a hopeful and powerful message — one that’s much-needed in our wildly uncertain and perilous time.

“I am a firm believer in ‘what goes down must come up’, people usually say the opposite, but this is a motto I’ve used throughout my life,” Tallies’ Sarah Cogan explains. “When things aren’t going well, they have a tendency to bounce back. ‘Memento’, to me, is my pick-up song. When I sing ‘gotta get you on your way now’, I’m saying that it’s time to move on and move forward. I’ve had many moments in my life where I’ve lost momentum and felt directionless like I’d fallen into a black hole. It’s hard to crawl out of the hole and get back on track. I think there are a lot of people who spend their time thinking about how they need to get back on track. Listen to this song and remind yourself it’s time to look forward and lean into the future.”

Continuing their ongoing collaboration with Justis Karr at IMMV Productions, the accompanying video features slickly edited, nostalgia-inducing stock footage, including a mother playing with and holding her newborn, kids at school, an exhausted mom taking car of her household of screaming kids, an elderly woman playing with a cat and fixing tea and psychedelic imagery sometimes superimposed over the band performing the song. Interestingly, the visual manages to further emphasis the song’s overall themes with exhausted, broken people trying to figure out ways to push forward — sometimes on a daily basis.