EPISODE 14

    EPISODE 14: The Canada Day Can-Con Cast

For Canada Day, we’re making our tribute to Canadian Indie Pop! There’s just so much great stuff to choose from, we almost did a double-helping, but instead we just wanna make sure and give a shout out to: Artist of the Year, Tiga, The Faunts, Holy Fuck, Malajube, Feist, Opopo, Pick a Piper, Rufus Wainwright, Women, Montag, Vitamins for You, The Wet Secrets, We Are Wolves, Yukon Blonde, Fan Death, Kid Koala and all the Canadian stuff we’ve played before including Chromeo, Woodhands, The Slew, The Besnard Lakes, Decomposure, TMDP, Islands, Think About Life, Junior Boys, Hylozoists, Gonzales, Japandroids, Caribou, Owen Palett, Crystal Castles, Timber Timbre and No Kids! Thanks for listening, and Happy Canada Day!!!

Song: Wake Up

Artist: The Arcade Fire

Album: Funeral

Label: Merge (2004)

Montreal! There’s no way of picking the best Arcade Fire song, but no one’s going to argue with Wake Up as a nomination. Even though founding brothers Win and Will Butler are really originally from Texas, we’ve taken great pride in claiming them as the match that lit the fire on the Montreal indie rock explosion that seemed to give the world a major push in the right direction a few years back. Not that we think anyone could have possibly missed it, but both this and the record that followed (‘Neon Bible’) are life changers. The music speaks for itself, but take a good listen to the lyrics. The Arcade Fire have a rare talent of matching the ambition of their arrangements with the brilliance of how they’re saying what they’re saying. Can’t wait for the new one, August 3rd. You’ll hear it here soon. That’s for sure.

Song: Being Here

Artist: The Stills

Album: Oceans Will Rise

Label: Arts & Crafts (2008)

Been loving the Stills since my band mate at the time and I stumbled into a small show (at Call the Office, London, Ontario – Represent!) to celebrate finishing our own record. I thought the name sounded familiar, and thought it was worth the $5 risk. They were touring in advance of “Without Feathers” their leslie organ heavy, optimistic sounding second record. Neither of us had heard anything quite like it, certainly not in a small room of 300 people. We were instant fans and studied their debut and the sophomore when it came out. Record number three “Oceans Will Rise” arrived on my hard drive in the midst of the original Mediterranean snob sessions, and became an instant favorite there as well. I got to see the band again the week I got home – miraculously in the same club – a little more crowded this time. Something had changed. The band looked different… like they had seen a ghost – or were still seeing them throughout the show. Some sort of steely, x-ray vision rock and roll glare was in the eyes of every member – and it looked good on them. 3 great records, even if MTV agrees.

Song: Have You Seen in Your Dreams

Artist: Miracle Fortress

Album: Five Roses

Label: Secret City (2007)

Read about this project on a full page ad in Exclaim! magazine, downloaded a copy, threw it in rotation, got blown away by the 1st 30 seconds of the introduction instrumental track. By this, the second track on the album I had my head in my hands trying to cope with how brilliant this out-of-nowhere album was and how I was going to convince everyone I knew that they had to hear it. I thought I was reading wrong, or that I had misremembered the name of classmate Graham Van Pelt when I looked the band up on Wikipedia, and quickly changed the name of the game from “Have you heard this freaking amazing Miracle Fortress album??” to “Holy Crap! Did you know GVP put a record out?? AND It’s INCREDIBLE!” We did an interview with Graham back on episode 2 while he was touring his other project ‘Think About Life’ (also very worth hearing) but seriously – you need to have this album. So, so good. Top 10 for life, for sure.

Song: H-H-H-Highschool!

Artist: Hexes and Ohs

Album: Bedroom Madness

Label: Noise Factory (2008/2010)

Toronto! (The epicenter of Canadian electro-pop). Got to see these guys at last year’s NxNE (yeah – we have one, too!) It was fun, catchy, and unmistakably the live presentation of a tweetronic bedroom production project. All good things, as it turns out. I think one of the things that helps make Canadian music what it is is the freedom to pick up ideas that have been toyed with elsewhere, and continuing to have fun with them regardless of what the prevailing trends dictate. I think that if the duo keep up the bedroom twee-beat after university, we’re gonna see big, fun things, and I’m looking forward to it. The ingredients are there: synths, bass, drums and shout along vocals. Sounds like a snobcast. Good record all around , and just re-released Stateside this year!

Song: I Was Born (a Unicorn)

Artist: The Unicorns

Album: Who Will Cut Our Hair When We’re Gone?

Label: Alien8 (2003)

Nick "Neil Diamonds" Thorburn & Alden "Ginger" Penner and Jaime "J'amie Tambeur" Thompson: The Canadian indie rock Holy Trifectah! It didn’t and still hasn’t gotten any better than the Unicorns. The mystery, mythology and colorfully pencil crayoned limited pressing eps and stage costumes coalesced to become one big explosive mess of future-seeing, tongue in cheeky … well ok – there – right there – the album cover – a lightning bolt striking a rainbow. That’s all I gotta say. Nick, of course, went on to do The Islands, Human Highway, etc, Alden just recently did Clues – all good stuff, but nothing they’ve done so far escapes the essential reference back to when uncool was still uncool.  Nothing like it, and better than everything else.

Song: La Marelle

Artist: La Patere Rose

Album: La Patere Rose

Label: Grosse Boite (2009)

The 2010 SxSW featured La Patere Rose need to do a whole record of the high strung French electrobop frenzy of La Marelle next time! (This is your ‘At Your Own Risk’ notification). The Polaris nominated album has a mixture of interesting moments and more trip-hoppy explorations – perfect for some listeners, mildly disappointing for others. However – the track itself stands alone as a blissful moment in Canadian indie-pop, and a promise for big things to come, we’re sure.

Song: Heji

Artist: Hidden Cameras

Album: Awoo

Label: Arts & Crafts (2006)

Toronto! Remember CBC’s Brave New Waves (weeknight 12-4am)? We do. As long as we listened to that show, the Hidden Camera’s self-described ‘Gay Church Folk Music’ has been referenced as part of the Canadian experimental indie rock landscape. Awoo was an especially catchy, melodic move for the band led by Joel Gibb. A definite must-listen. And also somehow in this blurb we wanted to mention that the name of the album previous to this was a play on Nina Simone’s ‘Mississippi Goddamn’ called ‘Mississauga Goddamn’ – so like – that’s incredible. Get into the Hidden Cameras.
 

Song: Even While You’re Sleeping

Artist: The Acorn

Album: Hope Glory Mountain

Label: Paper Bag Records (2007)

Ottawa! Gorgeous album from one of the precious few authentically excellent musical projects to come out of this nation’s Capital. Not as hot on the new album, but Hope Glory Mountain is entrancing beginning to end. A sonically rich, soothing and sometimes startling folk record that is so far the most suited to frontman /songwriter’s Rolf Klausner’s fatigued tenor harmonies.

Song: Daydreamer

Artist: Patrick Watson

Album: Close to Paradise

Label: Secret City (2007)

It’s rare that you hear the name Patrick Watson without it being prefaced by ‘Polaris Prize Winner, and two time nominee’, and technically we just avoided it! This is our favorite cut from his winning album. The banjo break down is somehow just so funky and soulful despite being performed on top of virtually nothing. An album of beautiful landscapes and delicate vocals that occasionally remind of the better moments of Chris Martin’s performances before completely blowing them way.

Song: City of Electric Light

Artist: Chad VanGaalen

Album: Soft Airplane

Label: Sub Pop (2008)

Calgary! Can NOT say enough good things about CVG. To keep it brief, he is probably the most unique and promising (if he hasn’t fulfilled the promise multiple times over already) artists in the country. His music captures so many aspects of this sort of difficult to define Canadian music ethos. Folky, a little weird, a little electronic (most electronic elements and even many ‘organic’ elements emanate from home made inventions) and that voice – so able to take that crucially eerie falsetto-vibrato turn. ‘Molten Light’ from this his second Polaris nominated album chills and captivates on every listen. (Not to mention the SUPER creepy video which he himself animated!) Please think about getting into Chad Van Gaellen in a serious way.

Song: Laura Palmer’s Prom

Artist: You Say Party! We Say Die!

Album: XXXX

Label: Paper Bag Records (2009)

Vancouver! Great track from the 3rd official LP from one of the best named Canadian Bands of all time (Shout Out Out Out Out notwithstanding). YSPWSD’s move toward the John Hughesy 80’s synth pop was a very successful, tasteful and timely one. Look for them on this year’s Polaris Short list. Caught them in Victoria opening for K-Os on a late night port call. Grabbed a beer with the unusually YSPWSD-knowledgeable sound guy – turned out to be their producer as well. And that’s Canada.

Song: You’re Gonna Miss Me When the Zombies Come

Artist: BA Johnston
Album: Stairway to Hamilton
Label: Just Friends (2009)













Hamilton! So hard to pick one song from this album! SO hilarious. BA is Canada’s best kept secret. I can not figure out why this self-proclaimed Hobo 4 Life (with a sharp ass hobo knife) is not, to avoid the obvious joke, huge right now. Every song is slacker-folk-synth-pop gold. One of the best moments has him musically detailing the events of John Candy film ‘Summer Rental’ in his proposal to solve the world’s problems with ‘Boat Races’. You gotta hear it. HiLARious.

Song: Dead Hearts

Artist: Stars

Album: The Five Ghosts

Label: Arts & Crafts / Vagrant (2010)

Ahhhh. The long awaited new record. The album might still be growing on me, but I love the opener. Exactly what a Stars song has always done best - a staged musical male-female dialogue, and this one all the more interesting for its album-theme-setting subject. On the whole, the record may play a little ‘Metric-y’ in spots(and for Stars fans there is a HUGE difference). In any case, they’re doing the whole thing live front to back in their shows. Of course, we can’t just play Stars and not mention the other records – Set Yourself on Fire was the critical darling. In Our Bedroom After the War was the snarling protest record full of personality (Morrissey’s and Prince’s mainly) and Heart… well that brings us all the way home to…

Song: Elevator Love Letter

Artist: Stars

Album: Heart

Label: Arts and Crafts (2003)

Your Canada Day double play. Elevator Love Letter is still the best Stars track for our money. I heard it one night while falling asleep to my FM radio in the early CBC Radio 3 days. I emailed the show immediately gushing about ‘that song with the female vocals – something about an elevator at night, played around 2 am” to which one young Pedro Mendez wrote back “I KNOW!!! I can’t stop playing this song! It’s incredible! They’re called Stars, and they haven’t put and album yet – supposed to be next year some time!” I recorded a low quality version of it from their CBC webpage to my 'Mini Disc player' (along with some stuff from this other apparently related band called Broken Social Scene) and probably came close to wearing that mini disc out before Heart was released. A great time in Canadian indie pop. We'll leave you with it. Enjoy.