Photographs by Simon Leak

In a match seemingly made in TLOBF heaven, Constantines were a late addition as support act for this much-anticipated show from the former Okkervil River side project - now exclusively the preserve of Jonathan Meiburg after the amicable departure of co-founder Will Sheff. Personally though, these dirty rocking Canadians were to be a new experience and my pre-conceptions were that their thundering might jar with Shearwater’s more tempered arty emotions. Wrong on both counts actually, since Constantines offered a much more focused thrash than expected, and Shearwater can bring the house down with the best of them when their varied repertoire demands. Continue Reading

Photograph by Ama Chana

One may note the slight irony of an LGBT fundraiser taking place in a place of Christian worship, but after witnessing The Hidden Cameras’ revelatory show at St. Leonard’s Church, Shoreditch one couldn’t help be struck by how fitting a venue it was. Despite their name, which to this reviewer evokes images of gloomy Interpol-esque miserabilia, Joel Gibb’s “gay church folk choir” are as glorious a live band to come out of Canada since Arcade Fire first stomped onto the scene.

A rag-tag crew of indie mentalists merging the idiosyncratic folk-pop of the Decemberists with the life-affirming energy of the Polyphonic Spree. The Hidden Cameras are nonetheless refreshingly free of the pomposity that sometimes makes the whimsy of their peers hard to swallow, and although I feel their recorded material can sometimes be grating, I seriously doubt many that witnessed their stunningly vibrant performance will have left unconverted. Continue Reading

Just five months after the release of their, in the end disappointing, debut, Los Campesinos! return with a brand new record, ‘We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed’.

Entering the studio with the plan to record a new EP, the band were so happy with the 10 tracks they recorded, they wanted to put them out immediately.

In the band’s own words:

Hello there!

We at Los Campesinos! are very happy to announce the release of a new record. Coming on October 13th is ‘We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed’: ten brand new tracks recorded in Seattle from June 12-23rd with our dear friend Mr John Goodmanson (Blonde Redhead, Sleater-Kinney, Bikini Kill, Wedding Present, Wu Tang) and mixed immediately after at Monnow Valley in Wales.

And despite ‘Hold On Now, Youngster…’ being only 5 or so months old, we wanted to emphasise that this is no post-album cash in.

It’s no B-Sides and rarities or “songs that weren’t good enough to be on the album cobbled together with some remixes and field recordings of Cardiff’s indie scene”; it’s ten all-new tracks that none of you have ever heard before.

Sure, we considered re-releasing a radio-edit of ‘You! Me! Dancing!’ and trying to get famous and scraping another tour out of that, but our parents unanimously agreed that if we did they would never speak to us again.

Rather, we are blessed with having an incredibly supportive record label in Wichita, and they are as excited about such freedom, frivolities and spontaneity in releases as we are.

The tracklisting looks something like this:

1. Ways To Make It Through The Wall
2. Miserabilia
3. We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed
4. Between An Erupting Earth And An Exploding Sky
5. You’ll Need Those Fingers For Crossing
6. It’s Never That Easy Though, Is It? (Song For The Other Kurt)
7. The End Of The Asterisk
8. Documented Minor Emotional Breakdown # 1
9. Heart Swells/Pacific Daylight Time
10. All Your Kayfabe Friends

Let’s hope it’s a more stripped back and rawer affair than its overly polished predecessor.

The first time I heard the opening track from Population a smile shot across my face. After you hear something akin to an orchestra warming up in a grand concert hall, a three minute instrumental shines on you like a beam of sunshine through the darkest of clouds. Sounding like the dawn of a new day, it’s a wonderful way to start the album.

Other tracks like ‘Present of the Future End’ draw out similar upbeat emotions, though perhaps from listening to the lyrics, all may not be as pleasant as it seems. “Eager skins that light the fires. Autists hungry for the match. Drinking fossils of the liars” and “Human beings have been solved and now they want to fake us” point towards deeper issues than the blissfully unaware music suggests. Continue Reading

So these guys appeared on my radar a couple of weeks ago during a late night internet browsing session. And no, I wasn’t looking at porn. I was actually going through the Arts and Crafts roster and they jumped out at me as the only act that I’d not heard of. Like the majority of the acts on A&C, The Most Serene Republic hail from Canada and have been on the scene since 2004 when they released their debut Underwater Cinematographer. They were the first act signed to the label that weren’t connected in anyway to label founder Kevin Drew’s band Broken Social Scene.

Their new album Populations is out in the States now, and quite frankly, it’s bloody brilliant. A fantastic mix of pop hooks and dizzying BSS-esque instrumentation. I caught up with lead vocalist Adrian Jewett to pose our 20 Questions to him. Make sure you click on the mp3 link at the bottom of this post to sample this exquisite band. Continue Reading

The release date of one of the most anticipated albums of the year is drawing ever closer. Spirit If…? is the first in a series of Broken Social Scene Presents albums and is the brain child of head Social Scener Kevin Drew. Released on September 14th via Arts & Crafts and City Slang, the fourteen track collection is fast becoming a major contender for album of the year. Look out for a review in the upcoming weeks. The track Tbtf (too beautiful to fuck) has been doing the rounds on the internets for a few weeks now, but to wet the appetite further the debut video from the album has just been unveiled, and its a corker!

According to Arts & Crafts; “The video for Backed Out On The Cause happened last minute after a Dinosaur Jr show in Toronto where Joules Scott Key (of Metric), Lou Barlow and Murph (of Dinosaur Jr) all came to the shoot to hang out. John Caffery from ‘Kids on TV’ was hired to come and dance his ASS off and a spontaneous party was put into effect. There were seven mirrors, one disco ball, four lights, one bottle of rum, three bottles of tequila, 62 beers, four crew, and 17 people. It got put together on the day of the shoot and became the party of the year. It cost three thousand dollars to make… It was priceless.”

See for yourself in all its You Tube glory below. Oh, and just to get you even more excited about the Broken Social Scene Presents series, co-founder of BSS Brandan Canning is currently working on album number two in Toronto with a release date for Sping 2008 in the pipeline.

Broken Social Scene Presents Kevin Drew - Backed Out On The Cause

[download] Kevin Drew - Tbtf (♫ mp3)