Before Broken Social Scene there was K.C. Accidental. The lo-fi bedroom recordings of Kevin Drew and Charles Spearin. The music they played was mostly post-rock and instrumental in nature, and self-released two EP’s: “Captured Anthems For An Empty Bathtub” and “Anthems For The Could’ve Bin Pills”.

Because they were released in limited numbers on Noise Factory Records, traded amongst friends and hidden in the pockets of Toronto’s independent record stores, these two records have been out of print for five years and have never been available outside of Canada. This November (date TBC), Arts & Crafts will be reissuing these seminal recordings in one package in 2-LP, 2-CD and digital formats. Additionally, Broken Social Scene will be selling this reissue on tour.

Tracklisting:
01 nancy and the girdle boy
02 something for chicago
03 anorexic he-man
04 save the last breath for me
05 kev’s message for charlie
06 tired hands
07 instrumental died in the bathtub and took the daydreams with it
08 residential love song
09 silverfish eyelashes
10 ruined in 84
11 them (pop song #3333)
12 is and of the

As part of our partnership with the Canadian Blast & The Local present Canada festival on June 30th, we have caught up with some of the artists involved to find out what their home towns are like. The first of the series looks at a long time TLOBF favourite, Polaris Longlister and recent Arts & Crafts signing from the West Coast…….

Who are you and what city are you from?:
Dan Mangan / Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

What is the city known for (and is that fair?)
Rain and stoners and parks. Fair.

If we were come to the city for the first time, what would be the first thing you would take us to see and why?
I live by Jericho Beach, so I’d wow you with the view of downtown and North Vancouver. It’s also the site for the Vancouver Folk Festival. It rules.

Best Place to grab a bite to eat?
So many. Vancouver has a lot of amazing restaurants, many of them fairly affordable. Recently, I’ve been slightly addicted to the gourmet grilled cheese sandwich at “Burgoo”, but that’s just the tip o’ the iceberg.

Good places to see a show?
(Big) Orpheum, Commodore, Vogue Theatre
(Small) Railway Club, Media Club, Little Mountain Studios, Biltmore Cabaret

If I wanted to pick up a copy of your record, where would be the best place in the city to go…
Red Cat Records on Main St. – Excellent vinyl collection, great staff. Zulu Records is also a total indie record store staple in the city.

What would be your perfect day in the city?
Eating at restaurants, hanging at beaches/parks in between, seeing a show at night

Outside the city walls: best day trip outside of the city?
Grouse Mountain, though since the Olympics, the gondola is more expensive. Bring runners and hike it, take the cheap gondola down.

Local Legend: one person (or group of people) (musical or otherwise) who is held to be a legendary figure in the town (and why?)
David Suzuki is from here. I don’t know how well he’s known outside of Canada, but he’s been at the forefront of ethical environmentalism and sustainability movements for decades and decades.

Favourite city story/myth:
Gassy Jack, first settler of “Gas Town” – known not for flatulence, but for yapping a lot.

We would like you to make us a playlist featuring bands from the city (past and present):

Click here to view the embedded video.

1. Parlour Steps – Thieves of Memory
2. Brasstronaut – Six Toes
3. Said The Whale – Love Is Art / Sleep Through Fire
4. Apollo Ghosts – Sons Of Norway
5. Yukon Blonde – Brides Song
6. Analog Bell Service – Left The Park

Has living in the city had much of an affect on the music you create? If so, how?
Definitely. I feel like every interview I do, the journalist is like, “So, you write songs about Vancouver.. What’s that like?”. I think it’s unintentional, and often subtle, but my last album is like a backhanded lovesong to Vancouver. I spend a lot of time away from home, so I think about home a lot.

What has been your most memorable live show? Have you got anything special planned for your UK dates?
Really excited about Glastonbury and shows with Broken Social Scene. We’ve got some ringer horn and string players we’ll be stealing for our show on the John Peel Stage at Glasto. Certainly one of my more memorable shows was a month ago at the Vogue Theatre at home here in Vancouver. We had a 10 piece band, and it had sold out weeks prior, so there was a really electric vibe in the room. Plus the Vogue rules.

Dan Mangan Plays The Lexington on June 30th as part of Canadian Blast and The Local present “Canada”

Photo: Dan Mangan at the Sold Out Vogue Theatre via Christine McAvoy

‘Canadian Blast and The Local Present CANADA’ is the inaugural Canada-only music festival in London. In association with The Line of Best Fit and sponsored by: Canadian Tourism Commission, VIA Rail, Sleeman Beer and CIBC.

There is something inherently absurd in the rhetoric around rock and indie music (like that needed saying) that there is even talk of an album being a ‘statement’ or a band being ‘important’; but there’s no denying that there seems to be a certain aura around Broken Social Scene, something that steps slightly outside of this usual flappy discourse. I think it’s partly borne out of them, at least historically, undercutting all that scene bollocks by messing with the iconography, by capturing themselves in process – using improv and jazz modes, including take fuck-ups, having a rolling membership, being lyrically obtuse. However deliberate and calculated all that may be, they do seem to have become something apart. And people, the scene, whatever, do seem to expect a certain amount. All of which, aside from internal strife, probably accounts for the 5-year hiatus, and the near-diabolical sense of anticipation around the release of Forgiveness Rock Record. No pressure then.

You can sense all that bubbling behind the album title: Forgiveness Rock Record. It’s both pompous and playfully self-referential – musing on all that daft overblown rock rhetoric whilst acknowledging that this has probably been as hard an album to convene and record as any in the band’s history. It’s also a pointer to the content of what’s inside, as the band have made their most straightforwardly obvious rock record to date – it’s big and earnest and structurally at least, generally pretty gleeful. Lyrically, aside from the titles it’s not imposed itself on me yet, but generally speaking, it’s stuffed, lyrically. For a band that are known for lyrical patterns that tended towards either the spartan or the repetitious, Forgiveness… is positively garrulous. The other big change for me is getting John McEntire – Tortoise wizard and general production Ubermensch – on board. He’s got them sounding sleek and clinical, quite a change from that trademark cavernous warmth that has characterized the band’s sound to date.

The McEntire influence is particularly evident early on. ‘Chase Scene’ is so John McEntire – remove the vocals and the track could have been on Tortoise’s last album Beacons of Ancestorship. ‘Texico Bitches’ has a similar sheen to it, sounding at times like it might have been produced by Trevor Horn – add in some Dan Deacon keyboard squalls and you’ve got an atypical BSS track that somehow still sounds completely natural. ‘Forced To Love’ takes this template and legs it adding more of that Horn influence. If it had some fairlight synths it could be Field Music or The Week That Was. So far, so full, then. But as the album progresses, those tell tale moments of light and air steal in, revealing that the band haven’t lost that ability to pace and to pacify. This is particularly evident on tracks like ‘All to All’ (the first track to feature new vocalist Lisa Lobsinger, who has to fill Leslie Feist’s sizeable shoes) and ‘Ungrateful Little Father’, which builds from a typical rhythm and synth pattern coupled with a bitter Drew invective (‘ungrateful little motherfuck, built you a breakthrough device’) to a gorgeous ceiling-scraping drone. That said, my reaction to the record after living with it for a few weeks now, is that there aren’t enough of these of areas of shade. It feels too on and as such, it feels like too much of the album zips away unnoticed. The shade may well reveal itself over time.

It’s in a trio of songs towards the end of the record though, that BSS seem to completely hit their stride, and it’s during these three songs – the broad clattering tumult of ‘Meet Me in the Basement’, the Emily Haines sung wooze of ‘Sentimental X’s’ and ‘Sweetest Kill’ – that the realization comes that Forgiveness Rock Record is actually something of a disappointment, and another triumphant Broken Social Scene mess. And I use the word mess in the most complimentary sense here: it’s what made You Forgot it in People so refreshing, and so other, and a record, to these ears anyway that is still revealing itself. Forgiveness Rock Record isn’t YFIIP – it’s too late in the day for that in many respects, too much has happened to the band, never mind the way we consume and listen, for an album like to arrive fully formed – but it is evidence that even with the framework of what is a fairly standard rock record, they’re still buzzing with enough ideas and enough zeal, and simple doing more than most to be worth sticking with.

It’s not often that you attend an indie gig compered by a transvestite, but then again, it’s not often you encounter a band like The Hidden Cameras. A fund raiser for the Albert Kennedy Trust, who provide shelter and assistance to LGBT teenagers rejected by their families, it’s the second time the self-proclaimed “gay church folksters” have played St. Leonards. But those expecting a re-run of the light-hearted, unabashedly camp fun of 2008′s show would be in for a shock- tonight is a whole different kettle of fish.

Last time round, the Canadians had persuaded the whole audience to stand up before a note had been struck. Balaclava-clad dancers gyrated on the altar in a most ungodly manner and the whole thing was a riot of hand-clapping, celebratory joy. But this show is a much more serious affair, Joel Gibb looking dapper with his dark suit and his designer stubble, every person remaining resolutely seated throughout. It’s a special “orchestral-acoustic” set, employing an ensemble that, at its peak numbers nineteen musicians, and as a result it’s clear the band felt a little sophistication was in order. It’s an fantastic set-up that yields captivating results, even if Gibb’s powerful, whisky-rich timbre threatens at first to overwhelm everything else. The string arrangements are well thought through, the brass section punchy if rough round the edges and Jamie McCarthy’s enthusiastic fiddle playing, always a highlight of their shows, remains undiminished in this semi-formal setting, particularly on “Awoo.”

A rousing success, it’s always heartening to see a band try something different (especially on behalf of such a worthy cause), and although I wouldn’t necessarily swap the jollity of old for their more cultured incarnation, the Hidden Cameras certainly provided one of the more memorable gig experiences of 2010 so far.

So, the quite wonderful Hidden Cameras, Joel Gibb’s Canadian troupe of “gay church folk music” makers, are back with their fifth, and quite possibly finest album yet. Where to start?

Well, the first of several remarkable and admirable things about this release is that it sounds like a real album. By which I mean the flow of tracks, from the impressive, mega-dramatic opener ‘Ratify The New’ (sustained long long suspenseful opening note, slowly increasing in volume and gravity with mysterious background half-heard groans and mutters), through the arc of near-perfection of single ‘In The Na’, ‘He Falls To Me’ and ‘Colour Of A Man’, and onwards, well, for the album’s entire length.  These are tracks that are simultaneously immediately enjoyable but also worth getting one’s teeth into, worthy of repeated listens and long inconclusive analyses.  Although the pace, mood and melodies vary, there is definitely nevertheless a shared atmosphere, aesthetic and feel which means that each track here very much fits together with the others, allowing the sum to add up to even more than the already extremely good constituent parts.

This is such a good album that one is almost loathe to pick it too much to pieces: each listener will have their own treat in store uncovering its charms for themself.  Here, though, are a few pointers towards aspects that struck me as particularly glorious.

- Beautiful songwriting.  Noteable in particular on ‘In The Na’, ‘He Falls To Me’ (see especially the swoonsome bit of melody that accompanies the “In my head / In my bed” couplet), ‘Colour Of A Man’, ‘Kingdom Come’, ‘The Little Bit’ (nearly a Show Tune, but in a good way) and the melancholy, wistful ‘Silence Can Be A Headline’.  These are all tunes that will stay with you for a long long time.

- Gorgeous vocal.  See all of the above. Gibb is one of those singers that has the wonderful ability to adapt the tone and  pitch of his delivery to the song’s content. So he is jaunty on ‘In The Na’, ‘Underage’ (of which more later) and ‘The Little Bit’, but achingly melancholic on ‘Silence Can Be A Headline’, and ‘Colour Of A Man’ – all tuneful vibrato and longing.

- Romance and sex.  These are songs that have as much heart as they have, err, balls.  The gay aspect is neither glossed over nor camped up (and there is, of course, no earthly reason why it ought to be either), but love and lust, affection and fucking are all covered in a real, honest, fundamentally grown up way.  ‘Kingdom Come’ sees the narrator questioning himself about his feelings and impulses: “Am I a slave to desire?”, he wonders, and, more humorously “Will I be lewd to the dude?”.  ‘Underage’ is the track most likely to cause Shock Horror Controversy but, on balance, it really ought not, suggesting as it does a role play (“I’ll pretend you’re seven / You pretend I’m eight”) that is mutual and playful, rather than a paedophiliac fantasy of an adult seducing a child. And this, astonishingly, is set to a perky Lion-Sleeps-Tonight-alike cod-Afrobeat tune.  Elsewhere the focus falls more on romantic love, like in the yearning ‘Colour Of A Man’, ‘He Falls To Me’, ‘Do I Belong’ (“Waking up with you beside me / How can I go wrong?”), or ‘The Little Bit’, with its happy-ever-after aspirations (“We could start a family”).

- Rich, luscious production.  The depth of instrumentation (strings, brass, synths, sound effects) combine with the songwriting and singing strengths with a highly polished and crafted finish of depth to frequently euphoric effect.

If pressed, I would perhaps point to a small sag in the middle of the album, with ‘Do I Belong’ (track 5) and ‘Walk On’ (track 6) being marginally less enjoyable in isolation than those that surround them on both sides.   It is a testament to this album’s coherence and strength, though, that they are still very much key elements, whose omission would make the overall piece weaker rather than stronger.

This, then, is indeed a fine, fine release. Complex, intelligently constructed yet – as with all the best music – deceptively easy to listen to, admire and outright love, it has certainly earned its place in as many Best of Year lists as possible and, indeed, in your record collection.

Buy the album from Amazon | [itunes link="http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?id=328233751&s=143444&uo=4" title="The_Hidden_Cameras-OriginOrphan_(Album)" text="iTunes"]

The most-mentioned fact about Bell Orchestre is that of their connection with their better-known peers from Montreal, Arcade Fire.  The links between the two bands go deeper than just the happenstance of sharing a city of origin, with the two bands also sharing several personnel: full-time members Sarah Neufeld (bass) and Richard Parry (violin) and part time member Pietro Amato, on the french horn with which this album is suffused.

This, their second album (the first being 2005’s Recording A Tape The Colour of Light) showcases a somewhat different musical direction to the better-known band.  Most obviously, the nine tracks here are completely without lyrics, so it is through the instrumentation and track titles alone that the listener can uncover meaning and perhaps narrative.

The album starts exuberantly, with the opening bars of first track ‘Stripes’ sounding like the orchestra tuning up, collecting themselves, before launching into an enjoyable, upbeat introduction, with sustained horn notes and busy strings and percussion running along underneath.  This is followed, on ‘Elephants’ by a more downbeat mood, with the brass here perhaps imitating the elephant’s mournful trumpeting.  This highly atmospheric (and lengthy, at nearly 9 minutes) track is perhaps one of the album’s highlights, evoking animals in the mist, fogbound seagulls shrieking over an incoming tide with a sense of drama – as the dynamics rise and fall – as well as sadness. High, almost strident, strings and mellow french horn punctuate the mood, all combining to make a track that is as listenable as it is detailed, complex and musically intelligent.

‘Water/Light/Shifts’ again reflects its title by creating a sound redolent of running water catching the light as it opens, all twinkles and chimes; and – pleasingly – ‘Bucephalus Bouncing Ball’ indeed has a slower-then-speeding-up beat that evokes the bouncing of a ball, in amongst the enjoyable kitchen-sink-and-all multiplicity of other percussive elements, synths, and rather oriental / eastern sounding strings.

Elsewhere, as on the title track, the sound is somehow more traditionally arranged or orchestral, with its harmoniously combined brass elements and tuneful violins. This is post-rock that is much more at the classical than the rock end of the spectrum, and it is these tracks that hold rather less sustained interest.  Indeed, they could be said to support the view that much of the music here is, in fact, little more than “incidental” music.  Beautifully played and arranged incidental music, indeed, but just, I felt, lacking that indefinable something (is it emotional heft? an overarching mood or theme? meaning?) that would allow it to jump the next step up into something of more deep and lasting satisfaction.

Bell Orchestre on Myspace

There’s pretty much one thing you need to know about Canada’s The Most Serene Republic: they’re signed to Arts & Crafts. A&C, for those not in the know, is the record label founded by Broken Social Scene’s Kevin Drew, essentially for the purpose of putting out his and his bandmates’ material, whether central to the BSS canon or side-projects. Cue early releases from Leslie Feist, Brendan Canning, Stars and naturally, Kevin Drew himself. In 2003, The Most Serene Republic became the first band not directly connected with the “BSS Massive” (as I believe is the name of their tentative hip-hop vehicle) to sign for the label. The lack of direct connection, though, didn’t prevent many – albeit justified – direct comparisons. Their debut album Underwater Cinematographer took way too much unjustified criticism, for sounding just like a Broken Social Scene record. Like that could ever really be construed as a bad thing.

So, the A&C thing is important for two reasons – the first, as outlined above, is that it gives you a pretty good idea of what the band are going to sound like. Much like the phrases “late-eighties Sub Pop”, or “early-nougties Constellation”, “Arts & Crafts”, in indie-music-journo-shorthand, refers to more than just a record label – it’s an ideology, a manifesto, pretty much a genre unto itself. The second important reason is that Arts & Crafts don’t really do bad releases. Whether through fortune or design, it’s difficult to recall a single album from the label that is completely lacking in merit, except that *god-awful* second Stills album.

The one thing you need to know about The Most Serene Republic, is that they are an Arts & Crafts band. It’s not lazy journalism, (well, maybe a little) it’s just that that fact stands up for itself. While MSR probably don’t have the same ear for a hook as Drew/Canning/any of that other band I’ve been favourably comparing them to, they still have an excellent sense of just how, I dunno, dreamy, pop music can be. It’s a real lie down and breathe it in sort of a record, the kind you can imagine falling asleep to in the garden on a lazy summer day, and then having it populate your dreams, before waking you up with the (frankly excellent) penultimate track, synthesiser-led dance anthem ‘Don’t Hold Back, Feel a Little Longer’. At least, it should be an anthem. It’d certainly get me dancing more than Mrs Gaga. While me falling asleep to it after too much Pimms isn’t entirely meant as an insult, MSR are certainly a band better served by not giving over your total attention – which is sad, because at times they’re genuinely interesting. Give them too much, though, and their weaknesses become irritatingly apparent.

All too often it gets sickly-sweet, in the way you’d expect Los Campesinos! to if they’d grown up in Ontario instead of Wales, like on ‘Heavens to Purgatory’ which lays on the intertwining male/female vocals and syrupy acoustic riff way too thick. There’s a real cluttered feeling to the album’s middle section, where the band tend to hit their real high-notes when the vocalists keep mum, leaving a little more room for their sound to grow out – see ‘Patternicity’, which, with its fantastic use of a large string section, genuinely sounds like an old Disney soundtrack. But an awesome one. It’s an album that’s soft in all the right places. Sadly, where you want to to be firm, it just sags a little too much. That sounds way too dirty.

The Most Serene Republic on MySpace

As part of TLOBF’s Oh! Canada column, we have been showcasing all that is good coming out of Canada at the moment. It gives us great pleasure, therefore, to present the UK Premier of Gentleman Reg’s new video ‘How We Exit’, taken from his most recent album Jet Black. You may recognize Reg from his role in John Cameron Mitchell’s ‘Shortbus’, or from time spent in The Hidden Cameras and Broken Social Scene. ‘How We Exit’ is a headlong rush of a pop song built on an elastic bouncing bass line and a righteous parping horn section. The video is built of still photographs, and features guest roles from Katie Sketch (The Organ/Mermaids) and Liz Powell (Land Of Talk/ BSS). Without further a do we give you….Gentleman Reg

Click here to view the embedded video.

TLOBF are excited to announce that Toronto’s Timber Timbre (aka Taylor Kirk) has signed a worldwide deal with Arts and Crafts, who will be reissuing his self-titled album of ghostly, crackling minimal folk-pop on July 28th. Full of minimal guitars, echoes and fairground keyboards its a spine chilling ride from start to finish.

“I went to acquaint Kevin Drew and he simultaneously tried to tell me. We both knew we had to try and tell the world about Timber Timbre and we’re honoured he’s giving us a chance to do just that.” says Arts & Crafts president Jeffrey Remedios. Add The Acorn and Ohbijou to the collection of those singing their praises and you can’t help but feel we are in for a treat come July 28th.

Look out for a feature on Timber Timbre soon, but for now enjoy the picture of a dog-faced boy.

Timber Timbre on Myspace

Jet Black is the fourth proper studio album from Gentlemen Reg, the recording moniker of Canadian songwriter Reg Vermue. He seems to be a quiet sort of character, but the kind that keeps good company. He’s performed with Final Fantasy and ‘guested’ with Sufjan Stevens. The Constantines regularly make up his backing band and he’s even managed to fit in the occasional appearance with the indie-rock behemoth Broken Social Scene.

For this, his first set of original material for Arts and Crafts, Reg immediately seems to fit in. There are definite strokes of some of his more luminous label mates here; the stylings of artists such as Kevin Drew and Andrew Whiteman immediately spring to mind as this album opens and Reg’s gentle, at times verging on beautifully strained voice starts to pick out little feathery melodies. Jet Black is immediately pleasing, if not ultimately completely satisfying.

Reg has admitted himself that his music sometimes requires commitment. It’s true that Jet Black is a grower album and that its charms develop with time and attention. Initially a breezy, pleasant experience for the listener, tracks such as the fresh, bright-eyed ‘We’re In A Thunderstorm’ and the bittersweet, evolving, slightly off kilter ballad ‘When Heroes Change Professions’ can easily become addictive. Sadly, however, a pinnacle is never really reached within the forty minutes Jet Black takes to flutter by. Killer moments are grasped at, but never fully mastered. The whole album goes down very smoothly, but fails to make a lasting impression.

By no means a classic, Jet Black is still a solid and likeable effort that shows glints of real promise. It’s been a few years since a ‘proper’ new release from Vermue, which perhaps has shown itself to be a shade too long. Between this release and 2004’s Darby and Joan, Reg’s profile has certainly grown. Hopefully with his new home on Arts and Crafts it wont be long before another release, because as far as Gentlemen Reg is concerned, it seems that the best is yet to come.
70%

Gentlemen Reg on MySpace

Even though it was only late 2007 when Canada’s Young Galaxy released their self-titled debut in the UK (I believe it came out Spring ’07 in the States) it feels like absolutely ages since we last heard from them. Criminally, said album pretty much sunk without any particular attention or applause – over here at least – and the band seemed to *piff* vanish into thin air. We loved the record though, Jude Clarke scoring it a highly respectable 77% in her review, and we even got them to answer our (now defunct,  but no less legendary) 20 Questions in which front man Stephen Ramsay gave possibly the best Stoat vs. Goat answer EVER. Not to mention the single ‘Swing Your Heartache’ still being one of my favourite songs from the past few years. So yeah – we  kinda like Young Galaxy here at TLOBF.

Good news then that they’re back with a new record. Invisible Republic doesn’t have a release date as yet but the band have made a track available as a free download. ‘Long Live The Fallen World’ on first listen leans towards a more (dare I say it) funky direction. Less shoegaze – more groove. Suits them though, even the 1980′s styled middle 8 breakdown that eventually leads into a spiralling tempo shifting crescendo works.  

If you’re in the States you can catch the band previewing tracks from the album on the following dates:

March
4th – New York, NY @ Piano’s
6th – Brooklyn, NY @ Music Hall of Williamsburg
7th – Ottawa, ON @ Babylon w/ Malajube
8th – Toronto, ON @ Horseshoe Tavern (CMW Showcase)
15th – Newport, KY @ Southgate House
18th – Denton, TX @ Dan’s Silverleaf
19th – Austin, TX @ Buffalo Billiards (SXSW Showcase), 9pm
20th – Austin, TX @ Radio Room (Onion/Canvas Media party), 2pm

mp3:> Young Galaxy: ‘Long Live The Fallen World’

Arts & Crafts have announced details of a solo album from Broken Social Scene / Do Make Say Think main man Charles Spearin. The album is to be called The Happiness Project which will be released in the UK on March 23rd 2009.

In the album’s liner notes, Spearin took time to write a bit of an explanation on the idea behind the project. “These are my neighbours. My wife and I have two little kids and live in a multi-cultural neighbourhood in downtown Toronto.” Spearin explains,  “In the hot summer months all the kids in the neighbourhood play outside together and everyone is out on their porch enjoying each other’s company, telling stories and sharing thoughts. A year or so ago I began inviting some of them over to the house for a casual interview vaguely centered around the subject of happiness. In some cases we never broached the subject directly but none-the-less my friends began to call it my ‘Happiness Project’.”

If you head over to the official website here, you can download, for free, the track ‘Anna’, to give you an idea of what it’s all about…

Performing on “The Happiness Project”:
Charles Spearin – Guitar, Bass, Cornet, Piano…
Leon Kingstone – Tenor and Baritone Saxophones
Julie Penner – Violin
Michael Barth – Flugelhorn and trumpet
Julia Seger Scott – Harp
Ohad Benchetrit – Classical Guitar, Slide Guitar, Alto Saxophone, Flute…
Dave Clarke – Drums
Justin Small – Drums (Anna)
Christopher Ford – Piano (Ondine, Mr. Gowrie)
Ric Petit – Cello
Kevin Drew – Keyboards (Mrs. Morris reprise)
Evan Cranley – Trombone

Photo by Ama Chana

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.

Constantines

Constantines were welcomed on stage with a transatlantic whoop of “Party Hard!”, which immediately made them feel at home and set the tone for a fun set of 10 songs. They have a sound seemingly honed to carry as far as possible across the rolling Prairie, but also the intelligence not to let themselves slip into the realms of brutish squall merchants – loud sure but not distorted. Full marks Mr. sound man too. Their offerings range from dissonant and punky to bluesy chugging Led Zep – but free of any indulgence in elaborate guitar solos. Tracks emphasising Bryan Webb’s Springsteen-like dry vocals scored best, with ‘Nighttime/Anytime (It’s Alright)’ a new favourite. ‘Trans Canada’ and ‘Shower Of Stones’ fuelled by Dallas Wehrle’s pummelling bass also stood out. Most important of all, they seemed to be enjoying themselves too.

New England born but Texas based Jonathan Meiburg is the Clark Kent of rock – always mild-mannered, and one moment singing like a choirboy in fragile falsetto, but the next abruptly strident in soaring roars of naked emotion. For a shy guy he puts it all out there on stage and the audience is transfixed. Rarely have I heard so little sound from the floor at the times when the band themselves are so hushed. His politeness is contagious it seems. The warm reverent atmosphere feels agreed from the off by the word of mouth expectation for current album Rook. Its first track, ‘On The Death Of The Waters’, gets things started – timidly but concealing the crashing mid song climax. It is characteristic in its use of contrast – the beautiful and the harsh. Such is nature: a pervading theme through most of Rook. Songs are as likely to fade fleetingly with delicate key strokes as end in a swirl of guitar feedback. The set is a sixty-forty mix of songs from Rook and previous excellent release Palo Alto, the former getting most immediate recognition. Maybe I’m typical in having only recently fallen under their spell.

Meiburg flits between keyboards, guitars, and banjo for a couple of tracks too. As his adopted nickname suggests, drummer Thor Harris looked like he had earnt a day-pass out from Valhalla, but the muscled part-time carpenter is no leaden-handed beater of skins – having a subtle variety of approaches and indeed doubling up on clarinet, home-made dulcimer, and various atmospheric effects. Standing serenely throughout in contrast to this larger than life character, third core band member Kimberly Burke covered two varieties of bass and part-time glockenspiel. With two additional multi-instrumentalists on board, it was fascinating to see them play musical chairs; swapping roles as they wove their rich full sound from seemingly so organic and simple ingredients. ‘The Snow Leopard’ materialised out of an extended mystical soundscape and the gentle other-worldliness of ‘I Was A Cloud’ was mesmerising. Tracks like ‘Rooks’ got pulses racing with its exuberant hooting and strident trumpet. The stage roving Thor was literally to the fore on pinging dulcimer for ‘Leviathan Bound’, and my own personal favourite rocker ‘Century Eyes’ had the momentum of a freight train. It was dedicated to John McCain. Who said Americans can’t do sarcasm?

Eleven songs had slipped by all too soon, but the encore offered up two more. When Meiburg announced “This is our best show by far in London” you could believe his sincerity, and when he followed with a “song by a local outfit” I was expecting a Who number (Bush Hall was the rehearsal space for those local boys after all). Instead, Shearwater acknowledged one of their influences by covering Talk Talk’s ‘The Rainbow’. To my taste it was too arty and unstructured, though it was interesting to see them hold it all together through the extended sprawl of its second half. Time for Meiburg to spring the final contrast of the evening. With a pointing “we’re going over there”, the band trooped to the back corner of the hall and a rendezvous with the in-house grand piano. An unplugged rendition of ‘The Hunter’s Star’ followed. The most overtly pretty and melodic song on Rook, it was a lovely exposed way to close (if hidden from view to most of the audience) and was the talk of the crowd as they filed out into the bustling street.

Unless there is some serious payola involved (please leave a comment with contact details below if interested), Rook still seams destined for album of the year status for this reviewer, and I’m fighting off a bad case of man-love.

Constantines on MySpace
Shearwater on MySpace

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.

The whole band, from the startlingly intense Joel Gibb to their boundlessly effervescent British violinist (The big bear from Hackney) looked liked they were having a whale of a time as they cut through songs such as ‘AWOO’, ‘Learning The Lie’ and ‘Death Of A Tune’. A surprise guest appearance from an inebriated Patrick Wolf was a nice touch, although tonight this most flamboyant of performers was content to stay out of the limelight and bash happily away on a tambourine and
piano.

During ‘Golden Streams’ and ‘Ban Marriage’, two masked go-go dancers clad in little more than golden hotpants could be found gyrating away around the church, at one point climbing on to the altar which along with some of Gibb’s more racy lyrics may have given the vicar a mild heart attack, but it was for the mostly light hearted, good-natured fun.

If there’s one thing that hinders them, it’s a lack of a killer song that would launch them into the indie stratosphere – although what was played was often fantastic, I was never completely blown away. It did seem that their songs did often fall into the “samey” category sadly but that aside, there’s little to fault- if church services were normally that joyous then by God, I’d convert in an instant.

Hidden Cameras on MySpace

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.

While having seven band members allows a gallon of creative juices to flow, it can get a bit overwhelming at times with a large part of the drumming on the record quite disorientating. Indeed, the rapid-fire delivery of sticksman Tony Nesbitt-Larking means the vocals are delivered quickly in order to keep up, so any message that they may be trying to get across is often lost. Amidst the furore and chaos of tracks like ‘Why So Looking Back’ there are others however, like ‘Career in Shaping Clay’ and ‘Battle Hymn Of The Republic’, which carry their ideas off with a bit more focus and are all the better for it.

When The Most Serene Republic became the first signing to Arts & Crafts that had no connection to the divine Broken Social Scene, much was expected of the Canadian youngsters. Population is the self-produced second album from them and even though they haven’t reached the quality of their illustrious labelmates, it is an album that will challenge you with every listen. You won’t know where to point your ears next as different sounds fly at you from every conceivable angle, though whether they all need to be there is debateable. A tendency to overcomplicate things doesn’t spoil the album for me as such because at times it is very very good, it just grates after a while and makes the listening experience just that little bit less enjoyable.
69%

mp3:> The Most Serene Republic: Sherry And Her Butterfly Net

Links
The Most Serene Republic [myspace] [twenty questions]

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.

1. Describe your sound in 3 words.
Ineffable Ineffable Ineffable
2. What would be your ideal holiday?
Building a back deck with my father, paralleled with a shared craftsmanship of nails and Home Hardware visits.
3. What’s the best cure for a hangover?
A high metabolism.
4. What’s on your rider?
Anything that will fold my linens of discontent into a hamper of confidence.
5. How do you get ready for a live show?
There is no such thing as getting ready.
6. What’s your favourite song to play live?
It is different every show but generally the one(s) we all emote on simultaneously. .
7. When was the last time you told a lie?
When I said there was no such thing as getting ready.
8. Who would win in a fight, a badger or a fox and why?
A badger because he fights with furtiveness and cunning with an
understanding of playing dirty, without any respects to vanity or ring tones.
9. What was the last album you bought?
Stravinsky’s Petrushka.
10. If you could rid the world of one song – what would it be?
Impossible. It would have to be many songs and a career orientation course for the people who made them.
11. Who would play you in a film based upon your life?
Woody Allen, but he would have to foreshadow my state of mind at age 70.
12. Dead or alive. What 5 acts would you have play with you at a festival.
The Dismemberment Plan
Maroon 5 (I would want them dead before they went on stage and brought out rigor-mortis styles)
The Beatles with a zombie Lennon and Harrison.
Radiohead
A band from 20 years into the future.
13. Desert Island Disc? Pick only one.
I would have an I-Pod.
14. What’s your most memorable on the road story?
The most memorable story of the road was the realization that memory in its rapid degradation will be completely gone by age 40, and all tour memories will be a cloud of neurosis and how I handled it.
15. If your life flashed before your eyes, what would be the highlights?
A bunch of very vapid moments cluttered with ones vindicated by emotional crescendos, but really, how dare you ask me to die while I’m at such a young age?
16. File sharing and Myspace – Sign me up or cold shoulder?
Cold Shoulder. MySpace reminds me everyday of the mundaneness of human life.
17. If you had to leave a body part to science, what would it be?
My genitals because its the answer that caters the most to the lowest common denominator.
18. What’s the best book you’ve read and film you’ve seen in the last 6 months?
Book – Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust
Movie – An American Tail by Don Bluth
19. What three things could you not live without?
My kidney’s, reminders that its worth it, and my repugnance for boredom.
20. Tell us a fact about yourself we probably don’t already know.
Humans need war.

mp3:> The Most Serene Republic: Sherry And Her Butterfly Net
[From Populations; Out Now, Arts and Crafts]

Links
The Most Serene Republic [official site] [myspace]

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

Click here to view the embedded video.

[download] Kevin Drew - Tbtf (♫ mp3)