Dan Mangan

Those of you who have been loitering around the security doors here at TLOBF Towers for a while now you have probably noticed the frankly phenomenal amount of great new music coming from Canada over the last few years. From the classics (Joni, Neil and Laughing Lenny), the big hitters (Arcade Fire/ BSS/ Feist) to the up and coming (The Acorn, Woodpigeon, Ohbijou) TLOBF has been committed to bring you the best of what the Great White North has to offer. So we figured it made sense to start a new column dedicated to uncovering the latest new talent emerging from Canada, to showcase some of the lesser sung acts, labels, and events that may not have shown up on the collective radar over here in the UK. So from The Acorn to Zumpano TLOBF brings you: Oh! Canada.

And what better way to start off our new column than a review of the Canadian Blast! showcase from this years recent Great Escape festival.

It seems strangely appropriate that the first artist covered by Oh! Canada is Vancouver’s Dan Mangan. After all, he has form when it comes to the Canadian National Anthem, having performed it at the start of a Vancouver Canucks (let’s go Canucks!) Ice Hockey game , he’s also scheduled to sing it again at the start of a Vancouver Whitecaps soccer game later this summer (it’s a peculiar quirk of North American Sports that at every level, no game starts without the anthem being sung, or played on a nose flute, or something). Mangan first came to prominence a couple of years back with Postcards and Dreaming which saw him draw comparissons to fellow Canuck Patrick Watson and coffee table favourite Damien Rice. But that was five years ago, and now he’s back with a less lush, more gritty sound on the Roboteering EP (given a glowing review here last week).

Having charmed the crowd of his headline show on the first night of the festival with tales of falling asleep during a Mudhoney concert, Mangan had an early start in order to accommodate the fact that he had to drive to Cambridge to support The Broken Family Band later that evening. And so it came to be that, joined by the string section of Hey Rosetta! he took to the stage at 12.15 on an overcast Friday afternoon. By rights, the venue should have been empty, but it is testament to Mangan’s growing following that it is almost filled to capacity, helped no doubt by the fact that he had snuck outside moments before to the venue’s balcony to have a quick practice before the show, causing members of the general public to come in to the cave like venue for a closer look. Mangan’s finely crafted Canadiana is perfectly accompanied by his hastily assembled swooning string section, his smooth to gritty vocal delivery just the right side of broken to appeal to the mainstream and the underground alike. About midway through the set, however, things start to go wrong, with guitar and microphone cutting out. Unfazed, Mangan simply unplugs his acoustic guitar, steps off the stage and continues the set from the middle of the crowd, who by now are in the palm of his hand. As the set draws to a close, he begins to lead the crowd in a stomping, hand clapping, sing-a-long take on EP lead track “Robot”. As the now capacity room sings in unison “Robot’s need love too/ they want to be loved by you”, it becomes clear that the future could be very bright for this young man from Vancouver. After all, as Mangan himself acknowledges: “This isn’t supposed to happen- You’re industry people, your clapping, singing harmonies and it’s not even 1pm”.

Ultimate Power Duo

Next up are Saskatoon’s brilliantly named Ultimate Power Duo. Naturally enough, UPD are in fact a classic power trio of riffs, pummeling drums all kept in check by a low end rumble to make Mike Watt jealous. Fresh from being hand picked as a support act for Bad Religion by Jay Bentley himself and a handful of dates with Canadian punk legends NomeansNo under their belt, The UPD are a vacuum tight punk rock unit, playing a self proclaimed ‘Demolition Rock”- theirs is the music that would be made if the neo-garage rock of The Hives or Rocket From The Crypt played a game of Chicken with The Minutemen and The Ramones and neither backed down. Clad in an all black uniform they know they’re R’n’R history, nodding to The Minutemen’s “If Reagan Played Disco” during the intro to the no-wave onslaught that is “Noam Disco”. The beauty of UPD is the clear delight they take in playing- a reminder that life is too short to not enjoy yourself and a celebration of living in, and for the moment. Their set ends with both non-drumming members performing Pete Townesend-esque windmills before launching their guitars into the roof of the building.

Hey Rosetta!

Having accompanied Dan Mangan early in the day, Newfoundland’s Hey Rosetta! string section clamber back on stage, with the rest of their band. The St. John’s septet are led by Tim Baker, a wiry, impassioned frontman with a fine line in bedsit angst and longing. Baker is in possesion of one of those gritty voices that cracks with passion when pushed to the limit, which it frequently is, driven along by the driving string arrangements and crunching guitars of his band. While there is no doubt a folk tint to the proceedings, more often than not Baker explodes in a jangle pop fury, utilizing simple start-stop dynamics that the Hold Steady would be proud of. This is in evidence on “There’s an Arc”, which sees him clamber aboard the drumkit as he careens around the stage. Maybe it’s the long dark nights out on the east coast, but Baker has clearly worked hard at his art, crafting epic, soaring indie pop-balladry without ever teetering over the edge in to middle of the road Snow Patrolisms. A bundle of energy onstage, his restless legs jangle as Hey Rosetta! come to the climax of their set, gang vocals and all.

The Arkells

Next up is Hamilton’s The Arkells. The most straight ahead commercial prospect featured in the Canadian Blast showcase. Having already played Canada’s V festival and opened for The Black Crowes, it seems likely that this is one of the smaller stages that they will grace in the UK. Good looking boys with bluesy rock riffs and singalong “Hey Hey Hey” choruses and piano hooks abound. There’s a clear love of early Springsteen in evidence here too on the uber-radio friendly “Pullin Punches”, and you can’t help but feel that before they make the transition to the pop-rock big time.

Ohbijou

Ohbijou’s headline set very nearly doesn’t happen, after a keyboard stand collapses onto their cello. Feedback howls from the monitors and sisters Casey and Jenny Mecija look at each other with doubt across their faces. They may not be able to hear themselves or each other, but the moment Casey’s delicate voice starts over her sisters swooning string parts it’s easy to see why Bella Union snapped up the rights to their second album, Beacons. Piano’s chime, drums pound and everything seems to click into place as the tales of doomed love and longing are played to an enchanted audience. As the rain begins to fall outside, Ohbijou wrap the crowd in a warm, comforting blanket of sound, that seems like it could protect you from whatever lies outside.

Ultimat Power Duo

The Arkells

That’s all from Oh! Canada for now but be sure to look out for more Canadian goodness courtesy of TLOBF . And don’t forget to download the Oh! Canada mixtape full of songs from the kinds of bands Oh! Canada will be introducing you to in the coming weeks and months!

Patrick Watson has, in many interviews and press jaunts, had to explain that he is the frontman of a band, also called Patrick Watson. He had even more explaining to do when the Montreal based four piece that share his name were nominated for a Canadian Juno award for best newcomer in 2007. More praise came later that year, when the bands sophomore record Close to Paradise bagged the Polaris Music Prize (Canada’s less tokenistic version of the Mercury’s). With a sound that flits between mainstream singer songwriter and the slightly more leftfield it would have been easy, with their new found notoriety, for Patrick Watson (the band) to turn in a mainstream “singer songwriter” record with an “indie” edge that would position them somewhere between Damien Rice and James Blunt. A cursory listen to ‘Man Like You’ with it’s delicate fingerpicked melody and descending bassline, and you might think that they had taken that option. With Watson (the singer’s) Jeff Buckley falsetto and Nick Drake like lilt, it sounds like it could well be the romantic theme to some forthcoming movie, but with an edge.

‘Man Like You’, is, however, far from representative of Wooden Arms as a whole. Where countless singer-songwriters have gone down the “add a bunch of strings” route, few succeed in fully integrating with their orchestral counterparts as well as Patrick Watson do here. Opener ‘Fireweeds’ starts as a gentle folk lullaby, Watsons hushed vocal surrounded by ethereal ‘ooh’s’ and a skittering drum pattern before building to a crescendo. Elsewhere, ‘Beijing’ harnesses scattershot percusion and an insistent piano refrain that calls to mind the work of minimalist John Adams, the warm strings swooning around Watson’s hazy vocal delivery. ‘Hommage’ eschews Watson’s vocal entirely, providing shimmering strings and a mournful cello solo during a brief instrumental elegy.

Elsewhere, Patrick Watson take a journey into their namesake singer’s own slightly deranged world. ‘Wooden Arms’ sees Watson is a Chet Baker like croon that develops into the kind of thing you can imagine being used as a soundtrack to a gangster movie, while on ‘Traveling Salesman’ we are transported to an abandoned fairground, for a haunted “oompah”, replete with discordant guitar and tremulous singing saws. ‘Where The Wild Thing’s Are’, sees Watson pay tribute to Maurice Sendak’s classic children’s book, and, like that book’s central character, Watson has a playful innocence and vivid imagination. If Spike Jonze fails to use this delicate piano led melody in his upcoming movie, then he’s missed a trick.

While for the most part, Patrick Watson are able to keep everything under control, at times everything becomes a little too much, ‘Down At The Beach’ meandering with no real sense of purpose. However, the sprawling, pedal steel soaked “Machinery of Heaven” more than makes up for it, drawing the album to a close in a chorus of bird song and delicate, distant piano. All credit must go to Watson and his fellow Patrick Watson’s for turning their back on the easy option and choosing to follow their own path, wherever it may lead them.
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Patrick Watson on Myspace

Wooden Arms is Patrick Watson’s highly anticipated follow-up to the critically acclaimed Close to Paradise, which vaulted the man and his band to international stardom in 2007. Close To Paradise won the prestigious Polaris Prize, Canada’s answer to the Mercury Music Prize.

It’s release on 11th May, as a download or good ole fashioned CD.

Tracklisting:
Fireweed
Tracy’s Waters
Beijing
Wooden Arms
Hommage
Traveling Salesman
Big Bird in a Small Cage
Down at the Beach
Man Like You
Where the Wild Things Are
Machinery of the Heavens

Catch Watson live at the rather wonderful Union Chapel in London on Thur June 4th.

Links
Photos [valerio berdini]