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