Music, musings and miscellanea

I’ve written about my love for Grimes in the past, so I’ve been easing off a little with the release of her latest, most excellent album Visions. However I felt compelled to post this latest video for the track “Oblivion” because it’s the first time we get to see Grimes, aka Claire Boucher acting playful and more or less being herself in a sense.

In previous vids, Boucher comes across as aloof and mysterious, which is part of what has made her so appealing – we don’t just want more of her music, we want more of her.  With “Oblivion” she gives it to us, but just enough to satiate our appetites. The scenes in the sports stadiums are the most off-the-cuff, while the staged scenes with the buffed up body-builders and the jarhead football fans reinforce her mysteriousness and power.

Boucher and director Emily Kai Bock sat down with Pitchfork to discuss the clip for P4K’s Director’s Cut. Check out “Oblivion” below.

Chattanooga, TN (yes, that’s a real place) crew Moonlight Bride have found a nice middle ground in the indie world walking a thin line between the slinky post-punk of Joy Division and the swirling shoegaze of My Bloody Valentine.

“Lemonade” is the first song released off the band’s forthcoming EP Twin Lake. On top of perfectly showcasing the band’s musical dichotomy it’s got a nice anthemic quality to it, and kind of feels like the soundtrack to a deleted  One Tree Hill Scene (in my world, this is a compliment).

Twin Lake is out  Feb. 28.

Cousins have been flopping around the Halifax DIY scene for a while now delivering some garagey pop gems on a number of releases, including their cleverly named split cassette with Duz He Knew, DUZ/CUZ. 

Sophomore full-length The Palm at the End of the Mind should help raise their profile outside Atlantic Canada. It drops March 20 via Saved By Vinyl.

Check out/download “Jules” below.

Nardwuar the Human Serviette is well known for his off-the-wall interviews, but dude’s also in a long-running band called the Evaporators who have just dropped a new video for their song “I Hate Being Late (When I’m Early) featuring none other than professional party starter (and Nardwuar superfan) Andrew W.K.

The video was shot at Vancouver college radio station CITR at UBC where Nardwuar hosts a program on Fridays. He even gives a shout out to former music director Luke Meat and a number of bands including Needles//Pins and features a ripping guitar solo from New Pornographers member and the “JC” in “JC/DC Studios” John Collins, who’s played with Mr. the Human Serviette for years. Admittedly, the song isn’t the best, but it’s a nice reminder of my hometown and where I got my start in community radio.

Kathryn Calder turned a lot of heads with her own change of direction on sophomore outing Bright and Vivid. Second single “Turn  a Light On” gets a rustic video treatment courtesy of Vancouver filmmakers Leif Parker and Geoffrey Tomlin-Hood, who helped bring to life the video for “C’Mon Sea Legs” by Calder’s old band Immaculate Machine. Check the scenery below.