Music, musings and miscellanea

This review originally appeared at Chartattack.com

Never let it be said that Elephant 6 fans aren’t dedicated people.

It was a lesson learned by my friend, who, while standing in line at Toronto’s Lee’s Palace on Friday night, commented that he didn’t necessarily subscribe to the Church of Jeff Mangum the way that others do. This resulted in us receiving an earful from the guy in line ahead of us.

“You should have seen their gig at the Horseshoe back in ’98. It was mind-blowing. You won’t understand ’cause you weren’t there.”

Take that, hipsters.

Such is the devotion that E6 engendered during the ’90s. Built on the reputations of Neutral Milk Hotel,Olivia Tremor Control and The Apples In Stereo, the label/collective established a new approach to touring and releasing albums that blurred the lines between its member groups. It’s an approach that would be adopted by an entire new generation of musicians, including the Arts & Crafts crew right here in Toronto.

But after 10 years more or less out of the spotlight, these indie OGs have decided to leave the commune and hit the road to show the kids they inspired just how its done.

That crew started the show in the audience, next to the sound booth, singing in unison before marching their way onto the stage. With about a dozen E6 alum in the house, said stage filled up pretty quickly thanks to two drum sets and a tuba that were among the litany of instruments strewn about.

This also made moving around on-stage difficult, but that didn’t stop the collective members from changing their configuration with almost every song. It was refreshing to see a band not treat instruments like the banjo or the saw with affected preciousness, something today’s indie rockers seem to have projected onto any instrument that doesn’t fit the standard rock band mold.

To try and figure out every song they played would require a complete discography, plus a pretty intimate knowledge of indie and outsider music from the last 40 years. Suffice to say with a large number of its members on hand this night, Olivia Tremor Control’s catalogue was well represented, and I was able to pick out tunes by The Gerbils and Music Tapes.

Selections were presented as “this is a song Scott wrote,” or “this is one of Julian’s,” rather than attaching tunes to any singular project. This emphasized the fluid nature of the Elephant 6 oeuvre and the reverence its members have for one another’s music — egos are cast aside as whoever’s around lends a hand to best serve the song being played at that moment.

About an hour into their set came a brief intermission that ended with the unveiling of a snowman. The audience member who was able to throw the snowball through the moon on the other side of the venue would “melt” the snowman and bring on spring, Julian Koster explained in one of his many hilariously inventive stories. That audience member would also get to request any song by any band that they wanted.

But the musicians onstage vetoed the winner’s choice and instead went with AC/DC’s “Hells Bells,” which Will Cullen Hart had apparently wanted to play all tour. Minutemen and Royal Trux covers also made their way into the set, which ended up stretching almost three-and-a-half hours.

The encore, or more appropriately, the third act, stretched well passed the hour mark and at this point it was clear everyone onstage was playing for themselves. The show had unfortunately lost a lot of the momentum it had built up earlier, and the bar was half-empty. But you’ve got to hand it to a bunch of dudes (and dudette — Laura Carter was the lone female representative) in their forties who can outlast fans in their twenties.

The show ended the way it started, with the whole crew marching back into the audience, brass instruments and a drum in hand, encouraging everyone left in the venue to sing along to multiple rounds of Sun Ra’s “Enlightenment.”

Musical talent of this magnitude coming from a group of musicians with so much respect for both their audience and one another is incredibly rare in this age of hipster cool. Trying to put the Elephant 6 Holiday Surprise Tour’s unique and epic vibe in words is a rather difficult task. Perhaps it’s best summed up with: you had to be there, man.

This review originally appeared at Exclaim.ca

Eureka, indeed. Picking up where their last album, O My Heart, left off, Vancouver, BC five-piece Mother Mother‘s third album finds the band set on overdrive, amping up almost every aspect of their sound.

Thankfully, the quintet have retained the oddball quirkiness that endeared them to fans in the first place. Nowhere is this more evident than on call-and-response first single “The Stand,” an irresistible slice of power pop that finds frontman Ryan Guldemond playing psychiatry patient to back-up singers and keyboard players Jasmin Parkin and his sister, Molly. Clearly Mother Mother’s defining trademark, the trio’s interweaving three-part vocals are placed front and centre on most of the album’s dozen tracks, anchored by the rock-solid rhythm section of Jeremy Page and Ali Siadat.

Fans of the band’s earlier, folkier incarnation might be disappointed by the new record’s more rocking vibe, but they’ve managed to maintain their essence. Chockfull of hooks, Eureka will no doubt break Mother Mother to a whole new group of fans. Thankfully, few records are as deserving of adoration as this one.

“The Stand”

This review originally appeared at Exclaim.ca

On paper, world music-influenced indie rock from Vancouver doesn’t exactly inspire a lot of confidence. But in practice, Van City trio No Gold have managed to blend pop, krautrock and noise to create a blissed-out approximation of just such a thing.

Although they’ve floated around their hometown for a while now, previously playing under the name Yukon before morphing into their current incarnation, No Gold have offered little in the way of recorded material, posting tracks on their Myspace page with frustrating irregularity. Recorded in Vancouver’s Chinatown last year, this debut showcases the group’s wide range of influences and styles, mixing a traditional guitar, bass and drums set-up with some electronic flourishes to great effect.

Opener “Rainforce” offers up squalls of white noise before morphing into sister track “Rainforts” which remarkably, finds middle ground between Malian rockers Tinariwen and Kula Shaker. Their tropical pop influences raise their head on “Weird Week,” but groove-based tracks like the stellar “Council Jam” are where No Gold really take flight. A band whose sonic identity shifts with each track, No Gold is unclassifiably brilliant.

This review originally appeared at Exclaim.ca

As the ’90s dawned and computers slowly replaced actual musicians in the studio, the line between R&B producer and R&B singer grew ever more rigid. While superstar studio rats like R. Kelly and Missy Elliott certainly developed successful solo careers, their writing and producing for a wide swath of other artists was what helped define the sound of the decade.

Brooklyn’s How to Dress Well and Montreal’s Grimes have both drawn inspiration from many ’90s R&B stalwarts, adopting the decade’s melodies into their ethereal vocals sung over homemade beats and soundscapes. But the era’s superstars built their reputations on glitzy music videos and dance-floor-shaking beats, not their live show. So it’s not surprising then that as more indie-minded folk have adopted the genre’s musical tropes, they’ve struggled to recreate their headphone jams in front of an audience. With no real template to work from, both acts took a much different approach.

Grimes’ Claire Boucher, a small woman with massive range, played the part of R&B producer, standing behind a series of keyboards, samplers and drum machines. Boucher cooed into a mic and manipulated her vocals as she went along, triggering each new element of her songs at will. It was difficult to know where her voice ended and the electronic gear took over, as her voice blended in with her expansive music. Despite pausing several times to ask the audience if the sound was all right, Boucher kept the momentum up throughout her set and certainly won over many in the crowd through her cute, diminutive personality.

Tom Krell, the man behind the How to Dress Well phenomenon, chose a less hands-on approach to his music, performing with a backing track and massive video screen, onto which a partner in the back of the room cued various film clips. Playing the part of R&B singer, Krell crooned through a 45-minute set of his short tunes, bringing attention to his formidable voice rather than the music as a whole. What could have come off as bad karaoke proved to be surprisingly affective, as Krell, despite battling a cold, was able to bring across the emotion behind his music to the audience. Only his decision to take a break in between each tune really cut up the energy of the set.

Whether one act was “better” or “more real” really depends on your perspective. Boucher appeared to be the real musician, actually playing along with her heavily processed voice. It’s what we have come to expect after 60 years of watching rock bands do it. But Krell presented himself as something different, but no less true to his music, singing with nothing but a healthy dose of reverb as a safety net. Both performances worked exceedingly well, and as careers progress, we can only expect bigger and better things from these two talented musicians.

HTDW – “Decisions ft. Yuksel Arslan”

This review originally appeared at Exclaim.ca.

Robyn’s self-directed reinvention finally seemed complete last year, when she unleashed her excellent Body Talk full-length. The album closed the book on her transformation from late ’90s teen-pop star into Euro-disco diva, embraced by indie-minded hipsters and, if her Toronto gigs are any indication, the gay community as a whole.

But as her star re-emerged on the pop-culture landscape, Robyn seemed to find herself right back where she started. Last fall, the Swede appeared on teen-drama phenom Gossip Girl, while she will be playing warm-up act to teen-pop sensation Katy Perry across North America this summer, playing some of the very same venues she turned her back on over a decade ago. So in reclaiming her image, has Robyn simply come full circle?

Her rescheduled performance at Toronto’s Sound Academy would suggest not. Drawing heavily on the dance-floor fillers that populate Body Talk, Robyn proceeded to throw down the gauntlet for all subsequent pop shows that role through town, swinging, dancing and twirling her way into the hearts of the sold-out audience who cheered her every move.

Robyn fills her songs with heartfelt emotion, giving her listeners an actual piece of herself as opposed to a manufactured version. Similarly, onstage Robyn gives a piece of herself to her audience and, in turn, feeds off their energy in a performance that is neither hindered by the shallowness of a singer like Perry or the choreographed and distracting spectacle of Lady Gaga.

Her exuberant personality won over even the most casual fans in attendance, as she had the entire bar dancing along to her three-piece band (her second drummer was mysteriously absent), who were decked out in white lab coats. Throughout the 90-minute set, the singer never wavered in her energy levels, stalking the stage with a determination that rivals Mick Jagger, grinding the air and generally defying physics with her flexibility and dance moves in a pair of impossibly huge platform shoes.

Whatever Robyn has in store for the future, it’s clear that she continues to occupy the driver’s seat of her own career. While she may continue to flirt with the mainstream she once abandoned, these dalliances are on her terms. If Robyn decides to move away from the fan base whose fervent adoration helped spread word of her resurrection, it will be of her own volition.

“Hang With Me”