STEVEN LAMBKE - Days Of Heaven

"Steven Lambke has always been the calm, introspective presence within the uninhibited Constantines. On his first solo release not under the Baby Eagle moniker, he forges deeper down that pensive path into places at once strange and comforting. Past Baby Eagle records employed heavy doses of twang, but Lambke now sounds more comfortable alone and quiet. On the harrowing 'Sunflower Mind,' he explores romantic, Latin-influenced acoustic guitar. Even more harrowing is the Dylanesque 'A Good Light And Tired Feeling.' Lambke slowly extracts every inch of love and other grit-laced emotions out of his short songs, just two and three minutes long." - NOW

ELYSE WEINBERG - Greasepaint Smile

"The unreleased second album by an original lady from the canyon. Recorded and recanted in 1969, Greasepaint Smile is more assured than its self-titled, Tetragrammaton-issued predecessor. Weinberg's finger-picked acoustic is layered over distant drumming, while her gravel-pit voice evokes life, love, and mortality. Fellow Torontonian Neil Young sears 'Houses' with his signature fuzz-tone, casting chaos over the beautiful ballad, while J.D. Souther, Kenny Edwards, and Nils Lofgren, pick up the slack." - Numero Group

DILLY DALLY - Sore

"The most immediately disarming thing about Dilly Dally isn't the hellfire guitar tone or the booming drum work. It’s Katie Monks' voice, a scuffed-up howl descended most directly from Courtney Love but also from Layne Staley, Frank Black, Kurt Cobain—all those singers who heard the harshest grain of their voice not as a flaw but as a weapon. Monks has one hell of a snarl, and hearing her rattle it like so many rusty chains draws Dilly Dally’s debut out of the endless background noise of '90s revivalists and into a space where it can thrash around and feel alive.

The Toronto band's '90s roots are deep, though—Hole's DNA shines through in gutter-pop stunner 'Desire,' and 'Purple Rage' shows an affinity with Helium with its white-hot lead guitars and sunken snare pattern. Pixies show up for their due diligence in Dilly Dally's bibliography, especially in the wobbling bass line of 'Ballin Chain,' but Monks doesn’t seem interested in sharing too much of their wordy snark. If the hallmark of most '90s alt-rock was its tossed-off boredom, its slacker cool, Dilly Dally splits from its forebears in ethos if not sound. This isn't a band out to prove how little they care while still making a lot of noise; those partitions come down, and all the hurt and want and anger behind them come gushing to the forefront." - Consequence of Sound

U.S. GIRLS - Half Free

"[Meg Remy's songs] take us into the spaces that are supposed to provide us with solace—home, family, relationships—and make them feel awkward and uncomfortable. (As the dejected narrator of 'Sororal Feelings' declares through a deceptively sunny harmony: 'Now I'm going to hang myself/Hang myself from my family tree.')  

Likewise, Remy's music has always thrived on the conflict between the familiar and foreign. On previous U.S. Girls releases, her pop and experimental sensibilities—part Shangri-Las, part Sun Ra—were often at war with one another. [...] But, by building upon the grotto-bound R&B introduced on 2013's Free Advice Column EP (whose hip-hop-schooled producer, Onakabazien, returns here), Half Free further fortifies the common ground between Remy's diamond-cut melodies and avant-garde urges. The album sounds like your favourite golden-oldies station beamed through a pirate-radio frequency, seamlessly fusing '60s-vintage girl-group serenades and smooth '70s disco into dubby panoramas and horror-movie atmospherics." - Stuart Berman, Pitchfork

BORN RUFFIANS - Ruff

"Born Ruffians' members leach electricity from a long line of wily, wiry art-rock weirdoes, from historical markers like Talking Heads and Violent Femmes to present paragons Animal Collective and Vampire Weekend. So many seeming allusions fly by in a typical Born Ruffians song that a sense of orientation can be hard to come by—until frontman Luke LaLonde swoops down and makes sure the spotlight is set in his own unswerving direction.

That takes all of one second in 'Don't Live Up,' when he gets going on vocals in a burst and starts panting through a series of blurted words ('dry eyes, blue skies—overrated') that steer through spare guitar, drums and horns like a skier on a slalom course. Everything is staccato and tightly wound, with a sense of David Bowie-like élan lending LaLonde an air of voguish preening while he seethes. 'You're living a dream,' he sings, 'but it don't live up, don't live up!'

Falling apart with style is a big part of the Born Ruffians manner, which on the Canadian band's fourth album Ruff cruises through spells of twitchiness and hyperventilation with total composure and control." - NPR

EVENING HYMNS - Quiet Energies

"Despite his band's ever-revolving lineup, Jonas Bonnetta has pinned down some familiar faces for his latest project. James Bunton returns to fill the engineer role and also plays on the album. Rounding out his backing band are The Wooden Sky's Gavin Gardiner and Andrew Kekewich, Jon Hynes and Sylvie Smith. The 'extended cast of players' also includes string arrangements courtesy of Mika Posen, who has played with Timber Timbre.
 
The songs were primarily written by Bonnetta as an intended solo project, immediately after the release of 2012's Spectral Dusk, but after shelving them for a couple of years, he decided to revisit them with the band. The majority of the tracks were recorded live off the floor.
 
Quiet Energies was recorded over the span of a couple weeks at Bonnetta's new home studio in Mountain Grove, about an hour outside of Kingston, ON. It's a move that profoundly affected Bonnetta—and his sound. While Spectral Dusk was an incredibly personal record inspired by the death of Bonnetta's father, the new set of songs hears him moving forward." - Exclaim!

NICK FRASER - Too Many Continents

"Too Many Continents finds Fraser leading a trio with two heavyweight improvisers who need no introduction: pianist Kris Davis and saxophonist Tony Malaby. On second thought, labeling anyone 'leader' of this date might be inaccurate. The three have been friends for twenty years and seem to communicate their ideas telepathically.

On my second pass through this album, the cover image of The Art Ensemble of Chicago's Nice Guys (ECM, 1979) flickers through my mind. You know, that wonderful black and white shot of the group seated around a gingham-clothed table drinking coffee? Too Many Continents sounds like that photograph. Natural. Comfortable. This is not to suggest that it doesn't take chances or stray from familiar territory. Were the Art Ensemble ever tame or predictable? Neither are Fraser and company. Malaby is in top form, sputtering and bubbling above the others in 'I Needed It Yesterday,' tethered by Davis as Fraser navigates. Davis employs a sustained single note pattern in 'Nostalgia For The Recent Past,' fueling a restless Malaby to launch into a manic discourse. Fraser really seems to bloom at this point in the album, absorbing the energy of his companions, but never overshadowing them. There’s plenty of fire and fury here, bookended between the controlled burn of sensitive ballads." - The Free Jazz Collective

SLIM TWIG - Thank You For Stickin' With Twig

"After producing two albums for U.S. Girls (U.S. Girls on Kraak in 2011, Gem in 2012), and scoring two films (Sight Unseen & We Come As Friends (winner of a Special Jury Award at Sundance, among numerous other accolades), Twig found himself in 2013 at a creative impasse re: his own songwriting. He had been through full band incarnations live and on record. They featured a cast of Toronto heavies (members of Zacht Automaat, etc...). He briefly performed Slim Twig sets as a duo, featuring multimedia artist and musician, Meg Remy (U.S. Girls). They performed sets that combined versions of Twig’s released songs with freely structured improvisations, samples, and brightly melodic synth textures. Something in this combination of the pop-minded and the cerebrally-produced has rubbed off on the recordings found on Twig’s latest.

Thank You For Stickin' With Twig is to date the most sonically immersive album in Twig’s discography. Where some records have focused explicitly on sample-based songwriting, while others have been completely live-recorded, the new album arrives at a perfectly produced fusion of fidelities. It hovers, glamorously caught between a cloud of obscurant, half-speed tape hiss, and the most stoned Jeff Lynne production you’ve ever heard. Twig flirts here with a variety of vibes, most often opting for a three dimensional approach whereby a warped tape aura is overlaid with colourful, laser-cut keyboard and guitar melodies. A fetishization of analogue texture is married to a digital approach. All the while, we find Twig irreverently raiding classic rock of its symbolism, sexuality, and social ambition for ulterior subversions. In this respect, TYFSWT's closest cousin may be Royal Trux's Accelerator." - DFA Records

DANIEL ROMANO - If I've Only One Time Askin'

"Daniel Romano's fourth long-player If I've Only One Time Askin' is set for release on New West, the follow-up to his acclaimed 2013 album Come Cry With Me released on New West imprint Normaltown Records. His new album sees Daniel continuing to mine the rich seam of country music traditionalism with a contemporary collection of songs echoing the greatness of Williams, Parsons, Jones and Haggard, but ensuring the music is very much his own with a self-proclaimed genre.

'Mosey music is a study in contrasts,' Romano says. 'There's glitz and grit, reveling and wallowing, wretchedness and showmanship. Mosey music's pioneers wore their battered hearts on sequined sleeves.'

The album was recorded in Daniel's hometown of Welland, Ontario, and self-produced. Amongst the many highlights, there's a lovely collaboration with Caitlin Rose on 'Strange Faces.' For those lamenting the bro-country takeover of the genre, there's much to admire and hang your hat on in Daniel's lyricism, arrangements and neotraditional stylings: classic in every sense of the word." - Beat Surrender

THEN & NOW: Toronto Nightlife History - The Stories Of 48 Influential Clubs From 1975-2015

"From award-winning veteran music journalist and DJ Denise Benson comes Then & Now: Toronto Nightlife History, a fascinating, intimate look at four decades of social spaces, dance clubs, and live music venues. Through interviews, research, and enthusiastic feedback from the party people who were there, Benson delves deep behind the scenes to reveal the histories of 48 influential nightlife spaces, and the story of a city that has grown alongside its sounds." - Then And Now Toronto

THE WEATHER STATION - Loyalty

"Tamara Lindeman recorded Loyalty with Afie Jurvanen (a.k.a. Bahamas) and Robbie Lackritz last February at La Frette-sur-Seine in France—the same ivy-walled, iron-gated mansion/studio where Lackritz engineered Feist's The Reminder. Lindeman and Jurvanen played nearly all of the instruments on the record, and Lindeman sang all the layered vocals, adding woodwinds and strings later, back in Canada.
 
It was important to Lindeman that despite overdubs the album have a live feel: she and Jurvanen laid down drums and guitars or both their guitar parts simultaneously in much the same way that Lindeman recorded her 2011 sophomore album, All of It Was Mine, with Daniel Romano—with the two sitting and facing each other.
 
"It's the best way for me to feel a song," says Lindeman. "And then you've got a full take, you have to perform it in full and you can't mess around. I have a problem I need to get over. I hate click tracks and refuse to use them, which is very obvious on this record. So that's why it's not perfect."
 
If the record is not perfect, it is near-perfect in its imperfections: the music travels and breathes while conveying a new, deeper feeling of groundedness; Lindeman's vocals sound husky and assured over Jurvanen's textures and rhythms as she lyrically explores and describes complicated, nuanced relationships with friends, family, love interests, and art/work." - Exclaim

METZ - II

"Frontman Alex Edkins has said that this record was made with a 'mistakes-left-in kind of approach,' but if anything this only makes II‘s noise-rock more pointed and direct. 'Spit You Out' starts out feeling like a familiar METZ track, all tightly wound distorted bass and sneered vocals, but it casually morphs into something a little more woolly and wild. Edkins' guitar lines and Hayden Menzies' drums rattle and sputter around like malfunctioning machinery before revving back into the pummeling high gear they’re known for. That’s the rule for most of what works best on II: the trio take the forms that worked the first time around, turn them on their head, and then jump right back into the fray with reckless abandon." - SPIN

MARKER STARLING - Rosy Maze

"There is no one else like Cummings in Toronto (Tonetta, with his dirty, aggressive lo-fi scuzz-pop, might in fact be his antithesis). Perhaps there is nothing like him in the world, and foreign listeners are catching on: Marker Starling's new album Rosy Maze on Tin Angel is already receiving high accolades internationally.

Carefully produced and 13 tracks long including delicate interludes, Rosy Maze doesn't sound like an album made in haste—and it wasn't. The album has been in the works since 2010, with some songs, such as 'I Guarantee You a Good Time'and 'Uphill Battle,' started as long as 15 years ago." - Chart Attack

ATA KAK - Obaa Sima

"Ata Kak Yaw Atta-Owusu was born in 1960 in Kumasi. He moved to Toronto in 1989, where he played in a band called Marijata (not to be confused with the '70s band of the same name). They released three albums, which allowed Yaw the opportunity to refine his skills in music, and eventually encouraged him to strike out on his own. By 1991, he began to record his own songs using the software Notator Atari, a synthesizer, and a secondhand 12-track recorder. In 1994, he released fifty copies of his work on tape (manufactured in Ghana to reduce costs). He sold three.

In 2002, during a trip to Cape Coast, [Awesome Tapes From Africa's] Brian Shimkovitz came upon one of those very cassettes in a city market. Fascinated by this condensed chunk of African hip-house, the discovery led him to dig this rich, hitherto unexplored scene unexplored, which led to the blog and then his label. And it was that tape, one of the only existing copies of the album, which is the basis for the new remastered edition of Obaa Sima." - Noisey/VICE

ERIC CHENAUX - Skullsplitter

"Eric Chenaux has emerged as one of the most distinctive, innovative and original voices in what might be called avant-garde balladry, juxtaposing his gorgeously pure and open singing against a guitar sound and style that truly stands alone. Skullsplitter is the impressive new album that confirms Chenaux's singular aesthetic: genuine, natural, unaffected vocals gliding through slow, smoky melodies while electric and nylon-string guitars are deployed with adventurously experimental, dextrous, semi-improvisational technique and texture.

Skullsplitter stands as a welcome and natural evolution from Chenaux's previous song-based album Guitar & Voice (2012), his first properly solo record for Constellation (i.e. made without guest musicians or collaborators), which was widely celebrated as his best work to date, championed by The Wire, Said The Gramophone, Stereophile and others for its unique sensibility and sensitivity. Skullsplitter builds on these strengths and similarly consists solely of Chenaux's voice and guitar." - Constellation

THE WEATHER STATION - What Am I Going To Do With Everything I Know (12"-only)

We've been fans of Tamara Lindeman for quite a while now, and while her previous release All Of It Was Mine was a doozy (whose songs we had the pleasure of hearing performed live in our shop), this new EP, maybe due to the confluent factors of arresting concision, great performances, and hushed depth of lyrical detail, has bowled over many of us on staff here, not unlike the lightheaded rush of new love (followed by sober consideration of its consequences) that this mini-song cycle so eloquently and beautifully revolves around.

"The Weather Station returns with this limited edition 12" 45 RPM EP. The 6-song EP was recorded with Daniel Romano and the acclaimed North Carolina band Megafaun. Each side of the record is a trio of interconnected songs: Side A is a meditation on knowledge; Side B is a narrative, a love story in three parts. It is a quiet, yearning, and soulful record that expands on the acoustic folk of All Of It Was Mine (YC-011) while deepening the intimacy." - You've Changed

JOHN SOUTHWORTH - Niagara

With co-producer (and recent Polaris Prize winner for his work with Tanya Tagaq and Jesse Zubot as the core trio behind Tagaq's Animism) Jean Martin once again helping at the helm, anyone already entranced by Southworth and ace backing band The South Seas' 2010 effort Human Cry now has twice the adventurous performances and ambitious songcraft to enjoy with this double-disc tribute to the two halves, towns, and states of nation-mind that are/is Niagara Falls, ON/NY.

"Southworth's best songs tend to be evocative, romantic and whimsical, and there are a number of knockouts here: the euphoric build and release of 'Ode To The Morning Sky'; the slow, dull, spiritual thud of Andrew Downing's acoustic bass on 'Folk Art Cathedral'; the mystical, infinite yet minute lullaby that is 'Irish Tree Alphabet' and Felicity Williams' breathy, Wurlitzer-chased lift-off at the end of closer 'Loving You. But there's also variety: 'Hey I've Got News For You' is assertively American; the melody on 'Womb Of Time' sounds like it's lifted from the American Songbook with Southworth sounding exhausted (but not in a bad way); and there's a Waits-ian groove on 'Halloween Election.' It's dreamy eccentricity: a little crazy and courageous, and a strong statement." - Exclaim!

ALVVAYS - S/T

When our former co-worker Mike came back from Sappyfest last year, he was quick to mention jangle-poppy P.E.I.-to-Toronto transplants Alvvays as a festival highlight. Our anticipation for their album has been building since then, and it's not just us: the strength of two catchy-as-heck singles ("Archie, Marry Me" and "Adult Diversion") created some real excitement to hear the full-length, and it doesn't disappoint. It's your funny-sad-smart summer record; a blast to blast on a sunny day, but with enough ennui to last through winter.

"The lyrics throughout Alvvays are direct; they're mostly sung to people rather than about them, lending immediate access to every story. They're also awkward—which is to say they're about awkwardness in a way that songs, particularly beach songs, rarely are. Millennial social anxiety, it turns out, is a wildcard genius pairing with breezy, effortlessly cool surf-rock, and the combination is irresistible. 'Adult Diversion,' for example, obsesses over whether a social interaction 'is a good time/or is it highly inappropriate.' No time for lying around in the sun after catching waves today, man — there are too many future conversations to hash out in great detail ('Archie, Marry Me'). Over-analyzing, easygoing; reverb-infused, direct; nonchalant, plaintive: These aren't unprecedented musical pairings, but Alvvays wields them particularly well, tapping into a widely mined and instantly recognizable genre to create their juxtapositions." - NPR

LET'S TALK ABOUT LOVE: Why Other People Have Such Bad Taste (New and Expanded Edition)

Even if you've already pored over Carl Wilson's breakthrough ode to pop-cultural relativism, you may nevertheless need this new edition, with thirteen additional guest essays from the likes of Nick Hornby, Ann Powers, Drew Daniel, Owen Pallett, Sheila Heti, and, oh, right, James Franco.

"In 2007, Continuum published the fifty-second volume in the 33 1/3 series. Its title, Let’s Talk About Love: A Journey to the End of Taste, seemed to suggest that it would be a book about Céline Dion. But it turned out to be so much more than that. Let’s Talk About Love is a book that invites the reader to second-guess the way they think about the things they love and the things they hate. Given the great response, Bloomsbury and Carl Wilson decided to create an expanded, stand-alone edition. Part I is the original text of Let's Talk About Love from the 33 1/3 series, and Part II is a set of essays on the book's themes contributed by a wide range of prominent writers, musicians and scholars.(Don't worry, the original 33 1/3 version will remain in print.)" - Bloomsbury

THE NEW MENDICANTS - Into The Lime

Although the group name might not yet register, The New Mendicants consist of a trio of Toronto transplants (of varying degrees) whose names you'll likely recognize: Joe Pernice, Norman Blake and Mike Belitsky, banding together to play a brand of sprightly-strummed pop which blends the singing and songwriting voices of Blake and Pernice to breezily catchy effect. 

"Into The Lime does much to dispel the received wisdom that side projects are little more than exercises in vanity wherein the cast-off songs from the individual players' day jobs are given a new lease of life in order to satisfy egos while nursing the bruises of rejection. No, this a welcome shot of vitamin D in the cruellest month of the year where summer seems to be an eternity away while the filling of tax return forms only adds to the harshness of January." - The Quietus