New Music Classic Monday Album Reviews

who reads this if u are reading this right now let me know send me a DM uwu

Dusty Notes – Meat Puppets

Teenage Fanclub but like not as good? This album isn’t particularly interesting, but its well produced and executed dad rock. Sea of Heartbreak is a goofy lil track tho, probably the highlight. Ill revisit when im 40 and maybe ill like it.

SASAMI – SASAMI

love this!!! Keys player for cherry glazerr. Imagine if bedroom pop was still sad but a little less sad and had more going on. Go listen! 10/10 my pick of the week. “Morning Comes” is kinda groovy gets my heart beating on a little bit.

Cheers – The Wild Reeds

Indie rock no surprises pretty chill kinda stuff but nothing exciting like Hop Along with way less instrumentation. Feels sort of like a distillation of all the big Indie Dream Pop stuff floating around right now.

Hypnos – Xeno & Oaklander

Tangerine Dream-ey stuff, might get added to my study music playlists. Reminds me of that weird midi album Dr. Dog made. Kinda cool! This album kind of sounds like the nightmare windows 98 would have.

L.A.’s Got Me Down – Justus Proffit

If I didn’t know who made this and just heard it randomly I would have thought it was Elliot Smith. HOWEVER, this isn’t some Greta Van Fleet style soulless ripoff; Justus Proffit delivers on this record with a sound that has one foot in 90’s alt and the other foot in contemporary dream pop. Good record, “Split Into” is a favourite track of mine, and I also highly recommend the split EP that Justus Proffit did with Jay Som.

Slow Century – I Was A King

More wannabe Teenage Fanclub, this album even sounds like every track was written while listening to Teenage Fanclub’s Here. Nothing remarkable, but the track “Bubble” shows a little bit of life.

Liv – Daniel Blumberg, Hebronix

Absolutely entrancing. Faux noise bands like Daughters wish they sounded 5% like this good. A rare case of music having an aspect of fear; if a Southern Gothic story had a soundtrack this would be it. This music demands your attention and uses it well.

2 (3?) Quick Album Reviews

Coming back to writing about music because I think it helps me keep track of what I’ve listened to in my head which is something that I have difficulty doing now that my life is actually busy.

Strange Creatures – Drenge

If you, like me, were disappointed by the 2018 IDLES release Joy of Resistance, this release from UK punk outfit Drenge will certainly make up for it. The tracks “This Dance” and “Teenage Love” were especially catchy tracks with memorable punk riffs. Drenge channels some of the heavier and slower punk that IDLES failed to capture on Joy of Resistance, and the later tracks in the album start to fall into laid back guitar and synth tracks in a similar vein to bands like Shame and some of the newer tracks Wand have been releasing. There is a lot of variety in sound and energy to be found on Strange Creatures, making for an enjoyable listen through.

Mazy Fly – Spellling

This album is a great listen, each track has a lot going on and it makes for a very intriguing listen. Some of the sounds on here remind me a little bit of a band called The Moog Cookbook, a synth duo that release covers of various chart topping hits with weird stylings. Regardless of an intentionality it the influence, the timbre on Spelllings tracks leads to a carefree and lighthearted atmosphere. “Dirty Desert Dreams” especially almost sounds like it was played on my childhood toy keyboard. “Golden Numbers” contrasts with the synth tracks nicely, with a guitar track more in line with typical dream-pop. Some of the tracks on Mazy Fly are sparse and rely on Chrystia Cabra’s vocals, while others are filled with a variety of sounds and textures. As much as I hate to use the word haunting, Cabra really does embrace a haunted aesthetic, with the short track “Melted Wings” sounding like something from an art house horror movie soundtrack.

Suspiria (Music for the Luca Guadagnino Film) – Thom Yorke

Speaking of art house horror, the soundtrack to Suspiria has been my go-to study music lately. If you need music that is good for studying, i’ll direct you here, but otherwise I would highly recommend the movie itself instead. I had nightmares about it for a solid week after seeing it, and is one of the best examples of how scary a movie can be just through its cinematography.

 

 

Pretentious Bullshit: 2018 Album Recap

2018 had some bangers. Bops all around over here. Here’s what I liked.

Wide Awake! – Parquet Courts 

I love this band, they could have released anything and I would have put in on here. Luckily Wide Awake! is also their best record by far, front to back amazing songs and the last track Tenderness is a CERTIFIED EARWORM. Also this album wins the award for the best bass-lines of 2018.

Clean – Soccer Mommy

Everything you love about Dream Pop and the songs have more emotion than just melancholy.

Drift – The Men 

It’s like New Order and Alabama Shakes had a baby. It’s a little unfocused and that works in its favour. Entertaining listen.

Constant Image – Flasher

A feel good record right here. Good music for driving around in the fall and feelin’ great.

Basic Behaviour – FRIGS

Whenever I have to describe Post-Punk I think about this band. It has the tone and production you would expect from Post-Punk band, but retains a lot of the energy and rage you might find in Punk or Hardcore.

Beyondless – Iceage

Iceage manages to bring a new sound and style to their music without sacrificing the frantic, heavy guitar work and strong drumming that made me fall in love with their first albums.

Goat Girl – Goat Girl

This may have been my favourite album of the year. While I didn’t spend as much time with it as I did some of the others on this list, I come back to it far more often. Goat Girl pulls from a lot of influences around the Indie, Punk, Americana, and Post-Punk spheres and it results in a unique and engaging album front to back.

Microshift – Hookworms

Lots of solid Noise Pop to be found on this record, with the opener Negative Space being a constant feature in my usual listening rotation since this album dropped.

Little Ugly Girls – Little Ugly Girls

Not only does this record have an amazing backstory that I highly recommend you investigate, It is easily one of the best punk records I have heard in my life. Listen to it if you at all like punk.

NOIR – Smino 

Smino’s 2017 record blkswn easily made my top 5 hip-hop record of all time list, and this new record doesn’t disappoint. While it won’t challenge blkswn’s position on my list, Smino delivered another amazing record that you should definitely give a listen.

 

These are my creamiest of the cropiest records of the year, but there were a lot of other records I really enjoyed this year. I had to limit myself on the Post-Punk releases because so many good ones came out this year. You could honestly go on the similar artists page for FRIGS, The Men, or Flasher and find a bunch of great Post-Punk releases from this year.

Twin Fantasy (2018) was also a record I considered putting on the list above. It was easily one of my favourite records of the year, and I think the time period this year in which I listened to that record is something that will stick in my memory for a long time. Rather than being a favourite of mine this year from an artistic standpoint (not that it doesn’t absolutely have both the quality and uniqueness to equal any album on my list), Twin Fantasy will be the soundtrack to all the moments i’ve had this year. I don’t think any other record from this year holds the same emotional connection I formed with Twin Fantasy over the course of the past year. It was good timing on Will Toledo’s part to release this record when he did, it was a perfect storm to hit me the way it did.

 

Nostalgia

Patrick sent me a video from December 1st, 2017. I was at behind the counter at Hi-Tech Gametraders giving my classic shitty justification for stealing video games. The camera whips towards me and zooms in on my face. There’s a slight smile on my face like I know what I’m saying is stupid, because it was. I’m wearing a red beanie that can barely contain the mass of hair that was on my head, and my black peacoat. I always wore it during the winter because Hi-Tech was constantly freezing. 

December of 2017 was a time that I remember fondly that I never would have suspected to remember highly at all. My justification for stealing games wasn’t nearly as silly as some of the other things I would end up doing and saying over the holidays, and sometimes I feel as if things would be better served if I would scrub those things from my mind. It was a long December, and I remember feeling like every day was like navigating a new minefield. Of course I was being incredibly melodramatic. The stakes were at their lowest point, and the only outcome of that December was a membership in the broken hearts club. It was all just a silly game. 

When I was in the 5th grade, as many of our grade that we could fit across the top of the biggest hill in the school-ground would line up on our magic carpets and all ride down at the same time in what was dubbed “The Destruction Derby”. No rules. Make it to the bottom. Those of us who fell early on had just as much fun as the ones who stood in victory at the bottom of the hill. 

Winter

With the snap of a finger the brisk but fresh fall evenings flip over to the quiet dark winter nights I’ve grown used to. The ice and snow that build up on the windowsills reveal a stillness that only exists in those first days; everyone is taking a collective breath before digging into a new routine. The normalcy built up over the summer is disrupted by needing to warm up your car, shovel the walk, and muster the strength to get out of a nice warm bed. Favourite new clothes you’ve collected become temporarily obsolete. Earlier nights and later mornings always attempt to disrupt the inner balance. Winters here always seem to suck, things get harder physically and mentally.

 

mainstaptwindowwithplant

 

The air in Saskatchewan winters is often filled with two things: blistering cold and people talking about the blistering cold. Everyone sitting behind a countertop at their place of work engages in the same conversation for 8 hours of their day. We all talk about the weather. We call it small talk, but hidden somewhere in the boring pleasantries there is a recognition. The majority of us have to accommodate new things into our routine every year. Changes that range from an increased focus on our mental health to simply getting up a bit earlier to drive through the ice and snow, and it all comes from the winter. The simplicity of a quick “oh it’s windy out tonight” just makes it all a bit easier, because everyone does it together in their own way.

sidedoorwoat

 

There’s something about people from Saskatchewan: you can find us everywhere. There’s something special about where we live that sticks with us, and if you look you can find it wherever you go. I think its the winter, it leaves it marks. In the darkest, longest, and coldest nights we all are forced to find what’s important to us. The winters here are a test, but not the kind that you pass or fail; the winter here is more like an aptitude test. The snow tells you what you have, what you want, and what you need.

 

trees.jpg

 

After the long wait is over you start to wake up a little later. You take that cool outfit out from the back of your closet because it’s finally warm enough to wear it again. The sun starts to come up earlier and it fills you with a resolve. The winter reveals and the summer gives you an opportunity to act. The world around us starts to get louder, the air filled with the collective silent shouts of determination.  

 

potholewithcigs

also the roads suck

Classic Monday EP thing?

SO in the summer Madeline Patrick and I recorded….well…..some songs?

I was playing Madeline’s guitar and started to record me playing over Madeline Pat and my conversation. I can’t remember why, but it happened. It’s kinda funny. I took a long time to actually upload them but here they are. Here’s to more music!

Check it out here: https://classicmonday.bandcamp.com/releases

Passiflora Edulis

lilikoi5

The passionfruit is native to Brazil but has been cultivated in copious tropical locations. Technically considered a berry, its firm shell and juicy, seedy interior is sweet and tangy. The passionfruit grows on a perennial vine, and is utilized for numerous culinary purposes such as desserts, toppings, and marinades.

My family has visited Maui, Hawaii ten consecutive February’s in a row. Although it’s usually just my parents, sometimes my siblings are able to join them if our schedules permit. Often times, our presence in Hawaii is staggered throughout the month, but every now and then, we find our entire family unit squished around a small dinner table to indulge in a barbeque dinner my dad cooked while wine-drunk.

Our condo we rent is located on South Kihei road. It is a road I have walked (and sometimes ran) many times over the past decade. If I head north, there are shops and restaurants. Among them is an opening with trees and shrubbery. Among the trees and shrubbery is one large tree, with branches hanging over the sidewalk, providing a sliver of shade and relief from the intense tropical sun.

Winding up the tree are passionfruit vines, or as they are known in Hawaii, “lilko’i.” Admittedly, it took a few years to figure out they were even there. Once we did, it became a like a game or challenge, to see if there were any new unclaimed fruits that had fallen. Sometimes my mom would bring home an entire bag full of them, and we could eat them with our oatmeal for the entire week. Other times, they were all gone.

In what would have been to the dismay of the TSA, my mother smuggled home seeds,  from one of the liliko’i we found from that tree. She assembled her gardening supplies, seeds, and began her attempt at cultivating tropical fruit in the dead of a Saskatchewan winter.

I was skeptical that the seeds would even sprout. With a frigid journey home, and an environment incompatible with (tropical fruit) life, there should have been no way the lilko’I would grow. The majority of the seeds did begin to sprout and those that did not were discarded. Then, they started to get bigger. She ended up putting out an adoption notice on Facebook:

lilikoi1.png

lilikoi2

Time elapsed. The snow melted…and then fell again…and melted. I passed all of my classes, went on trips, ran my first race, finished my electives, went camping, and turned 21. I learned guitar, got new tattoos, screamed my favourite songs in my car, laughed with friends, and felt alright.

As summer ended, and I began my fourth and final year of my undergrad, leaves turned, and the temperatures dropped. The liliko’I had to be moved inside from their temporary home in the backyard. They were massive. The vines, now beginning to outgrow their pots, were climbing up the wall, reaching their tendrils to grasp all, and any sources of stability- including each other. My kitchen looks like a jungle, full of winding vines, and dark green leaves.

leafgifdivder

We all grew to love the liliko’I for qualities beyond taste and texture, but rather what they represented. Unity, luck, joy, perseverance- they were a funny little fruit that became embedded in our favourite family memories of Hawaii- and now, home. I sit beside them every morning while I eat breakfast. From their genesis as illegal seeds in February, they have become strong, enormous, and profuse….

And perhaps, so did I.

42460210_2204840346395633_5083684142365802496_n

-Madeline

Ration Ticket 09/24/18

I can never see myself how others do. Putting a bet on me is such a stupid thing to do in my own mind and I can’t bring myself to understand why people keep doing it. I can’t tell if I demand my own perfection to a fault or if I’ve decided I’m not worth my own time. It’s possible its both, but the real problem is that I don’t have the answer. I fail to view myself objectively, and maybe that’s just impossible.  I can’t rationalize faith in me, and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy when I inevitably fail myself and those around me.

The logical gap I fall into is just that: rationalizing my faith in myself. Relying on my expectations and predictions prevents me from just putting all the chips on me. Catastrophizing the future paralyzes my decision making, and I just need to take the leap. If I don’t think I can, I won’t. It’s terrifying.

Do it or no balls.