photo by Brian Lye and Jen Wieh
At the beginning of October, Frazey Ford released her first new song in five years! “The Kids Are Having None Of It” is a protest song, urging activism (sorry we didn’t get it out before the election!) and comes with a brand new video as well.
There’s nothing in the press release about a new album but tucked away at the bottom it says “Stay tuned for more exciting news coming soon.” - so we’ll keep an eye out!.
photo by Daniel Neuhaus
Yesterday we gave you a song from a lead singer’s solo album, and today we have another one!
Luke Lalonde, of Toronto band Born Ruffians, announced the future release of his second solo album (the first was in 2012!), and gave us the title track: “The Perpetual Optimist”.
The effort is due to be released on November 22 and Luke explains how the album came to be in a very Luke way, which you can read below the video for the song!
"I was moving back to Toronto from New York and I found myself pulling into a cemetery. I just sort of ended up there. I frequently end up in cemeteries, where I'll sit parked in my car or on a bench to jot some ideas down--lyrics, poems, drawings--surrounded by strangers in the dirt. I move a lot.
When I was a kid my grandfather, Charlie, would bring me to one cemetery in particular where he used to work as a teenager. I think it made him feel young. It reminded him of a carefree time. As counter intuitive as that may seem on the surface, it actually makes a lot of sense: You're younger than pretty much anyone in there, and all of them are about as carefree as you can get. We would go and chat with the groundskeepers, drive around the plots, and he'd point out all the people he knew who were buried there. Charlie and June were my mother's parents. Their lives were marked with more death than most would be able to handle. He and June are buried there now.
Now that I'm older, I travel a lot. In Germany, I saw row upon row of tombstone after tombstone marked with the same date of death. Reading the same date over and over can move you to tears. In some places there will just be a building stocked with innumerable small compartments, thousands of names on silver placards, much like a post office. Except instead of holding people's flyers and junk mail, they have your mom, or your uncle Terry. One of those had a nice koi pond outside. Call me old fashioned but I still prefer a big park filled with coffins, at least aesthetically speaking.
Recently I've been worrying a lot. I think a lot of people have. There's a lot of bad things happening out there. I worry mostly about the planet, and the animals living on it. I worry that we humans, so prone to consume and destroy, do more evil than good. I think our planet is God and she is attempting to buck us off now.
But I also worry about myself. I worry about the people I love, and about innumerable inane things throughout my day that eclipse the fact that we're undergoing a mass extinction event. I don't know if we're equipped to comprehend an apocalypse that moves so slowly. Or maybe we're all just wired with a firebrand optimism.
So as I sit surrounded by decaying corpses and summer skies, waiting for a muse, I've realized, that's what the record is about, more or less. I sense we're all bound for that eternal rest. My pen hovers above the page and I think about humanity in the 21st century, suspended on a wire in a hurricane." - Luke Lalonde
Kirk and I always try and find an original or spooky Canadian indie music song for Halloween’s Song Of The Day, and the other day Elliott Brood released a perfect one.
The song is a cover of the classic Canadian french song “C’est L’Halloween” and it couldn’t be more perfect of a match for the band, between the banjo and the sing-a-long “Hey!”s.
Have a safe and spooky L’Halloween everyone!
[PS Elliott Brood is on tour with The Dead South, and while they aren’t scheduled to play in Vancouver, they will be in Seattle on Thursday December 5th]
Photo Credit: Mimi Raver
Dave Monks (of Tokyo Police Club) released his new solo album On A Wave on the 18th of this month, and the latest single from it is the title track!
He’s touring in November with Said The Whale out east, so you can catch the new tunes live if you live out there. But for now check out the track below, or the album by clicking here!
photo by Zach Hertzman
The last of my double-song posts this week is two tracks from Little Scream’s newly released album Speed Queen. (Of which, I have not been at getting these out on time).
”Disco Ball” came from a chance find of a ‘flying-V’ guitar she managed to spot while driving in Illinois, and on which she wrote this album, which is a reflection on class and poverty in America.
”One Lost Time” came out around Canadian Thanksgiving and Columbus day, as she wanted to discuss the fact (and why) she included the indigenous territories upon which she recorded the album.
“Speed Queen was recorded on unceded Algonquin, Anishinabek territory in Studio Quyon, on land of the K’ómoks and Tla’amin Nation in Studio Hidden Well, and in studios Skybarn, Mixart, and The Bridge on traditional territory of the Kanien’kehá:ka.”
The full album was released on October 25th and we don’t have tour dates yet, but I’ve got my fingers crossed.
photo by Lovisa Drever
Just under two weeks until Woolworm release their LP titled Awe. (Nov 8th)
Honestly if I were more eloquent, I might be able to describe Woolworm’s sound to you as it’s both a combination of so many styles, but 100% it’s own thing.
Basically you’ll just have to listen to the two tracks that have been released, “Hold The Bow” and “Let Me Wear The Mask” below and see where you’d place them. Either way, it’s exactly what I’m in the mood for this Monday morning.
And then you can check them out at their record release show on November 15th at the Red Gate Society in Vancouver!
photo by Robbie Jeffers
Sam Weber’s new album Everything Comes True, was just released a few days ago!
I’m still catching up (we’re going to have a few more double-song days of our SOTD column) so here are two of the tracks: “Blackout” and “It’s All Happening”.
Sam is going to be in Vancouver in just over a week, on November 5th at the Biltmore with Terra Lightfoot (whom he has previously collaborated on a song with, so I expect to hear that one live!).
photo by Levi Manchak
Okay, Kirk’s been posting the Song Of The Day posts for about a month now since I’ve been travelling to Toronto for Polaris, and Whitehorse for Break Out West, and now I’m playing catch-up on the ones that he hasn’t covered yet.
Speaking of Break Out West, I saw nêhiyawak at last year’s BOW in Kelowna and was blown away. Well, they just released their latest album nipiy on Thursday, and I’ve got TWO songs from the record for you today: "ôtênaw" & "disappear".
I’m really looking forward to the next time I get to see them perform live - the next chance in Vancouver is at the Museum Of Anthropology on December 5th!