Polaris Prize 2013 long list

Hilotrons: This fantastic, overlooked album is
far better than its cover image suggests

The Polaris Prize long list was announced last Thursday: right in the middle of a busy Toronto week, including NXNE, Luminato, and a massive police raid peripherally connected to our current mayoral travails. So forgive me if I'm late getting this up. 

The full long list of 40 albums is here. 

Generally speaking, I'm quite happy with the list: almost all the albums I was considering voting for made it on, with a few heartbreaking exceptions. It was a tough year: there were very few albums that stood far and above the pack for me. Instead, there were many completely solid, interesting, challenging and just generally excellent albums released in Canada in the last 12 months. Every year I think I'm about to get jaded, I'm blown away yet again by the staggering amount of great work.

As always, I'm curious how the list breaks down by geography and genre. I'll admit right now that my geographical assessment is contentious: where an artists was born or started their career vs. where they're based now, for example. Either way, once again--as always on Polaris lists--Montreal is the musical capital of Canada.

GEOGRAPHY

Nominees living outside Canada: 4 (Daphni, Danny Michel, AC Newman, Zaki Ibrahim) CORRECTION: 3, as Michel doesn't live in Belize, as I'd thought, though he does spend a lot of time there

Montreal (including some franco artists I don't know that I can only assume live there): 13

Toronto: 8

Vancouver: 3 (including AC Newman, who is now in Woodstock, N.Y.)

Hamilton: 3 (including Daphni, from nearby Dundas and now in UK)

Edmonton: 2 (including Purity Ring, who are now in Montreal)

Halifax: 2

Ottawa: 1

Quebec outside Montreal: 2 (Alaclair Ensemble, Peter Peter)

St. Catharines, Ont.: 1 (Daniel Romano, now in Toronto)

Nanaimo, B.C.: 1 (Zaki Ibrahim, via Toronto and now South Africa)

Winnipeg: 1

Waterloo, Ont.: 1 (Danny Michel, now in Belize)

Regina: 1

Calgary: 1 (Tegan and Sara, now in Vancouver and Montreal)

GENRE

Roots: 7 (Evening Hymns, Lindi Ortega, Al Tuck, Old Man Luedecke, Les souers Boulay, Lee Harvey Osmond, Corb Lund)

Hip-hop/dance/R&B: 5 (A Tribe Called Red, Rhye, Zaki Ibrahim, Daphni, Alaclair Ensemble)

Francophone: 4

Aggressive: 3 (Anciients, KEN Mode, Metz)

Experimental: 3 (Godspeed, Kid Koala, Colin Stetson)

Mainstream radio: 2 (Tegan and Sara, Metric)

World: 2 (Kobo Town, Danny Michel)

Five most surprising things about this list:

Alaclair Ensemble – Les maigres blancs d'Amérique du Noir. This fun franco hip-hop act perhaps shouldn’t have surprised me, seeing how the somewhat similar Radio Radio snuck into the shortlist several years ago. I can’t speak to the lyrics, but the flow is fantastic and the production is stellar.

Zaki Ibrahim – Every Opposite. This totally slipped under the radar when it came out in 2012; partially because she now lives in South Africa and the record had zero promo here. I don’t recall reading a single Canadian interview with her. But some passionate jurors who loved this record (of which I was one) rallied the troops and drummed up considerable interest in an album in danger of being completely overlooked.

Kobo Town – Jumbie in the Jukebox. This fantastic modern calypso album—and how many of those have ever been within spitting distance of Polaris?—got a lot of last-minute buzz after its release earlier this month. The production and performances are one thing, but it’s the songs of Drew Gonsalves that really transcend genre and could catapult them right onto the shortlist.

OMISSION: Two Hours Traffic - Foolish Blood. These PEI power-poppers shortlisted with their debut many moons ago, but they're the rare pop band who keeps getting better, and this is on par with powerhouses like Spoon and the New Pornographers, with fantastic production by Darryl Neudorf. Sorry to see jurors take them for granted.

OMISSION: Stars: Former shortlisters for In the Bedroom After the War released their best album since then… to crickets. I thought it was a very strong record, and I say that as someone who has never particularly liked this band.

Five things I’d like to have seen on the list:

Hilotrons – At Least There’s Commotion: An impeccable, whip-tight new wave rock record with stunning ballads and electro detours. This, to me, is one of the biggest oversights of Polaris 2013.

Snowblink – Inner Classics: This record’s subtle charms perhaps made it too easy to overlook; or maybe it was too Feist-y after that artist’s win last year. But this is a stunning record that you need to hear. Its long-list exclusion, that if nothing else, should silence people who think Arts and Crafts is a promotional behemoth capable of pushing product onto sheep-like critics. In this case, one can only wish.

Veda Hille – Peter Panties: A cast recording of a musical based on Peter Pan and co-written by a playwright with Down syndrome is admittedly a difficult sell. But it’s an amazing—and concise—rock opera album, and deserves to be heard.

Blue Hawaii - Untogether: Superior to associated band Braids, just as equally challenging and beautiful as their friend Grimes, and the rare abstract electronic record with heavy bass.

The Magic – Ragged Gold: This amazing band needs a break, badly. Ragged Gold was one of the most underrated albums of 2012, its take on Hall and Oates-era soul surprisingly convincing and compelling. Plus, you get to hear Evening Hymns supporting player Sylvie Smith really shine on supporting vocals.

Five things I’d like to see off the list:

There are albums on the list I’m indifferent to but recognize their appeal for fans of that genre and/or the artist themselves. These, however…

The Besnard Lakes – Until In Excess, Imperceptible UFO. Even most fans of this band seemed to be disappointed with this record, which is why its presence here is somewhat shocking (despite the fact their last two albums were shortlisted). Imperceptible, indeed.

Mac DeMarco – 2. What a nice, quirky little indie rock record. What’s it doing here?

Hayden – Us Alone. Are we still 20?

Kid Koala – 12-bit Blues. I’ll never deny this man’s creativity, but too often it doesn’t translate into a full-length recording, and these blues jams in particular just sound gimmicky.

Purity Ring – Shrines. Fey, sexless, shoegazy electro-pop that’s way overhyped; I’d love to have seen Blue Hawaii take its place.

Six curious omissions:

Carly Rae Jepsen: She’s the Canadian pop success story of the last year, which of course made her a Juno suction machine and Polaris repellent. She did have some champions in the jury, however, and the album is far better than one would expect: far better bubblegum than Bieber, for starters. But I think the Owl City collab single-handedly sunk any chance she had.

K’naan: The former shortlister dissed his own follow-up, and nobody else seemed to like it much better. It’s not that bad, and has some great tracks—but it’s not very good, either.

Serena Ryder: This young veteran overcame years of “most promising” status to score one of the year’s biggest mainstream pop singles and had a solid album to back it up. She’s a solid artist who deserves everything she attained in the last year, but she doesn’t make the kind of records Polaris jurors put on in their spare time.

Dirty Beaches: His debut album came out of nowhere and landed on the long list two years ago, despite the fact it was incredibly lo-fi, somewhat incomprehensible and owed its biggest debt to CBGB underdogs Suicide. His 2013 follow-up is much more accomplished: still murky and mysterious, but far more intriguing and beautiful (while still occasionally terrifying) and even with some discernible beats. It’s had glowing reviews here and abroad, but probably was released too close to the voting deadline, and it’s a record that grows on you.

Bob Wiseman - Giulietta Masina At the Oscars Crying: I wouldn’t have expected Wiseman to get on the list, as his work is easily dismissed as too difficult or political or adventurous or inconsistent or—well, whatever. Fact is, the man is still fascinating, and his latest is his strongest work in, oh, I don’t know, 15 years—certainly it’s his most extroverted and social, employing many of his talented friends.

And ladies and gentlemen, I predict this will be the shortlist announced on July 16:

A Tribe Called Red

Jim Guthrie

Zaki Ibrahim

Metric

Metz

Rhye

Daniel Romano

Colin Stetson

Tegan and Sara

Whitehorse

The Polaris gala takes place Sept. 23 at the Carlu in Toronto.

Last year I was on the grand jury that picked the winner. 

Bernie Finkelstein

The first person I called when assembling research for this week’s Grid cover story was Bernie Finkelstein, the founder of True North Records, an independent record company formed in 1969 whose first album was Bruce Cockburn’s 1970 debut—making the label only one year older than I am. True North was known primarily as a folkie label (Murray McLachlan, Dan Hill) before Finkelstein signed new wave act and groundbreaking sexual outlaws Rough Trade in 1980; the label has had many other successes over its 44 years. Finkelstein founded the Canadian Independent Record Production Association, was instrumental in setting up the FACTOR system as well as VideoFACT, and is a huge part of what the Canadian music industry is today.

He retired a few years back and sold the company, though he’s still Cockburn’s manager. He wrote a very entertaining 2012 memoir called True North: A Life in the Music Business, which was nominated last month for the National Business Book Award (he lost to Chrystia Freeland’s Plutocrats—which, for the record, was wildly disappointing, and I’m a big fan of her writing).

At last year’s NXNE festival, I had the pleasure of interviewing Finkelstein on stage. It was the first time we’d ever talked. Most of my writing career I’ve only ever interviewed artists, and not having moved to Toronto until I was about ready to give up music writing for a living, I was never hanging around industry events, so Bernie and I never crossed paths. My loss. He’s a great raconteur. And he likes to toot his own horn—which is perfectly fine, because he’s more than entitled to. Among other things I learned in this conversation: he’s not a big Stompin’ Tom fan. Here’s our conversation from last month.

----

Bernie Finkelstein

May 14, 2013

Is it fair to say that True North was the first label in this country to focus on albums, as opposed to singles?

I think it is. I try not to make too many claims. I know there were other people with independent labels before me, people like Roman Records and Red Leaf Records, but they didn’t last very long, and they didn’t really go anywhere. They weren’t album labels per se. They made singles and may or may not have packaged something as an album at some point, I don’t know. I always describe True North as one of the oldest and one of the largest and certainly the longest-running independent label now, by many miles. We were certainly the first of the modern independent labels.

Popular Toronto acts like the Paupers, Kensington Market, McKenna Mainline—they all signed to American labels.

They did. With Kensington Market [which he managed] I made two singles before we signed to Warner Brothers, which I produced. They were with Stone Records in Oshawa, a neat little label that [distributed] the Spencer Davis Group. Paupers signed to Verve in New York. David Clayton-Thomas made a single or two for Roman Records. True North was the first real album label.

How would you define companies like Arc or Quality?

They’re interesting companies. They were very large. They put out some good music. They were largely manufacturers and distributors of foreign material, but they were Canadian-owned, both Arc and Quality. Quality had that great green and red label. I think they were releasing Chess Records in Canada; I think Chuck Berry’s records were through them here. And they put out that Guess Who record, the one that didn’t have “These Eyes” on it. Jack Richardson did a two-sided LP, one side with the Guess Who, one side was the Staccatos, who became the Five-Man Electrical Band. Quality and Arc were larger companies than anything that’s happening now. They disappeared because they both ended up suffering from the same thing, which was that they made their living distributing foreign records. And the foreign companies grew bigger here in Canada, and the Canadian companies that started competing with them were like what I did and were more appealing to artists. But there’s been no Canadian company since that did everything they did. Quality owned their own manufacturing plant, did their own distribution, and nobody really does that now. All—or most of—the independent labels end up being distributed by foreign labels. So when people talk about True North or Arts and Crafts, they’re all distributed by Universal or EMI.

So would you draw a line when defining indie labels between people who have major label distribution and people who sit around a room stuffing envelopes themselves and beating the street?

Well, these are old arguments. Somewhere there will be purists who think True North isn’t an independent label because it has major label distribution. For some of these people, to be a real indie is to make the record in your basement and don’t become successful. I think True North was the first what I think you would define as an independent label in the first wave of independent music in Canada.

You were the manager and the label owner and then another company handled distribution. How involved were artists in the process after they finished making the record?

Not very much at all, by choice. Different era. The artists I worked with—and I don’t want to speak for anyone else, but I think it is true of that whole generation, whether it’s Joni Mitchell or Leonard Cohen or Bruce Cockburn or even Rough Trade—they didn’t want to be involved in the business of music. That wasn’t that sexy. It is now. Now artists should really understand what is going on. It’s a different thing; I don’t think there’s any right or wrong about it. It wasn’t part of the times. What an artist wanted was a way to make the music exactly the way they wanted; they may or may not have got the odd nudge or hint from me, of course. And they were involved with making sure the covers turned out the way they wanted. But once that happened, they weren’t that interested in making sure that there was an ad being run here, or a radio promo being done there. That was something business people did for them. Today, they want to do it all.

One person who was incredibly hands on with everything he did was Stompin’ Tom. I’m curious about the role of Boot, and how you would place that in this history.

Well, to be honest, I wasn’t the hugest Stompin’ Tom fan. I’m glad to see him getting his due, and I guess he did get his due all along. When he handed back his Juno Awards [in 1977] I thought it was a stunt; he did it basically because Neil Young or Joni Mitchell won an award. Fair enough, you know, but I thought it was a worthless thing to do. I’m happy his songs have lasted.

What about the business aspect of what he did?

Well, what was he doing? I don’t really know. Did he own the label?

He owned half of it.

Well, that’s a terrific idea. I think that’s great. As does Broken Social Scene own half of Arts and Crafts—well, maybe not the whole band, but Kevin Drew. And Frank Sinatra owned part of Reprise. There’s nothing new about any of that.

But I thought Tom might be the first Canadian to have real commercial success with that model.

Yeah, I guess. There’s a good stat for everything. Like baseball. There’s always someone who’s the first to get two doubles, steal a base, and catch four flies in the outfield in one game. So you’re probably right. Stompin’ Tom—I’m not trying to be derogatory, but you have to qualify this word success for me, too. No one knows him outside of Canada. That doesn’t mean “The Hockey Song” isn’t a great song. But does that make Tom’s model more successful than Bruce’s, who is known everywhere outside of Canada, but made all his records independently here in Canada? These are tricky things. But, you know, I wouldn’t argue if you said that Tom’s model was terrific and it really counted for something.

Let me ask you then: who else were pioneers who followed in your wake?

Rush, with Anthem, came a few years later. That’s a great example. The label in Montreal that Donald K. Donald started with Terry Flood, Aquarius, with April Wine came after that.

The article I’m writing is just about Toronto, though.

Oh, okay then. A lot of people made their own records and then brought them to record companies. Which is still what’s going on now, to some degree. Except a lot of people don’t even need a record company anymore and just go to a distributor. I think the very best example is Rush, because Anthem lasted as long as True North did. Al Mair’s label Attic had Triumph at the beginning.

What about Current [Parachute Club, Martha and the Muffins]?

Current was a fine label, but it didn’t last long. I guess it depends how you define “long.” Who else is on your plate there? You might be able to prompt me. Tonnes of people put out records, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to remember them right now.

I was also thinking of labels that weren’t necessarily commercially successful, but that widened exposure for certain genres, like reggae or jazz or the Music Gallery’s label, for example.

There was Sackville Records in Toronto, who put out so many great jazz records. They had Terry Clark and Doug Riley and Don Thompson, lots of the great Toronto jazz players and from across the country. Who else? When we had our first Canadian Independent Record Production [CIRPA] meeting in 1970, one of the original founders was Jack Richardson, who had the Nimbus 9 studio. They also had a label, but it wasn’t a serious label and it was largely a production studio. Then there was Ax Records, Greg Hambleton, Fergus Hambleton’s brother. He had a curious group of acts that I can’t remember.

Then later Blue Rodeo is a game-changer in their own way. They did exactly what an independent label would do, but instead of taking their music to a label—be it an indie or a multinational label—they took it to Warner Brothers and licensed it to them. In a way, they’re indistinguishable from being a Warner act, but they’ve always owned those records, as far as I know. They’re one of the early examples of a successful band owning their music and going for distribution from the big labels.

Anthem is interesting for many reasons. All of Rush’s albums are on the Anthem label, but the label itself has grown and contracted over the years. There are times when the commitment to the label is not really there, it’s just a home for Rush; other times, they get adventurous and sign people.

Did Anthem function in a similar way to True North? Obviously Rush is on a lot of major labels around the world.

That’s what I did with Bruce. I would make a Bruce Cockburn record, and release it here on True North. Then I would divide the world up and try to have individual deals in as many places as possible, because I believed if I could get a German company to care about Bruce’s records, that would be better than getting an American company with an office in Germany. In America, Bruce’s records were released by Island Records in the beginning, then an independent company called Millenium, who were distributed by RCA. Then we went to a company owned by Danny Goldberg, called Gold Mountain. After that, we went to Columbia, and we did the two T-Bone Burnett albums and a Christmas record. Then we went to Ryko. Then we went to Rounder, which is where we’ve been, although we’re no longer technically with in them. In each case, True North owned the records and we’d license them to those companies for various periods of time. The ownership always returned to us after a period of time. I think that is what Anthem does. [ed note: They do.]

And now there is an artist like The Weeknd, who put out a record for free online, blows up worldwide.

And that’s a whole different topic. I think in the end, what really happens with these people is like the old model: most acts still end up signing with a big label of some kind.

Well, The Weeknd did.

He did? Exactly. So the Internet is offering a new way to get your music seen and heard by all kinds of people, but it’s a much more cheap and efficient way than having a guy like me knocking on people’s doors in London or New York. But I guarantee it wouldn’t be as much fun for me now, because I loved knocking on those doors!

Indie as fuck

This week I accepted an exciting, though inherently vague, assignment from The Grid in Toronto, about the history of independent music in Toronto, pegged to the Arts and Crafts anniversary show this weekend.

I touched on this subject in Have Not Been the Same, written when I was still (relatively) young and naïve, a mere 30 years old, having grown up in a generation when alternative culture truly did seem worlds away from the mainstream. I thought everything popular came out via large corporations, and most everything interesting through smaller channels. Why wouldn’t I? It had been that way my whole life, starting in the 1970s. Indie music, to me, meant Shadowy Men and Og Records and Mint Records and Cargo Records and Murderecords (celebrating 21 years at a NXNE show next Friday, featuring Sloan, Super Friendz, Mike O’Neill).

Now I recognize some inherent flaws in the narrative I had imagined 13 years ago.

I had no idea at the time, for example, that Rush was—and is—an independent band, who not only self-released their debut album (the one with “In the Mood”), who not only own the masters to everything they’ve ever recorded (licensed to various majors around the world), who not only own Anthem Records, but who also signed a wide variety of Toronto artists to Anthem over the years (Ian Thomas, Moe Koffman, Boys Brigade, Max Webster, FM).

I had some idea, but not really, that True North was a fully independent label that enjoyed major label distribution (CBS/Columbia) from the beginning, in 1970. I also didn’t really think about labels like Current, home to the Parachute Club and Martha and the Muffins, who actually shopped each album to various majors on a project-by-project basis (though RCA handled both those acts). I really had no idea that Daffodil Records, home to Crowbar, Klaatu and A Foot in Cold Water, even existed: it was an indie label operating out of the EMI offices (not unlike Arts and Crafts’ early days). There are other national examples too, like Aquarius in Montreal (April Wine, Corey Hart) and Mushroom in Vancouver (Heart, Chilliwack).

Those are the bigwigs, the indies that helped build the Canadian music industry and showed real entrepreneurial spirit, taking huge gambles that paid off.

Many artists discussed in Have Not Been the Same have tales of being neglected by the major labels by whom they were eventually scooped up. Promo budgets and tour support dried up; labels would quickly lose interest after a second album. Part of me thought that was probably all true; part of me thought there was a lot of whining, of blaming someone else for your lack of success.

In my Grid piece, I argue that even Canadian bands signed to majors had to work their ass off to get noticed—case in point being the Diodes, who were the toast of Toronto’s fledgling punk scene and got signed to CBS Records. Their sniping punk peers thought they had sold out and were sitting pretty, when in fact nothing at all came easy to the band signed at the height of what was seen as an easily-dismissed trend. For further reading (even if, like me, you don’t even like Toronto’s punk bands), I highly recommend Liz Worth’s book Treat Me Like Dirt.

I contacted Diodes manager Ralph Alfonso to fact-check my impression of the band’s struggle inside the corporate structure, knowing that he has also run his own record label, Bongo Beat, for the last 16 years, and has worked at every level of the industry.

His generous response contained more historical revelations for me:

“I have an interesting perspective on this because I was management working with not only a punk band (Diodes) but also later with Honeymoon Suite and Brighton Rock; I also worked with EMI and Warner Canada as the Canadian product manager at each label in addition to being head of press and promotion at one of the biggest indie labels in the ’80s, Attic Records (I was Anvil's publicist, among many other things).

“Generally speaking, in the ’60s and ’70s, with the exception of RCA and CBS, the international labels based in Canada could not sign Canadian artists without U.S. approval. RCA and CBS, although they could sign Canadian artists, could not guarantee them an international release (still the case with all the majors). At some point in the ’80s, Ottawa put in CanCon requirements for the major labels (with the exception of Capitol) in that each label had to invest in Canadian talent either through a percentage of local signings or making their distribution systems carry local labels and artists. It was different for each label and is still in effect to some degree to this day, although no one really will talk about it.

“When I was working at Warner, I was constantly counting the number of Canadian artists (both signed and on distributed labels), although I was never told why at the time. 

[ed. note: This reminds me of King Cobb Steelie’s Kevan Byrne explaining to me in 1997 why EMI granted the band their own vanity label, Lunamoth, which happened shortly after Nettwerk dropped EMI as their distributor; he said EMI needed something new to Nettwerk’s place, and the specific reason why is more clear to me now.]

“The prevailing label culture of the day at the majors (although not at Capitol) [ed. note: run by Deane Cameron, widely recorded as a mensch in the industry] indeed was that Canadian signings were a pain in the ass and didn't sell. A direct signing meant incurring production costs, photo shoots, album design, signing advances, promotional expenses and more. Releasing a U.S. artist cost pretty much nothing; just the costs of manufacturing and the regular promo stuff. In the late ’80s, MuchMusic helped create Canadian stadium stars and the labels got more aggressive (funny what platinum sales will do).

“The Canadian artists with strong management that took charge and augmented the label's efforts with their own resources did well (Blue Rodeo, for example, used indie radio pluggers to push "Try" to gain momentum). That will always be the case, especially now that the majors have been decimated, there is a whole network of outsourcing that's sprung up to deal with the lack of resources at the majors (and indies).”

The one thing I regret about the Grid piece, 24 hours after I viewed the final edit, is that I feel like I’m implying there was a “false dichotomy” between majors and indie between the ’70s and ’90s. I think there absolutely was a dichotomy: one existed primarily to make money with artistry increasingly a secondary concern; the other placed artistry first, regardless of genre or potential for popularity, and often struggled to get by. Obviously both camps are populated by entrepreneurs, but the music coming out of each channel was, more often than not, decidedly different. It could be argued at the time that “indie” was indeed a musical strain of rock music.

Nowadays, of course, the false dichotomy is entirely confined to the “indie” world; now I can safely assume 90% of current major-label output does not interest me at all (20 years ago they still put out a lot of good records). But “indie” as a musical descriptor means absolutely nothing—Stars? Metric? My beloved Arcade Fire? Those are all classic rock or pop bands aiming to be broadly popular. There is nothing either underground or alternative about them. (I'm not saying there should be. But it’s not like Stars fans are running out to buy Colin Stetson records.)

And then there is the argument that Arts and Crafts, with its dominant position, major label distribution, and influence in the industry—most, if not all, of its acts routinely get grant money (A&C’s Jeff Remedios, it should be noted, is also vice-chair of the FACTOR board of directors)—can hardly be labelled an indie label on par with the real mom-and-pop operations like Daps or Out of This Spark or Rat Drifting. So—what? Of course they exist on a different plane, and yes, perhaps our grant system is far from ideal, maybe even nepotistic. But Arts and Crafts is an independent label, owned by three people (Kevin Drew being one of them, new partner Kieran Roy the other), and well-staffed. There’s nothing preventing other label owners from achieving the same status, with the right combination of artistic talent, hard work, shitloads of luck—and yes, connections, which are not entirely unattainable in a town as tiny as this, especially if your artists are striking a chord. (And if they aren’t, well, it’s ultimately impossible to tell whose fault that is, taste being what it is.) And Arts and Crafts has far from a perfect track record: the flops, both artistic and commercial, outweigh the massive successes. Say what you will, they take risks.

What I love about The Grid piece is that a) they trusted me to write whatever I wanted, and b) encouraged me not to focus just on what is loosely called “indie rock.” Because to me, independent music in Toronto is Bruce Cockburn, Stompin’ Tom Connors, Lillian Allen (oh, how I loved getting into Revolutionary Tea Party again—still so fucking powerful), John Oswald, Shuffle Demons, Maestro Fresh Wes, Final Fantasy, The Weeknd et al—and, frankly, discovering Sackville Records (’70s jazz label put out Toronto folks as well as Jay McShann, Anthony Braxton and Archie Shepp), Music Gallery Records (thank you Aaron Levin and David Dacks) Sacrifice (’80s speed metal) and Ishan People (’70s reggae), all of which I’ll admit I was completely ignorant.

Speaking of ignorance—mine and others—I know there will be griping about who is and is not mentioned in this article. To which I say: you try condensing 40 years of diverse musical history in such a culturally rich city as this in the space of 2,000 words written for a general audience. The fact is that we simply have too many goddam success stories in this town.

May 2013 reviews

The following reviews ran in the Waterloo Record and Guelph Mercury this month.

Highly, highly recommended, worth every penny of your hard-earned money: Jim Guthrie, Headstones (!), Kobo Town, Majical Cloudz

Well worth your while: Mikal Cronin, Daft Punk, Savages, Colin Stetson, Rachel Zeffira

Arts and Crafts: X - Various Artists (Arts & Crafts)

Now this looks promising in ways that the label’s rote recent compilation of previously released tracks did not: to celebrate the powerhouse Canadian indie’s 10^th anniversary, they had their artists cross-pollinate for new recordings. But it’s hard to tell how Broken Social Scene collaborates with Years, which is the solo project for its own guitarist Ohad Benchetrit. And it’s hard to tell mumblers Hayden and Jason Collett apart on their track together. It’s even harder to tell what exactly is happening when Apostle of Hustle and Zeus attempt to cover New Order’s “Bizarre Love Triangle”—bizarre doesn’t begin to describe the incoherent mess.

The bright light here is the Hidden Cameras and Snowblink reinventing Duran Duran’s “The Chauffeur,” giving the song not only far superior vocals than it ever did (not that hard), but a haunting, magical arrangement. Feist joins Timber Timbre for a ghostly duet that, unlike most of the other original songs here, sounds like it was actually written and rehearsed before recording. Dan Mangan and Amy Millan give the Johnny Mathis chestnut “Chances Are” a late-night, synth-laden and lethargic makeover that would be a lot more appealing if it didn’t conclude such a collection of missed opportunities. (May 30)

Download: “The Chauffeur” – Hidden Cameras and Snowblink; “Homage” – Feist and Timber Timbre; “Chances Are” – Amy Millan & Dan Mangan

Mikal Cronin – MCII (Merge)

A garage rocker from San Francisco with a taste for psychedelia and a B.F.A. degree in music, Mikal Cronin is much more than another shaggy-haired guy with a distortion pedal, power-pop melodies and a love of folk-rock harmonies—though he’s all that too, like a next-generation J Mascis of Dinosaur Jr. Cronin is a much better songwriter than most of his contemporaries—including Kurt Vile and Ty Segall, two peers he’s often compared to (he also plays in Segall’s band)—and switches easily from wistful country rock to summer anthems to acoustic ballads to heavy shredding, and leaves room for the occasional violin solo. Though the recording is raw and live, there’s nothing remotely sloppy about this; Cronin proves to be a master craftsman in every aspect. Fans of B.C.’s Yukon Blonde should pay close attention, as should everyone else looking for the great guitar rock album of summer 2013. (May 16)

Download: “See It My Way,” “Shout It Out,” “Peace of Mind”

Daft Punk - Random Access Memories (Sony)

Who makes albums with a million-dollar budget anymore? Furthermore, how many electronic acts make albums with a million-dollar budget anymore? Daft Punk have done exactly that, and it sounds like, well, a million bucks. It’s the Rumours for the rave generation.

Their first album in eight years is not for the Skrillex tweakers they spawned: this is by two guys pushing 40, with two kids apiece, who finally moved their laptops out of their bedrooms and entered a real studio with musicians who made some of their favourite records. Their French countrymen Phoenix may have bought the sound console that Michael Jackson’s Thriller was recorded on, but Daft Punk hired Jackson’s actual rhythm section (bassist Nathan East, drummer John JR Robinson, guitarist Paul Jackson, Jr.) to get a far superior sound. Other studio all-stars on hand include drummer Omar Hakim (Sting, Dire Straits), Chic’s Nile Rogers and Canadian pianist Chilly Gonzales (Feist).

And then Giorgio Moroder shows up. Moroder, who single-handedly brought the synthesizer to disco, doesn’t even play an instrument here: his adoring disciples give him two virtually unaccompanied minutes of the man speaking about his entry into music, before the track becomes a Moog disco song with a jazz-fusion electric piano solo, followed by an orchestral breakdown, then a bass and turntable showdown, and culminates in a scorching harmonized guitar solo punctuated by laser sounds. It’s nine minutes long. Who needs the rest of the album? And yet.

Pharrell Williams (N.E.R.D.), Julian Casablancas (the Strokes) and Animal Collective’s Panda Bear lend vocals. Most stunning, however, is the appearance of Paul Williams, the ’70s songwriter (“The Rainbow Connection”), actor (Phantom of the Paradise) and perpetual TV guest (The Love Boat). He sings the album’s other eight-minute-plus epic, which opens the sound of him being strangled inside a machine, intoning, “Touch, I remember touch … I need something more in my mind.” It closes with a children’s choir singing “You’ve given me too much to feel / you’ve almost convinced me I’m real.”

Tangibility is what sets Random Access Memories apart from everything else in Daft Punk’s ice-cold catalogue—and indeed from much electronic music today. That might be the most retro element of all here. There’s a live drummer on every song—even pedal steel on more than half of them. There are several sad-robot ballads, some of which miraculously transcend inherent cheese to be emotionally affecting.

“Let the music of your life give life back to music,” they sing (through Vocoders) on the opening track, a mission statement for their new direction. (May 30)

Download: “Instant Crush,” “Giorgio by Moroder,” “Doin’ It Right”

Agnetha Faltskog – A (Universal)

The same week that an ABBA museum is opening in Stockholm, one of the As in ABBA releases her fifth solo album—only her second one in 25 years (its predecessor came out in 2004). It’s impossible to fault Faltskog for appealing to her own demographic, but it seems impossible that anyone who is not a 63-year-old Swede would enjoy a song called “Back On Your Radio,” which inexplicably finds the legendary singer using AutoTune and features a peppy melody that would embarrass Doris Day. Yes, this is an ABBA alumnus we’re talking about here, but even ABBA was never this sappy—and that’s saying something. (May 23)

Download: “I’m the One Who Loves You Now,” “I Should Have Followed You Home” (feat. Gary Barlow), “I Keep Them On the Floor Beside My Bed”

Flaming Lips – The Terror (Warner Brothers)

Those shiny, happy people are gone. Singer Wayne Coyne split up with his wife of 25 years. Steven Drozd had a brief drug relapse after 10 years of being clean. And after releasing a variety of strange projects—including an underrated all-star album with Nick Cave, Jim James, Erykah Badu and Ke$ha—the Flaming Lips sound like they’re wiping their slate of everything except their synthesizer banks. Drozd has said that after 20 years with the band, he didn’t feel like he could do anything more with chords and melodies. And so The Terror is largely an extended sound art piece, full of the psychedelic keyboards that have been central to their sound in the last 15 years, and Coyne moving from his role as carnival barker to more of a lonely astronaut singing unintelligibly to the cosmos. Considering the band’s prolific output, fairweather fans have every right to question whether this is just more Flaming Lips fuckery—like, say the soundtrack to Christmas on Mars—or whether it belongs alongside the band’s best-loved work. It’s clearly the latter, although anyone expecting peppy pop songs is best advised to steer clear. (May 2)

Download: “Be Free, A Way”; “Try to Explain”; “The Terror”

Folly and the Hunter – Tragic Care (Outside)

What if Sufjan Stevens recorded with Fleet Foxes in Montreal? Wonder no more. Banjos, pianos, minimal percussion, pump organ and glorious harmonies dominate in this earnest anglo trio, who write quiet anthems that show a touch of Arcade Fire on Quaaludes. Though lovely, the album gets weary over the course of its 43 minutes; maybe some hard touring will put some spring in their step. (May 9)

Download: “Ghost,” “Moth in the Porch Light,” “Vultures”

The Good Family – The Good Family Album (Latent)

Dallas and Travis Good of the Sadies grew up in a musical family: their father and uncle were ’70s country giants the Good Brothers, a fact that rarely gets mentioned now that the Sadies have spent 15 years as Canada’s most beloved roots band and sidemen to the stars (everyone from Neko Case to Neil Young). They’ve often invited their parents, aunt and uncle on stage with them, and occasionally on a song or two in the studio, but this is the first time the whole family sat down to make a record. Sadly, it doesn’t live up to a generation of expectation; instead, it sounds like what perhaps is all it has to be: eavesdropping on an insanely talented family trade songs and licks. Which is what you can do when the Good Family play the Starlight Lounge in Waterloo tonight, May 30. (May 30)

Download: “Taller Than the Pines,” “Outside of Saskatoon,” “Paradise”

Jim Guthrie – Takes Time  (Static Clang)

The year was 2003: a Montreal band called Arcade Fire put out their first EP. The label Arts and Crafts was launched to promote Broken Social Scene and its various offshoots. And yet at the same time a Guelph-Toronto label called Three Gut was wrapping up a flawless 10-album opening salvo that concluded with the third album by the label’s inspiration, Guelph’s Jim Guthrie. Titled Now More Than Ever, it was the sound of a bedroom recording genius realizing his full potential as a popsmith and lush arranger, the melancholy sound of a nascent musical scene growing up, and the sound of Montreal and Toronto’s music scenes falling in love with each other and blowing up worldwide. It featured Owen Pallett’s string arrangements; that directly led to Pallett’s gig on Arcade Fire’s Funeral album (and subsequent tour). It was nominated for a Juno in a category alongside Arcade Fire, Feist and Stars. Guthrie then found work writing jingles and acclaimed soundtracks for films and videogames. He put out one folk-pop album where he shared the spotlight with Nick Thorburn of Unicorns and Islands, called Human Highway, but fans had reason to wonder if Now More Than Ever was a summation and conclusion rather than a launching pad.

Ten years later, Guthrie has suddenly re-emerged with an album that recalls the innocence, the uncertainty and the longing of 2003 and raises the bar with maturity, wisdom and optimism: like an old friend who suddenly shows up on your doorstep, reminds you of all your past glories together, and in so many words tells you to buck up and prepare for all the greatness ahead. “Ran out of time making time machines,” he sings: best not to dwell on the past or worry about the future, but make the best of today.

Ten years in the studio tailoring his music for other people’s demands has only deepened Guthrie’s own production aesthetic. Rich California harmonies, synths bleeding into strings and horns, and surprisingly funky drumming underneath folkie indie rock songs all coalesce with a light psychedelic touch and filtered through a man who “eats, sleeps melody.”

His supporting players are fantastic: Pallett returns to arrange the stirring “Wish I Were You”; Randy Lee of the Bicycles handles most of the violin work; Jordan Howard (The Acorn, Tusks) pulls off a ripping guitar solo on “Don’t Be Torn”; the rhythm section of drummer Evan Clarke and bassist Simon Osborne are exemplary throughout. Guthrie mixes and matches influences effortlessly throughout: “The Rest is Yet to Come” matches a Bonham beat with doo-wop vocals, Edge-like textural electric guitars, R&B-style acoustic guitars, orchestral bells and strings that shift from soaring to disco stabs, all underneath Guthrie’s sing-song melody. 

Most importantly, the songs are fantastic. Just as one masterpiece ends, another takes its place. Only an album that took five years to make could hope to achieve the perfection Guthrie attains here. The denouement is a folkie acoustic cover of Nina Simone’s “Turn Me On”; it’s lovely enough, but considering the tour de force Guthrie has just dropped in our lap, it’s little more than exit music while leaving the theatre. If a Nina Simone track is your throwaway number, you know you’ve got something good going on. (May 9)

Download: “Don’t Be Torn,” “The Rest is Yet to Come,” “Wish I Were You”

Headstones – Love + Fury (FrostByte/Universal)

Dear dudes. Hugh here. It’s 2012 and look, I’m itchy. Flashpoint is about to wrap up. It was a blast. And, honestly, a sweet paycheque. But let’s be fucking frank here. Even an action-packed TV show involves standing around for inordinate periods of time in a monkey suit waiting for action to actually begin. I did that for five years. People kissed my ass. Now I’m sitting around waiting for voice-over work for insurance company ads. So like I said, I’m itchy. Twitchy, even. I miss you fuckers. Those reunion gigs were a good time. Got the blood pumping. Got the juices flowing.

So let’s bottle that shit. Let’s kick over some chairs. It’s been 20 years since the first album. It’s been 10 since we called it quits. Let’s show these whiny, pampered emo kids what’s the what. I’ve got some tunes. I’ve got some shit to get off my chest. I’m old. I’m cranky. But I’m ready to rumble and I can still kick the ass of punks half my age.

And you know what? I ain’t got time to waste. This will be 10 songs, all under four minutes long, recorded as live as possible. No studio tricks. No artistic maturity, whatever that is. No grunged-to-death Nickelback bullshit. If radio doesn’t want it, fuck ’em. I want those guitar solos to be breathless and last no more than eight bars. We can drop the tempo here and there, but Jesus Christ, no fucking ballads. (Note: I may break that rule once. And the four-minute one. So that will make 11 tracks. Sue me.) And—now hear me out—I want to cover ABBA’s “SOS,” because that song makes me fucking weep, and we’re going to do it like the Ramones on amphetamine. Don’t worry, though, my new songs are as good or better, so nobody’s going to think it’s a cheap novelty trick to get on the radio.

Yeah, this might be like a fool’s game and we’ll still end up playing shitholes called Cowboy Ranch and Toronto critics will think we’re nothing more than a soundtrack to a bar fight. But you know what? We’ve been written off before. We can do this. I’m ready. I’m fucking ready. I’m hungry. Are you? Fuck yeah.

Love, Hugh. (May 23)

Download: “Bin This Way For Years,” “Change My Ways,” “Far Away From Here”

Iggy and the Stooges - Ready To Die (Fat Possum)

Iggy Pop, who just turned 66, still fronts the loud, obnoxious punk band he founded 45 years ago, and here he reunites with guitarist James Williamson, 40 years after they last played together on the Raw Power album. (Original guitarist Ron Asheton had been playing with the reformed Stooges for the past 10 years, until his death in 2009). Williamson, who was a Silicon Valley executive for most of his post-Stooges life, sounds fantastic. Of course, Pop sounds timeless—he has for decades now.

Unlike, say, the Rolling Stones, Iggy and the Stooges still sound like they have the potential to be a dangerous, exciting band. Except that they’re not. Playing old classics is one thing; writing new ones is an entirely different challenge. The only half-decent rockers find Pop drooling over double-Ds and singing about how “nipples come and nipples go.” Titling your new album Ready to Die helps the jokes write themselves, but it’s downright strange when the album ends with a country-ish ballad called “The Departed,” featuring Toronto musicians from Mary Margaret O’Hara’s band that fades out with an acoustic take on the riff from “I Wanna Be Your Dog.” Huh? (May 2)

Download: “Sex and Money,” “DDs,” “Gun”

Kobo Town – Jumbie in the Jukebox (Cumbancha)

“If I had the choice, I would choose to live back when calypso brought the news,” sings Trinidadian-Canadian singer/songwriter Drew Gonsalves. And while Kobo Town’s music owes a large debt to traditional calypso—indeed, the name of the band comes from the area in Port-of-Spain where the genre was born, and original calypso star Lord Kitchener was a childhood neighbour of Gonsalves’. But he’s not locked into set patterns: Jumbie in the Jukebox is a thoroughly modern recording, owing debts to Western pop and Jamaican dancehall, all a delivery method for songs that would be just as effective with just Gonsalves and his acoustic guitar. He says he hoped this album, Kobo Town’s second and their first in six years, would be “a contemporary expression that said something about Caribbean music, our heritage, and the potential for a new voice that resonates with people today.” Mission accomplished. And with an American record deal and an international touring schedule, Gonsalves is ready to take his take on Trinidad far beyond Toronto. (May 16)

Download: “Kaiso Newscast,” “Half of the Houses,” “Postcard Poverty”

Majical Cloudz – Impersonator (Matador)

If singer Devon Welsh sounds dramatic, he comes across it honestly: his father is the acclaimed Canadian stage actor Kenneth Welsh, best known for playing convicted killer Colin Thatcher in a TV movie and as Agent Cooper’s arch-nemesis, Windom Earle, in Twin Peaks. Among his many other gifts, Welsh the younger has great diction and a commanding presence.

“I don’t think about dying alone,” he sings—but not convincingly. Welsh croons with a sombre seriousness that makes you think he’s contemplating mortal matters every minute of every day. His music is based on lilting synth loops and little else—no beats, minimal chord movement. Welch makes the most out of next to nothing, and the result is meditative, hymnal and often sounds suspended in time. Lots of people make minimal synth music; some people try to croon like a young Scott Walker. Welsh is one of the only people doing both.

Majical Cloudz, which Welsh formed with Matthew Otto, was formed in Montreal and sprung from the same Arbutus Records scene that spawned Grimes, Blue Hawaii, Sean Michael Savage and Doldrums: all fascinating acts, but hardly known for their emotional directness. Welsh, in contrast, sounds like he’s standing on Mont Royal facing Mile End, arms outstretched, eyes closed, calling to his peers to drop their facades and search for spiritual truths. “If this song is the last thing I do, I feel so good,” he sings.

His legacy begins. (May 23)

Download: “I Do Sing For You,” “Mister,” “This is Magic”

Major Lazer – Free the Universe (Secretly Canadian)

This follows up a 2009 tour-de-force dancehall pop explosion spearheaded by superstar DJ Diplo and dozens of collaborators. Diplo’s production partner Switch has since split, and the guest list has—unnecessarily—added some A-list gusts, like Wyclef Jean, Bruno Mars, Shaggy, and Ezra Koenig from Vampire Weekend. What once was a frenetic free-for-all now sounds more like what many feared the debut would be: a big-shot American producer making watered-down, only mildly interesting electronic take on Jamaican music, complete with moments of Eurotrance cheese. Diplo made his name as M.I.A.’s right-hand man; he now schlelps beats for Bieber. Major Lazer is certainly better than his current day jobs, but considering his creativity in the past, this is a big disappointment—mainly because none of the collaborators sound particularly engaged, phoning it in over B-sides, while Diplo sounds like he’s trying too hard to have fun on a cocaine bender. The rare moments of inspiration only make the rest of the album that much more of a major bummer. (May 16)

Download: “Get Free” (feat. Amber from Dirty Projectors), “Scare Me” (feat. Peaches & Timberlee), “Jet Blue Jet” (feat. Leftside, GTA, Razz & Biggy)

The National – Trouble Will Find Me (4AD)

What would happen if U2 all bathed in valerian and insisted on making nothing but dirgey ballads? The National may be the thinking man’s dad-rock band du jour, but with each successive album it sounds like they’re trying to rewrite “One” and “Love is Blindness.” They’ve come close before; they come close again here. In the meantime, the lethargy is suffocating; the appeal, mystifying. (May 23)

Download: “Graceless,” “I Should Live in Salt,” “I Need My Girl”

Saltland – I Thought It Was Us But It Was All of Us (Constellation)

Rebecca Foon is a Montreal cellist who has played with almost everyone in that town—particularly those on the periphery of the scene that spawned Godspeed You Black Emperor, notably Esmerine (with Godspeed percussionist Bruce Cawdron) and Thee Silver Mt. Zion (with Godspeed guitarist Efrim Menuck). Here she performs her own enchanting compositions on layered and looped cello, adding percussionist Jamie Thompson (Unicorns, Islands) and her own languorous vocals. The tone is not far removed from early ’90s 4AD acts (This Mortal Coil, Dead Can Dance), with more drone elements and Thompson adding tasteful punctuation that keeps all the weightless atmospherics from drifting off into the night sky. (May 16)

Download: “Golden Alley,” “Treehouse Schemes,” “Colour the Night Sky”

Savages – Silence Yourself (Matador)

This no-boy band from London are reminiscent of early ’80s British post-punk ala Joy Division and Siouxie and the Banshees—perhaps the last period of rock music to be couched in mystery and actual experimentation with form, owing no debts to either blues or folk music, which endears it to the geekiest of the geeks and black-clad record-store clerks around the world. (For more contemporary Canadian references, this sounds like Katie Sketch of The Organ taking a shot of adrenalin and fronting the D’Urbervilles.)

Which means that because Savages is undeniably retro doesn’t mean they can’t sound fresh: French-born singer Jehnny Beth is an astounding presence, the kind of bone-chilling voice that leaps out of your stereo and stares you down and haunts you, defying you to ignore her. She is also, other than the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Karen O, the only current rock singer who can swoop from scowl to screech and still be pitch-perfect; on top of that, she’s trained as a jazz pianist, and Silence Yourself is surely the only punk rock record with a bass clarinet solo.

This is not a solo act, however. The rest of the band is just as exciting: guitarist Gemma Thompson is full of jagged edges, chugging rhythms and experimental abandon, and the rhythm section is solid and propulsive and raw. It’s all captured expertly by producer Rodaidh McDonald, who treats them the same way he did The XX: provide them with some good mics and a bit of reverb, stand back and watch the magic happen, no overdubs necessary.

That said, Silence Yourself is a good album by a great band; they weren’t together very long before being thrust in the spotlight, and no doubt they have better material in them. The trick will be keeping that initial spark. (May 9)

Download: “Shut Up,” “I Am Here,” “She Will”

Colin Stetson – New History of Warfare Vol. 3: To See More Light (Constellation)

No avant-garde saxophonist has had more of a public profile in the last—what, three decades? Since John Zorn?—than Colin Stetson. The associate of Bon Iver and Arcade Fire—who pulls off Olympian feats of physical strength while circular breathing through a baritone saxophone and playing melody and percussion at the same time—records with a lot of contact microphones and no overdubs. Yes, it’s impressive. And yes, it often sounds like an elephant in its death throes on an infinite loop—if you’re into that kind of thing. Which, it turns out, is more people than one would think

His last album catapulted him into headliner status and a slot on the Polaris Prize shortlist. Can he get lucky twice, with an album that doesn’t stray too far from Vol. 2’s limited palette? How much gurgling, pulsing saxophone can audiences take? (Supplementary questions for the sake of argument: how many arpeggiated symphonies can Philip Glass write? How many minimalist techno records can Richie Hawtin make?)

No matter, as Stetson is definitely improving: Vol. 3 expands his bag of tricks, proving that he’s hardly a one-trick pony, and is more melodic than last time out—and not just the tracks featuring Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon on vocals (including a death metal turn on “Brute”), which are actually some of the weakest and distracting here. And once again, the audio engineering—the art of capturing this mysterious thing Stetson does—is what ultimately makes it translate so well into a 40-minute record. Stetson’s music is an immersive experience, one in which acoustic sounds become utterly alien and yet engrossing, one in which the listener is constantly lurching through waves of insistent rhythm and ghostly melodies. (May 2)

Download: “High Above a Green Sea,” “In Mirrors,” “This Bed of Shattered Bone”

A Tribe Called Red – Nation II Nation (Tribal Spirit)

Idle No More isn’t just a political movement. Thanks to this Ottawa DJ crew, it’s a musical one, too. Though native hip-hop has had its own healthy scene for at least the last 15 years, merging Aboriginal rhythms and voices to a pulsing techno beat hasn’t been done as successfully, if at all—and it’s certainly never reached the kind of audience that this DJ crew is doing. A Tribe Called Red has transformed their popular Ottawa club gig into a national, nay international, phenomenon.

Part of the appeal, of course, is hearing what may be one of the last “exotic” cultures to be plundered in the name of globalized dance culture, but if that was the beginning and end of this crew’s appeal, their story would be over by now. Instead, their second album (or first, if you don’t count their free-download debut recording, which was long-listed for the Polaris Prize) is brimming with beats designed to excite and send crowds into a frenzy; the one track without Aboriginal vocals, “Sweet Milk Pop,” is squiggly, sweaty and built for Berlin or Brazil more than Brantford. But it is the vocals that make this more than just another solid dance record (see: Daphni’s Jiaolong) and a vital cultural document of a time and place in North American Aboriginal culture. They are joyous, furious and inspired, full of the raw sound of community, trapped inside synthetic machines and yet rising above them to find strength and power.  (May 9)

Download: “Sisters” (feat. Northern Voice), “Tanto's Revenge” (feat. Chippewa Travellers), “Pbc” (feat. Sheldon Sundown)

Vampire Weekend – Modern Vampires of the City (XL)

Vampire Weekend open their third album with a downbeat, mid-tempo number: not a good sign, especially for a band whose follow-up to a winning debut was bogged down with soggy synths and AutoTune, which just sounded like awkward growing pains.

And so the opening track here, “Obvious Bicycle,” doesn’t bode well, from the title on down. But Vampire Weekend quickly pull a bait and switch: second track “Unbelievers” is an upbeat, pulsing, pogo-friendly, three-chord sing-song melody that transforms into an Irish anthem in the final of its three minutes. “I’m not excited,” sings Ezra Koenig, “but should I be?”

Well, yes. “Diane Young” owes a large debt to Elvis Presley, of all people—something surely lost on 90 per cent of the band’s audience—as Koenig pitch-shifts his voice across octaves, drummer Chris Tomson delivers machine-gun rolls and multi-instrumentalist Rostam Batmanglij delivers a loopy solo that sounds like Thurston Moore doing rockabilly; “Step” matches modern R&B influences with psychedelic harpsichord, synth choirs and dreamy lead vocals; Koenig sounds like a rambling auctioneer on the verses of the march of “Worship You,” before writing a chorus worthy of Coldplay while a Persian female voice dances around in the background. “Ya Hey” manages to borrow from roots reggae without ever emulating it outright (unlike, say the pseudo-controversies over the South African influences on Vampire Weekend’s debut), and even a yelping chorus of what sounds like whining Smurfs can’t detract from a what is an album highlight—the more ridiculous Vampire Weekend decide to be, the better the track.

Modern Vampires of the City isn’t consistent enough to live up to its best moments, but when those moments come they point to a band whose creativity was always greater than they were often given credit for. (May 16)

Download: “Ya Hey,” “Step,” “Diane Young”

Rachel Zeffira - The Deserters (Paper Bag)

Zeffira grew up playing and singing classical music in small-town B.C., escaped to London and then Verona and found herself playing music at the Vatican and forming a band (Cat’s Eyes) with a member of a popular goth-rock British group (the Horrors). Fans of Tori Amos and Lisa Germano should already be perking up, but so should those of the debut albums by Julee Cruise and Goldfrapp: albums that exist in some otherworldly, half-remembered European dream involving trains, mountains and church spires. There’s a My Bloody Valentine cover (“To Here Knows When”), a song that could be a classic Neil Young piano ballad from the ’70s (“Front Door”), and a lushly orchestrated disco song—recorded at Abbey Road studios, and featuring harps—that could be Saint Etienne covering Donna Summer. Zeffira’s piano playing, string arrangements and breathy soprano are all enchanting; no wonder the world is paying attention. (May 2)

Download: “Letters from Tokyo (Sayonara),” “Front Door,” “Break the Spell”