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Playlists

Playlist: New tunes from 2021, part two

…And I’m back. Did you miss me?

Don’t worry. If you didn’t even notice that was gone, I won’t be too hurt. I’ve had a great couple of weeks off from work and it was definitely nice to step away from posting to these pages during that same time. Some of my fellow bloggers may have observed that I was still reading and commenting on some of their own pieces so I wasn’t completely absent. And I will admit that I did spend a bit of time stringing together some words on music for this and some future posts.

But now I’m back and I’m ready to go, starting things off with part two of my New tunes of 2021 playlist. I’ve been doing these playlists for a few years now and they’re like a running diary of the new music that has been released during each quarter of the year and that has caught my ear. You can go back and have a listen to part one for this year here.

Months four, five, and six of 2021 have been, without a question, a more positive experience than the previous three were. Sure, we’ve had a third wave of this pandemic to contend with and here in Ontario, Canada, the government upped the ante on the lockdown and issued a stay at home order at the beginning of April. Since then, though, things have looked up. The roll out of the mass vaccination campaign has been going quite well. (Yours truly received his first dose of Pfizer in mid-June and is scheduled for dose number two on Friday.) Of course, the warmer weather has meant more outdoor activities and some semblance of normalcy. My wife and I have been out on walks, out weekly to the farmers markets, and have been getting out on the bikes pretty regularly. We also accidentally found ourselves at the Ottawa tulip festival back in May (see photo above) and we’ve already been out on patios to support some of our favourite local restaurant businesses.

And through all of this, I’ve also been purchasing, streaming, and listening to as much new music as I can. The twenty five songs below are just an example of the many tunes that have been brightening up my spring. Highlights include:

  • “I’m glad that we broke up”, a trashy, glam rock, firebomb of single by Du Blonde in a raucous duet with one of my discoveries from last year, Ezra Furman
  • Ex-Pains of Being Pure at Heart frontman Kip Berman stepped away from the reverb-drenched indie pop of his old band in favour of more stripped-down and rootsy indie folk as The Natvral and the track “New Year’s night” is just brilliant
  • The introspective and honest jangly retro pop of “I hope I never fall in love” is just one of the many great tracks off the new album by one of my favourite new discoveries of the year, The Reds, Pinks and Purples
  • “I don’t believe in anything” served to remind me of the pure joy and energy infused in the music of The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, a ska-punk band that I just loved back in the 90s
  • I’ve known for quite some time that comedian/actor Matt Berry was also a musician but it took fellow blogger, Steve for the Deaf to turn me on to just how good he is and yeah, “Summer sun” is pure sunshine psychedelic bliss
  • “Paprika”, a happy little ear worm off Japanese Breakfast‘s third album, “Jubilee”
  • And last but definitely not least is “In the rain”, the nearly eight minute lazy sunday folk-rocker by another cool project by Ripley Johnson (Wooden Shjips, Moon Duo), this one called Rose City Band

For those who don’t use Spotify or if the embedded playlist below doesn’t work for you, here is the entire playlist as I’ve created it, complete with links to YouTube videos:

1. “Down the river” Ratboys (from the album Happy birthday, Ratboy)

2. “I’m glad that we broke up (feat. Ezra Furman)” Du Blonde (from the album Homecoming)

3. “New year’s night” The Natvral (from the album Tethers)

4. “Price of blue” Flock of Dimes (from the album Head of roses)

5. “Everyone’s a winner” Flyte (from the album This is really going to hurt)

6. “I hope I never fall in love” The Reds, Pinks and Purples (from the album Uncommon weather)

7. “Can’t talk, won’t” Coach Party (from the EP After party)

8. “Desires” Art d’Ecco (from the album In standard definition)

9. “Change your mind” The Coral (from the album Coral island)

10. “The sun won’t shine on me” Teenage Fanclub (from the album Endless arcade)

11. “Shelter song” Iceage (from the album Seek shelter)

12. “Yoru ni” Teke::Teke (from the album Shirushi)

13. “I don’t believe in anything” The Mighty Mighty Bosstones (from the album When god was great)

14. “Hologram love” Linn Koch-Emmery (from the album Being the girl)

15. “Summer sun” Matt Berry (from the album The blue elephant)

16. “C’mon be cool” fanclubwallet (from the EP Hurt is boring)

17. “Poor boy a long way from home” The Black Keys (from the album Delta kream)

18. “Stay in the car” Bachelor (from the album Doomin’ sun)

19. “Paprika” Japanese Breakfast (from the album Jubilee)

20. “Smile” Wolf Alice (from the album Blue weekend)

21. “Beautiful beaches” James (from the album All the colours of you)

22. “Primrose hill at midnight (feat. Flyte)” Dizzy (from the EP Separate places)

23. “Already written” Azure Ray (from the album Remedy)

24. “Hot & heavy” Lucy Dacus (from the album Home video)

25. “In the rain” Rose City Band (from the album Earth trip)

As always, wherever you are in the world, I hope you are safe, continue to be well, and well, enjoy the tunes.

If you’re interested in checking out any of the other playlists I’ve created and shared on these pages, you can peruse them here.

Categories
Tunes Vinyl

Best tunes of 2012: #11 Young Galaxy “Youth is wasted on the young”

<< #12    |    #10 >>

Happy Thursday everyone!

It’s doubly happy for me because today marks the first day of a two week vacation from work. And to truly recharge, I’ve decided to take a brief blogging break as well. But first, I’ve got something fun to send things off right. I have a song here that provides a unique opportunity to combine a post for my Best tunes of 2012 list with one for my ‘Vinyl love’ series. Let me explain.

In the spring of 2012, I had just started collecting vinyl. My wife had texted me from Greenwich village in New York City where she was visiting a friend. She had happened upon a street sale and one of the vendors happened to be selling used vinyl, some by bands that she knew I loved, and I remember her specifically asking if I wanted Oasis’s debut album on vinyl. When I responded that I didn’t have a turntable, she said that she planned on getting me one. She ended up coming home with “Definitely maybe”, as well as “Talking Heads: 77”, both of which are still on my shelves. Shortly after that, I ventured out on my very first Record Store Day and purchased my first exclusive. A vinyl addict was born.

If it wasn’t for those events, I may not have even flinched when I heard the news that Paper Bag Records was releasing a double a-side 7”, vinyl only release from Young Galaxy. It’s true that the Montreal-based dream pop band had just released their third album, “Shapeshifting”, on Paper Bag the previous year and though it was a departure for them, it was a welcome one and garnered them lots of new attention. It’s also a fact that I had contributed to the group’s Kickstarter campaign a few months earlier to help raised funds for them to travel to Sweden to work again with the producer of “Shapeshifting” for their next album, but this time in person. So I was already excited and on the lookout for news from one of my favourite Canadian bands in years and it didn’t hurt that they were working with my favourite indie label at the time, who I thought for a while, were turning to gold everything they touched. But it was the vinyl already sitting on my shelf that greased the wheel and I placed the online order.

The record arrived in the mail, wrapped in brown paper, a fun touch that the label was doing back then. I brought it home and admired it with plenty of “oohs” and “aahs” before putting it on the shelf with the rest of the small collection I had amassed thus far. I didn’t yet have a turntable so I had to listen to the two songs on my computer, care of the download rights that came with the purchase. I listened to both the a-side and the double-a-side, “Shoreless kid” and “Youth is wasted on the young”, and was struck by how different they sounded (and yet, at the same time similar in aesthetic) to the album they had released the previous year. I thought at the time that these two songs that were heavier on the guitar were either signalling a return to their earlier sound or a last kiss good bye as they soared off into the synthesized horizon. It turns out it was the latter.

“Youth is wasted on the young” starts off feeling a little construction time again with pipes spewing steam and rivets being pounded and then, the Johnny Marr guitars chime in with the jangles and everything kicks into highway driving roars. It sounds very much like 1983, dark and shiny leather jackets and all manner of sunglasses cool. And Catherine McCandless is channelling some Siouxsie Sioux, a strong woman, glamorous and iconic, against the world, keeping up with the frenetic pace of it all. It’s like a love song to both the music of the band’s youth and to the music of today that is just as fresh and fabulous.

I wouldn’t mind dying at all
If it weren’t for the songs I’d miss…
Youth is wasted on the young

See you all again soon.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 2012 list, click here.

Categories
Vinyl

Vinyl love (revisited): Spirit of the West “Go figure”

(I started my Vinyl Love posts pretty much right after the launch of this blog to share photos of my growing vinyl collection. Over time, the photos have improved and the explanations have grown. And looking back at a handful of the original posts in this series, I found myself wanting to re-do some of them so that the posts are more worthy of those great albums. So that’s what I’ll be doing every once in a while, including today…)

Artist: Spirit Of The West
Album Title: Go figure
Year released: 1991
Details: Original German pressing, signed, numbered, includes a signed certificate from the band, band photo from their final show (also signed)

The skinny: Spirit of the West is one of my all-time favourite bands and one that has a special place in my heart, given that my wife and I got together at one of their concerts. 1991’s “Go figure” was my first introduction to the Canadian folk rock group and the CD copy I had of it followed me from high school into university and beyond. After carving out a celtic folk rock niche in the 1980s, John Mann, Geoffrey Kelly, Hugh McMillan, and Linda McRae ventured into alt-rock territory with “Go figure”, enlisting drummer Vince Ditrich to fill out their sound. I had been dying to track down any of their albums for my shelves ever since I began collecting vinyl again, so snapping up a copy of this album from the band’s website when they put it up for sale back in December 2017 was a no-brainer. It’s an original pressing that they found a few copies of left over from long past tours. The band all signed the cover, included with it a ‘certificate of authenticity’, as well as a signed photo taken at the band’s last ever concert in 2016. This is a treasure indeed.

Standout track: “D for Democracy”