Tag: 2012

Categories
Tunes

Best tunes of 2012: #14 Dum Dum Girls “Season in hell”

<< #15    |    #13 >>

I got into Dum Dum Girls, the sadly now defunct project led by Kristin “Dee Dee” Gundred, with their very excellent sophomore record, 2011’s “Only in dreams”. Though it wasn’t issued as a proper single from the album, “Bedroom eyes”, and the video made for it, became a personal favourite of mine, landing at number five on my Best tunes of 2011 list. And with the repeat listens of that album, I was super excited to see them at the Osheaga festival in Montreal in August 2012. I remember rushing over to their stage right after Of Monsters and Men finished up their eye-opening early afternoon set and though Dum Dum Girls’ performance was shortened due to sound problems, they were fantastic, all attitude and noise.

The following month the group released an EP called “End of daze”, featuring three songs held out from the “Only in dreams” sessions, and I loved it. It was one of my favourite releases of 2012 and it’s one of the very few examples of where I agree with Pitchfork media’s reviewers when they said it was the best thing Dum Dum Girls released up to that point. My only problem with it was that, at a five song EP, it was way too short. I was left wanting more, more, and more. It is still such a favourite of mine that it is one of only a small handful of EPs that I purchased for my vinyl collection and it regularly gets pulled down for a 45 rpm spin.

The final track on the EP is this humdinger called “Season in hell”. It is Sandra Vu crashing away at the drums, soaring guitars all around, that familiar reverb-drenched production by Raveonettes’ Sune Rose Wagner, and Dee Dee’s vocals uplifting and floating in space, way up above the heavens, hinting at a change in direction and a hope for better days.

“Doesn’t dawn look divine”

Taken in hindsight you can read a lot into this track. The ‘season in hell’ could be referring to the period before Gundred’s split with Crocodiles’ Brandon Welchez, or it could be that she was starting to feel constrained by the image, aesthetic, and sound that she had created for Dum Dum Girls. That hat certainly feels tipped at in the couplet that ends the song and gives the EP its name: “Lift your gaze, it’s the end of daze.” And it’s a theory that feels more concrete when taken in context with her next album, Dum Dum Girls’ swan song, “Too true”, where the haze and gaze is all but dispensed with in favour of a glam and britpop influenced sound.

Again, though, that’s only in hindsight and if you’re in a mood to read into things. I typically avoid such heady topics when this particular song comes on and I just give in to the excitement and joy. The bliss and the hope.

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

Categories
Tunes

Best tunes of 2012: #15 Metric “Breathing underwater”

<< #16    |    #14 >>

So I’ve mentioned once before in the last month or so that this blog is quickly approaching its fourth anniversary*, and looking back over my posts, I’ve noticed, much to my own surprise, that with the exception of one of my Vinyl Love posts, Canadian indie rockers Metric have yet to have been the focus of a post on any of my lists.

Metric got its start as the duo of James Shaw and Emily Haines back in 1998 in Toronto. Drummer Joules Scott-Key joined on in 2000 and a couple of years later, bassist Joshua Winstead made the group the quartet that we now know and love. As I wrote in that aforementioned Vinyl Love post, I was aware of the group from their early days because of my friend Jez. He saw them a number of times at various intimate clubs when they came to Ottawa in support of their debut album, “Old world underground, where are you?”. After his first time seeing them, Jez tried dragging me along with him and though I was sold on the music of the album he loaned me, I never seemed to have the money to spare.

By the time I finally did see Metric live, it was a number of years and three albums later and their latest, 2009’s “Fantasies”, had garnered them enough success to earn them a spot on Ottawa Bluesfest’s main stage, albeit one at a time slot in the early evening. My wife Victoria was quite a fan of that album and so I was able to convince her to join me on the lawn of the Canadian War Museum (where the festival has been annually held up to last year’s rude COVID-19 interruption) on a warm summer evening in July. Metric’s energy was fun and we both enjoyed singing along with all of our favourites, though Victoria later pointed out that Haines’s dancing was sometimes awkward and her vocals not as strong live as they were on the recordings. My opinion slightly differed than my wife’s – I thoroughly enjoyed finally catching their live experience. I’ve since seen Metric twice more, both times at different festivals, including once in support of their next album, “Synthetica”, from which comes today’s song of focus.

If “Fantasies” broke Metric more into the Canadian mainstream, “Synthetica” finished the job, songs like second single, “Breathing underwater”, gilding the festival stages for the appearances. The intro of synths is like a laser show starting, the whir of exciting machinery, then comes Shaw’s stadium ready, dancing guitar line and the driving drums, regularly punctuated with exciting fills at perfectly opportune moments and Emily Haines can hardly believe that it’s her up on the stage, singing “Is this my life?”. Indeed, the song seems to be a meditation on their good fortunes and success, the achieving of the impossible, and the worry that they are not at all up to the challenge of supporting the weight of being adored by fans around the world. Meanwhile, the video is a collage of clips of their charged live performances and the masses of audiences, including footage from a performance at Lollapalooza the previous year.

Apart from all that, “Breathing underwater” is an incredible and uplifting synth tinged rocker that will have you dancing and singing along every time.

*Now in 11 days to be exact.

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

Categories
Tunes

Best tunes of 2012: #16 Amos the Transparent “Sure as the weather”

<< #17    |    #15 >>

I first came across local band, Ottawa’s own Amos the Transparent, in 2010, when I saw them perform on an early Sunday evening set in only my second year attending Ottawa Bluesfest. I had only briefly sampled a couple of their tracks in advance but their big band energy had me visiting the merch tent afterwards to pick up a CD copy of their debut album, “Everything I’ve forgotten to forget”. I listened to that album quite a bit in the months that followed and couldn’t help being drawn in by the fine songwriting by band architect, Jonathan Chandler. Just as impressive was such excellent production and ambitious scope for a indie band that I just couldn’t get my head around was local.

Just over a year later in December 2011, I somehow caught wind that Amos the Transparent had recorded a video for a new song off an upcoming new record. I watched the fun, all-in-one-take video that you yourself can watch below and then, I watched it again. And then, the next day, I forced my wife Victoria to watch it with me. The video did its job. I was hooked.

A couple of months later, the group held an album release party for “Goodnight, my dear… I’m falling apart” at the now defunct Ritual night club. It was a great night where I was also introduced to the music of big-voiced Haligonian, Ben Caplan, and that was topped by the seven members of Amos the Transparent squeezing their big presence on to the tiny stage and blowing the roof off the place. I took home a CD copy of the album from that performance too because I was still a couple of months removed from starting my vinyl collection, though I remedied that at another Amos show a few years ago. For those of you too far afield to have heard this group, “Goodnight, my dear…” is an excellent, big, Canadian indie rock record in the vein of “Funeral” or “Set yourself on fire”, but in addition to the orchestral elements those two albums sport, Amos throws in some traditional folk instrumentation for fun.

Take today’s song, “Sure as the weather”, for an example. If you watch the song’s video without sound and note the varied instruments that the band pulls out – pedal steel, banjo, accordion, and cello – you could be forgiven for expecting a rollicking indie folk track. The sound on, you check off the “rollicking” box but also observe how much the tune rocks and how these varied instruments lend their distinctive sounds to the blended whole. Indeed, Amos the Transparent is built around the songwriting of Jonathan Chandler but they really are a collaborative beast, both in the way they build the songs up and tear them down and the way they harmonize and gang up on the listener with their collective voices, and in this case, singing with optimism for better days.

“I don’t want to hear about your bad weekend
And I don’t want to hear about not trusting your friends
And I don’t really care if no one’s left to blame
It’s going to be okay”

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