Tag: Alternative Rock

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Tunes

Best tunes of 2012: #4 July Talk “Paper girl”

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I originally came across the video for “Paper girl” quite by accident, while searching for something else, and was so enthralled that I thoroughly forgot what that something was. In the video (and the song), Peter Dreimanis and Leah Fay, the nucleus of July Talk, play upon multiple levels of dichotomy: rough/smooth vocals, ugly/cute attitudes, old/new sound, male/female gender identities, and well, you get the picture. The video pits the vocalists (and their alter egos) against each other, him loud and brash and her delicate but defiant. It’s fun to watch play out again and again.

July Talk are an alternative rock band based out of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The story of their formation in the bio that used to appear on their website smacked of the stuff of legend: boy hears girl singing in a smoky bar in the early hours of the morning, decides she’s his muse, tracks her down and they form a band. They rounded out said band and sound with Ian Docherty (guitar), Josh Warburton (bass), and Danny Miles (drums). The group has released three studio albums since forming in 2012, each garnering them more and more fans, but in my opinion, neither of the latter two can touch the excellence and originality of the self titled debut.

Much of “July Talk” mines another era for its blues infused chaotic sound but brings its anachronism into the new millennia. The growling and gnarling Tom Waits interplay with the bedroom confessional popster that holds her own is a story that runs throughout the album but “Paper girl” as track three is the shining example. It takes the Pixies’ loud-quiet-loud structure to extreme, seesawing between dirty and aggressive guitars and drums and angelic keyboards. And just like the duelling vocals in a certain song by The Pogues, the Dreimanis and Fay personas rail and thrash at each other, just before they fall passionately and resignedly into each other’s arms.

“Yeah, it must be hard
To watch your body growing old”

 

“And I’ll be laughing in your head until I want to stop
And if you think it’s your turn to explain yourself, it’s not”

It’s a song for turning up loudly when there’s no one else around and for singing along with to both parts because neither is right and neither is wrong but together they work.

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

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Tunes

Best tunes of 2020: #28 Elephant Stone “Hollow world”

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Elephant Stone is a Montreal-based psych-rock quartet that was formed by bassist and sitar player Rishi Dhir back in 2008. I got into them pretty much right from the start because I loved Dhir’s work with The High Dials* and was more than a little sad when I heard he had left that group.

Elephant Stone’s 2009 debut album, “The seven seas”, had me sold immediately and had me trying to convince all of my other friends to give the band a go as well. I got to see them live at the now defunct Zaphod Beeblebrox here in Ottawa back in 2010 and then, three years later, I saw Dhir perform live onstage with Beck at Montreal’s Osheaga festival. Indeed, Dhir’s sitar work is well known and sought after in the psych rock circles and he’s collaborated, either live or in studio, with the likes of The Horrors, The Black Angels, The Brian Jonestown Massacre, and the aforementioned Beck. He even created a psych-rock supergroup of sorts called MIEN and released one self-titled album in 2018, that included the work of The Black Angels’ Alex Maas, The Horrors’ Tom Furse, and The Earlies’ John-Mark Lapham.

But I’ve strayed off course a bit here. Rishi Dhir is the driving force behind Elephant Stone but he’s also always had a great team behind him. Each of the group’s five albums have been critically acclaimed, and each has told a different story. On their 2020 album, “Hollow”, Dhir and his band are reaching out to a dystopian world of disconnected and unhappy souls, one that was inspired by the impacts on our society by social media.

“We long to feel less empty inside our hollow world
These hollow days bring so much hurt”

These are words from the opening track, “Hollow world”, but if you weren’t paying attention, you could be forgiven for thinking the message more uplifting than that. The song is a dreamy and technicolour piece of paradise, one that refracts blinding shards of light in all directions. Much like the best of Elephant Stone, this smacks of what The Beatles might’ve been had George Harrison had more sway at the height of his Indian classical music fascination. It is bright pop and sounds young, joyful and hopeful, especially when Rishi brings out his daughter Meera Skye Dhir to join him on vocals to close things out. Genius.

*Another excellent Canadian indie rock outfit out of Montreal with a psych rock influenced sound.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 2020 list, click here.

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Vinyl

Vinyl love: The Reds, Pinks & Purples “Uncommon weather”

(Vinyl Love is a series of posts that quite simply lists, describes, and displays the pieces in my growing vinyl collection. You can bet that each record was given a spin during the drafting of each corresponding post.)

Artist: The Reds, Pinks & Purples
Album Title: Uncommon weather
Year released: 2021
Details: Limited edition, pastel blue

The skinny: When I counted down my favourite albums of the year at the end of 2021, the last one standing was “Uncommon weather” by The Reds, Pinks and Purples. I had never even heard of said act prior to last year but following an email blast from Slumberland Records and trip over to Spotify, I was an instant fan. I went on the hunt for a vinyl pressing of what I later learned was Glenn Donaldson’s third album as The Reds, Pinks and Purples and found the pastel blue variant at one of my favourite indie online shops. It’s such a great record, like pretty much everything he’s released over the last few years. And just as I wrote in my end of the year post, “there’s just something addictive in Donaldson’s short bursts of ear-worm pop. Each of the thirteen songs on “Uncommon weather” sounds immediately familiar and welcoming. There’s loads of reverb and silky smooth synths, peppy drumming and jangly guitars, and above it all, Donaldson channels all of our 80s John Hughes heroes: Robert Smith, Ian McCulloch, and Richard Butler.” I really just can’t help myself from gushing to anyone who’ll listen about The Reds, Pinks and Purples.

Standout track: “I hope I never fall in love”