Tag: End of year

Categories
Albums

Best albums of 2019: #3 Tallies “Tallies”

At some point in the mid-2000s, I was in a Chapters perusing the music magazine racks while my wife was looking at cookbooks and I came across an American-based indie music magazine called “Under the radar”. I found myself flipping through it slower than I normally would a music magazine so when my wife found me (rather than me finding her for once), I was still only halfway through it. She suggested I buy it and I offered no resistance. And then, I bought the next few monthly issues. For the next Christmas that rolled around, I received a two year subscription from Victoria. When that expired, I called in to renew it for myself and I distinctly remember the woman I talked to who took my order happily telling me that they (the people behind the magazine) loved Canadians. I have since had a few annual digital subscriptions for my iPad and these days, I still check their website regularly and all because they have always seemed to have their finger on the pulse of music that I like.

This past January, a month that the music world is still typically waking up from its holiday hangover, I had a visit with my friends at “Under the radar” and wouldn’t you know, there was a review, front and centre, of the self-titled, debut album of this new Canadian band, Tallies. The review mentioned them in the same breath as Alvvays, another favourite of mine, and a couple other Canadian bands of whom I hadn’t yet heard. So I duly went over to Spotify to have a perusal of the album (as well as music by the other two) and immediately heard and agreed with the reviewer’s comparisons to the jangly dream pop of Cocteau Twins and (especially that of) The Sundays. It goes with saying that I purchased it on vinyl the next time I was out at the record stores.

I tell this story because I find it funny, the roundabout way you sometimes have to travel to discover music from your own backyard. Tallies were formed by the couple of Sarah Cogan (vocals/guitar) and Dylan Frankland (guitar) while they were attending Algonquin College right here in Ottawa. They added drummer Cian O’Neill and bassist Stephen Pitman and relocated to Toronto, where they recorded this debut. And yeah, “Tallies” is another good reason why we should still be excited about the indie music being made here in Canada.

Tallies have been described as shoegaze but I would place them more as dream pop, and yes, there is a difference. There’s plenty of jangle and twinkle and rays of sunshine, and man, is it easy on the ears! Have a listen to my three picks for you below and let me know what you think.

“Not so proud”: First off, I’ll drop this one right here and let that peppy, tip-tappety-tap-tap drumming set in. I’m thinking within a second your head will be bopping. Just in time to let the washes upon washes of tinkling guitars flutter down upon you like sparkling confetti. The crisp production is like a vacuum, allowing these lovely sounds to echo all over the place and then, Cogan starts in with her vocals. She’s singing about uncertainties and the different shades of greys and not having the answers or the endings to any story, happy or otherwise. Yet, you can’t help but want to get up and dance and sing along just as breathlessly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqgRVKUn0nU

“Mother”: The rhythm section gets a bit of a workout on this second track and guitars jangle all over the place, almost feeling like they’re on holiday in the Caribbean. Yeah, things are a bit meandering in the verses but they pick up substantially at the choruses and the drums get just that much more frantic. And through the joy and bliss and Cogan’s sweet honey vocals, her lyrics are wistfully relaying the varying stages of a relationship between a mother and daughter. “Don’t fill your holes with sorrow, ‘cause you’ll never be left alive.” Good advice, that.

“Trouble”: And much like that last track (and others throughout the album), the opening number seems to be exploring the pitfalls of growing up, ready or not. “Heights with no means to escape. Soaring coasts mixed with the rubble. Mind’s eye forms fields of gray. No subtle fears, no grounds for trouble.” And here more than anywhere, do we get a lot of noise, a lot of static, impenetrable, perhaps, save for the soaring and ringing vocals of Cogan, sounding very much a Harriet Wheeler doppelgänger. The naivety and exuberance breathes life into an interpretation of backward admiring tunes. Just lovely.

Check back next Tuesday for album #2. In the meantime, here are the previous albums in this list:

10. Chromatics “Closer to grey”
9. Elva “Winter sun”
8. The Twilight Sad “It won/t be like this all the time”
7. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds “Ghosteen”
6. The Soft Calvary “The Soft Calvary”
5. Orville Peck “Pony”
4. Ride “This is not a safe place”

You can also check out my Best Albums page here if you’re interested in my other favourite albums lists.

Categories
Vinyl

Vinyl love: The Tallest Man on Earth “I love you. It’s a fever dream.”

(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 Tallest Man on Earth
Album Title: I love you. It’s a fever dream.
Year released: 2019
Details: Limited edition, Green translucent, Gatefold

The skinny: Much like Piroshka’s “Brickbat”, an album I posted for this series just over a week ago, The Tallest Man on Earth’s latest didn’t quite make my top ten favourite albums when I finalized my list but it bore mentioning nonetheless and I snuck it in the banner photo at the top of that introductory post. Funny thing about this record, though, is that its purchase was almost by accident. Indeed, I was at one of my local record shops just before this year’s Bluesfest, looking for the latest album by Colter Wall, so that I could properly prepare for his set at the festival, and I saw this copy of “I love you. It’s a fever dream.” sitting on the shelf. I had almost forgotten that the Swedish indie folk singer/songwriter was releasing his fifth album this year but when I saw it, I remembered his own set at Bluesfest from a few years before and knew I had to buy it. It’s plenty more excellently written tunes, sown from much the same plot as his previous two albums, but the sound just never seems to get old. And just check out that colour! It reminds of the old glow-in-the-dark frisbees, so much cool that I had to post an extra photo of it.

Standout track: “What I’ve been kicking around”

Categories
Albums

Best albums of 2019: #4 Ride “This is not a safe place”

Ride should need no introduction to any fan of the original wave of shoegaze and perhaps even to those fans of the bands that were influenced by them in the 2000s. “This is not a safe place” is the Oxford quartet’s sixth full-length and second since re-forming in 2014 after an 18 year hiatus.

I had approached the previous album, “Weather diaries”, warily and with plenty of trepidation. You never know how these things will work out, especially a band like Ride, who even in their short early days had two distinct periods of musical direction. Would they revisit their early, “shoegaze” sound that has kept their name coming up over and over again as such an influential group or would they continue down the road they seemed to be travelling when the group was rended by internal strife? Happily, it was more the former than the latter. And even more happily is that it wasn’t just a rehash of days gone by but the sound of a band tentatively dipping its toes back into the wave pool and finding the water just fine, spreading its water wings to surf out on the breakers with its years of diverse experiences.

In the two years since its release, I have regretted not purchasing “Weather diaries” for my vinyl collection so I decided with only slight hesitation to not make the same mistake for “This is not a safe place” when it was announced. I went out to one of my locals on release day and picked up a copy to spin later that night. After a couple go ‘rounds, I was pleased with my decision. This new one finds Mark Gardener, Andy Bell, Loz Colbert, and Steve Queralt revelling in being back in a fully realized band. Yeah, there is more confidence and energy and a sense that they want to explore and experiment more with their sound. After five years back as a whole, this sounds like it’s the first time that Ride knows exactly who they want to be and it’s bursting out from all speakers.

I had my favourites that first night but the favourites have multiplied with each listen to the point where I find it a task to point to a weak link on the album. My three picks for you are from among those early faves. Have a listen.

“Repetition”: Andy Bell was very proud of this second tune to be unveiled in advance of the album’s release, calling it perhaps the best song he’s ever written. As he says, it’s a great one for blasting, thumping bass and chunky drumming, the guitars roar and rumble and scream. Bell on lead here, meanwhile, seemingly sings about the lot of bands whose fans want the same thing over and over again. The energy is youthful exuberance and plenty of wash and drone and yet there’s something withdrawn and knowing about it. I could see having fun on the dancefloor with this one for sure.

“Clouds of Saint Marie”: In the days leading up to the album’s release, Ride unleashed this shining tune. Another Andy Bell penned tune, this one feels like a pop throwback to eighties indie. The guitars alternate between jangle and roar and the bass and drums just chug along. It could just be the title but there’s definitely a feeling here of floating high up in the atmosphere, watching over life down on the ground from a happy place far removed, keeping company with the bright sun. Bell whispers and sighs the beauty of love, letting it wash over all of us. So good.

“Jump jet”: “Jump jet” is like an explosion. It’s like the end of all things. The machine has failed and technology is crumbling and everything is coming to a disaster movie climax, the hero racing to save his or her family from the evil villain (or whatever menace, you pick). And Ride is performing the soundtrack to this final scene. The bass is driving, the drums are punishing, the synths are washing and pooling like dry ice fog, and of course, the guitars are firing above it all. It’s a song to play loud on your ear phones or speakers in your basement and just close your eyes to lose yourself for five minutes.

Check back next Tuesday for album #3. In the meantime, here are the previous albums in this list:

10. Chromatics “Closer to grey”
9. Elva “Winter sun”
8. The Twilight Sad “It won/t be like this all the time”
7. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds “Ghosteen”
6. The Soft Calvary “The Soft Calvary”
5. Orville Peck “Pony”

You can also check out my Best Albums page here if you’re interested in my other favourite albums lists.