Tag: Indie

Categories
Live music galleries

Live music galleries: Daughter [2013]

(I got the idea for this series while sifting through the ‘piles’ of digital photos on my laptop. It occurred to me to share some of these great pics from some of my favourite concert sets from time to time. Until I get around to the next one, I invite you to peruse my ever-growing list of concerts page.)

Daughter performing at Osheaga 2013

Artist: Daughter
When: August 2nd, 2013
Where: Mountain stage, Osheaga, Jean Drapeau Park, Montreal
Context: Ten years ago this summer, I attended Montreal’s Osheaga arts and music festival with my good friends Tim and Mark. It was an unforgettable weekend and we saw countless amazing performances over the festival’s three days. I’ve already posted photos* from some of the weekend’s sets and plan to share a few more of these in the months leading up to this year’s edition, which I will sadly not be attending. Some of these posts will have fewer photos than my normal galleries, including today’s, but this should not be taken to be indicative of the quality of the performances, but of the difficulty of obtaining quality pics while being so completely in the moment.

I had been listening to Daughter’s debut long player, “If you leave”, pretty much on repeat leading up to and in anticipation of the weekend and it grew on me by leaps and bounds with each listen. Its haunting melodies and soft tones seem perfect for early mornings, especially those accoutred with a thick layer of fog. Indeed, the album is awash in subtleties, the guitars and drums understated, as if played in a vacuous space, and frontwoman Elena Tonra’s delicate vocals exude just the right hint of sadness. Tonra was all smiles that afternoon, however, apparently not expecting such a large crowd so early in the afternoon. Listening, you could have floated away on the breeze, like the bubbles someone in the crowd kept blowing. They finished with their excellent single, “Youth” (see below), to crashing crescendos on a gathering wind. Tim likened them to a cross between Florence and the Machine and shoegazey type music and Mark described it as “Lovely, ethereal yummy.”
Point of reference song: “Youth”

Elena Tonra and Remi Aguilella of Daughter
Igor Haefeli and touring member Luke Saunders
Elena flashing another one of those smiles

*Past galleries from this festival weekend have included the following:

Categories
Tunes

Best tunes of 2003: #18 Blur “Out of time”

<< #19    |    #17 >>

Blur’s seventh full-length album, “Think tank”, was their first in a large mittful that I didn’t rush out to purchase upon release. I had been a rabid fan for over a decade by this point and loved everything they did but as I think I’ve mentioned elsewhere in this Best tunes of 2003 series, I didn’t have a lot of disposable funding in the early 2000s and was forced to be excessively discerning in my CD purchases. And though I became familiar with some of its songs*, I didn’t really give the album a good listen until a decade or so later when I purchased it as part of the “21” vinyl box set and really got an understanding for how much I had previously underestimated its value.

Still, it’s a bit of an outlier in their catalogue, being the only album to which founding guitarist Graham Coxon didn’t contribute as a full-time member, only appearing on its final track. He left the group very early on in the recording sessions, after they had started them without him while he recovered in rehab and then, found himself not on the same wavelength as his bandmates**. And while it’s not quite as out there and as experimental as their previous output, “13”, it’s not exactly the accessible pop record that Damon Albarn had promised beforehand. Without Coxon’s influence, “Think tank” really reflects Albarn’s ever changing interests, less focus on guitar and an increased synthetic palette, and of course, it’s painted with a big world music brush.

“Out of time”, just as an example, features an Andalucian string group, a benefit of their having recorded a large part of the album in Marrakesh, Morocco. These strings come in during the latter part of the song, after the rhythm section of Dave Rowntree and Alex James have set the scene with the subdued drum beat and lackadaisical bassline. All the while, Albarn is crooning along to vaguely unintelligible sounds, like he’s performing with an orchestra of ghosts.

“And you’ve been so busy lately
That you haven’t found the time
To open up your mind
And watch the world spinning
Gently out of time“

He is addressing someone, or perhaps a gaggle of someones, who is completely removed from everything else going on in the world and that perhaps that someone is partially and inadvertently contributing to everything that is going on. When the orchestra (of ghosts or of Moroccan musicians) kicks in to gear, it’s like the rest of us should be joining in and rising up together.

*Including this one

**Coxon has, of course, since participated in all of the group’s reunion activities, including the surprise/surprising eighth album, 2015’s “The magic whip”.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 2003 list, click here.

Categories
Vinyl

Vinyl love: Alvvays “Blue rev”

(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: Alvvays
Album Title: Blue rev
Year released: 2022
Details: Clear

The skinny: It had been five years between the release of Alvvays’ sophomore album, “Antisocialites”, and their third album, last year’s “Blue rev”. Thus, even though I’d been following the Toronto-based indie pop group since their early days and have both of their previous records on my shelves, I didn’t jump on the pre-order train for this one right away. I wouldn’t say I had tired of them or gone off the band in any way but perhaps just wary, taking a wait and see approach. Any hesitation melted away, though, when I gave “Blue rev” a go shortly after its release last October and I was more than pleasantly surprised at the group’s leaps and bounds to escape their allotted pigeonholes. I ordered a copy off Pop Music Toronto’s online store because they had a few of the clear pressings released by the group’s own Canadian-based label Celsius Girls on their virtual shelf. The album ended up placing at number two on Billboard my end of the year album list for 2022 and this record continues to be one I return to my turntable often.

Standout track: “After the earthquake”