Tag: Psych rock

Tunes

Best tunes of 2020: #15 Venus Furs “Chaos and confusion”

Post author By jprobichaud
Post date March 28, 2024
2 Comments on Best tunes of 2020: #15 Venus Furs “Chaos and confusion”

“Paul Kasner is a perfectionist in the same way Kevin Shields, Anton Newcombe, and Thurston Moore are perfectionists. So, it’s probably befitting that all three of the aforementioned artists were among the many influences on Venus Furs, the self-titled debut from Kasner’s solo moniker of the same name.”

These are not my words but those of music writer Dom Gourlay conjured for one of my favourite music zines, Under the Radar. These are the words that he opened his eight out of ten review for “Venus Furs”, still the only album released by Paul Kasner’s project. And yes, these are the words that goaded me into checking out the album after I had missed its initial launch in July of 2020. I gave it a handful of spins on Spotify and found that it was indeed within my wheelhouse and was quickly on the website for Silk Screaming records, the label Kasner set up to release said album, and ordered a copy of it on vinyl for my record shelves*.

Paul Kasner is a Montreal-based songwriter, multi-instamentalist, and producer, who has toured with The Horrors and The Twilight Sad, and has worked by himself for many years on this one album, working to get it just right. Indeed, it is a lovely and tight 8-song cycle of guitar heavy, psych rock, toying with shoegaze and noise rock along the way.

“Chaos and confusion” is the five minute opener that layers acoustic strums with wispy reverb drenched electric licks. Meanwhile, the poltergeist on drums keeps time and space in check with a menacing leer and the bass line eases its way in and out of the miasma like a perfect stitch line sewing up eternity. And floating just above it all is Kasner’s vocal track, affecting his best Jim Reid/Peter Hayes impression, a woeful tale of gambling and loss.

*It later muscled its way into my top ten albums list for that year.

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

Tags 2020, 2020s, Alternative, Alternative Rock, Best tunes, Canadian indie, Indie, Indie rock, Psych rock, Shoegaze, Venus Furs

Tunes

Best tunes of 1993: #4 The Boo Radleys “Lazarus”

Post author By jprobichaud
Post date March 22, 2024
4 Comments on Best tunes of 1993: #4 The Boo Radleys “Lazarus”

<< #5 | #3 >>

Here’s a song with which I will always and forever connect with The Dance Cave.

Some of you who live, have lived in, or frequently visit Tarannah will likely have heard of or know of Lee’s Palace. It’s a long-standing concert venue in the Annex neighbourhood that has seen a great many alternative and rock acts grace its stage since opening in the mid 80s. If you’ve never been there, you likely remember its garish paint job that looked like a Ralph Bakshi cartoon exploded all over the face of the building, long since pared down to a mere memory of itself after years of weather did its worst. Upstairs from said venue, they had a big open space that served more as a rough and tumble looking club that often played alternative and indie rock, served $1.50 glasses of mystery draft, and was packed most days of the week throughout the 90s. This was The Dance Cave.

It was the first club I went to with any regularity because it played “my music”. Music I loved and music that I was destined to love. “Lazarus” by The Boo Radleys is one of these latter tunes that was played there pretty much any night that I attended and that I danced to every time, countless times before I even knew the name of the song or its performing artist.

The Boo Radleys formed in 1988 and broke up just over a decade later having released six full length albums. They started off firmly planted in the shoegaze realm for the first half of their career before embracing the inescapable wave of britpop for their last three albums and actually saw a modicum of commercial success during this latter period. And though I loved “Lazarus” through and through during the late 90s, I never really explored their catalogue into well after their break up. My first stop was, of course, 1993’s “Giant steps” and that album took me a long time to digest and fathom because it was so expansive and diverse in sound and scope. Some would call it an unheralded masterpiece of shoegaze and I couldn’t disagree.

In amongst the noise, “Lazarus” is lucky 13 of 17 tracks. It starts off with alien waves of guitars, strings fed through pedals charged with laser beams. This just sets the stage, allows you time to put down your beverage and rush out into the crush of sweaty bodies on the heaving dance floor and at the same time, plays the decoy for the incredible explosions yet to come. Then, everything vaults skyward and the dancing begins in earnest. And just when you think you might have to take a break, the vocals start in to calm the mood some, soothing the energy, allowing the spray of perspiration to settle, just before kicking it all up again. It’s the classic loud-quiet-loud, disruptive energy, a blurry anthem and cause for happiness and bliss for its entirety.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 1993 list, click here.

Tags 1990s, 1993, Alternative, Alternative Rock, Best tunes, British rock, Dream Pop, Psych rock, Retro, Shoegaze, The Boo Radleys

Playlists

Playlist: New tunes from 2023, part four

Post author By jprobichaud
Post date December 29, 2023
5 Comments on Playlist: New tunes from 2023, part four

Getting down to the wire now, heh? Just two more days left of 2023 after today. I think we might just manage it.

I usually do this thing sharing the final part of my ongoing annual playlist on the morning of New Years Eve but I’ve decided to switch it up for 2023. My last post of the year, the last word as it were, will be dedicated instead to my favourite album that the year offered us. It feels fitting now but we’ll see how it feels when it’s all said and done.

And I know I just inferred that the finish line is a welcome sight but honestly, 2023’s been a pretty good year. A marked improvement on the last, which was a huge leap forward on the previous two combined. I can’t really say things are back to normal* but they feel more familiar, if not weirdly surreal. The COVID is still around and the numbers still seem higher than they should be for a pandemic that is ‘over’ but we seem weirdly dismissive of it. Nonetheless, I’ve experienced a lot of post-pandemic firsts this year, like the first time back in the office, first time meeting some of my colleagues in person, first indoor concert, first train ride, first road trip across the border, whew. All of it has been exciting but also saddening for all the experiences that we collectively missed out on.

I don’t really want to talk about everything else that’s been going on in the world because it’s more than just a little crazy, so many deaths and so much damage and so much loss. So I’m just going to get back to the music. These last twenty five songs is a blend of new ones released over the last three months and a few b-sides, songs that had been released earlier on but for some reason, I missed them the first time around or just couldn’t fit them.

If you haven’t already perused them, I invite you to go have a look-see at parts one, two, and three. If you’re already in the know, have a gander at the highlights:

- - Kicking things off right with “Real life” a new song from the raw and frenetic Canadian indie rock trio, The Rural Alberta Advantage
  - Emma Anderson‘s (ex of Lush and Sing-Sing) debut solo album “Pearlies” has lots of great moments that show she hasn’t lost her dream pop sensibilities and “The presence” might be the closest sounding to epic Lush of the bunch
- - As Trans-Canada Highwaymen, Canadian 90s alt-rock royalty, Steven Page, Chris Murphy, Moe Berg, and Craig Northey unleashed an album of 70s Can-rock covers, like this faithful take on The Guess Who’s “”Undun”
- - “Panopticom” is the first track on the first new album of new material by Peter Gabriel in 21 years and shows he’s still incredible at what he does
- - Toronto-based Breeze gifted us 90s alt rock aficionados with an early Christmas present with a new album that includes the wonderful “Ready for love”
  - The dreamy “Amnesia” by M83 is definitely unforgettable
  - “Cicciolina”, from Cumgirl8‘s debut release on 4AD show that raw inventiveness that brought the legendary indie label to sign them