Tag: Venus Furs

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Tunes

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

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“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.

Categories
Playlists

Playlist: New tunes from 2020, part four

Good morning, good morning. I hope you’ve all had a wonderful holiday weekend and if you celebrate them, a merry Christmas and a fruitful Boxing day… well, as merry and as fruitful as possible, given the circumstances.

We’ve finally nearly reached the end of this crazy year 2020 (give yourselves a congratulatory pat on the back). We’re now just two days removed from New Year’s eve and the unveiling of my favourite album of the year, and here I am unleashing the fourth part of my ‘New tunes of 2020’ playlist series. This is the first time in the past three years of doing these playlist series that I’ve actually managed a fourth part, even though it has always been planned in the past. And this is only partially because of life getting in the way of my blogging and playlist creation fun. In reality, one of the biggest roadblocks to managing a fourth part for the fourth quarter has, in the past, been the lack of quality new releases. I’ve always found that the new music release calendar trails off a bit after November, brand new music giving way to reissues and best of compilations, just in time for Christmas giving.

I was more successful putting together this fourth playlist this year because I accepted these limitations and decided to make this a b-sides compilation of sorts. The first half of these tracks are new tunes that came out in October and the first half of November and the rest are tracks that didn’t make the cut, for one reason or another, for the first three playlists of this year but were still great enough to share. You may want to check out the other three mixes first (here, here, and here) but I think you’ll find this one just as excellent.

So let’s have a look at some of the highlights of this ‘b-side’ playlist:

      • “Hold my hand”, a raucous psych-rock mess by Death Valley Girls, aka a song pulled from the pages of a book called “Why haven’t I heard of this band before?”
      • A heavy-duty, jangly bundle of energy called “Love comes in waves” off the debut solo album by Ride’s Andy Bell
      • “Stay out”, a banjo barn stomper off “Keeper”, the latest album by Canadian alternative country trio Elliott Brood
      • Isobel Campbell’s soft touch cover of Tom Petty’s “Runnin’ down a dream”
      • A super fun, eighties throwback called “On division st.” by Brooklyn indie pop act, Nation of Language
      • “Vibrant colours”, the dreamy single off the debut album by new Canadian artist, Zoon, cheekily coined moccasin-gaze

For those who don’t use Spotify or if the embedded playlist below doesn’t work for you, here is the entire playlist as I’ve created it:

1. “Hold my hand” Death Valley Girls (from the album Under the spell of joy)

2. “Trade it” Slow Pulp (from the album Moveys)

3. “Waving at the window” Travis (from the album 10 songs)

4. “For sure” Future Islands (from the album As long as you are)

5. “Impossible weight” Deep Sea Diver with Sharon Van Etten (from the album Impossible weight)

6. “Worth it” beabadoobee (from the album Fake it flowers)

7. “Distant axis” Matt Berninger (from the album Serpentine prison)

8. “Say less” Nothing (from the album The great dismal)

9. “Love comes in waves” Andy Bell (from the album The view from halfway down)

10. “Stay out” Elliott Brood (from the album Keeper)

11. “Weight of the world” 5 Billion In Diamonds (from the album Divine accidents)

12. “Barcelona” Twin Atlantic (from the album Power)

13. “Runnin’ down a dream” Isobel Campbell (from the album There is no other…)

14. “Southwark” Yumi Zouma (from the album Truth or consequence)

15. “Electric roses” Basia Bulat (from the album Are you in love?)

16. “I got the hots for Charlie Watts” The Exbats (from the album Kicks, hits and fits)

17. “What I’ve done to help” Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit (from the album Reunions)

18. “Can’t get out” Woods (from the album Strange to explain)

19. “Shake your diamonds” The Rentals (from the album Q36)

20. “Chaos and confusion” Venus Furs (from the album Venus Furs)

21. “Party with the kids who wanna party with you” Bad Moves (from the album Untenable)

22. “The way things are” Porcelain Raft (from the album Come rain)

23. “On Division st.” Nation Of Language (from the album Introduction, presence)

24. “Bad girls forever” Pins (from the album Hot slick)

25. “Vibrant colours” Zoon (from the album Bleached wavves)

And as I’ve said before, I’ll say again: Wherever you are in the world, I hope you are safe and continue to be well. Until next time, enjoy the tunes.

If you’re interested in checking out any of the other playlists I’ve created and shared on these pages, you can peruse them here.

Categories
Vinyl

Vinyl love: Venus Furs “Venus Furs”

(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: Venus Furs
Album Title: Venus Furs
Year released: 2020
Details: standard black vinyl, hand written note from the artist

The skinny: A week and a half ago, when I started my annual series counting down my favourite albums of the year, I told the story of how I learned about a new act out of Montreal while perusing one of my favourite sources of all things indie music, Under the Radar. The self-titled debut by this very same act, Venus Furs, captured my imagination and drew me in while listening to it on Spotify through my iPod ear phones. It may have been during my second time through that I went on the hunt for it on vinyl, thinking that something this expansive required owning it in a better format. I ordered a copy of it from frontman Paul Kasner’s own label, Silk Screaming records, and received it within a couple of days, complete with a handwritten ‘thank you’ note from the man himself. Always a nice touch. “Venus Furs” ended up squeezing its way into the number 9 spot in my top ten for the year and if you enjoy noisy psych rock in the vein of Spiritualized or My Bloody Valentine, this might just be for you too.

Standout track: “Chaos and confusion”