Heavy Brackets
Land Of Talk have been consistently great every time I've seen them, and this - an off night by their standards - was no exception. Locals The Ghost Is Dancing (who recently signed to Sonic Unyon) and Foxfire Forest kicked things off in pure indie-pop style. We have a nice little scene going on here, and it's good to see a younger generation of artists representing -- I mean, I don't think anyone in Foxfire Forest is over 21-years-old, to look at them.
Oneida absolutely killed it on Friday night. Amazing performance.
Wolf Parade put on the weakest show of all these bands -- hobbled by limited set time and my own high expectations (they offered up only average performances the last two times I saw them, so I was expecting the third time to be lucky). With the hour nearing 7pm, Frog Eyes began the show at (the college jock magnet that is) The Phoenix, followed by Holy Fuck. Wolf Parade closed things out, rushing through their set before the 9pm curfew. They managed to play a quick encore, much to the discomfort of the promoter -- if you book The Phoenix on a weekend, you have to be out of there before The Edge 102 dance party takes over at 10pm.
Following the oppressive atmosphere of The Phoenix, it was a relief to watch The Blow (see also: Y.A.C.H.T.) do her thing a few hours later. She coaxed the indie-rockers at Sneaky Dee's into dancing and even managed to do a little crowd surfing during her meandering, highly theatrical set. Canadancia is what she called it, and we thank her for that.
Overall a great weekend, capped off by good times at the bars and at home on Sunday night.
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Cobras Cobras Cobras are a couple guys out of Victoria, BC, making (early) Liars-like noise, backed up by synthesized beats. The two tracks they've made available on their Myspace page show great potential, but they have no label, and no tour plans just yet. We'll have some more insider news on this band in the upcoming weeks.
Cobras Cobras Cobras - Best Of The Best
Cobras Cobras Cobras - Payphone Jr.
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A few hours down south (across the increasingly fortified U.S.-Canada border) are Nudge. This sorta-Portland, Oregon-based three-piece also rock the drum machines, but lay a much more delicate set of sounds over top -- managing to create atmospheric electronic music that is actually good (no small feat). Of course, that's not to say they don't get loud or pick up the tempo at times; be sure to check out the live recordings they have on their Myspace page.
Featuring Brian Foote of Audraglint Records (through which they are releasing their next short-format CD), Nudge are currently preparing material for a new album on Kranky, and have previously worked with left-field electro-indie label Tigerbeat6.
With vocals by Josh Blanchard of Plants, "Her Lips" is a real stand-out track here.
Nudge - Her Lips
Nudge - Blon
Nudge - Parade
See also: Strategy, another musical project of Nudge's Paul Dickow.
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The Boggs just offered a new version of Arm In Arm (off their recently-released 12") for download. Excellent production on this one; nice remix from Shy Child.
The Boggs - Arm In Arm (12" Version)
The Boggs - Arm In Arm (Shy Child Remix)
The Boggs - The Passage
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Watch Glissandro 70 live at Tranzac (backed by Jeremy Finkelstein of No Dynamics on drums). Thanks to Aperture Enzyme.
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For those who are unaware of our policy for posting music, we get permission for about 75% of what you can download here, with the rest being (mostly) hard-to-find, out of print, or very obscure tracks. The trend at some "MP3 blogs" to make entire albums available for download (often prior to release) is offensive and inconsiderate to the artists they portend to support.
Please, before you offer the results of someone else's hard work for free over the internet, think twice about the context in which you do it.
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That's it for another heavily bracketed update.
Greg @ 2:29 AM
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