SoundSalvationArmy

Said The Whale could be coasting right now. Coming off a phenomenally well-received full-length album in 2009 the BC band has been pushing through several cross-Canada tours, dropped into the States for an extensive sojourn that included an appearance at SXSW, and won a Juno for New Group Of The Year. And while it hasn’t been without it’s low points, that’s a pretty good year or two, you guys!

Regardless, it appears the band’s creative streak is also in full effect. Today marks the release of a new EP called New Brighton, the precursor to another full-length album set to come out in the new year. In just four songs it’s readily apparent they’re moving on to bigger and better things. Things being songs.

“Camilo (The Magician)” was the break-out single from their first record, Islands Disappear, but I always felt like “Out On The Shield” was a better representation of what Said The Whale is capable of. In under three minutes it speaks to Canadian geography, the legacy of remote territories, and the workers and jobs that are tied to them. It also does it with a brisk tempo, upbeat choral vocals, and a flawless, cascading melody. It’s all the band’s potential rolled into one.

New Brighton succeeds because it parses out each of the elements that made that song work, puts them into four new songs, and expands on them.

Single “Lines” boasts a terrifically bouncy backbeat, driving along a pure pop melody that is brilliantly reinforced with jaunty keyboards. Call it a power-pop number with a little less power, the cooing “ooh-la-la-la” background vocals reminiscent of a purer era of pop music that feels right at home alongside the group’s modern sound. The gentle grace of the song dovetails delightfully with the EP’s closer, “Little Bird.” It’s a slow and easy folk song comprised of a patiently-strummed acoustic guitar, strings, and the band’s beloved glockenspiel that gives the brief album a sense of finality that brings the whole package to a close.

In my mind though the money track here is “Sandy Bay Fishing Song,” a song that echoes “Out On The Shield”’s Canadiana storytelling, a title that technically could refer to specific locations in Saskatchewan or Manitoba but, I’m sure, actually pertains to Nova Scotia. The actual setting of the song itself appears to be Halkett Bay in BC, which would be closer to the band’s Vancouver home. Regardless, it’s a virtuosic tale of a young man kissing his mother goodbye and venturing out under the cover of dark to go after the sea’s largest catchable foes, carrying on a legacy created by his father. It’s a tale that anyone who’s ever worked a rod and reel can relate to but it’s rendered as high-drama thanks to a heavily-percussive arrangement filled with calculating drum fills, punctuated guitar stabs, and some slinky bass slides. The vocals on the chorus also soar to nearly rhapsodic heights, particularly leading into a brilliant beat-shifting bridge.

In my mind, while all the songs of New Brighton are memorable in their own way, Said The Whale continues to be at it’s most effective when it’s capturing these tableaus of Canadiana, rendering them vivid as a vision and real as a spray of sea foam in the Howe Sound.

Here’s hoping with Little Mountain, a 15-song affair on the way in March, they continue to push that unique vision. If the track “Big Sky, MT” is any indication they might even be expanding it.

America should be so lucky.

New Brighton can be purchased through iTunes so far but I know there are CDs that exist because I got sent one in advance.

Pat entries Canadian content, EPs, Hidden Pony Records, indie rock, pop, rock, Said The Whale, teasers

The Perms are die-hards in the Canadian rock scene but there’s a very good chance you might not even realize it.

Since releasing their first album Tight Perm in 1998 (which boasts some of the best cover art OF ALL TIME) the trio has been plugging away, trying to break into the next level of musical recognition. Like most bands with day jobs they were issuing records every four or five years, honing their songwriting chops along the way in search of the perfect hook.

The release late last month of Sofia Nights marks a quicker turn-around for the group, having been just two years since the aptly-titled Keeps You Up When You’re Down. The push for rapidity seems to have served The Perms well; Sofia Nights sees them tweaking their sound in a not-too-subtle manner that really fits with their songs.

Let’s face it: a three-piece power pop band can only write the same song so many times. For their latest round of recordings, however, the group decided to embrace immediacy in the studio. They quickly threw out any ideas that weren’t working and pushed forward with a more “hard-edged sound.” If I’m being honest, though, just like an apple can only be so sour The Perms can only be so roughed-up; they aren’t Iggy and The Stooges. Think a little more C’mon and a little less Change Of Heart.

But a little aggression helps make the songs here a bit more memorable than some of their previous work. The guitars a bit grimier, more aggressive, and the tempos remain on the quicker side. “Live For Today” is a lyrically self-evident homily about carpe-ing the diem, backed up by a Big Star-like arrangement complete with a bend-heavy guitar solo. “Mannheim” is a straight-forward positive rocker (”We’re going down to Mannheim…now we’re gonna have a good time”) that may or may not be about the German city. It’s irrelevant, really; one suspects they just needed a city that rhymed with “time” to fit the scheme. “Make It Through” is a more muscular version of a song you might hear performed at a high school prom in a TV show or movie. “In No Time” bridges the gap between The Perms’ softer side and their more muscular rock sounds, a full-on duet about the pains of leaving a lover.

There are some ill-advised decisions here as well, however. Catchy though the music may be, throw-away first single “High School High” comes off like a Bowling For Soup b-side, the kind of arrested development anthem that university juniors were listening to in 2001.

But on the whole The Perms have crafted an undeniably catchy and enjoyable record with Sofia Nights. However, part of me worries about the viability of their product. Pop music simply isn’t what it used to be; Elvis Costello has put out more roots and jazz albums than rock and roll in the last decade or two. As well-constructed as The Perms songs are I’m concerned there just isn’t much of an audience for their sound. Bands that would’ve been considered contemporaries eight years ago (take past tour mates The Meligrove Band, for example) have headed in more indie/synth/dance directions on recent albums where The Perms have, for the most part, stayed true to their basic template. Of course, this is coming from someone who hasn’t listened to the last three or four Weezer albums, so maybe the pop rock community is just beyond my current realm of understanding.

Regardless, Sofia Nights will make for a great windows-down summer rock album for the next couple of weeks, should Saskatchewan’s unseasonably warm fall persist.

You can find iTunes and Amazon links to purchase all of The Perms’ albums through their website.

The band will also be hitting Saskatchewan for one show this month, apparently. Check them out at Lydia’s Pub on October 21st with openers Fur Eel.

Pat entries Canadian content, pop rock, power pop, the Perms, Winnipeg

Bruce Peninsula’s new record represents a new lease on life, literally, even if it wasn’t entirely intentional.

The “alt-choral” group has returned with its second full-length album, but it wasn’t easy to come by. The group, helmed by lead singer Neil Haverty, made a concerted effort in mid-2010 to work up a group of songs that added more detailed musical elements to their unmistakable sound. According to press materials and interviews, the group wrote quickly, embracing its instincts and not over-working the songs. Open Flames, the result of those sessions, was originally ready to go for spring of this year. But Haverty was diagnosed with a form of leukemia in December and the record was put on hold while he received treatment. When the leukemia went into remission Haverty emerged from potential tragedy armed with a newly-assembled group of singers and released the album.

While there’s nothing in the press materials that indicates Haverty was aware of or anticipating any kind of medical distress the lyrics of Open Flames certainly reflect the undeniable fragility of life. The group’s first record was sprinkled with apocalyptic lyrical tableaus, Haverty’s words portraying mountains as mouths eating the sky and bodies of water actively working to overwhelm the land. The implication of inevitable decay is here in spades once again, but turned inward. “As Long As I Live” starts the album as a bold statement; the thunderingly percussive track is as mighty a musical arrangement as Haverty has produced. His gruff singing tells the story of an overgrown, crumbling earth calling his name. He admits that, “my hand was a hammer and my heart was a stone…my heavy heart now a phantom limb for as long as I live.” A primarily-female choral vocal persists throughout the song’s remainder, insisting, “You can’t hide what you are.”

The troubled sentiment persists, through the next song and beyond. “What am I if not just dust?” he wonders during “In Your Light,” a song whose bright, polyrhythmic guitar figures and convoluted bass line betray the underlying worry of that question. “Pull Me Under” is an obvious one, as Haverty laments, “I can’t keep my head above the water.” “Say Yeah” sees Haverty’s voice return after several numbers carried by female singers. He sounds wearier and more drawn than before as he sings, “What has come to collect you soon will come to protect you.” He sounds more than ever like he needs that protection. “Open Flame” is a cry for purification, a plea for something to burn away the darkness, “if only your body can stand for you.” “Cliffs and Coves” reflects the earthly imagery of the first album, imploring “Oh mountain, resist,” even as the waves of a great body of water unyieldingly slam against its base, slowly eroding that which makes it whole (a more apt cancer metaphor I have yet to find). The album ends with “Chupacabra,” in which Haverty concedes, “I don’t know where my body goes.”

It’s an overarching tenor that would seem prescient if the music hadn’t come before the illness. The idea of a heart as a phantom limb (a syndrome where someone who has lost an arm or leg feels in their mind that the limb is still there) is, in particular, an incredible metaphor, suggesting a kind of impossible loneliness or isolation. Still, Haverty and The Bruce Peninsula aren’t overcome by the dour nature of some of their words. The defining elements of their music ensure that simply cannot happen.

For the uninitiated, their music is generally constructed around a varying degree of minimalist folk and/or rock instrumentation, but impeccably-layered vocal arrangements and a big-tent, choral atmosphere give them a unique kind of immensity that pushes each song into it’s own brand of maximalism. Think of the arrangements of a band like Explosions In The Sky but instead of the consistent, building intensity being generated by the instruments an ever-swelling tsunami of human voices layered and piled on top of one another is responsible for creating the dramatic peaks and valleys. To a person, every voice you’ll hear on this record is imbued with a remarkable kind of passion, their tenor and tone conveying the emotional edge of the song one syllable at a time. Haverty’s sandpapery lead vocals serve as counterpoint to the inevitable tenor of polish a choral arrangement demands, lending an incredible character to each number.

Haverty also knows when to give up the reigns. His new choir, which has been in the past as high as ten people during live performances (one imagines there’s no cap on that number when they’re working in the studio), is anchored by strong female vocalists like Daniela Gesundheit (better known as Snowblink) and Tamara Lindeman, whose own “band” The Weather Station is gaining a lot of steam right now. Haverty surrenders or shares the lead with these powerful, expressive singers on most of the record’s middle half; the fantastically-constructed “Say Yeah” sees them harmonizing throughout. The song’s dynamic melodicism benefits not only from their performances but also a series of rhythmic shifts that run counter to the preciousness of the verses. It’s something altogether new for Bruce Peninsula, the vulnerability of those verses betraying the electric guitar and pounding drums that finish out the song in a punishing fashion.

It’s those signs of growth that help Open Flames succeed. It’s the inherent power of Haverty’s lyricism, the unequivocal feeling and passion in the singing that is the defining characteristic of the band, and the unique approach to rock music that continues to allow it to stand alone in it’s own corner of the music world. It’s an undeniably powerful record that never seems repetitive, routine, or rehashed.

But Open Flames is not an album about death; that would be too simple. It’s an album about life, about honesty, about embracing that which makes us human. Even with a dark cloud hanging overhead it’s about as joyous a cautionary tale as you’ll ever hear and it’s a stand-out record in a year that threatens to overflow with them.

Pat entries alt choral, Bruce Peninsula, Canadian content, indie rock, rock, vocal

During the 42nd annual Regina Folk Festival CJTR, Regina’s community radio station, hosted a four hour live program from the heart of Victoria Park. The session included numerous interviews with various performers at the RFF, conducted by myself, Beth Currie (on Twitter @bedheadradio), and Rhonda Nye (who blogs at Indie Insider). We present that audio to you here for posterity and your perusal. Keep checking back, this is just one of many similar features.
Dan Mangan is a very lovely man.

He came over to our tent between playing a workshop at one of the free tents in Victoria Park during our broadcast on the Saturday of the Folk Festival. We were in the midst of an interview and he wandered off, coming back later on and apologizing for being late. What a sweetheart he is!

Mangan comes across as a genuine, relaxed Vancouverite, which I expect is exactly what he is at his core. He leaned casually against our table while spending a good 10 to 12 minutes chatting with our Rhonda Nye, who really could not have been more excited to talk to Mangan (he was one of the acts she was most thrilled to see this year). He has a very unassuming manner in conversation, making easy eye contact and laughing without reluctance.

It matches the tone of his work to date as well. His breakthrough album Nice, Nice, Very Nice is a collection of acoustic songs that have a unique energy, sometimes rocketing along at a high pace and sometimes moving as slowly as Slow Down, Molasses. His singing voice is acres away from his speaking voice, low and gravelly without sacrificing melody. His songs retain a sense of humour as well; you can hear him grinning as he sings a fanciful tune like “Robots” and the songs are that much better for it.

But all that seems to be set to change on his new record, Oh Fortune, which is released this week. The three tracks that have been released early are all rock and roll, make no mistake about it; electric guitars, heavy drums, aggressive tempos, group vocals, and amps-to-11 solos run throughout these three cuts. It’s not a wholesale change of direction but it stands out in a big way. It should be interesting to see if that scope follows through the entire running time.

You can hear Mangan discuss Oh Fortune, his touring schedule, and a road regret or two in the interview below.

Mangan’s new album drops tomorrow on Arts & Crafts Records. Pick it up through his own web site, the A&C store, or the iTunes machine.

Pat entries #RFF11, Canadian content, CJTR, Dan Mangan, festivals, interviews, live music, Regina Folk Festival

During the 42nd annual Regina Folk Festival CJTR, Regina’s community radio station, hosted a four hour live program from the heart of Victoria Park. The session included numerous interviews with various performers at the RFF, conducted by myself, Beth Currie (on Twitter @bedheadradio), and Rhonda Nye (who blogs at Indie Insider). We present that audio to you here for posterity and your perusal. Keep checking back, this is just one of many similar features.

Marco Calliari was one of the best and most pleasant surprises of the 2011 Regina Folk Festival for me. Having literally no knowledge of his existence until I started doing research for our interviews I was not expecting such a charming, charismatic, gregarious individual. What I thought might be a three minute interview went on and on, each question a springboard for his funny, fun-loving personality to vault forward from.

Calliari is Italian and he wants you to know it. He now calls Quebec home and it was in la belle province that he began his foray into playing music professionally. Back in 1989 he formed the thrash metal band Anonymous. His true love, however, lay in the music of his ancestors. In 2003 he began his solo career, marrying the racing tempos of thrash metal with the romance and ribaldry of his Italian heritage. The result, as I mentioned in my review of his main stage performance at the RFF, is a high-octane Italian-language take on the rollicking cabaret sound fostered by groups like Gogol Bordello.

Calliari in a one-on-one situation is much the same. Speaking with a fairly noticeable accent, he speaks in energetic bursts and never breaks eye contact. He is endlessly enthusiastic not only about his music but about all music and the relationship between fans and performers. You can hear him speak to all those things in the interview below. What you can’t get from the interview? Just how amazingly swank he was dressed while we were talking. That man has FINE taste in clothes.

Check out Marco Calliari’s stuff at his big ol’ web store or via iTunes.

Pat entries #RFF11, Canadian content, Italian, Italy, live music, Marco Calliari, Regina Folk Festival, snappy dressers

~ photo courtesy of Rhonda Nye
During the 42nd annual Regina Folk Festival CJTR, Regina’s community radio station, hosted a four hour live program from the heart of Victoria Park. The session included numerous interviews with various performers at the RFF, conducted by myself, Beth Currie (on Twitter @bedheadradio), and Rhonda Nye (who blogs at Indie Insider). We present that audio to you here for posterity and your perusal. Keep checking back, this is just one of many similar features.

Earlier this year I had the pleasure of reviewing the excellent new album from Saskatoon’s Slow Down, Molasses. It was, and is, a giant step forward for the group, which has evolved into a nearly-uncategorizable (no, that’s not a word) genre of it’s own devising that combines shoegazing rock music, roots elements, atmospherics, and everything from trumpets to typewriters. It deserves every accolade it got.

The band’s appearance at the Regina Folk Festival last month saw them on the cusp of some very big developments. It wasn’t more than a week or two later that the band made the trip across the pond for their first tour of Europe, which culminated in an appearance at the prestigious End Of The Road Festival near Dorset. The show has a crazy legacy of booking amazing acts and this year was no exception, as Slow Down, Molasses appeared alongside Modest Mouse, Yo La Tengo, Wilco, Deer Tick, Wolf Parade, Iron & Wine, The Mountain Goats, The New Pornographers, Caribou, and many, many more (fellow RFF performer Dan Mangan was also invited, as well). The story of how they got there is amazing in it’s own right; one night on tour, despite only about four people in attendance at a particular bar in a particular part of Canada, the band played their hearts out. One of the few people watching just happened to have an in with the festival and the rest is history.

You can hear band member Jeanette Stewart talk more about that in the following interview, conducted by Beth.

You can get Slow Down, Molasses music — digitally AND physically — via their bandcamp page. You can also fetch Jeanette’s solo/faux-lo nom de plume Jeans Boots on bandcamp as well.

Jeans Boots is performing in Saskatoon this Friday with buzz band PS I Love You. Check more details here.

Pat entries #RFF11, Canadian content, CJTR, festivals, interviews, Jeans Boots, live music, Regina Folk Festival, Slow Down Molasses

Listen, folks: you and I both know that Timber Timbre is not going to win The Polaris Prize tonight (frankly, if anything OTHER than some hipster bullshit like The Weeknd or Austra wins I’ll eat my own hat out of surprise). But I feel quite strongly that it should. Let me tell you why.

Creep On, Creepin’ On sounds unique. It is a singularity. It’s like an evil thing crawling out of a swamp in a hot, sticky, equatorial environment. It sounds like a soundtrack to a John Carpenter movie from the 1980’s, a film with crushed black cinematography and ominous settings, slow pans to disfigured creatures that are somehow human but still somehow not as they amble after a buxom young woman who is scrambling as best she can for safety. It sounds like the grim specter of death but with an absurd sense of melody that is somehow just as grim as the events and places described in the lyrics.

For me this is where Timber Timbre starts. As good as their Polaris-nominated self-titled release a few years ago was (and brother, it was GOOD) this is a truly singular, cohesive artistic vision. Songs from the previous album like “We’ll Find Out” were too pretty, too delicate to exist comfortably alongside numbers like “Trouble Comes Knocking.” The latter is the type of song that exists throughout Creep On, the menace of the lyrics paired so well with the ominous nature of the music.

But Creep On also does something that is so key it seems almost obvious, it’s simplicity making it hard to believe Taylor Kirk didn’t think of it years ago. Instead of the minimalist production last time around, Kirk and the band went full maximalist; the sound of this album is immense! It’s heavily compressed and orchestrated in such an all-enveloping way that it wraps your entire body in its sound waves, threatening to overwhelm you like a character in one of the band’s own murder ballads.

The stand-out track and first single “Black Water” is as far as you need to go to recognize the sea change. It starts out with a reluctant groove, Kirk’s trademark slow tempo lifted by lilting, bright piano that echoes his near-falsetto cooing. He’s insistent, pleading to the heavens, “All I need is some sunshine,” but the remainder of the song is comprised of anything but. A bass line that borders on menacing takes over in the verses, as Kirk’s voice is enveloped by a perfectly dry reverb. Over the song’s length he paints a picture of a forest in shades of black: a siren’s call, ominous caves, tar pits, a burning Viking ship, a falling moon, a witch’s cauldron, birch trees that seem to have eyes, hundreds of dead whitefish floating in a lake. The subject of the song falls to the ground and plummets into madness, which seems like an inevitability considering the surroundings, and dives repeatedly into the titular onyx tide. It’s a snapshot of a moment that Kirk and crew drag out for six minutes that seem to pass all too quickly, especially when the panicked, layered violins and fellow Polaris nominee Colin Stetson’s disturbingly relaxed saxophone come in. Those elements, along with Kirk’s defeated intonation of the words “black water,” allow the listener’s mind to fill in the obvious gap of just what happens next.

And that’s just one song. Witness “Bad Ritual,” where a man is haunted by his lover’s departed former paramour in the form of a poltergeist. “Too Old To Die Young” has electric guitar and a stomping drum beat that hints at 50’s rock and roll, but the sampled, mildly distorted screams (stopping just short of a Wilhelm, it seems) and violins taken straight from a Hitchcock movie’s big reveal add an element of impending doom and danger that would’ve had the band rated X if they were actually operating back then. “Lonesome Hunter” is as close to a traditional love song as you get, but the stabbing piano notes, damaged atmospherics, and sharp-edged feedback never let you forget what band you’re listening to. Kirk also paints love itself as a spell one is kept under, making it sound more like something that will crush you to death than save your life.

Then there are the instrumental pieces, which somehow achieve an even more frightening tone without Kirk’s demented poetry. Colin Stetson and his array of woodwinds prove invaluable here, even though interviews reveal that Kirk wasn’t sold on his contributions at first. The range of tone he provides and the sometimes impossibly-deep rumble of the bass and baritone saxes are an element you simply can’t imagine Timber Timbre without.

So that’s the album in a thumbnail. This review is only a brief exposé, an eye up to the keyhole of a dimly lit bedroom where something obscene and unspeakable is happening. To me Creep On Creepin’ On is a singular, albeit horrific, artistic vision realized flawlessly on a record that will literally take your breath away…maybe forever.

Check out the other nominees here and tell me I’m wrong!

Buy this album and more, including new reissues of Timber Timbre’s first two records, through their A&C web store or on iTunes.

Pat entries Arts & Crafts Records, Canadian content, creepy music, saxamaphone, swamp boogie, Timber Timbre

During the 42nd annual Regina Folk Festival CJTR, Regina’s community radio station, hosted a four hour live program from the heart of Victoria Park. The session included numerous interviews with various performers at the RFF, conducted by myself, Beth Currie (on Twitter @bedheadradio), and Rhonda Nye (who blogs at Indie Insider). We present that audio to you here for posterity and your perusal. Keep checking back, this is just one of many similar features.

Grant Lawrence has achieved a singular kind of fame in Canada’s indie music scene, it seems.

It appears he hasn’t really been making a lot of music himself since the turn of the century (his band, The Smugglers, are something of a Can/Con rock touchpoint for those who were really into Mint Records in the 90’s). Since around 2000 he’s been working on shows for the CBC, progressing from researcher to fill-in host to the most beloved and celebrated host Radio 3 has ever known. People lose it for the guy and I totally get it. His apparently-ceaseless knowledge of Canadian independent music and relatable, affable demeanor has also made the Radio 3 podcast the hottest thing the internet has seen since Napster

He’s also been hosting the Regina Folk Festival for the last few years, bringing all of those qualities to the main stage and the festival tents for workshops. He also brought that affability to our interview tent on the second day of the fetival, showing off three years worth of Regina swag, including an RFF tote bag and a Fainting Goat t-shirt. You can hear him talk about his Regina experiences, why he loves the festival so darn much, and much more by checking ou the interview below.

You can check out Grant Lawrence’s terrific book, Adventures In Solitude, by borrowing my copy. OR you can buy one (which I’d prefer) from his web site.

Pat entries #RFF11, Canadian content, CBC Radio 3, Grant Lawrence, interviews, Regina Folk Festival, The Smugglers

How curious! Just as I was writing a review of the brilliant new Mike Angus album, another little record came into my inbox that is equally indebted to the space it was recorded in. What are the odds!

Brock Tyler is a multi-instrumentalist based out of Edmonton. In the interest of full disclosure we share a delightful mutual friend, but even still I hadn’t heard Tyler’s work until he passed along his new EP, You Can’t Keep The Sun Down. And thank goodness he did.

The brief record was set to tape by Tyler and Tyler alone in a church in Edmonton earlier this year over the course of a few nights. He describes the setting best on his bandcamp page:

You press the record button a lot, and then maybe you erase what you did and try it again. You repeat this several hundred times. Occasionally you might sigh or smile depending on the results you’re getting. You take a break to eat trail mix. You lie down on a pew for awhile and stare at the ceiling. You get up and you press the record button several hundred more times. It sounds kind of lonely, I guess, but in small doses it’s actually sort of cathartic…The room played a big role in the sound of this recording. All the reverb you hear is the church itself; nothing added later, just a few microphones standing around picking things up as I played…You can sometimes hear the wooden ceiling popping in the quiet parts of the songs.

That statement seems utterly ridiculous to me. To think that this album that just sounds so perfectly put together is purely the result of natural occurrences and not some kind of next-level studio wizardry is absurd. The natural reverb created by the space itself is so warm and inviting that it makes Tyler’s songs seem like old favourites right from the first spin. He puts a bit more substance into his arrangements than some bare-bones folk or acoustic acts, bringing the church’s own piano and drum kit into the mix along with his own trumpet and some light percussion.

The mood of the album also belies the creepiness Tyler hints at above, however. The tracks reflect the kind of quiet contemplation that both comes from and leads to a person spending a lot of hours by themselves, making the album (and it’s closing trio of progressively-themed spring month-referencing songs) a very gently, lyrically-driven listen.

That introspection drives the stand-out track here, “On Saturday, Maybe,” which is also one of the most slyly upbeat numbers in this too-brief 15 minute collection. The beat comes from Tyler’s own multi-tracked hand claps, framing a catchy piano track that is bright and poppy, bracing the hopeful lyrics. “I’ve been feeling down of late but I know things will turn around,” he concedes to the listener, “on Saturday, maybe.” The song demonstrates how key Tyler’s voice is to these songs working as well as they do. It’s not quite thin exactly, but his delivery is generally more relaxed, almost detached from the material in a way. When he brings in some falsetto in the verses you get a real feel for the impact that Elliott Smith, Pete Yorn, and Ron Sexsmith albums clearly had on him and his writing. Moreover, the brief “verse” mentioned above ends with the perfect hint of malaise in Tyler’s voice, one that suggests it might not be this Saturday in particular that his world will brighten up.

The most somber number follows with “Because You Live,” a bit of a bait-and-switch due to the fact that it has probably the most hopeful lyrics on the EP. Lyrically the song (which could read as a Christ allusion if you see it through those eyes) is looking up the whole way along, but the languidly finger-picked acoustic guitar, minor piano chords, and distant trumpet create a mood that acts as a hard counter to the message.

The middle track of the ’spring suite’ (closing tracks “The Flowers In April” “The Snow In May” and “June) is also a dip down into melancholy, as Tyler laments a resurgence of winter that makes it seem as though the summer will never come. The piano in “June” almost recalls “The Look of Love” in a way, but the sparse and almost dour guitar chords are made significantly lighter as the song continues. Brock adds trumpet, more hand claps, and some glockenspiel before it all drops away and the song ends with just a wistful remembrance of how it began.

Brief though it may be, You Can’t Keep The Sun Down speaks to the listener both about the quiet spaces in between moments and the happy accidents that make life (and recording music in a meaningful place) worthwhile. He and his songs were respectful of the venue and that solemnity echoes back throughout. This is one worth hearing.

You can buy the EP at Brock’s bandcamp page and you can watch for tour dates on his web site.

Pat entries acoustic, Brock Tyler, Canadian content, church music, Edmonton, folk, independent, singer/songwriter

During the 42nd annual Regina Folk Festival CJTR, Regina’s community radio station, hosted a four hour live program from the heart of Victoria Park. The session included numerous interviews with various performers at the RFF, conducted by myself, Beth Currie (on Twitter @bedheadradio), and Rhonda Nye (who blogs at Indie Insider). We present that audio to you here for posterity and your perusal. Keep checking back, this is just one of many similar features.
Musicians, like all people, sometimes don’t like to be interviewed. Why would they? It’s a strange, often invasive process that even I, someone who literally interviews people every single day professionally, occasionally find icky and strange. If your subject isn’t into it or is apprehensive or, heaven forbid, antagonistic it can be an absolute nightmare.

Hey Ocean! was not an absolute nightmare. Far from it. The affable B.C. trio were as easy-going and spirited as their funky, laid-back pop songs would suggest.

Ashleigh Ball, David Beckingham, and Dave Vertesi are all attractive young folks with a relaxed air about them. While their bio material is frustratingly vague a quick perusal of archived interviews on the interwebs shows that Ball and Beckingham met while at a summer camp and formed a musical kinship that continues to bear fruit to this day. Presumably they share a love of modern pop music, but there’s also a very clear affection for their coastal home, as an awful lot of their songs reference the ocean, sunshine, etc (to an extent only Brian Wilson might be able to relate with). Its only natural, I guess. It’s a pretty goddamn nice canvas to paint some sunny, slightly funky pop songs on.

Of course, you can hear them talk about that and more in what I think might have been one of our longest interviews of the entire festival, linked below. Since I started writing this they have also released an entirely brand new song, which can be found on their old-timey, new-tangled Facebook page.

A very enthusiastic fan site, I Love Hey Ocean!, has links to both digital and physical music purchases of Hey Ocean! records. Check it out!

Pat entries #RFF11, Canadian content, Hey Ocean!, interview, live music, pop, Regina Folk Festival, rock