Artists of effortlessly accessible complication, on Set Yourself On Fire, Stars took our worst fears - both personal and global - and slayed the anxieties with their perfect pop music. Widely lauded as amongst their most ambitious, accomplished, and affecting works of their storied existence, Stars Set Yourself On Fire (20th Anniversary Edition) carries the torch of the magical songs that has set so many hearts alight. Vinyl limited to 2000 copies.
Pang Attack is a Montreal-based trio with Alex Hackett (guitar, voice), Yann Geoffroy (drums), and Dave Clark (keys, bass). They concoct a super dreamy sonic recipe that's equal parts shoegaze, ambient-drone, and psych-pop. Fuzzy northern soundscapes for introverted souls.
What's so funny about peace, love, and understanding? Laughing are Montreal-based rock n' rollers who take cues from some of the greatest pop songwriters of the past five decades. Four unique voices from across the Canadian expanse. Cross-stitched material and temporary ego sublimation serve them well in their pursuit of the holy grail: a perfect song. Their debut album Because It's True is an honest attempt at inviting you in on the cosmic joke. Heap your praise, adulation, scoff, or scorn upon them; they'll still be Laughing.
Mayday presents an even more syncretic fusion of the elements Myriam uses to create her sound. Most of the songs are original, sung in both English and French, and they blend traditional and avant elements with abandon. She is often accompanied on this album by the guitarist Marisa Anderson and drummer Jim White (Dirty Three), whose work provides a quietly aggressive sort of free-rock base.
Canadian singer and songwriter ANNABEL GUTHERZ‘s latest single, ‘Shame,’is an open-hearted single about acknowledging and overcoming relationship insecurities. Underscored by full-bodied instrumentation, Annabel wields her sharp lyricism and sonorous vocals to explore anxiety, comparison, and self-doubt.
She elaborates, “‘Shame’ is about the ruminations that can arise about your partner’s former relationships and the invasive fears that often emerge as a result.” NLM
Kee Avil labels her music “folk” and, in doing so, challenges the framework of a genre synonymous with tradition. The Montréal singer and multi-instrumentalist has an impressive command over the guitar, which she underlines with unsettling electronics and piano. The end result basks in crinkly murk, the spell occasionally broken by a splash of crystalline fretwork or a bout of impassioned bellowing. Her full-length debut, 2022’s Constellation-issued Crease, melded post-punk, ambient, and experimental textures, hitting like a zap of static from a dark gray blanket. Kee Avil’s new album, Spine, leans further into thorny minimalism. It’s her most tingly and complex body of work to date. bandcamp album of the day
This song is about one other thing: rest. I'm trying to get better at it, taking breaks and naps. The music video was shot on Super 8 by Montreal filmmaker Dominique Montesano and choreographed by my sister Kalliane Brémault. It features me coming home and getting up the stairs, undressing, and getting into bed.
Multi-instrumentalist, singer-songwriter Cedric Noel is a pop powerhouse! With a massive catalogue, countless collaborations and a unique pop sensibility supporting him, Cedric is a catalyst in the Montréal music scene. Joining me from his new pad in Montréal, Cedric shared wonderful stories from his very beginnings as a musician, and stories of collaborations with other iconic Québec musical figures such as Ada Lea, Michael Feuerstack and Alexia Avina. Really great chat! Be sure to listen to the track at the end of the cast, yet another collaboration, this time with Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith and Sean Hellfritsch (aka Cool Maritime), a stunning electronic exploratory performance. Enjoy 🎙️
Montreal-based artist Cedric Noel has spent the past decade creating soul-stirring pieces that muse on identity, Black beauty, and celebration. His music is informed by his unique worldview: He was born in Niger to Canadian and Mozambican/Belgian parents, spent his upbringing around the world, and is currently based in Canada.
Across the last decade, Cedric has released a number of critically praised full-length albums, EPs and collaborative works of his own, while also playing bass for acts like Ada Lea, Alexia Avina, and Dana Gavanski. This fall, he’ll be releasing a milestone piece of work, titled Hang Time.
With every album I try to give myself some new challenge. For Only One Left, I learned how to produce my own recordings at home. For my upcoming LP I learned to play better piano, and wrote all of the songs on that instrument. I work hard on the lyrics. I try to boil my ideas down into plain and simple language. The simpler the better
Once Upon A Time In Montreal was produced by Howard Bilerman (Leonard Cohen, The Weather Station, Godspeed You! Black Emperor), who Lightburn worked with on Hear Me Out. The album features Dears drummer Jeff Luciani along with a number of talented, local jazz players, including Frank Lozano, who delivers a soaring sax solo on the title track, which for Murray conjured the ghost of his father, who—after abandoning music when he became a born-again Christian—had picked up his sax again in the 2000s to play on two Dears songs. As soon as Lozano finished, “I knew it was a 400-foot home run,” says Lightburn. "I knew it was something that would hold. I knew also at that moment how much my dad would love this record. Even if he never told me, I know that it would be on repeat in his car if he was still with us and driving around. That was my motivation—to make something I know he would love. It’s not indie rock, you know?”
Indie pop five-piece band, Second Body, album release show.
Supported by spooky electro downtempo quartet A Ghost Story.
Tectonic drums; soul-churning harmonies; sad, yet triumphant lyrics; gauzy keyboards; and strange contrapuntal guitars. A carnival of music, riven with lush texture.
I think the biggest lesson I learned from making this record is that interpretation is creation.
These are 14 songs I love by some of my favourite artists. I wanted to see what they could teach me, and also what I could bring to them.
This whole thing feels quite personal. Even though I believe that songs are for sharing, I don’t sing a lot of covers. Often I feel strange trying to embody the sentiments of others (a voice is such a personal thing). I have lots of favourites, but the ones comprised here are some that I found myself able to sing. That is to say, they felt convincing coming from me.
Normally I write and perform my own songs, or collaborate with others on their material. The original reason I got into music was to make songs, and I never really went through a period of learning by playing the music of others. This approach has given me my own impressionistic style. There is something special about stepping back now, and applying my way of creating to the unique works of others. I wanted to know some of my favourite songs in a new way.
The album opens in mid-air with ‘Comuu’, a song that implores a becoming-more while hovering triumphantly. Then follows a suite of songs (‘Headspace’, ‘Keep’, ‘Stilling’) that recall the heart-rending power of y2k-era Low, albeit with a more vigorous beat. On ‘Bass Song’, an intimate duet with musician Ella Williams (Squirrel Flower) that explores the depths of interpersonal constriction, Noel sings: “I don’t get to say the truth / When I want to / But I want to”, signalling that the singer is ready, finally, to shed expectations and stand in his truth(s). At the crux of the album sits ‘Born’, a deceptively pleasant-sounding song that explores the confounding emotionality of adoption before fading into a distended soundfield.
The newest longplayer from Montreal staple Cedric Noel lands with a stunning sense of surety and self. Hang Time stands as a high water mark for a songwriter who's spent the past decade quietly expanding the borders of his music. Longtime fans will recognize the fluid elements of the album’s open-ended rock formations: reflective strumming, soaring choruses, searing guitar lines, subtle bass grooves; all occasionally dissolving into pools of pure ambience. New listeners will find surprises throughout: threads of folk pop, ambient and sound collage fasten the foundations of this expressive whole. However, what’s most striking on his eighth album is Noel’s newfound sense of voice, both literal and metaphorical.
Mort Rose is a Montreal based rock band founded in 2016. They rapidly made a name for themselves in the Montreal underground with their critically acclaimed debut “Nés pour aimer”. The result is a timely offering that perfectly reflects the urgency and the tension of our generation.
Much darker and more personal than its predecessor, "Au revoir cowboys" is also full of spontaneity and authenticity. The songs on the album feel deconstructed and unfinished, yet are filled with great melodies, energetic rhythms and meticulous arrangements.
The album, which was recorded in an immersive creative bubble, represents a total rebirth for the band. The record is psychedelic yet accessible, old-school yet fresh. It is set for release on September 10th 2021.
one hand on the steering wheel the other sewing a garden is the name of the second album by Canadian songwriter Alexandra Levy, publicly known by the moniker Ada Lea. On one hand..., it’s a collection of walking-paced, cathartic pop/folk songs, on the other it’s a book of heart-twisting, rear-view stories of city life. Ada Lea has followed up the creative, indie-rock songcraft of her debut what we say in private with surprising arrangements and new perspectives. The album is set in Montreal and each song exists as a dot on a personal history map of the city where Levy grew up.
Born in Montreal, studying in Brussels, confined to Paris, Peter Pan Pan reflected on some memories during this global break. To escape the loneliness of a too-small studio, he sings on his bed, enlarges the walls with synthesizers, invoking the melancholic pop of Radiohead or Eels, the excitation of Animal Collective or MGMT. A first EP like an invitation to dance, to dream, and carelessness.
