When asked about her whereabouts, French singer Keren Ann Zeidel rails off a months-long list of tour dates, festivals, rehearsals and opera openings that traverses the globe, “and then in March I sleep,” she says. Opera? “My bandmate and I in my band Lady & Bird just finished writing an opera,” she explains. The opera, […]
Laura Kenins
Posted inArts + Music
Elisapie Isaac’s language arts
In spite of a cell phone connection that keeps cutting out, Elisapie Isaac is in high spirits on her way home to Montreal from Ottawa. The Inuit singer performed July 1 on Parliament Hill for celebrating Canadians and the visiting royal couple, who she had a chance to meet as well. “They were kind enough […]
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Charles Spearin’s Happiness Project will make you smile
Charles Spearin may be playing a jazz festival and hold a Juno for contemporary jazz for his album The Happiness Project, but he initially found the award perplexing. Prior to the win, he hadn’t considered the album jazz at all—the Toronto-based musician is known for his work as a member of Broken Social Scene and […]
Posted inLifestyle
Halifax fiction
Anne of Green Gables is drawing Prince William and Kate Middleton to PEI this summer, but you’d be hard-pressed to name a book that would entice royalty to Halifax. Nova Scotia’s literature too often draws on pastoral tradition or promotes the lighthouses-and-bagpipes image of the province on view along the waterfront. So, where’s Halifax’s urban […]
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Okkervil River
Okkervil River follows up its past two fame-themed albums with I Am Very Far, a record still lingering on the rock-and movie-star themes. The album opens with two tracks that sound flat and out of place—lacking the hooks that launch listeners into earlier albums. It’s not until track three that frontman Will Sheff ups the […]
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Silence and Memory: The Lost Bells of Europe rings true
The story of the destruction of art in Nazi Germany—the paintings that disappeared for decades or forever, the artists maligned in the Nazis’ Degenerate Art exhibition—is familiar to many. Less well-known is the story of the art destroyed to aid the war effort—metal church bells and statues melted down to make munitions. Saint Mary’s University […]
Posted inLifestyle
Halifax fiction
Anne of Green Gables is drawing Prince William and Kate Middleton to PEI this summer, but you’d be hard-pressed to name a book that would entice royalty to Halifax. Nova Scotia’s literature too often draws on pastoral tradition or promotes the lighthouses-and-bagpipes image of the province on view along the waterfront. So, where’s Halifax’s urban […]
Posted inArts + Music
Gigas
Nick Iwaskow started Gigas “a while ago” while still in high school and looking to focus on a solo project while his other band was falling apart. He started collecting synths and looping pedals and playing house parties. Inspired by Boards of Canada, Cocteau Twins, shoegaze bands and folk, Iwaskow says, “I like to try […]
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Long Weekends
Long Weekends began with a dorm. Noel Macdonald (A History Of, Tomcat Combat) was living in Montreal last summer taking a French language course. “I was definitely the oldest guy there and they stuck me in a dormitory, I just felt so old and lonely,” he says. He began writing songs and started jamming with […]
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TRANSFIXED
After the demise of his noise-punk band PIG last year, Matt Samways found himself stuck for the winter in his hometown of Truro. Meeting up with Ian Phillips, also grounded in Truro, they began playing in Samways’ mom’s basement and discovered the house had once belonged to Phillips’ great-grandparents. “At that, I was like, ‘we […]
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Bird World
At press time, Bird World’s future is uncertain—though the band just released a new EP, it’s embarking on a temporary hiatus. Seamus Dalton began writing songs for the shoegazey four-piece two years ago, while living in St. John’s for school. He got together with friends Kathleen Prinsen, Scott Grundy (Quaker Parents, Gamma Gamma Rays) and […]
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Deadly Hearts
You may know Jake Thurgood from his job beside the stage at Gus’—pouring your baby drafts—but enough nights beside the scene led him to join a band. Thurgood teamed up with Myles Deck, after trading records and chatting at the bar. “[Working at Gus’] got me thinking more about playing, for sure. I got to […]