“Writing songs that are personal is like stepping in dog shit and having to smell it everywhere you go,” tweeted Kathleen Edwards (@kittythefool) earlier this month. It’s a fitting footnote to our chat about how the touchy fusion of music and autobiography informs much of the discussion around Voyageur. One of the year’s best albums, […]
Ryan McNutt
Posted inArts + Music
Where the Wild is
Jenn Grant hasn’t seen the movie Beasts of the Southern Wild yet. Understandable: she’s been busy preparing for the release of her new album, The Beautiful Wild, and a fall schedule jam-packed with tour dates. But the acclaimed film shares more in common with Grant’s record than just a similar name. They’re both elemental affairs, […]
Posted inArts + Music
Charles Bradley
“How would you define soul, James?” That’s the question journalist David Frost put to James Brown in 1970, as quoted in R.J. Smith’s new biography of the Godfather of Soul, The One. “The truth,” Brown answered. “The down-to-earth truth…it explains the hard knocks, it explains everyday life, telling it like it is. The truth.” Charles […]
Posted inArts + Music
Wilding out with Mike O’Neill
The Halifax musician finally found time in his busy career doing sound for film and television to complete a new solo album, his first in eight years. And Wild Lines is a stunner: the sort of inviting, catchy pop record that Big Star would have made had Alex Chilton grown up as a ’90s indie-rock […]
Posted inArts + Music
Ryan McNutt’s Top 11 Albums of 2011
Rich Aucoin, We’re All Dying to Live (Sonic) The master of ceremonies for Halifax’s best confetti-filled dance parties finally reveals the soul behind his show—and it’s every bit as magnificent as we could have hoped. Austra, Feel it Break (Paper Bag) Like fire and ice, Feel it Break‘s tightly wound electro shouldn’t mix nearly so […]
Posted inArts + Music
Best music of 2011
Alison Lang Coast writer since 2007 Bad Vibrations, Black Train (Brotherhood) Bad Vibrations has what businesspeople would call a “consistency of vision.” With Black Train, these straight shooters will take you on a ride that is continually ghostly, tenebrous and spaced-out—brain food for headbangers. Bike Rodeo, Oh Bla Duh (Independent) Some bands out there raise […]
Posted inArts + Music
Top 11 of 2011
Settle in and read our critics’ picks of the year. Learn about yourself and our writers in the process. Possibly a two coffee read and at least one of those coffees should have whiskey in it. MUSIC BOOKS DVDS VIDEO GAMES THE LOT OF IT
Posted inArts + Music
Ria’s spark
Pop music may often seem like comfort food—an easy treat, a guilty midnight snack—but sometimes the songs that stick with you are the more uncomfortable concoctions: bite-sized dramas inside which you can taste tinges of desperation and pinches of angst. Take, for example, “Under Your Skin,” the lead single and title track from Ria Mae’s […]
Posted inArts + Music
Daily Picks: Thursday
DAN MANGAN w/The Crackling, The Daredevil Christopher Wright Thursday, October 20, St. Matthew’s United Church, $20/$25, 7:30pm People talk about record ‘cycle,’” says Vancouver’s Dan Mangan in a tone that suggests he finds the concept a bit odd. “There’s this idea that you tour your album, then lay low for a little while and take […]
Posted inArts + Music
Daily Picks: Saturday
JENNIFER CASTLE w/ The Belle Comedians, The Weather Station, Spring Standards Saturday, October 22, The Company House, 8pm, $10 Many of the songs on Jennifer Castle’s major-label debut Castlemusic are unadorned; tunes like “Powers” make their mark with delicate strumming, spare, rattling percussion and whispers of flute. Though the music is low-key, an enormous strength […]
Posted inArts + Music
Odd future
It’s a quiet Sunday in Halifax when I reach Rebekah Higgs by phone. But on the other end of the line in Toronto, it sounds like one hell of a party. “It’s the Roncesvalles Polish Festival today,” she says. “They’ve got the streets all blocked off, and there’s a band playing outside here on a […]
Posted inArts + Music
Dog Day’s stripped-down sound
Can a two-legged dog still run? That’s the question that Seth Smith and Nancy Urich, the husband-and-wife duo that makes up Dog Day, faced as half their band disintegrated—and just as the success of Concentration had them seemingly poised for a breakthrough. Now comes Deformer, Dog Day’s first album as a two-piece, and with it, […]