Home invasion In a way, when Montreal-based trio Plants and Animals play The Marquee this Saturday, they are hosting their very own Christmas special—Home for the Holidays with Plants and Animals. “Christmas is always a little bit of a shitstorm,” says guitarist Warren C. Spicer. “It’s a little like going inside a pinball machine, you […]
Sean Flinn
Posted inArts + Music
Blown Gasket Orchestra
Blown Gasket OrchestraRock City(independent)It’s hard not to get caught up in the blast this septet is having on each of the dozen tracks of Rock City. Singer and multi-instrumentalist Stephen Hughes, who’s written these songs, has assembled an expert outfit of musicians who have helped him make successful forays into rock, funk, R&B, soul, breakbeats, […]
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Flutter
FlutterAlice BurdickMansfield PressThis collection could very well have been titled “mind your origins,” a line from one of the book’s best poems, “Colonial fall.” Throughout Flutter, Alice Burdick tracks back to origins of human behaviour: action and interaction with other humans and other beings—the natural world. But back to “Colonial fall” for a moment; the […]
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The Olympic Symphonium
The Olympic SymphoniumMore in Sorrow Than in AngerForward MusicThe band name and guest list—Jenn Grant, Rose Cousins, Rich Aucoin, Dale Murray and Kinley Dowling—signal a large and orchestral sound. But this album offers only rare moments of that. Principal members Nick Cobham, Kyle Cunjak and Graeme Walker, a trio sounding like The Brothers Creeggan, emphasize […]
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Inti Gonzales EP release
The idea and practice of the co-production has been in the film industry for ages. Producers and broadcasters from Country A and Country B join financial and creative forces to make and distribute a movie or TV series. More informally, this happens in music, too. Take Mexican-born-and-raised musician Inti Gonzales. After spending most of his […]
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El Guincho
El GuinchoAlegranza(Young Turks)It’s always heartening to know artists like El Guincho are out there, experimenting and working their magic alone. Eventually they’ll be discovered and dragged out of the lab, into the world. And they will be ready to be heard. Pablo Díaz-Reixa came to public awareness through the blogosphere. While there’s plenty that the […]
Posted inLifestyle
Joy, love and pieces
Catherine Sutherland Given the current economic calamity, the familiar sight of smashed bus shelter glass, like piles of chipped ice, strikes the passerby as sinister, something more than evidence of last night’s drunken stupidity: a population feeling the pressure expresses its anger in the streets. But, for the holidays, consider the beauty in the destruction. […]
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Things the Grandchildren Should Know
Things the Grandchildren Should Know Mark Oliver Everett(Thomas Dunne Books)You do a lot of flipping back to reread passages in this memoir from the founder and front man of the American music group, Eels. Not because it’s written unclearly or the ideas are difficult, but because of sheer disbelief that so much misfortune can befall […]
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Travis
TravisOde to J. Smith(Red Telephone Box/Fontana North)Having emerged in the late ’90s, along with forgettable bands from Cast to Oasis (if only we could forget), Travis releases its sixth proper album. Singer-guitarist Fran Healy is the principal songwriter once again, though bassist Douglas Payne co-writes on several, including a standout/rock-out number, “Something Anything.” Healy’s one […]
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Saudade – Possibilities of Place
Saudade – Possibilities of Place(Coach House Books)Anik SeeAnik See doesn’t see very well. Or, she doesn’t look that hard, letting her eye and mind rest on the well-worn, scuffed surface of the world around her. Which is surprising considering her essays claim to be about the possibilities of place. In one essay, about how she […]
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John Brown’s Body
John Brown’s BodyAmplify(Easy Star)This oddly dubbed band (named for a 19th-century American abolitionist) came together through a meeting of members from Boston and upstate New York. Singer and co-producer Elliott Martin, who went through throat surgery prior to making this album, brings a classic-sounding voice—a higher tenor carrying passion and urgency to the tracks—to bear […]
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More
More Austin Clarke(Thomas Allen Publishers)We all want more, living according to our collective, out-of-control consumerist impulse. The spongy social fabric of individuals who want nothing more than to soak up money, materials and social-status credits wraps itself around, and squeezes, Idora. She’s the Barbadian single mother living in Toronto, whose four disorienting days of worry […]
