It’s no secret. The Rhythm Method is pregnant. Forget the gender-specific baby gifts, cigars and cooing. This time around, the stork is dropping Celebrities with Low Self Esteem, The Rhythm Method’s debut EP, at the Khyber ICA on December 6. “We’re turning the ballroom into our 12-year-old dream bedroom with posters of hunks,” says Sascha […]
Shannon Webb-Campbell
Posted inArts + Music
Serena Ryder
Serena RyderIs It O.K. (EMI) Canadian songstress Serena Ryder is a vocal powerhouse. Is It O.K., her second album, asks a lot of internal and external questions. Ryder jumps all over the musical map, from the heartbreaking ballads “Hiding Place” and “Weak In The Knees,” to pop-masterpieces such as “Little Bit of Red” and “All […]
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Spoon country
Alt-folker Rae Spoon sings of travelling through Canada’s most isolated corners.
Posted inArts + Music
Barber romances an old-fashioned sound
Life, love and art are all comprised of chance encounters. Some may call it a stroke of luck, a brush with fate or the charting of time, but Jill Barber knows better. It’s all fated by chances. It was this sort of conviction that originally led the burgeoning romantic to Halifax over four years ago. […]
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Stars w/Hey Rosetta!
Bedrooms are often a place of reflection—the location that bookends the day. Stars’ Polaris Prize-nominated album, In Our Bedroom After the War, has kept the band on tour for the past year and a half, sleeping whenever and wherever they can. Since their show on Citadel Hill this past summer they’ve released Sad Robots EP […]
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Jill Barber
[image-4]Published October 09, 2008.Jill BarberChances(Outside Music)Jill Barber could have lived in another era. Chances is chock full of sweeping orchestral arrangements (provided by a 10-piece string section) and Barber’s trademark romanticism. Producer and long-time cohort Les Cooper has pulled out all the stops. From The Good Lovelies’ ethereal harmonies on opening track “Chances,” to a […]
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It’s So You
[image-4]Published February 21, 2008.It’s So YouEdited by Michelle Tea(Seal Press)Fashion is a feminist issue. Queer-lit icon Michelle Tea and 35 other feisty fashionistas explain why. Six Feet Under writer/producer Jill Soloway; Sonic Youth’s bassist Kim Gordon; transgender author, performer and gender theorist Kate Bornstein; writer Trina Robbins; novelist Beth Lisick and other fashionable females offer […]
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The Baroness
The Baroness Sarah Slean (The Nerve!)Poetry can sing without sound. Known widely for her orchestral piano-pop musicality, Sarah Slean is a communicative artist, even without instruments and microphones. Evoking her fictional alter ego (aptly titled after her latest album), Slean questions philosophy, modernity, religion, geography and love in her second volume of poems The Baroness, […]
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Kathleen Edward’s Garden state
Kathleen Edwards hasn’t spent much time in her garden this past summer. She’s been on the road since February with her latest, Asking for Flowers. She’ll plead for a few stemmed-petals at The Seahorse Tavern, with her special guest Jim Bryson, on September 15. “I’m a bit of a gardening freak,” says Edwards, calling from […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Bitter Sweet Basil
Last weekend the chalkboard street sign outside Sweet Basil Bistro read: “Come on in and enjoy brunch with us on our last weekend in business.” After 19 successful years nestled in the brick walls across from Historic Properties, Sweet Basil Bistro, known for its quality ingredients and local flavour, closed its doors August 31. “It’s […]
Posted inArts + Music
Stereolab
[image-4]Published August 28, 2008.StereolabChemical Chords(4AD)Post-modern pop group Stereolab has returned with a fantastical ninth studio album, Chemical Chords. Opening with the sweepingly optimistic “Neon Beanbag,” vocalist/guitarist/keyboardist Laetitia Sadier explores the narratives of her dreams, layered over loops of bopping rhythmic instrumentation. The horn arrangements on “Silver Sands” and “Self Portrait with ‘Electric Brain’” are stunning, […]
Posted inLifestyle
Music city maniacs
Halifax is, by definition, a transient city. With its fresh crop of academics arriving each and every September, so changeability is ubiquitous—whether it’s in the population, the weather or the music scene. This past spring, Halifax adoptee Jill Barber packed up her things and headed to Vancouver for love. The region’s former night sky greeters […]