eat brunch Available weekends from 11am-4pm JUNE 10 - JULY 10 ALL GAMES LIVE NO COVER $ 5 CARLSBERG The Lamplighter · Library Square · The Bimini Cinema · The Butcher & Bullock · The Blackbird The New Oxford · Tavern · The Three Brits donnellygroup.ca 34 <strong>June</strong> May <strong>2016</strong>
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard - Nonagon Infinity Layten Kramer - For the Sun Kristin Kontrol - X-Communicate Dan Lissvik - Midnight one of the two to be dismissed outright (see Beach House’s latest releases), or, they can be stylistically counterposed (such as Bright Eyes’ rootsy I’m Wide Awake It’s Morning and dominantly electronic Digital Ash in a Digital Urn). By putting out two records so close together, Islands does themselves, and us, a disservice by forcing the records to read in relation to each other, which is especially unfair given how balanced and well-constructed both records are, despite not markedly different. Given the name if nothing else, Should I Remain Here at Sea? is easily readable as a comment on Islands career since their debut Return to the Sea. The latter was a gloriously unpolished record, seeping syrupy pop hooks from every corner, very much a tie-in to Nick Diamond’s previous band The Unicorns. The operative assumption of SIRHAS? however, is that the band still is, in fact, at sea. Six releases later, Islands’ pop-rock aesthetic has been polished to death, such that the suggestion that Islands is the same band that produced Return ring false. Taste is mostly synth and electronics driven, which is the strongest contrast to SIRHAS?’s stripped down, guitar pop style. The former record is also more political than personal, with nods to male privilege and police brutality. Both records are strong in their own right, and it feels wrong to condemn a release strategy, but there is simply too much music in the world to give them both the time they deserve. • Liam Prost King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard Nonagon Infinity ATO Records Australia must have the best acid. The country is home to a massive resurgence of psychedelic rock that runs much more ragged than its American counterpart. But while Kevin Parker and co. in Tame Impala have ventured further and further from their psychedelic roots, fellow Australians King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard have picked up the slack with a prolific output of mind-bending garage-rock. Nonagon Infinity is the Melbourne septet’s seventh album in six years and it’s the latest experiment from a band that refuses to sit still. The album was made to function as an unbroken loop, the end of the final song serves as an intro to the first. It’s a strong dose of gimmick, but KGTLW never rest on it. Instead, the album rips from front to back with impeccable garage-rock swagger and confidence. Nonagon Infinity is interesting solely because it seems so far removed from its contemporaries. The tracks on the album blend seamlessly, often to the point that it’s hard to tell where one track ends and the next begins. Couple this with the band returning to various lyrical and melodic motifs throughout the album and the result is a disorienting album that is utterly captivating, but impossible to pick apart. The album does suffer from being stuck in fifth gear. The band roars through songs with a blinding tempo, voraciously consuming riffs with delirious efficiency. Rarely does the music slow down, and the similarities between songs mean that a listener could feasibly listen to the album one and a half times before realising they are back where they started. • Jamie McNamara Layten Kramer For The Sun Independent While the term “folk music” has recently grown incalculably to include the cross pollination of several intermingling styles, at its heart is still the ability of a singer-songwriter to write and perform compelling songs without the aid of a symphony. Though For The Sun, the debut LP from Canmore songwriter Layten Kramer, certainly brings the house in regards to production and instrumentation, his songs remain the focal point, as easily imagined played around a crackling campfire as they are with the lush and energetic treatment they’re given here. Kicking off with an eerie synth entanglement leading into the delicately fingerpicked title track, Kramer brings a sense of immediacy with his first line, “Have you had enough of this life? Are you growing tired of the lies?” The rhythm section picks up a steady heartbeat, moving quickly to the chorus, which drops amid Beatles-like grandeur and the welcome harmony of horns and synth lines. The second song, “Thin White Lines”, helps the album settle in to what becomes its sonic signature: uptempo folk-pop with stuttery-yet-danceable beats, augmented by synths, and the always hummable lines of a songwriter who knows that having people listen to your words is contingent on connecting to your melody. For The Sun only touches on its folk elements, certainly on the cantina melancholia of “Shadows”, and on the closer “Time Is Here To Stay.” “Gold and The Sea” is a standout, with dramatic builds, a soaring, harmonized chorus, and a guitar break that understands that a single note played in desperation and conviction adds a lot more than a hundred empty tones. • Mike Dunn Kristin Kontrol X-Communicate Sub Pop There comes a time in many bands lives when the lead singer strikes out on their own. It’s a huge risk, but it can pay off a lå Beyoncé or flop like Debbie Harry’s Koo Koo (1981). Now, it’s the Dum Dum Girls’ Kristin “Dee Dee” Welchez’s turn. X-Communicate provides its listener a retro dance party, mixed in with enough torch songs to really let everything sink in. If the Dum Dum Girls referenced ‘60s girl groups, then for her first solo soiree, Welchez has time travelled into the future with a pit stop in the ‘80s.The polished synth line of standout track “X-Communicate” is reminiscent of new wave acts like Blondie, but with a modernity that distinguishes Welchez from being a kitschy ‘80s revivalist. The song “White Street” is a stream of consciousness narrative describing heading out to a party with the heart ache of Robyn alone on the dance floor: “If you catch my eye I just might take you up tonight.” Overall, Kristin Kontrol has created a solid first album that asserts her risk in going solo was worth it. • Trent Warner Dan Lissvik Midnight Smalltown Supersound As one half of influential Swedish duo Studio, Dan Lissvik was responsible for bringing Balearic brilliance to the often bleak Gothenburg. Since Studio’s dissolution, Lissvik has worked as producer for artists like Montreal’s Young Galaxy, while also working on solo works for the first time in his career. <strong>June</strong> <strong>2016</strong> REVIEWS 35
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