34 <strong>July</strong> May <strong>2016</strong>
Bent Knee - Say So Dark for Dark - All Dressed FRIGS - Slush EP Hood Joplin - #75FFA1 EP Bent Knee Say So Cuneiform Records Bent Knee’s third studio album Say So doesn’t ask permission – it tells it like you never knew it was about to be. The Boston based sextet has reached a new level of fearless genre-bending in this ingeniously arranged art-rock opus. Each song is a gripping adventure where dreamy melancholic piano ballads swell and distort with equal possibility of becoming uplifting pop anthems or borderline sinister heavy metal. In “Nakami” a Mr. Rogers-style opening quickly gives way to a psychedelic chamber-pop breakdown before rocking out alongside chanting and ethereal wailing. The shamelessly wacky intro to “Commercial” becomes a heavy affair reminiscent of Black Sabbath. Bent Knee has once again shown that they have all the elements and the flair – not the least of which is the powerful, and now more snarly than ever, voice of singer/keyboardist Courtney Swain – to do whatever they want. Say So cuts a fresh wound into the bleeding edge. • Trina McDonald Bitter Fictions Jettison Shaking Box Music Calgary’s Devin Friesen is the mastermind behind local label Shaking Box Music, which shines a light on Calgary’s noisier side of sound, and puts out some ambitious avant-garde, psych and drone recordings from many acts. His newly released Jettison, under his solo moniker Bitter Fictions, is a seven-song collection of nebulous noise, self-recorded in a library basement. This solo effort shows ingenuity in practice, because it’s just one guy and his guitar. However, the ideas that emanate from the meditational ambience shine through. Friesen balances precarious notes atop indistinguishable sources of feedback and resonance. Of course we have a loop pedal, we have all the standard modulation found in this style, such as reverb and delay among others, but the shivers, quakes and pulverizing blasts of distortion are unique to say the least, especially because of the limited instrumentation. Witnessed during a performance at <strong>2016</strong>’s Sled Island, one way Friesen alters his guitar’s sound was on display. He places a drumstick beneath his guitar strings and uses another to prod, poke, caress and bang on the former, creating dense vibrations that create a foundation for anything he wants to lay over top. And the result? Calming and introspective drone-scapes replete with sporadic layerings of melody. • Michael Grondin Dark For Dark All Dressed Headless Owl Records Just in time for lying in the grass and watching the clouds comes All Dressed, from Halifax’s Dark For Dark. Immediately playful and instrumentally hooky right out of the gate with its Rickenbacker charm, All Dressed easily recalls the best elements of ‘60s folk-rock, using tones that haven’t been worn out from overuse through this most recent folk boom. Featuring lollipop-sweet vocals and lush girlgroup harmonies, Dark For Dark would be worth listening to just for musicality, but like Lou Reed’s swan song with The Velvet Underground, 1970’s Loaded, the cotton-candy, beach blanket chime of those pop harmonies conceals something of a deeper, more menacing lyrical edge. “There’s no cure for this fiery world we’re living in,” the ladies of Dark For Dark sing on the lead cut “Orchard”, amid doowop sha-booms similar to Winnipeg’s Chic Gamine, while the early pop backbeat rolls along in the background. “Owls” uses the same very cool Byrds folk-rock vibe to great effect, while standout track “Blue Morning” is closer to “Sweet Jane”-era VU, with the added elegance of a distant pedal steel to add a bit of the high and lonesome to all the sunshine, before the bridge brings the song to a beautifully arranged vocal climax. For all the lack of light implied by their name, Dark For Dark are definitely dialed into some excellent, sunshine-y ideas on All Dressed. • Mike Dunn Edna King Pressurize EP Modern Math Number eight in Modern Math’s steadily growing catalogue comes in the form of Toronto’s Edna King, with her debut release entitled Pressurize EP. A haunting, almost unsettlingly psychedelic voice, laden with distortion speaks of a dream, before repeating “this is not real,” as a slowly pulsing, ominous bass drum gives the opening track some motion. “Dreams” sets a formidable pace for the fivetrack EP, and makes way for highly dynamic musical experience. A folky vocal lament commences track two, “Tracing.” Soft percussion meets the voice in the middle and creates a gentle, meditative fusion. The work of Lisa Gerrard, such as the 1996 Dead Can Dance album Spirtchaser is gently stirred from memory throughout this release, particularly in tracks like “Tracing.” After the even more wistful and calming “Wake Me Up,” which ironically would be a great piece of music to fall asleep to, the title track “Pressurize” comes in. It is an ambient trip for the listener, quite a bit more ominous than its accompanying tunes. Breathy, whispering stabs add to the feeling of unease that crescendos gradually, before it’s throbbing descent. The EP concludes with “Memo Me,” a minimalistic and ambient way to close out this enigmatic debut from a captivating Canadian artist. • Paul Rodgers FRIGS Slush EP Arts & Crafts Arts & Crafts’ newest signees offer up a rich, if predictable, garage-grunge experience, with pelvis-shattering low-register ambience, dripping sludge rock cool and mom’s-basement juvenile angst. The no-frills damp acoustic environment of their apartment, which they outfitted for the recording, provides a much needed sense of impact; the perfect stage for their reverb-heavy sound, driven by languid rolling bass, with only rare interludes of post-100 b.p.m. rock beats (largely on “Ringworm”). Cutting their teeth with Toronto’s Heretical Objects Collective has left FRIGS confident, cool, and musically precise, a far cry from their less groomed, DIY punk aesthetic of yesteryear. But for all that practiced sound, FRIGS newfound need for tightness may have also swallowed up what a group needs most in a debut: namely, a sense of vision or originality to separate it from a landscape which is already regrettably up to its knees in ambience-heavy post-punk. What has been groomed out of this new release may have been the devil may care spark which made their HOC days so compellingly aggressive and confrontational, and which made their earlier recordings so full, complex and natural. Arts & Crafts seems to have picked up an undeniably talented new group, but this otherwise promising debut EP strongly lacks new ideas. Hood Joplin #75FFA1 EP Drama Hands • Adam Sarjeant #75FFA1 is a cool mix of chilly synths and beats informed by footwork and hip-hop. It’s that Northern Alberta sound, and behind the decks is Edmonton producer and DJ Hood Joplin. Locally, HJ’s leading her small scene to make an impact with art and events that strive to be inclusive, but she’s also been reaching past it recently and connecting with her influencers in Chicago. This is her first EP, and on it we see HJ working to establish a signature sound while her career has started to take off. Opening track “#75FFA1” is a highlight, working in increasingly more complex rhythms in the second half before dropping off to the minimal beat of “Audrey Hepburn.” The EP stays at that level over the next few tracks, focusing on tone and lush backing synths. “Hood Joplin Type Beat” is comparatively spacious and dark sounding. Throwing on a few more loops of any of these beats at the club would put the listener into a deep trance. HJ’s use of synths, often sounding symphonic and constantly moving with the beats, shows that melody is an important component to her music. It would be interesting to see her experiment more with the South East Asian melodies of her Pakistani heritage, such as in her excellent “Masala” tracks. The last song features Sam Lucia, front man of Vancouver’s esoteric, dreamy hip-hop duo So Loki. The two are a perfect match, with HJ’s hypnotic production backing Lucia’s vocal fry, which balances somewhere on the line between bored and menacing, before switching it up to overlap a strange chant on top of a stuttering beat. It’s a joy to see two Canadian up and comers experimenting together. It’s 13 minutes and 33 seconds long, so #75FFA1’s five tracks can’t really be called an immersive listening experience. It would be great to see HJ extend her beats into compositions and use releases outside of her mixes to work with song structure. The first two tracks of the EP prove that she’s got an understanding of how to build intensity and accomplish this. Let’s hope some of the beats from #75FFA1 make it to dance floors and mixes across Canada. It’s a great debut EP by an artist who is doing admirable work to unite her small scene and help it grow. • Sydney Ball <strong>July</strong> <strong>2016</strong> REVIEWS 35
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