BeatRoute Magazine B.C. print e-edition - July 2016

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 2016’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
July 2016 REVIEWS
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