Here On In | DOminiONATED October 2020
🔥Nick Zubeck, Venusian Blues (Guelph ON)
At the core of Venusian Blues is Nick Zubeck’s signature songwriting style: straight-forward structure and honest lyrics that work in most minimal of settings. Give the man a guitar and an open mic stage, and you’d be in for a treat. But Zubeck’s sound is anything but ordinary folk. Working once again with producer Sandro Perri, Zubeck fills out songs like “Footsteps” and “Feeling Heavy” with eclectic touches: swelling, new age-y synths, layers of densely packed post-jazz instrumentation, and a burnished coat of musical colour to rival the record’s striking artwork.
Jim Di Gioia
🔥“Here On In” by Claire Coupland (Toronto ON)
Written as COVID-19 lockdown restrictions began to ease, Claire Coupland's “Here On In” is a sweet folk song about the goodness she witnessed when the world was in a wretched state. She sings about people helping each other out, reconnecting with their interests, and each other. “Kindness goes so far these days,” Coupland reminds us.
Laura Stanley
▶︎▶︎ LPS / EPS
Lammping, Bad Boys of Comedy (Toronto ON)
I dreamed I saw the knights in armour coming, surfing on a wave of sweet leaf smoke. Lammping's new album Bad Boys of Comedy is psych-rock perfection, that's it, there is no joke. How can riffs this heavy feel so soft? How these melodies remain. How the bass is mixed in such a way that it rattles my small brain.
Mac Cameron
MSEA, I turned into a familiar shape (Toronto ON / Reykjavík, Iceland)
MSEA's exhilarating avant-garde approach to a genre I would label as "Nightmare Pop" (in the most complimentary of ways) makes me feel like I'm dancing barefoot on a frozen lagoon. Tracks like “Head Full of Bees” and “Flesh Tone” are perilous and eerie, but they condemn you to see them through in hopes that you won't crack the ice and awake from your chilling slumber.
Michael Beda
Psychological Rangers, Dirt Bath (Toronto ON)
Psychological Rangers (Matthew Bailey, Dave Clark, and Graeme Moffatt) set the playful tone of their debut album Dirt Bath within its opening minute — when they let out a joyful "woo!" — and never look back. In a mix of folky, jazzy, and psych-rock numbers, the Rangers have a blast singing about holding back tears (of laughter) at a funeral because somebody showed up wearing a “Novelty Sombrero”, the adventures of a dood (“Dood”), and a confusing tune called “ET Ricochet” whose second half sounds like it could be sung in camp dining halls. Needless to say, Dirt Bath is a trip.
Laura Stanley
Toki Oto, First Offering (Toronto ON)
Eights year ago at the Drake Hotel in Toronto, I saw a duo comprised of one guy on the didgeridoo and one guy on a drum pad, and they weaved together a spellbinding, intense instrumental set. In 2020, they finally have a record to capture their live magic, and one track was recorded live at the very show I referenced. The six songs synthesize percussion and the didgeridoo's unique sound with a dash of electronic atmospherics to create a sound you will literally not hear anywhere else.
Michael Thomas
Vital Spirit, In The Faith That Looks Through Death (Vancouver BC)
Do you wish your black metal was made by cowboys? Do you wish your Morricone had blast beats and poetry screamed on top of it? Then Vital Spirit's In the Faith That Looks Through Death is like finding a haystack in a burning Scandinavian church in the dead of winter.
Mac Cameron
▶︎▶︎ SONGS
“Further” by Spencer Burton (Niagara, ON)
Spencer Burton pivots from his children's album to a distinct adult contemporary sound that emphasizes his full and rich singing voice and pop sensibilities. He takes up the oft dismissed and always underrated sounds of Hootie and the Blowfish, Counting Crows and Matchbox Twenty and injects the form with down-to-earth charm, strong lyrics, a soaring chorus and buoyant backing vocals.
Mac Cameron
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