Wordless Sentence | DOminiONATED January 2020
Admit it: you're hardly over all the New Year's hoopla, too. You still feel like a walking zombie who wants nothing more to retreat into the warm cocoon of the last two weeks of the year. Sure, you put on a brave face and your galoshes, but you're not fully ready to be back to the daily grind. You're sitting in your classes or your quarterly review meetings or you're running through rehearsal and practice but your head (and most certainly your heart) isn't in it.
If, in these early days of 2020, you're already longing for escape, hungering for inspiration and renewal, check out of your responsibilities for a minute (or a couple of hours) and check into these fine releases from the last twelve months. Some slipped under our radar while others walloped us in the head the first time we heard them. All of them have gotten into our heads and our hearts. Here's hoping something below finds its way into yours as well.
▶︎▶︎ LPS / EPS
Jom Comym, Crawl (Edmonton AB)
Edmonton’s Jim Cuming has explored music under the name Jom Comyn for years. His forte is distorting familiar tropes just enough to make listeners take notice. His latest release, Crawl (released in September 2019) is a hall-of-mirrors twist on a style of indie-rock that’s started to feel safe and predictable. In the hands of Cuming and producer/co-arranger Chris Dadge, Crawl is a full-on sprint through tones, textures, and timing that never sounds the same no matter how many times you listen.
Jim Di Gioia
Slow Spirit, Warble (Winnipeg MB)
Slow Spirit begins Warble levitating and across the next seven songs, their feet never touch the ground. Suspended by an array of soulful pop-rock sounds, the members of Slow Spirit are on a quest to be free and by the final track, "Ascend", a peaceful maze of picked acoustic guitar notes, it feels like they are.
Laura Stanley
Merzanger, Montage (Ottawa ON)
I hesitate to say that violinist Mika Posen's latest album flew under the radar after its October release because anyone I speak to who's heard it raves about it. It may be symptomatic of the over-saturation of online music, but Montage is a deeply immersive, atmospheric work that literally shakes me at my core when I hear it. If you haven't heard Montage yet, you're in for a treat.
Jim Di Gioia
Germany Germany, Harvest (Vancouver BC)
Harvest falls somewhere in between a technologically-induced stress dream and the soft morning sky. Germany Germany (Drew Harris)'s sound worlds are anxious and twitchy — "Pursuit" feels like the perfect soundtrack for a panicked run — but sometimes the round synth notes he chooses (like on "Dawn" or Wait") soften Harvest's otherwise hard edges.
Laura Stanley
Glassreel, Unalike (Winnipeg MB)
A beguiling set of four finely rendered musical postcards that shimmer with indie-pop sparkle and shine.
Jim Di Gioia
- Errunhrd, Apprehensive Memories of a Romance (Niagara Falls ON)
- Boar God, Forma (Montréal QC)
- Dream Creeps, Astral Vampires (Regina SK)
- Tertio, La mince ligne (Montréal QC)
- St.Arnaud, The Cost of Living (Edmonton AB)
- Voga, Static Moon (Toronto ON)
- Little Coyote, Stay Gold (Toronto ON)
- Daniela Andrade, Tamale (Edmonton AB)
- Rosier, Rosier EP (Montréal QC)
- Shamik, CI3 (Vancouver BC)
- Scott Gailey, Polysensuality (Vancouver BC)
- Michael C. Duguay, Summer Flight Lasts Forever (Peterborough ON)
- Adrian House, Lookin Up (St John's NL)
- Shirley & The Pyramids, A New American Classic (Saskatoon SK)
- PIQSIQ, Quviasugvik: In Search of Harmony (Vancouver BC)
▶︎▶︎ SONGS
- “Shooting Star" by Kwela (Toronto ON / Johannesburg, South Africa)
- “ôtênaw” by nêhiyawak (amiskwaciy on Treaty 6 territory / EdmontonAB)
- “Casket" by Savadouchi (Scarborough ON)
- “Recognize Me" by Scott Brunelle (Toronto ON)
- “Moon Star Lover" by Wild Black (Toronto ON)
- “Stars (feat. Flix Rose)” by Maxime Vallieres (Québec City, QC)
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