Black Rebel Motorcycle Club to release new album in March

Oh, it’s a happy morning over here at the RoundLetters residence. I received a lovely newsletter email this morning all about everything upcoming with one of my favourite bands, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club.

In the past year or so, the band once and for all lost their drummer Nick Jago, released a live DVD/CD set and did some tours that were not here, basically.

2010 holds not one but three amazing bits of news for this Califor-ni-ay band:

-Peter Hayes and Robert Levon Been are introducing their new drummer, Leah Shapiro from The Ravonettes (yes! woman! making this band even more bad ass, who thought that was even possible?!)

-Releasing their fifth studio album Beat the Devil’s Tattoo on March 9 in US & Canada (album name suggests yes, they can be even more bad ass)

-and doing another crazy bout of touring, one day of which lands them in Toronto (April 1) at the Phoenix.

I’ve seen this band twice and both times were some of the most amazing performances I’ve ever seen. I’m not such a big fan of them playing at the Phoenix. I must say they really used Kool Haus well, but hey I can’t complain, I’ve also seen them in a tiny venue in Buffalo.

Here’s a video of them playing a different show in Toronto in 2005. Check out the bad ass!

P.S. I love how they update their website but still keep some old things intact, like their Press section in which there is the  interview I did with Hayes in 2007!

Interview: The Swell Season Feeling Lucky With Strict Joy

The following was originally published on Exclaim.ca.

Exclusive: The Swell Season Feeling Lucky with Strict Joy
10/16/2009 By Jessica Lewis

For Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová of the Oscar-winning duo the Swell Season, things just seem to be “written in the stars,” whether it’s the elements that went in to putting together their upcoming new album, Strict Joy, or just knowing one another.

Even though the record’s main themes seem to be about the romantic break-up between the pair, who had the surprise breakout hit with Once, they’re still strong enough to make another record. So it’s the technical background we can get interested in now.

Hansard and Irglová took just under a month recording the album in Connecticut with the Frames and acclaimed producer Peter Kadis in his home studio. Hansard and Irglová went to the studio because they were enamoured with Kadis’s past work with the National’s album Boxer, and ended up recording a handful of songs in a whirlwind.

“We just play songs out, to figure them out, to feel out what they’re doing, what they’re saying,” said Hansard in a recent interview with Exclaim! “And when you get enough of them, you go and put them down, and really, going into making a record sometimes, you’re not even set out to make an album. You’re just setting out to put stuff down. That’s what happened with this. It was a very easy record to make, we’re very happy with it.”

Irglová agrees. “It was written in the stars,” she said. “I think life is full of those magical moments, if you just allow them to happen. If you live your life deciding you’re going to go with the flow and trust life, then you do find yourself in places you never imagined yourself being and for me that’s what it’s all about.”

Hansard goes on to say that the luck isn’t just in the stars, but also in the unassuming business model, saying, “It was more just the main concern of any band is to put out decent work and to continue doing gigs where you can communicate your songs clearly and correctly. And hopefully, if you’re doing your job right, to be able to play the same room every time you come back to town or play a bigger one. Some bands might say, ‘Okay, here’s the end game, and here is what we need to do to get there.’ We pretty much made a record and said, ‘Right now we have a record. What do we do with it?’ So it is a slightly different way of looking at it. It definitely works for us so far.”

The duo commissioned Hansard’s fellow Frames members to be the support on the album after a tour, as well as included a few guests. What they ended up with was a full sound complete with just that: more voices, more sound and more ambitions.

Originally due out September 29, Strict Joy’s release date was pushed back a month due to artwork conflicts. It will now be released on October 27 through Anti-.

The Swell Season will be wooing Canada on these dates:

11/3 Toronto, ON – Massey Hall
11/4 Montreal, QC -; Olympia de Montreal
11/25 Vancouver, BC – The Center

Sidenote: You can now stream Strict Joy in full over at NPR.

Fucked Up Wins the 2009 Polaris Music Prize

The following was originally published on Exclaim.ca.

Fucked Up Wins the 2009 Polaris Music Prize
9/22/2009 By Brock Thiessen & Jessica Lewis

Fucked Up have been awarded the 2009 Polaris Music Prize for their album The Chemistry of Common Life at a gala event held at Toronto’s Masonic Temple Monday (September 21) night. Following in the footsteps of Final Fantasy, Patrick Watson and Caribou, the Torontonian hardcore heroes will receive the coveted award, along with $20,000 and, of course, some serious bragging rights.

“Until the very moment they made the announcement, I thought there was no way in hell that we would win,” said Fucked Up front-man Damian Abraham. “This is incredible. I’m more shocked than everyone at CTV. Thanks to everyone that played on the record and Jon Drew that produced the album, everyone at Beggars/Matador, [Polaris founder] Steve Jordan and everyone at Polaris!”

Ten albums were shortlisted for the prize, narrowed down from a long list of 40. The Polaris Music Prize — given out each year to a full-length Canadian album, based solely on artistic merit — is chosen by 182 Canadian music journalists, broadcasters and bloggers who make up the Polaris Music Prize jury, with the final winner being selected by an 11-member grand jury.

In alphabetical order, the artists nominated for the Polaris Music Prize short list were:

Elliott Brood – Mountain Meadows
Fucked Up – The Chemistry of Common Life
Great Lake Swimmers – Lost Channels
Hey Rosetta – Into Your Lungs
K’NAAN – Troubadour
Malajube – Labyrinthes
Metric – Fantasies
Joel Plaskett – Three
Chad VanGaalen – Soft Airplane
Patrick Watson – Wooden Arms

This was the first year that all ten shortlisted nominees played sets of one or two songs from their nominated albums, with each band receiving much applause from the audience of family members, friends, music journalists and music lovers.

Metric played an acoustic set first, then Great Lake Swimmers and Malajube, respectively, charmed the audience, before 2007 winner Patrick Watson led his band onto the floor with backpacks of lanterns, accompanied by CBC broadcaster Jian Ghomeshi on drums.

Next up was K’naan’s inspiring set, which led into the friendliness of Joel Plaskett and family. Chad VanGaalen certainly will have the audience remembering his performance after declaring he wished Leonard Cohen was there and made some other presumably drunk remarks about micro-organisms and sloppy Suzannes.

Elliott Brood had cookie sheets and wooden spoons passed around to participate in their popular “Write It All Down for You,” and afterwards Hey Rosetta! crammed 13 people onto the stage.

Finally, the now-winners Fucked Up raised as much hell as they were allowed, which included Abraham letting his pants fall down and proceeding to morph his blue boxers into a makeshift thong.

Just minutes later, CBC Radio 3’s Grant Lawrence, Sarah Taylor and last year’s winner Dan Snaith of Caribou read out that the winner was Fucked Up. Patrick Watson and crew almost immediately dumped a bucket of ice water on Abraham after the Fucked Up singer declared “this is better than a free iPod!”

In an interview with Exclaim! after the show, Abraham said: “I never thought this would happen, and this isn’t crocodile tears, I was really like there was no way we were going to win and I was packing up my baby as they announced it and I was like… I just couldn’t believe it! I am in shock and I feel so good, I feel so good that we made a record that people feel was on par with Final Fantasy… We made a record that is kind of looked upon in that light, and that is the most flattering thing to have happened.”

Abraham also mentioned in the press conference with Lawrence that they plan to use the award’s $20,000 prize money to make a Christmas charity album, which will go towards helping find missing aboriginal women in Canada.

If Fucked Up isn’t on your radar or you need a refresher, take a look at Exclaim!’s October 2008 cover story on the band and The Chemistry of Common Life.

Download Chad VanGaalen’s B-Sides for Polaris-nominated Soft Airplanes

Polaris Prize 2009 shortlister Chad VanGaalen announced today that he was letting the Soft Airplane B-Sides EP up for free download on his site. (Sneakily close to the award’s decision next week).

There are nine tracks, all of which were hopefuls for the album but didn’t make the cut. They’re a bit more bedroom-made of course, but it’s charm. And his fans will eat anything up, really.

Photo by Marc Rimmer

While waiting to see if he’ll win the Polaris Prize, you can also check out his instrumental side project, Black Mold.

Download the B-Sides here.

Take a Look: Ghost Trees

This is a special edition of Take a Look, and I’m very excited about it!

Recently I found out a new friend of mine has hidden talents as a musician; Jamie Steep goes by the name of Ghost Trees.

Jamie went on the same Sweden exchange program as my roommate Vanessa – thus they are both pals with musician Lars Ludvig Lofgren, like I’ve mentioned before.

Interestingly enough, Lars is in town and will be playing a show with Ghost Trees in my backyard this Saturday!! Our backyard is tiny and intimate and the combination of these two talents will make this amazing. I’ll be bringing you exclusive content after, but why not come? Let me know if you would like to see the show – email me!

Anywas, back to Ghost Trees. She makes incredibly psychedelic yet soothing tunes and tones to fill up jars upon jars of colourful spirits. Her voice is calm and beautiful in a way of a female voice you don’t often hear in 10 other singers. Her songs are slow but upbeat; they are like light clouds rolling in, just when the sun is setting and you see all of the rays from the sun peaking through in every direction. “Books in Your Hands” is a perfect example of this.

The electric guitar sounds like she’s just playing around sitting on her bed, tapping her feet and shaking her hair. No hairbrushes or any type of fake microphones in sight, because this girl is serious business. Her music isn’t just the regular bedroom work some might stumble upon.

“Sound of the Old City” is a tale of the uniqueness of Karlstad, Sweden, and I think she captured the town quite nicely. The people always seem to be reflecting or just moving, moving, moving.

The two previous songs mentioned are on her MySpace for listen as well as two more – please check it out! Jamie’s got an EP called Feathers coming out soon – I don’t know the details yet but if you’d like a copy, leave a comment!

And again, let me know if you want to come to the show! But if you miss it, you will have another chance to catch them at The Only Cafe sometime next weekend, details to come.

Latest Daytrotter sessions include Junior Boys and Rural Alberta Advantage

Two awesome Canadian bands have recently been featured on the Daytrotter sessions – a website that features a band every day with hit tracks and occasionally some that you can’t find anywhere else. You can download or just listen to these tracks, along with reading a nice intro by creator Sean Moeller.

Yesterday, Junior Boys were featured as a brilliant and energizing start to September. It makes it quite easy to at least ward off the autumn blues a little bit longer. Moeller writes, “They grab us softly by the wrists and glide us out onto the floor as if we were on rollers and caught up in some kind of tailwind that was gently affecting our stance to remain stationary and just get a respectable buzz on, moving us slowly out into the night of abandonment, into an evening that won’t likely get us into any form of trouble that couldn’t be corrected or blotched out.”

Illustration by Johnnie Cluney

You can read more and download tracks “Bits and Pieces,” “Birthday” and “The Animator” here.

Today, Moeller is repping the much-talked-about band-around-town[Toronto] these days, Rural Alberta Advantage. They coax the leaves to fall early, but in a way that will bring a sweet release, as front man Nils Edenloff sings “the air is unbearably hot for the night” on “The Air,” the first track available for download/listen. Moeller says, “He writes songs about the dead, for the living, as if to slap them broadly across the unsuspecting cheeks to remind them that they’re still able to wake up in the mornings and that alone is a very fine thing, an advantage that allows for feeling the blood go through you, for feeling the pain course (not always so horrible) and for feeling any kind of feeling you’d please or wouldn’t please.” Sounds incredibly right for a changing of the seasons, doesn’t it?

Illustration by Johnnie Cluney

You can read more and download tracks “The Air,” “Two Lovers” (unreleased), “In the Summertime” and “Barnesyard” (unreleased).

Read after the jump and you’ll find other popular Canadian Daytrotter sessions:

Young Galaxy speak out about split from Arts & Crafts

The following was originally published on Exclaim.ca.

Exclusive: Young Galaxy Speak Out About Split from Arts & Crafts
8/20/2009 By Jessica Lewis

Montreal-based dream poppers Young Galaxy have been eerily quiet since the debut of their self-titled debut album in 2007. Now, with the release of their sophomore effort Invisible Republic coming up fast, they’re speaking out about the changes within the band, as well as their departure from popular Canadian indie imprint, Arts & Crafts.

“The long and the short of it was we couldn’t see eye to eye about putting the second record out,” says vocalist/guitariest Stephen Ramsay of the split in a recent interview with Exclaim!

Upon intially signing with Arts & Crafts, Ramsay, girlfriend Catherine McCandless and a few now-former touring members had never played a show before as Young Galaxy. They were shocked with the label’s decision to sign them, but like any band, their excitement took priority. However, the debut album ended up losing, rather earning, the label money, and the offer towards the group’s sophmore effort wasn’t as helpful as the band had hoped. “As two businesses trying to work together, we couldn’t accept the offer,” says Ramsay.

However, he admits the split was amicable, and there are parts of business, such as publicity, that they have kept intact. “They’re totally responsible for being able to launch us as a band in the first place,” Ramsay says of Arts & Crafts.

As an independent act, Ramsay and company initally had trouble finding a new label, until Fontana North opted to distribute Invisible Republic. This came as a blessing, as well as a test of strength for an eager band.

“Most bands are inherently conservative and afraid to take risks,” says Ramsay. “When it comes to the business side of things, it’s very easy for a band to be a scapegoat for other people for not being successful and there’s nothing bands love to do more than complain about labels and the people they work with. But they are terrified of going out on a limb and doing it themselves. We actually don’t mind, we’re into the idea of living and dying like this — basically being responsible for our own terms for success. That was one of the hard parts about the first record, feeling like our successes weren’t successes in Arts & Crafts’ eyes, and vice versa. This time, success can only be measured by us.

“There are thousands and thousands of people who would think we were nuts for leaving that label, but we’re not the kind of people that wanted to be in that position.”

At the moment, Young Galaxy hopes success is waiting for Invisible Republic, which includes new member Max Henry, as well as Stephen Kamp, who has stayed on with the group full time. Liam O’Neill drummed on the album but has since left the band, leaving James Lynn as a touring drummer. And now with a fresh new line-up and a new mentality of everyone bringing the ideas in together, a third album is already in the making.

“We’ve been working a lot with computer-generated sounds, synthesizers, a lot of sequence music like Depeche Mode or Kraftwerk, where everything is tight and robotic,” says Henry. “We’ve been captivated with this idea with this kind of less impassioned, more kind of motored-machine, electronic-groovey vibe and kind of stripped down. A lot of stuff that we’re working with now [with] electronic drums, it’s very tightly done. We’ve got some really exciting things coming.”

Young Galaxy’s Invisible Republic is due out via Fontana North on August 25.

Tour dates:

9/9 Ottawa, ON – Zaphod Beeblebrox
9/10 Toronto, ON – The Drake Hotel
9/11 Montreal, QC – Il Motore

Stream Imogen Heap’s new album, Ellipse, for free

Photo by Jeremy Cowart

This is one of those great moments – when an artist lets their entire album be streamed before it actually comes out. I believe that’s great, anyway. Especially in the case of Imogen Heap, who will release Ellipse come August 25.

And another good thing – you can stream it while on RoundLetters with her handy portable player.

Listen to Ellipse:

Also – you can still check out her video for “Canvas”!

Broken Social Scene cover Joy Division’s “Love Will Tear Us Apart” for The Time Traveler’s Wife

So Canadian uber-band Broken Social Scene has already announced that they will play a wedding band in the upcoming sob fest The Time Traveler’s Wife. Yesterday they let slide that they covered the always covered Joy Division track “Love Will Tear Us Apart” for the film’s soundtrack. Front man Kevin Drew sounds eerily too similar to Ian Curtis, and it’s unusual to hear a piano this prominent in a BSS song, but it’s well done.

In a soundtrack heavy of Mychael Danna, this track will find itself getting plenty of attention, I’m sure.

You can listen to the song on Pitchfork.

Zooey Deschanel promotes She and Him and 500 Days of Summer at the same time

Ah, Zooey Deschanel. How we all love you. And how we will all continue to love you.

In a clever marketing move, Zooey and (500) Days of Summer co-star Joseph Gorden-Levitt perform a dance routine as robber & bank teller (with dance moves more like they belong in Grease) to “Why Do You Let Me Stay Here?” a track from her band with M. Ward, She & Him.

The video was directed by Marc Webb, who also made the film.

On USA Today, the two reveal a fun secret:

“Deschanel and Gordon-Levitt say they hope to team up repeatedly and have aspirations of being a regular screen couple, like Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers or Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn.

They’re not a real couple, but they’re good at faking it.”

It’s almost too cute.

Go here to watch the video!