Album review and interview: The Swell Season — Strict Joy

The following was originally published on Exclaim.ca.

The Swell Season
Strict Joy
By Jessica Lewis

They’ve done it. The Swell Season, the Oscar-winning international duo of Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, have found a way to make the most uncomfortable moments in a relationship comfortable. Packed with so much emotion but still bearable, Strict Joy captures the ups and mostly downs of what many know as “it’s complicated.” It could be heartbreaking, as in “The Rain,” where Hansard and Irglova sing, “I know we’re not where I promised you we’d be by now, but maybe it’s a question of who’d want it anyhow?” but then the soft bass and rising chorus kick in and it’s hard to see where any problems started. Hansard and Irglova enlisted the Frames, other assorted guests and acclaimed producer Peter Kadis to give the album a filled-room feel, so Strict Joy is definitely different from what fans might be used to on the Once soundtrack or previous recordings. No need to worry, because not one song is underwhelming. From the chilling, Irglova-fronted “Fantasy Man” and the big band pushed to the limit “High Horses,” all the way through relationship tremors to a calm settlement in “Back Broke,” where Hansard quietly sings, “Cause it’s clear you still want me,” Strict Joy delivers its namesake.

Why did you name the album after a poem?
Hansard: It conjures up discomfort and this idea of I won’t suffer. The poem reflects on the idea that we go into ourselves and if we do a good job in the exploration and the confession, that if we do a decent job of it, something good can come of it, because truth is always something very valuable to the people, even if it’s not their truth, just a truth. To go and mine in the darkness of your soul and pull things apart and just explore, sometimes there is wonder and beautiful things in there but you pull out the coal and sometimes there are diamonds. That’s the idea of the recurring line, because the poet makes grief beautiful.

How did you get the fuller sound?
Irglova: The band had been touring with us anyway before we went into the studio. I like the fact that everybody sings. A lot of the songs on the album, everybody gets a chance to sing on them. There’s something really exciting about all the voices coming together as one. And so, for me, that’s a lovely part of the music that I make with the band. (Anti)

Read more of my interview with Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova here.

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.

Interview: Imogen Heap

The following was originally published on Exclaim.ca.

October 2009 Conversations: Imogen Heap
By Jessica Lewis

The release of her third solo album, Ellipse, saw solo singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist/artist Imogen Heap into massive success. She kept her doting followers informed of every step through Twitter and still the finished product is always surprising and fascinating. In the past, Heap gained popularity through soundtrack appearances, (The O.C., Garden State) which has let her push her own boundaries. Ellipse does just that ― it definitely has a more mature feeling than her past two records, but she has honed and held onto the sound that is so dearly loved. Heap had a few minutes to talk about the album while she was in Toronto doing promotion in August.

How often would you change different little pieces of songs? It was awesome how you tweeted all the time about the changes ― but what made you want to be so open?
I think a real need for a kind of connectivity with people. I think the greatest parts of life are when you’re connected, whether it’s with your family or your friends or your lover. With the planet too! I guess it’s really the connection that I love because in the past, well right in the beginning, it was always the musician and the audience and it was a local thing, they would play in the streets and people would get involved, and as recorded music happened, a kind of barrier happened where then you had this gap between your audience and the writer, and then over the years record companies massively got in the way, so then you’ve got this huge blockade between you and the people who like your music. So, thankfully now, that barrier has completely disappeared, and I think it’s something that I certainly crave, just wanting to understand people and wanting them to understand me. That’s just a natural human need, that’s why I do it.

Do you think the way you go at this is the future? Do you think all bands should get into working like that?
I don’t think it’s a case of should, for the sake of marketing and everything, maybe, but for me, it’s not a case of somebody going, “if you do this, you will sell records,” it’s just I felt like I wanted to do it and I had to do it and I needed to do it. I also wanted to involve people in the process of making a record because I don’t think anyone has ever documented the process so finely, from right at the beginning, writing little gems of the ideas. I’ve actually been filming the whole process, my friend Justina’s got to now piece together 350 hours of footage into one. She’s got her work cut out for her. It was actually a fan that wrote in and said “I would love to see how you work a song, can you film it while you’re in Maui?” And so when I got back, my friend said “oh, let me continue it so we can document it!” And then it took eight months to build the studio. And then the tweeting was just to kind of fill in the gaps for me, because I always felt strange with YouTube only could have ten minutes to describe everything that I had done. There were people who wanted more.

So how often would you say you changed little pieces in songs?
All the time, constantly changing it, because until it’s finished, you’re changing it. That’s what you do. Start up with something and then change it and then add on to it or other bits or make another part do that part, so you’re constantly changing it.

Is there anything new you’re putting in your live show?
At the moment, I’m not exactly sure how I’m going to do it, but I bought this new piece of gear, which is really cute, it’s called a monome, it’s a control service, it doesn’t actually have any sounds, but you can tell it to tell things around your kind of workstation, gear, what to do. Basically, it just looks cool. It takes a while to program everything to know what you want to be doing, but you can have a section on it where you go okay I want this to be my looping section, so you can loop your vocals live and this would tell the computer to start recording at a point, and then over here you have your keyboard area, you can have drum samples if you want, over here you can have faders or whatever you like. I’ll be using that.

Will you still have the clear piano?
Yes.

So, you slapped your bottom in a “Bad Body Double,” what other kinds of sounds that you used were your favourite on this record?
One of my favourites was actually kind of one of the only times I recorded something outside of the studio. I wrote this song called “Half Life,” it’s the token piano song, I allow myself to have one at least because I think it’s a bit of a cop out to do stuff more piano because you can do so many other things. So, I did the piano song and the song is really in broad strokes trying to be closer to somebody who is constantly surrounded by people or just business, generally business, you’re surrounded by somebody, you can’t be with them, so you’re living this kind of half life, and I wanted to get a sense of distance and kind of unavailability. I wanted to get the sound of people chatting, kind of milling around, like when you go to a party and everyone’s laughing and cheers-ing, so I went to a few art gallery-type places, because I thought that was the sort of thing that might work. Everywhere I went, there was always music in the background, so I couldn’t record it. So the one time that actually was perfect was at the twitter Twestival, twitter festival, of people who just got together and they happen all over the world. I went to the one in London and I went there with my binormal microphones, which look like headphones. I was walking around with my recorder, and for people who didn’t know, thought I was just walking around with headphones, but I was actually recording them. So hopefully, nobody’s going to want any royalties or anything.

You wrote the lyrics all over the world.
Yes, about half of the ones that I wrote on my trip ended up on the record. Half of the songs, six songs I wrote on the writing trip, six I wrote when I got back to the house. And then one of them was kind of between the two places. One was improvised, “The Fire.” It’s an improvised piece to try and balance the kind of nerdy detail and biggishness that’s on the rest of the record. I wanted to have something completely free from form and just like a train of thought. So I recorded the piano in Maui, which is where I began the record, so I kind of created this ellipse by just travelling around the world. And then “The Fire” I recorded in my garden at my family home where I burnt this piece of wood that used to go between the grate and the kitchen and the garden, and I couldn’t just throw it away because it had been there for 30 years. So I got all the family around to just be quiet and listen to the sound of it crackling. I managed to get the writing and travelling side of things and also my family and the house.

Now for the rest of the songs, what was it about humanity that struck you so much?
I guess with this record I really wanted to explore a bit less about one-on-one, about me, me, more me and me, me with somebody else, me not with somebody else, and me wanting to be with somebody else. When I was on my writing trip, I started to read a lot more and have a chance to read and talk with people. You start to formulate things in your mind that matter, but you haven’t because you’re so consumed by yourself and only talking about you, that there’s not enough time to reflect about us and what we’re doing here and what a mess we’re making of it. Just my relationship with the rest of the world, with people, and how people react to people, and so I guess I just went a bit further with it.

What are you going to tweet about now that the record’s finished?
I’ve mostly been tweeting about the promo runs, what I’ve been up to. I went for an amazing test drive yesterday of the Tesla, so I tweeted about that.

Are you going to get it?
I can’t quite afford it, but maybe one day. It’s quite expensive. It’s a really fantastic car. I’ve read about it for a year and a half or two years and there’s no reason why we don’t have electric cars already, that’s just the monopoly. So this is the future. They’re the only car company that’s made an electric car that’s desirable and sexy.

You could be their promo girl.
I’d love to yeah! If they could give me a complimentary vehicle… to wave a flag or something!

Mainly the record is you doing everything, right?
I did have a few guests. I had a guy called Nitin Sawhney, who is a musician and artist in his own right and writes many albums and actually I was on his record last year. He played the acoustic guitar on “Canvas.” My ex-boyfriend played drums on a couple songs. I was playing drums on the other songs but I was using his kit, so I thought I should get him on. He’s really great. I got this fantastic trumpeter in again who is from Norway, called Arve Henrikson, I had him on the last record as well, and he’s just so amazing. So he’s on “2-1″ and “Half Life.” And, I’ve got a really beautiful Indian singer, who’s actually a flautist, but he just has the most beautiful voice. Him and the cellist, Ian, both made me cry when I heard them play. I just thought I love the idea of getting people who made me emotional on the record. They were incredible when they came into the studio.

Would there ever be somebody that would want to offer help, but you would just want to do it your own way?
There were a couple people that were like, “you know if it gets to be too much, let me know and I can help mix it.” I think the way I work… it doesn’t work like that anymore. You go in, you’ve written a song or maybe you haven’t written a song. You do everything in tandem so you sing the vocals and while you’re doing that you build music around it. Everything you build, it’s not like you have a band and you go in and do drums and bass guitar, vocals, and then you mix it to make it sound good together. It’s because you’re kind of crafting it to go along, you’re building and building, so you don’t put something on it unless it fits with everything else, so you’re doing it as you go. So there are hundreds of tracks of stuff that you’re working as you go, so it’s not like “now we mix it.” I knew that I’d finish it, but it’s just how much work. The biggest problem with this record was time management and not counting for the unexpected bits that always happened like “oh, can you come and sing a song on this record” or “can you produce a song for Mika” and you don’t plan for those, so when you say “I’m going to be finished in six months” you don’t plan ahead for the three months of extra stuff that comes your way. That was great, but a strain.

You’re famous for reproducing your vocals. If you had clones, what else would you make them do besides sing? You’d have a lot more time.
Yeah, what would I get them to do? I might get them to build my stage live on the show. I’ve got this plan for my next shows, I don’t know if I’m going to do it, but I’ve got this plan. It’s to not have anything on stage at all and to come on and slowly rebuild the stage myself while I’m doing it. So I’m kind of building, having things hidden on the stage, underneath it where there’s slip-like shapes and things and throw them up into the air and then light falls on them. There’s nothing … I like the idea of no waste. There’s no need to have hundreds of watts of lights pouring down on me when I’m only here. I don’t need all of those. I’d love to work on a stage show where light is built and sculpted around me or I’m projecting it myself or it’s on me, like I’m being projected onto with a big dress or something. Trying to be more igniting with the stage and get creative inside that.

Interview: Imogen Heap stays connected with her fans on Ellipse

The following was originally published on Exclaim.ca.

Exclusive: Imogen Heap Stays Connected with Ellipse
9/21/2009 By Jessica Lewis

It takes a lot of work to put together an album, and these days nobody has shown the process better than British singer-songwriter Imogen Heap. She released her third solo album Ellipse at the end of August, after two years of documenting by way of weblogs, blog entries, website updates and, of course, tweets.

“I think the greatest parts of life are when you’re connected; whether it’s with your family or your friends or your lover,” Heap told Exclaim! when she stopped in Toronto. “I guess it’s really the connection that I love… I think it’s something that I certainly crave, just wanting to understand people and wanting them to understand me. That’s just a natural human need, that’s why I do it.”

Besides tweeting every single bit about fixing up every song on the album, Heap kept up a steady flow of weblogs on YouTube and 12seconds to premiere drafts of songs, talk while playing the piano or just show that she could still have goofy fun.

Her friend Justina who directed and edited most of the footage now has 350 hours of footage to sort through in order to make a making-of DVD. As if that wasn’t enough to keep her busy, Heap was also distracted within the two years by making her own studio in her house and collaborating with other artists, such as producing a track for Mika.

Now that the album is complete and released, Heap has been updating her many websites less regularly, but on September 11 she tweeted, “Ahh, to go where the wind takes me! My life is scheduled out for touring next 18 months… lovely to go away with no plan whatsoever tonight!?” So now it’s up to fans to start getting excited over tour dates.

Heap must be just as thrilled, though probably pretty tired. She’s got a new instrument named a monome, which is a kind of control station that will sync up all of her high-tech sounds to one board. She will also still bring her famous clear piano on tour. But although the planning doesn’t seem to be in full effect just yet, that leaves time for her to daydream about what she would like her stage sets to look like.

“I’ve got this plan. It’s to not have anything on stage at all and to come on and slowly rebuild the stage myself while I’m doing it. So I’m kind of building, having things hidden on the stage, underneath it where there’s slip-like shapes and things and throw them up into the air and then light falls on them. There’s nothing.” Heap says. “I like the idea of no waste. There’s no need to have hundreds of watts of lights pouring down on me when I’m only here. I don’t need all of those. I’d love to work on a stage show where light is built and sculpted around me or I’m projecting it myself or it’s on me, like I’m being projected onto with a big dress or something. Trying to be more igniting with the stage and get creative inside that.”

Album Review and Interview: Young Galaxy – Invisible Republic

The following was originally published on Exclaim.ca.

Young Galaxy
Invisible Republic
By Jessica Lewis

If anything, Invisible Republic is a place of relief and possibilities for Montreal dream pop group Young Galaxy. After splitting from popular label Arts & Crafts, losing a handful of members, gaining a few more and learning how to live through personal problems such as divorce, disease and various opinions on the music industry, this album rises out of the ashes as a nice spot to catch a breath and rest one’s mind. It has an exploding pop atmosphere but it’s more rejuvenating than exhausting. Packing in overlapping layers of ghostly, echoing vocals, powerful guitar and bass, and keyboards and string arrangements paired with strong, commanding drums, the band not only create a sound that reflects their moniker but also have fun doing so. The call-and-response singing of couple Stephen Ramsay and Catherine McCandless proves enticing and plays into the notion of pushing the limits towards epic. They let out a cry from the end of one world towards the beginning of another with poetic lyrics and catchy choruses, as in “Destroyer,” “Oh Sister” and “Queen Drum.” As their second release, Invisible Republic is cleaner, more detailed and exciting than their self-titled debut, but that only means a good amount of growth.

Was your initial inspiration for making the record the audience?
Stephen Ramsay: We didn’t want to come off perceived in one angle. We wanted [the new record] to be life-changing music and to make it very grand and all-encompassing, but that’s not all there is to the story with us; we want to push it out of that and show more of ourselves in the process. It wasn’t just Catherine and I but actually involving Max [Henry] in the songwriting and Stephen Kamp and taking it to places that weren’t necessarily comfortable for us. I think that if there’s one rule we have in the band it’s don’t be afraid to fail. Ridicule is nothing to be ashamed of.

How are you doing after the split from Arts & Crafts?
It’s easier for us to think less, in the sense that we don’t need to have it. Like, the record is only coming out in Canada right now, so we can focus on one step at a time much more easily. We’re not as anxious to move beyond what’s immediately in front of us. It will be up to us to determine whether or not it’s going to work or not. (Fontana North)

Album review and interview: Bent By Elephants – self titled

This article was originally published on Exclaim.ca.

Bent By Elephants
Bent by Elephants
By Jessica Lewis

For their first EP, of just six songs, a pat on the back is in order for Bent by Elephants, a folk six-piece from Montreal. Each song is as beautifully laid out as the one next to it, so the whole proves equally strong. The songs detail real stories, and it’s the down-to-earth, willing-to-explain-almost-anything qualities that lie in both the music and the lyrics that warrant attention. Currently featuring Chesley Walsh (vocals), Luke Fowlie (guitar), Ryan Frizell (trumpet), Alex Whyte (guitar, trombone, vocals), Paul VanDyk (upright bass) and newest member Charlotte Cornfield (drums), this band are, for the most part, comprised of classically trained musicians. They brought together learned and honed talents that created sweeping, warm, explorative tunes of lost encounters, close ties and a love for Canada. There is nothing on this EP that doesn’t fit with something else, and there is a good amount of variation in solo efforts on it to boot. Walsh’s vocals are uplifting, while each instrument finds elements of shy or brash to work with. It’s almost cautionary that this is their first try.

I feel like a lot of the songs are based on certain people. Are they real?
Walsh: Yeah, most of them are. “Victor” is about this guy named Victor who I met when I was going on a road trip down the West Coast two summers ago. I’m from Los Angeles, originally. I was travelling along visiting friends and family that were kind of dispersed along the West Coast, kind of hitch-hiking and taking busses and ride shares and stuff down the way and I met this guy Victor. Somehow both of us got stranded in Sacramento together because our rides ditched us. He had this very specific kind of spiritual live-by-the-seat-of-your-pants attitude that I dug a lot. I have no idea how to get in touch with him.

What about the other songs?
Fowlie: [For "Saskatchewan Pool"] I was at a cottage with family. I’ve been going there forever. Once there was a tornado when I was there by myself and I thought it was a very romantic songwriting story. When all the lights went out, I was sitting there by candlelight writing.

Walsh: I felt that when I listened to it, and he told me about it. I wrote the lyrics about a similar experience I had had in the mountains in California and basically, I had an amazing time with this one person and then it passed and I haven’t seen them in forever. Actually, come to think of it, most of the songs I feel like are about people that I knew for brief periods of time and then haven’t been in contact with. I think that would be the idea for that song; we weren’t really thinking about the outcome of it. It’s kind of about time passing and observing a moment or the space around you in particular.

The EP also sounds like it would do really well on a movie soundtrack to me.
Walsh: Yeah, man! I’ve always said that about the way Luke writes songs, I always said that Luke should go into film, and I think we’re both interested in that in our own way.

What kind of film would you like to be on?
Fowlie: I’ve seen some really good documentaries. There’s this one about [artist] Andy Goldsworthy that a guitarist played all the songs for. I really like that kind of thing. It’s appropriate. (Independent)

Album review & interview: The Got To Get Got – Sahalee

This article was originally purchased on Exclaim.ca.

The Got To Get Got
Sahalee
By Jessica Lewis

After a few years of trying to make the band work from opposite coasts, the Got To Get Got have planted their flag in Halifax. Front-man Mark Mullane took his time looking for the now six other talented musicians, plus a few helpful guests. He began working on Sahalee three years ago with two others in Vancouver (including one of his former North of America band-mates, Mark Colavecchia) but after two years of getting to know the new line-up, it took only two months to record the album. Even after only truly discovering their sound in the studio, Sahalee shows how well they can work together while having plenty of fun at the same time. It didn’t take long for them to start calling one another family. Basing each track on a formula that works for their sound, the Got To Get Got begin with peppy build-ups that are more focused on the lyrics but then flow right into more fast-paced, guitar-driven jam sessions. With 11 tracks of swelling choruses and layers of pop rock to work through, it’s still easy to hear every single voice and instrument.

You have a lot of pop culture references on Sahalee.
Mullane: There’s a ton of songs [that] have some band namedropping on the record. I namedrop a couple Push Kings songs on there. There’s the song, “Peyton and Perry,” which is about football.

What about “Bethpage Black,” with the unmistakable “umbrella-ella-ella”?
I actually hadn’t even heard that [Rihanna] song, that was hummed to me. “Bethpage Black” is a couple years old and Brad [Lahead], who plays in our band, was singing it or something and I was like, “oh, yeah, that’s neat.” We had a line about the umbrella in the song anyway so it’s little tribute to [the band]. There’s no direct meaning to Rihanna; they’re just inside jokes.

What made you want to focus in on pop culture like this?
Probably because of my day job; I work in various outlets in the media. Now, I work at This Hour Has 22 Minutes as a field producer, so I guess pop culture has always been part of my daily life. I write about what I see and I don’t generally write songs that are too lovey-dovey. You’ve got to say something.
(Noyes)

The Got To Get Got reflect on new album, Sahalee

This article was originally published on Exclaim.ca.

North of America Offshoot the Got to Get Got Wrap Album One, Already Begin Eyeing Number Two
7/20/2009 By Jessica Lewis

Photo by Mat Dunlap

Halifax-based pop rockers the Got to Get Got released their first full-length album titled Sahalee this past Tuesday (July 14), and front-man Mark Mullane (aka Band Dad) is feeling optimistic. In fact, he’s so optimistic that he’s already thinking about their second record.

“We’ve got a bunch of new songs that we’re going to write on tour,” Mullane, formerly of East coast math rock wizards North of America, said in a recent interview with Exclaim! “Then we have a lot more that are going to be coming soon. We really want to record them pretty much as soon as we get home. I know that I just want to make sure that we record them so we keep the momentum of the band going. This was the most enjoyable record I’ve ever done, so I can’t wait to get back into the studio.”

Mullane credits his band’s newfound cohesiveness to a new Halifax practice space, which they recently moved into after being forced to rehearse in an old factory with 18 other bands.

“It was really hard to even talk about song structures much less hear what the cello was doing,” said Mullane of the band’s old space. “We actually stopped, it was quiet [in the new space] and we could talk to each other and figure out arrangements, so that makes it way more of a band than it was before because it was me dictating things and we would record them in the studio and be like, ‘Oh, wow, so that’s what you play here. That’s great, I’ve never heard that before because there was a metal band screaming in my ear.’”

To focus back on Sahalee, strangely enough the album is named after a golf course outside of Seattle, though one that comes boasting a secret double meaning.

“I heard of that name a long time ago,” said Mullane of the title Sahalee. “I tried to write a song called that many times, and for some reason it never worked out, I mean, how could you ever write a song about a golf course? Even though one of the songs on the record is called ‘Bethpage Black,’ which is a golf course.

“Anyway, I always just thought Sahalee was a really good word and when I had to think about titles for the record, I typed that into Google and I found out it’s a Native American word that means ‘high heavenly ground.’ I thought that had a good ring to it, kind of a double meaning. But I would be lying if it wasn’t first named because it was a golf course.”

Even though Mullane will still fondly look back at his bygone days in the now-defunct North of America, he’s interested in what else he can do now with the Got to Get Got.

“[North of America] never had strings, never had keyboards or anything like that,” he said. “It’s actually kind of a treat to arrange those parts and sort those things out. It’s a new thing for me and it’s really enjoyable to think of many different features. If a string part will play the vocal melody here, the string will play a melody that plays off the vocals or plays off Brad [Lahead]’s guitar part or whatever. That kind of stuff is making me really interested in continuing to play music.”

Here are all the Got to Get Got’s upcoming tour dates:

7/25 Halifax, NS – Gus’ Pub
7/29 Ottawa, ON – Café Dekcuf
7/30 Montreal, QC – Il Motore
8/1 Hamilton, ON – Absinthe
8/5 Windsor, ON – The Phog Lounge
8/6 Guelph, ON – E-Bar
8/7 London, ON – Call The Office
8/8 Toronto, ON – Theatre Centre for the Summerworks Festival
8/11 Kingston, ON – The Mansion
8/12 Montreal, QC – Il Motore
8/13 Quebec City, QC – Le Cercle
8/14 Saint John, NB – Akhord

Polaris short-listers Great Lake Swimmers on NBC

Apparently the bigwigs over at NBC are catching on to something, right behind ABC (a la their Pitchfork sessions). Or at least Brian Williams, anchor and resident indie-lover (really?) is. With BriTunes (he says he didn’t make the name) beginning, one of his first stops is newly minted Polaris short listers Great Lake Swimmers, currently Toronto-based.

Watch Wilson’s interview with GLS’s main-man, Tony Dekker here.

More Polaris-themed posts coming soon!

The Born Ruffians are born to be great

The following was originally posted on MutedMag.com.

Being in an up and coming Canadian band in Canada is one thing; being in one that’s rising steadily in the U.K. is another. Born Ruffians, the three-piece from Toronto, Ontario has been gaining steady attention from the island’s music lovers and television watchers alike for two years now, and it looks like it won’t be stopping any time in the near future.

It all started when the group recorded an episode for season two of the popular Bristol-based drama Skins (doppelganger for Degrassi: The Next Generation, yet raunchier and with more drugs involved), where they played their fast kerplunk-with-handclaps of a single “Hummingbird” in New York City. Since then, the same song has popped up in an Orange mobile phone commercial and an episode of a 2009 television show Free Agents. Their other single, the cute harmonica driven tune, “Little Garcon” has appeared in a Halifax bank commercial and another episode of Skins. Both tracks are from the band’s 2008 debut album, Red, Yellow & Blue.

“It’s really strange,” says bassist Mitch DeRosier about his band’s UK takeover from his Toronto home. “I don’t know what is the better music people who make commercials are drawn to, but we get offered more than I would ever expect to get offered just having commercials in the U.K. That’s really helped us. I can’t put a finger on why we’re the band that gets to do that.”

But what really moved DeRosier and his band mates, Luke Lalonde and Steve Hamelin, to their highest point of amazement so far has been the fact that they’ve been accepted by Glaswegian band Franz Ferdinand. On December 4, 2008, Franz Ferdinand was in Toronto to perform the then-upcoming tunes to Tonight: Franz Ferdinand, and the opening band dropped out. Born Ruffians was chosen to play just the day before. They impressed Alex Kapranos and his band mates, and will now be heading out on tour with them in Canada and the States through April and May.

L to R: Lalonde, DeRosier, Hamelin

“We’ve been really lucky with who we’ve been playing with,” says DeRosier, sleepily, as they just returned the night before to Toronto from playing in Ohio. He reflected back on other bands they’ve toured with, including Cadence Weapon, Plants & Animals, Caribou, and Peter Bjorn & John. But the band’s first tour was with U.K. techno greats Hot Chip. “Besides the Franz Ferdinand tour, that was the biggest tour we’ve had.” That’s something special to a band that started from a high school in Midland, Ontario.

But when it comes down to it, DeRosier is proud of the band’s Canadian music roots. “When I get home, I’m pretty happy, especially after a long tour,” says DeRosier. In March, the band played sold out shows with Akron/Family in Toronto and Montreal, Quebec. “The last few [shows] have been getting bigger and bigger. It’s a really cool feeling to have all of your friends and family at one show.”

Recently, the three band mates split from sharing a house and are all living on their own in Toronto. “It’s a good time to start fresh again,” says DeRosier. “We started touring together so much more, and we needed a little space from each other… after being on tour for six weeks you see all the same people all over again.”

But with moving away, DeRosier, Lalonde, and Hamelin have lost their common recording space. For Red, Yellow & Blue most of the demos originated from Lalonde’s bedroom. DeRosier has found it hard to write for their second full-length album on tour, and prefers the quiet comfort zone of a home. “Sometimes if we’re in sound check we’ll fool around with something we’re working on, but most of our writing happens in Toronto, it’s much more comfortable that way,” says DeRosier.

Red, Yellow & Blue was recorded with producer Rusty Santos, who has also worked with indie kings Animal Collective. Born Ruffians will be working with him again on their upcoming album and will start to record in June or July, with hopes of it being released in early 2010. DeRosier has high expectations for the album, but is also very calm and excited for what he knows will happen. “It will be better because now we know each other,” he says in relation to Santos.

With all of the constant touring, DeRosier has found patterns in their live performances and has taken lessons from them for the upcoming album. In the pursuit of creating a fun show (and possibly slight boredom of playing the same songs over and over) DeRosier admits that the tempo in their live performance has quickened. “The songs just naturally speed up and so when we listen to a song on our record, we’re like ‘woah, that’s snail speed!’ It’s crazy slow only because we’re used to playing crazy fast… I like up tempo, but I’ve got to slow down.”

Check out footage I shot of Born Ruffians on December 4, 2008 at Lee’s Palace. This is the night they opened for Franz Ferdinand: