Ah, the wonderful breeze that is free music, on a Friday, no less! Before you indulge in crazy amounts of candy this weekend, I suggest sinking your teeth into lovely EPs by Toronto’s Dora Alexander and Charlottetown’s Milks & Rectangles.
Dora Alexander offers us Travelers, a stunning eight tracks of melancholy and exploration. There are moments of short experimentation (“Interlude”) and others where you could be floating in the sky for all you know (“Travelers.”) It’s dreamy, lovely for a stroll or those soft times of dusk or dawn. Like I said for Dork Shelf, ‘they’ll leave an impact by how careful everything is set, from vocals to the use of horns to the quick switches of tempo. Plus, there’s still a lot to be discovered.’
Milks & Rectangles are no strangers to offering up free EPs, Dirty Gold being their third. We don’t mind, do we? This EP shows the quartet growing up, with a little less pop than they’ve given us in the past. And you know what? It really works. They’re getting more into rocking out, getting louder and getting out there. They’ve pushed out that Two Hours Traffic reference, coming into their own skin. There’s some distance between the vocals and guitars, but it’s actually one to be enjoyed rather than to feel a disconnect.
