Gushing from the same vein as Fleet Foxes, Mumford and Sons is a folky, alt-country quartet out of England, of all places. I don't often associate the UK with this particular genre, but they're doing it right. They have two four-track EPs available for purchase at www.rawrip.com. As they say on their MySpace page, "country music is the future", and, inexplicably, I must agree. It's a return to the good old days when musicians played instruments and songs told a story.

There are certain songs that take me back to high school. Anything by the Spice Girls, for example. My dear friend Sandi and I spent a lot of time listening to music. We did a lot of duetting Sarah McLachlan songs (see: Teenage Fagatron) while Sandi plucked her acoustic guitar. As years went on, our musical tastes changed. After the Lilith Fair phase, we went through the requisite Can-Rock phase, which included Our Lady Peace, The Tea Party and Moist. We attended EdgeFest. We rocked out.

In our last couple years of high school Sandi started a band and while I remember our time with The Smashing Pumpkins and Jewel, the overarching musical-memory of our teenage experience will always be her band, a pop-rock quartet who pumped out punk-lite songs about secret crushes and bitchy girls from English class. Ironically, I promise. We spent nights at gigs and weekends at indie rock festivals hosted by rural Ontario hedonist campgrounds. Or something. It was a strange and beautiful time.

Sandi's band evolved and got more intense, less poppy. They ditched their Veruca Salt overtones and got a bit dark, a bit first year college. Eventually the group disbanded; one member joined the Green Party, another got married, and the third (an inexplicably tall, blonde girl) got pregnant. Or her sister got pregnant. Or something. It's all a bit hazy.

Sandi and I moved to Toronto and she soon assembled a new band, The Guest Bedroom. Described as "brain-infecting, angular post-punk pop" (Now Magazine, NNNN) they have definitely carved out a place in the Toronto music scene. I won't gush, because Sandi wouldn't stand for it, so take a listen. If you're in the city, check them out live.

Download: "Planted" from their new EP and visit their site for more.

But while I'm walking down memory lane . . . Since preparing for our big move, I've been digging through many boxes, purging as much as I can tear myself away from. Out with old movie stubs, but in with the letters and report cards. I was also happy to stumble upon CD-Rs filled with wonderful (read: hilarious) memories. When Sandi was in college studying music production we recorded a few little songs together. Just for funsies. When we lived together we recorded one last song, a cover of Aimee Mann's "It's Not". It's a terribly low-fi glitchy little thing, but it's nice. Take a listen. Sandi and her impromptu white-girl rapping on the bridge will live in my brain as one of the best things to ever happen.

Download: "It's Not" recorded by us in our living room in 2003

If you haven't climbed on-board, come on! Allow me to satiate/convince you with one more track from Neko Case's incredible Middle Cyclone.

Download: "The Pharaohs" and head to iTunes for the rest. Seriously. You can't miss this album. Come December it'll be on all the lists and you'll feel like a fool for missing ten amazing months in its company.

Read the review I posted on These Roving Eyes for more info.




My friends and loved ones really like to rip on me about my taste in music. Jeff (whose favourite bands include Coldplay) likes to joke that I have the taste of your average Art House Lesbian. After all these years his prodding still gets me. I get my back up, reeling off the reasons why Rachael Yamagata is fantastic, or why Annie Lennox is a legend or why Neko Case is one in the making. My friend Nick got in a real good one just the other day. While listening to music, my iPod inevitably shuffles to any number of "girly" artists. In his hilarious accidentally-funny way he proclaimed: "Your iPod would make anyone get their period three days sooner." Now, while I resent the sentiment, I appreciate a zinger like nobody's business.

Neko Case releases her much-anticipated follow-up to the bananas-amazing Fox Confessor Brings the Flood on Tuesday and all I can say is: Jesus Christ. A perfect next-step, this album has a similar feel to Confessor, though stands on its own entirely. Case is an exacting musician, her phrasing and diction clean and organized, her tone effortlessly pitch-perfect. Listening on headphones (you must!) you hear every breath and each pause, utter control over every aspect of the record. That said, there's nothing robotic about her. It's simply pure talent and musicianship. And she surrounds herself with the same; guests on the record include M. Ward, Garth Hudson, Sarah Harmer, members of The New Pornographers, Los Lobos, and Calexico.

"This Tornado Loves You" gets the album started in a frantic and mildly-manic state, a runaway song convincing a man she loves him. "I miss the way you sigh yourself to sleep." With a jittering guitar under the whole thing, it races along and gets your feet stomping.

"The Next Time You Say Forever" is just shy of two minutes long. She has a way of writing chorus-less songs that just drive, leaving you wanting so much more. When each set of sounds happens just once, you pine for more. We're so used to a great harmony coming around two and three times, but Neko insists you just listen to the album on repeat if you want that. "I've been away for so long, I've lost my taste for home. And that's a dirty fallow feeling to be the dangling ceiling from when the roof came crashing down." And a wordplay mastermind to boot. Throughout her entire catalogue she dangles great runs or melodies, but sparingly. 1:16 into "Vengeance is Sleeping", a swell of harmonies never heard again makes you want it all the more.

"Polar Nettles" is a great example of something else Neko is skilled at. Sometimes the character she sings about doesn't particularly interest, the story, the setting, something doesn't grab you, but then a little detail in the music does: 1:23-in, a rattling snare drum makes this song. The first time I heard it, it caught me off-guard and I could feel my eyes widen, my smile too. My stomach dropped a little and I scanned back to hear that again. Fantastic. Those dangling moments, so unexpected.

"Did someone make a fool of me, for I can show 'em how it's done." At her best on tracks like this one ("Middle Cyclone") she sings three verses about something other than an old-timey murder, in this case, it seems, her own inability to get close to others, singing "I can't give up acting tough, it's all that I'm made of. Can't scrape together quite enough to ride the bus to the outskirts of the fact that I need love." All to a quiet guitar and the twinkling of a little girl's ballerina musicbox. Economical songwriting like this is so rare, so perfectly restrained.

Download: "Vengeance is Sleeping"

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Ray LaMontagne
Saturday Night Live: March 7, 2009

LaMontagne continues the trend of late-blooming musicians to hit it big. With a very anti-Idol lean, he joins the ranks of Kings of Leon, Neko Case and others, gaining mainstream fame after several albums and years of touring small venues and even smaller towns. His folk-blues music is exactly what I've been in the mood for the past several months. Check him out on SNL this weekend and on iTunes. In the meantime, download the title track from his latest, the lovely "Gossip in the Grain".

Gentleman Reg hails from Trenton, Ontario. A sleepy little town revolving around an army base, this place surely has something to do with who he has become. I blogged about one track on These Roving Eyes, the gorgeous "Oh My God", which has been playing endlessly in my world. The album is eclectic, to say the least, ranging from sad and introspective songs like that one all the way to bouncing dance tracks like "We're in a Thunderstorm" (download now!) While broad, the album is cohesive, his voice a distinctive and perfect thread of continuity across these varied sounds. Produced by Dave Draves (who has worked with the super Kathleen Edwards) Reg Vermue sings every song in a slightly different version of the same fey and beautiful voice, though rarely verging on more than a hard whisper. At times reminding me of a moodier Jason Schwartzman (Coconut Records) there are palpably sunny moments strewn throughout. On the album opener, "Coastline", he sings with Elizabeth Powell (Land of Talk) laying the groundwork for a California-pop fourth album. However the mood is quickly countered by track two ("To Some It Comes Easy") which reminds me something of Tegan and Sara, a herky-jerky sing-along, a touch darker, he says "I hope for something that I still can't find." The album easily moves between these two worlds, the frothy and the quiet bedroom stuff I love so much.

I often put music into seasons: Winter Music would include the likes of Julie Doiron and Catpower, while Summer Music features Jill Scott, Estelle and Madonna. Jet Black is the kind of album you can listen to year-round - Light enough to pair with a gin and tonic but rich enough to hunker down with during the coldest months. If you haven't already, look into Gentleman Reg's entire catalogue on iTunes.


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