For whatever reason, I've never gotten into Belle and Sebastian.  Like books and movies, oh-so-long is the list of music I can't seem to get around to.  Stuart Murdoch (of B&S) has put together an amazing project due out in early June on Matador.  While running he had a tune in his head he knew wasn't right for his band; it was a vivid wall of doop-woppy girl-group vocals and a 45-piece orchestra.  Culling together nine amazing vocalists (most notably, Catherine Ireton who worked with Belle and Sebastian in 2006) he recorded the album that had been ringing in his head for the better part of 5 years.  He calls it God Help the Girl and this YouTube clip tells you all about it.

The first single, "Come Monday Night" starts out sounding like something Snow White might trill amongst the wild flowers.  It then kicks into classic old school pop, riffing on the throwback-stylings of M. Ward and Zooey Deschanel's Volume I, though moodier and less California.  If the debut has all the perfect pop of the single with just a bit more melancholic Scottishness, I suspect we'll be hearing a lot about God Help the Girl.  

Download: "Come Monday Night"

(While you're at it, check out Ireton's band, The Go Away Birds for a free download.  While it doesn't excite me half as much as GHTG, I do enjoy Ireton's voice.)

The first CD I ever owned was the soundtrack to the hit show Friends. It was the mid-90s, I was in grade eight and it came alongside my very first CD player on my 13th birthday. After breaking the ice with that amazing compilation I came upon Bjork's Post and unknown hours wailing "Hyperballad". In there somewhere I backtracked all over Sinead O'Connor's catalogue and Annie Lennox released Medusa helping me realize an uncontrollable love for the genre I lovingly refer to as 80s Drama Rock. Amid all the music I love so much, this corner might be my favourite, the one that elicits the most shoulder moves and chills down my spine. I'm not sure what it is, I just love it.

I recently posted about Bat for Lashes' new album Two Suns and have been listening like crazy. Pulling together obvious influences (reverential rather than bastardized, I assure you) like those mentioned above, Natasha Khan seems to come by it all so naturally. Born in the late 70s, perhaps she came up like I did - always lying in wait for her parents to leave the house so she could blast Sinead's "Jerusalem" or "Troy" while throwing herself around her bedroom like some kind of disabled modern dancer. Or maybe that was just me. Whatever the case, Khan seems to be soaked in the sounds she employs, never verging on put-on or disingenuous.

A great next-step from her debut, the Mercury-nominated Fur and Gold, her follow-up is rich and fully-realized, ranging from early (and also Choirgirl-era) Tori Amos through to more modern, danceable artists like Roisin Murphy. The through line is a plethora of organic instruments, heavy bass lines and fantastical programming. She and co-producer David Kosten (who also worked on her debut) layer in seemingly endless amounts of atmospheric background sounds, all adding up to anything but a sophomore slump - theatrical, big and dynamic. I don't call it 80s Drama Rock for nothing. But for all the epic songs, there are a few smaller ones too - On "Moon and Moon" it's mainly piano and voice, a beautiful and cryptic song. "Siren Song" starts out meditative and then grows, exploding into a piano-driven timpani-thumper. I live for this.

The album is available on iTunes now - In the meantime check out these, the album-opener "Glass" and the beautiful "Moon and Moon".

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Patrick Watson is one of the bands I've discovered in recent years who has made it onto the list. It's ever-growing, but limited to those who really get me good. The ever-growing part excites me, suggesting music is getting better. Or perhaps my tastes are changing and with more genres to pluck from I'm finding more greatness. Whatever the case, it's an amazing time in popular music.

Their follow-up to 2006's Close to Paradise (for which they won the Polaris Prize - Canada's Mercury) continues in a similar direction. No major shifts, really, though it's got its own energy. While Paradise felt like a gigantic opus of grand sounds, Wooden Arms has a few more moments of quietness, smallness. On "Man Like You" it's downright tiny, just vocals and an acoustic guitar, an album high-point, Watson's voice reaching into the highest parts of his limitless upper-range.

While slightly more intimate than their last effort, this one loses none of the manic, driving intensity. If you've ever heard an interview with the guys from the band, their surprisingly easy-going. I would have thought they'd be boorishly intellectual, but no. They are kind of dopey and quirky, actually.

With just enough blips and blops to satisfy my secret love of Space Rock, Wooden Arms moves through a lot of influences - Everything from cinematic orchestral ("Hommage") to plucky country on "Big Bird in a Small Cage" through to circus-dirge on "Traveling Salesman". It's one of those albums that grows with each listen, new sounds heard each time. While not everyone's cup of tea, I'm sure, it's definitely mine and will be on my playlist for many years to come.

Download: "Man Like You"

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No Doubt is back with the first new song from their much-anticipated follow-up to 2001's Rock Steady. It's a cover, but that's okay. Adam and the Ants' "Stand and Deliver" gets the No Doubt treatment, and it makes me feel so old to think that, while singing a song from the 80s, Gwen and Co. sound so retro in their own right. I can remember being in grade nine listening to Tragic Kingdom, front to back, for months on end, single after spaghetti-covered single. And now I imagine sitting in the car, "Sunday Morning" blasting on the radio, whooping it up with Jeff, while our kids roll their eyes collectively.

Download: "Stand and Deliver"

Patrick Watson's new album, Wooden Arms, has leaked. I am so excited.

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.

I was one of those teenage fagatrons who liked Tori Amos. In recent years, my love has greatly diminished. 2007's American Doll Posse promised a return-to-form, though fell short due to a total lack of editing. There are some great tracks ("Big Wheel", "Boucing off Clouds") buried under so much junk ("Fat Slut") that the whole thing was a first class bummer.

She's about to release her tenth album, the obnoxiously-titled Abnormally Attracted to Sin. The first single ("Welcome to England") takes me back to the glory days of From the Choirgirl Hotel, my personal favourite in her catalogue and something I still listen to triennially. Fool me once (Fat slut!) shame on me, but fool me twice, Tori Amos, and shame on you! This song makes me have high-hopes. Skeptical ones.

Download: "Welcome to England"

Julie Doiron's new album I Can Wonder What You Did With Your Day starts and ends enthusiastically, with "Life of Dreams", a plucky minute-and-a-half complete with bird-chirps, and "Glad to be Alive", a list of reasons she's . . . well, you know. If you're a fan, your heart swells upon first listen; anyone who has followed her knows of her emotional ups and downs, so to hear her sound up is like knowing a dear friend is in a good place. This collection runs the gamut between her early 90s noise and her more-recent skeleton-purging autobiography.

Doiron is as straight forward as they come. No bullshit, she's a genuine lady whose made a serious mark on the Canadian music landscape. From her early days in Eric's Trip to the misery-ridden era under the Broken Girl moniker to Indie Soccer Mom moments on more recent albums, she writes and records from a startlingly raw place. Few modern artists are as laid-bare, sometimes to the point of indiscretion. There's almost nothing we don't know about her, from her issues with booze to her children to her recent divorce. Somehow it never reads as self-indulgent, but rather, a reminder to note the particulars of daily life, or sometimes as a cautionary tale.

This album is, often, considerably more amped-up than recent releases. With nods to her days in Eric's Trip, she shouts and sings in full-voice atop a band full of guitars and drums and a cacophany of fuzz. (It might seem strange to those who don't know her, but suggesting she sings in more than a whisper is saying something. In concert, crowds are hushed as she fumbles charmingly through her catalogue and awkward stories between. It's one of the most intimate concert experiences available, catch it if you can.) "Consolation Prize" is full-on, and, for me, edging into a genre I have trouble with. Picks scraping along strings and the sound of a rotary telephone being thrown through an amp are just a bit hard for me to get behind, and perhaps even a bit overwrought. I'll likely stick to songs like "Blue", a ghostly dirge laced with harmonies. "Heavy Snow" bridges the two perfectly.

For me there are artists who can do no wrong. Julie Doiron is one of them. While my favourite part of her discography will likely always remain the gorgeous 2002 companions Heart and Crime and Desormais, I appreciate it all. Everything from Julie sounds like a secret, and thus, an honour to be privy to.

Download: "Blue"

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You might remember Keri Hilson from Timbaland's cameo-heavy Shock Value (2007). She sang some fierce-ass vocals on "The Way I Are" and definitely made an impression on my pop sensibilities. She finally releases her debut solo album, In a Perfect World and rather than being the lick-vocal artist tearing up the background, she has a slew of big names backing her up; Kanye (back to rapping for all you 808s haters), Keyshia, Ne-Yo and Timbaland (who produced the album) make appearances on the album Brandy should have released this year but missed the mark on with Human. With Perfect World she's set to make the move from background vocalist and songwriter-to-the-stars to front woman. I'm ready for a hot new pop album. If summer is on the way, I need something to drink gin to by the beach while my shoulders bounce. This might be it.

Download: Knock You Down (feat. Kanye West and Ne-Yo)

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Metric - Fantasies (2009)
Gold Guns Girls

A rockin' song. Even though Emily Haines is a giant asshole, she tends to produce good music.

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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I love album art. The speed and convenience of digital downloads has made me a major iTunes user so I haven't purchased a hardcopy CD in two years.

I miss the excitement of unwrapping a new album, flipping through the pages of liner notes, reading the lyrics front to back. I do not miss trying to get past that awful clear sticker that seals the CD closed.

The Hazards of Love, by The Decemberists, will be released on March 24.

Dan Auerbach (of The Black Keys) released his first solo album recently. I offhandedly saw The Black Keys once when they opened for Sleater-Kinney at the Opera House and remember thinking they were tight and great and, while most openers leave you wanting to get on with it, I was happy to have heard them. The two-piece from Akron, Ohio packs a punch mixing blues and swagger-rock with low-fi garage noise.

Auerbach's solo material is more refined, though no less cocksure. With more tremolo, wawa, and stompy-drums than you think possible, a lazy-comparison would be the Grammy-centric debut-duets on Robert Plant and Alison Krauss' Raising Sand. Like that one, Auerbach's Keep It Hid is sultry and Southern, confident and thick, but rougher. It starts out quietly on "Trouble Weighs a Ton" where he asks: "What's wrong, dear brother? Have you lost your faith? Don't you remember a better place?" It feels like a classic, old and lived-in. Moving right along, the album takes a turn and gets downright sexy on "I Want Some More", the inner-monologue of a dirtbag from Ohio. In a good way. You can't help but conjure images from a Time-Life commercial featuring Songs of Memphis, bands like Cream, Zeppelin or Stevie Ray Vaughn scrolling across the television. But while stirring up the 60s and 70s world of deep-south, soul-soaked rock, it's totally current.

It should be said, I'm as surprised by my recent love affair with this genre as anyone who knows me. Never underestimate the power of great music.

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Get a taste of the album with a bit from both ends of the spectrum and visit iTunes for more from Dan Auerbach and his band The Black Keys. Pick up Krauss and Plant's Raising Sand while you're there. Definitely one of the best albums in recent memory.






Dan Auerbach - Trouble Weighs a Ton
Dan Auerbach - Heartbroken, In Disrepair

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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