Dancing In The Dark
Dancing In The Dark

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Frank YangFrequently when picking covers for the week, I like to choose unexpected combinations of artists and tunes that might reveal heretofore hidden influences or depths of meaning. And sometimes, it’s just so obvious that you can’t NOT go with it. This is one of those times.

Ted Leo and Bruce Springsteen – both proud sons of New Jersey (okay Ted was born in Indiana but he grew up in the Garden State) and…

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Vacationing People
Early Warnings
Free Energy
Hope Child

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MySpaceWe’d gotten off pretty clean so far here in Toronto with respect to Winter weather, but while it’s hardly a snowpocalypse out there the last couple of days, it seems our run of clean sidewalks and dry feet is finally done – with less than a month left, formally, of Winter. Help, however, is on the way. Not in the form of a renegade chinook somehow making it across the entire continent, but…

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Modern Drift

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Nikolaj Holm MollerWord is that earlier works from Denmark’s Efterklang tilted much more towards the experimental than their just-released third effort and 4AD debut Magic Chairs. And though Magic Chairs is hardly a collection of 3-minute, radio-friendly pop songs – it’s filled with typically Scandinavian twists and turns – it’s suffused with enough rich melodies and sweeping orchestrations to make keep it rooted firmly in heart rather than head. If they were more cerebral on past works, they’re certainly…

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Albatross
Serious Bedtime
By Morning
Sole Brother
Giving Birth To Imagined Saviors
I’m Gone
What Needs Must Be
I Built Myself A Metal Bird (Live VIdeo Version)

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Chris GergleyOne of my very favourite developments in the Toronto music scene over the past few years has been the rise of the in-store performance – whereas not so long ago there were maybe just a handful a year, they’re now occurring all the time at most of the independent record stores in the city and featuring bigger…

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Dream About Me
Electrocution
Let’s Go Fucking Mental
End Of The World

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Josh EustisHaving quite successfully reaped the benefits of the “give it all away for free” ethos with their debut album In Her Gentle Jaws, given away as a free download from their website starting in late 2007 before making available for sale on CD and vinyl late last year, Brooklyn synth-rockers The Depreciation Guild have announced plans to release their sophomore effort Spirit Youth on May 18, presumably in “yeah you have…

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Change Of Heart
Change Of Heart
Glory To The World
Anna
Watch The Waves
I Think I Need It To

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Frank YangThere’d been some underlying confusion surrounding Sunday night’s show at the Mod Club since it was announced. First it was El Perro Del Mar. Then it was El Perro Del Mar and Anna Ternheim. Then it was El Perro Del Mar, Taken By Trees and Anna Ternheim. Then it was El Perro Del Mar and Taken By Trees. Then it was Taken By…

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Let Me Drive
Paul Simon
The Flood, Pt 1
Tom Cruz
Chicago
Your Hands (Together)

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Yannick GrandmontIt’s a bit eerie, but with the exception of an in-store in a couple weeks, details noted further down, I’ve got nothing going on in the way of live music for more two weeks until Canadian Musicfest starts on March 11. And that’s really just fine with me, because the double-shot of CMW/CMF and SxSW was exhausting when I was a younger man – these days, I am going…

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When I’m Small

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Frank YangFor solo artists, it’s easy. Either play alone and keep things stripped down and simple (or, as is becoming more fashionable, looped) or gather up a band. Duos, however, are more and more inclined to try and make a go of it without hired help, particularly duos who’re already heavily reliant on technology for their studio efforts – after all, you don’t have to feed a laptop. And if the cost of that convenience…

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Baby’s On Fire

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Frank YangMaking the decision to start buying vinyl again late last year – for reasons of artifact fetishism, audio quality and just wanting to go buy stuff in record stores again – has been tougher than expected to follow through on than expected because, well, people keep sending me CDs. Yeah yeah, hard life. Acts like Shearwater, however, make it easier to enjoy both as the shiny plastic and vinyl versions of their new record…

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Midnight At The Movies

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Frank YangFrom the moment I first heard him sing one of his own compositions as the final track of Just An American Boy, the 2003 soundtrack/live album from his father and at the time bandleader Steve, it was clear that Justin Townes Earle had more going for him than just a famous surname. And since beginning his own solo career in 2007, it’s something he’s proven over and over again.

Though his work honours and reflects…

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Babies

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Lev KupermanBrookyln’s Via Audio have a pretty good claim to fame in being able to point to Spoon drummer Jim Eno as producer of both their full-length albums; 2007’s Say Something and their new one Animalore, due out on March 9. But don’t be expecting skeletally lean and stabby guitar rock – though some lessons in aural economy have been carried over, Animalore favours much lusher sounds and spins Via Audio’s playful guitar-pop in a decidedly retro-funky direction, dressing Jessica Martins…

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Reflection Of The Television
Follow the Map
Ashes In The Snow
Juliette
Road Regrets
Jasper
Icarus
No Logic
Subtractions
Percussion Gun
I Can Talk
Something Good Can Work

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Frank YangSome sad news out of Scotland this week when it was announced that Twilight Sad bassist Craig Orzel had decided to leave the band, effective immediately. He announced his departure in a blog post, though it’s not really clear what “waking up baw deep in a granny” means and if that had any effect on his decision.

Though losing a founding member…

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Two
Two
Bear
The Universe Is Going To Catch You
On The Roof
Stairs To The Attic
Cold War
Keys
The Mighty Sparrow
Laissez les Bon Temps Rouler

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Frank YangEditors are from Birmingham in the UK and are weathering criticism for daring to mess with their sonic formula on their latest effort In This Light And On This Evening. The Antlers are from Brooklyn in the USA and are basking in acclaim and ever-growing attention in the wake of last year’s Hospice. Two bands who wouldn’t appear to have…

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Battle Of 77
Shake & Bake For Goodness-Sake

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Frank YangJust one question for everyone at Lee’s Palace for Mumford & Sons on Monday night. Where did you all come from?

This question doesn’t just come from the fact that this band – whose debut album Sigh No More was only just released in North America yesterday and who were conducting this super-short, four-date North American tour without, at least to my knowledge, any major promotional push – had sold out Lee’s Palace,…

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Good Morning
Overnite Religion
Hunchback
Stranded

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MySpaceRogue Wave’s 2003 debut Out Of The Shadow was aptly named, considering they’d spend the first few years of their existence trying to accomplish just that from their labelmates The Shins. Both helped Sub Pop shed its hard rock reputation and redefine itself as the go-to label for quality indie-pop, but it was The Shins that busted out into mainstream success while Rogue Wave toiled away to just modest acclaim.

Fast-forward a few (or more than a few years)…

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Empty Hall Sing-Along
Morningside
Knock Knock
A Moment’s Peace For Mary Christa O’Keefe
Love In The Time Of Hopscotch
Oberkampf
Lay All Your Love On Me
Dissembler

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Frank YangI don’t really want to have to quote myself, but I kind of have to point to my writeup of Woodpigeon’s last visit to Toronto for NXNE 2009 to reinforce the fact that in all the times I’ve seen them perform – four or five as of this show – it has been an almost completely different band and/or…

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Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight

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Frank YangLondon quartet Mumford & Sons know how to work that banjo. It’s key to adding the bluegrass-y tint to the rousing folk-indie rock of their debut Sigh No More, and particularly effectively in this Beatles cover they recorded in session for BBC’s The Radcliffe and Maconie Show last November. The medley selection from side two of Abbey Road begins with Marcus Mumford’s yearning rasp giving “Golden Slumbers” its gravitas, then as it segues into “Carry That Weight”,…

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you are far(do you exist?)
Inside The cinema
Facelove
Lion Face Boy
Four Score And Seven
Four Score And Seven
Of Foam And Wave

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Bil ZelmanHaving initially only announced tour dates in short, hesitant steps, Denton, Texas-based folk-pop revivalists Midlake have taken a deep breath, counted to ten, and slated an extensive North American tour in support of their new record The Courage Of Others that will include a local stop on May 21 at the Mod Club.

Though highly-anticipated, Courage is not drawing the sort of unanimous acclaim…

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Ghosts
Kingfisher

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Frank YangHad Tuesday night’s Laura Marling show taken place at originally-intended venue of the Drake Underground rather than its final locale of Lee’s Palace (just under three times larger), then there’d have been throngs of disappointed fans either milling around outside the Parkdale hotel or moping at home instead of nearly packing the Annex club (and burrito outlet), eager to hear Marling preview material from her forthcoming second album I Speak Because I Can, due out April 6.…

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King Of Spain
Semaphore
The Pharmacy

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MySpaceWhy lead with Hot Chip? Well nothing else especially newsworthy came down the pipe yesterday and their new one One Life Stand came out this week. I’ve been spinning it moderately the last little while, though not enough to try and assemble a proper review. Sufficed to say that while I’ve never been a massive Hot Chip fan in the past and this effort doesn’t sound/feel too different from what I recall of their earlier…

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Everything Is One Big Christmas
Book Of Love
Bluebird
Decepticon Island Optimists Club
Heaven’s On Fire
Answer To Yourself
Luna
Finish Line

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Frank YangIf I’m being totally honest, I wasn’t that excited for last night’s Magnetic Fields show at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre. After all, their last few records didn’t especially bowl me over and I was feeling somewhat pessimistic about what to expect from a performer who’s very much on record as being disdainful of the entire phenomenon of live performance.

I had seen them before…

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Empty-Hall Sing-Along

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Wilkosz + WayUnder normal circumstances, it’d be logical to consider the record that followed a band’s breakthrough album through the lens of how those successes might have affected their creative process and output. You can’t quite do that in the case of Woodpigeon’s newest record Die Stadt Muzikanten, however, because even though its predecessor Treasury Library Canada was the album that brought the Calgary outfit national recognition via the Polaris Prize long list, Muzikanten was already completed and in the…

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Nothing Matters When We’re Dancing

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The AntlersNot done with the Magnetic Fields covers yet, nope. They’re so rarely active and there’s so many great re-interpretations of Stephin Merritt’s compositions that when I get the chance to post some of them, I’m going to run with it.

And this is one of my favourite Magnetic Fields covers that, until recently, I didn’t even know I had. It comes from The Antlers, whom while preparing their 2009 breakthrough record Hospice, released a…

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for You
Love More
Book Of Love
Easy
Red Light Love

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Michael PalmieriWhen I wrote up Sharon Van Etten’s debut album Because I Was In Love back in October, I felt a bit bad about giving it just a passing mention as I liked it more than just a sentence or two might have implied. But at the time my web hosting was self-destructing and I wanted to get something out there before her local appearance opening for Rain Machine, so a cursory mention…

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Change Of Heart
Change Of Heart
Anna
Repetition

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The Control GroupSadness is Sarah Assbring’s stock in trade, a point I’ve rather drilled home in my reviews of her output as El Perro Del Mar – the 2007 self-title and 2008’s From The Valley To The Stars. While both records were beautiful in their downbeat demeanor, you couldn’t help but hope that Assbring would find a way to cheer up, if only for her own emotional well-being.

Unfortunately for Assbring – but fortunately for her listeners –…

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