Currente calamo: CMW 2011 (Thursday)

CMW 2011 (Thursday)^*

While these shows are fresh in my mind I want to get some quick notes down. I'm a nerd for not wanting to throw my full reviews out of sequence, so there'll be a fuller accounting of the night by and by.

6 p.m.: The Balconies @ Sonic Boom

A good turnout during the first afternoon of a three-day mini-festival in Sonic Boom's basement, the store raising the bar once again and hosting an hourly daytime cavalcade of acts. The Balconies were making something of a spring awakening, emerging out of hibernation with a set filled with new material. The new songs leaned a bit more towards "rock" — and away from "pop" — than the stuff from their debut album that we'd gotten used to, as well as leaning more heavily on guitarist Jacquie Neville to take an even larger share of the vocals. Neither of these are a bad thing. The new songs might be a bit less immediate than their precursors, but I'm prepared to give them a good chance to grow more on me — I'm sure we'll be getting plenty of chances to see them over the next few months.

8:30 p.m.: The Wildnerness of Manitoba @ Lee's Palace

The crowd slowly filing in to Lee's wasn't too substantial at first, which meant there were less people discovering this fine band, but also meant there was enough quiet to appreciate what they were doing. They took advantage of that, front-loading some of the quieter material at the start of the set. Proud to be playing Lee's for the first time, they were mostly relying of their familiar material, though ace new one "Chasing Horses" made it into the set list. As the room filled, the band got a bit more raucous, never getting drowned out by the crowd, so hopefully some new ears were exposed to their richly harmonized sounds.

9:30 p.m.: Miracle Fortress @ Lee's Palace

It's been more than a year-and-a-half since I've checked out Graham Van Pelt's pop project, and the stuff that he was working on then has now fully gestated with a new album finally on its way. Jumping out of the gate with a strong Talking Heads vibe, the material has an 80's DOR undercarriage. Joined by a drummer on stage, Van Pelt still isn't putting on much of a show, but this time brought some high-powered lights and lasers to dazzle/blind the crowd. Not that such a distraction is necessary — he's on to a good sound, and there were a few top-notch songs here.

Listen to a track from this set here.

10:30 p.m.: Imaginary Cities @ Lee's Palace

Strangely enough, this is a band I've seen twice while waiting for Young Galaxy to play. But while they were very new and rather an unknown quality last year at NXNE, here they had a crowd of fans waiting to see them — fans enthusiastic enough to be singing along to themselves. The band was certainly more natural in their delivery than when I saw them last year, but that confidence has manifested in a bit too much bland smoothness. There's nothing wrong with their brand of soulful rock'n'roll, but it didn't really stick with me at all.

11:30 p.m.: Young Galaxy @ Lee's Palace

"It's like a new band," said singer/guitarist Stephen Ramsay, commenting on a set filled with both new material and a torqued musical approach. That's evident on their new third album Shapeshifting, and Ramsay told the crowd they were the "guinea pigs", the first to be subjected to the new live approach. Trading in anthemic guitars for more shimmery keybs, the band has metaphorically made the elemental shift from fire to water, well symbolized by singer Catherine McCandless, who was très enceinte. In the past Young Galaxy have been a bit of a hit-or-miss live proposition, but I think that the mechanized elements of the new approach are enforcing some regularity on their sound. Which has to be considered a good thing, as this was an interesting set, with even older material gaining a new disco-y sheen.

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^* A note on nomenclature: for years both the industry showcase and music festival components were known as Canadian Music Week. But as of a couple years ago, this was deemed to be too simple and straightforward, and the music portion was "rebranded" as Canadian Music Fest, under the aegis of the larger Canadian Music Week. I see no reason to put up with this and will simply refer to everything as CMW — although there was a part of me that also considered using the slightly cumbersome "Canadian Music Festival presented by Canadian Music Week" throughout.