Sunday Playlist #36
Gabe Levine - Shake Out Your Shoes
Imaginary Cities - Temporary Resident
Sunday Playlist is a semi-regular feature that brings back some of this blog's previously-posted original live recordings for an encore. You can always click the tags below to see what I originally wrote about the shows these songs came from.
Artist: Imaginary Cities
Song: Say Us
Recorded at Lee's Palace (CMW 2011), March 10, 2011.
Imaginary Cities - Say UsMy notes for this set can be found here.
CMW 2011* (Thursday) (feat. The Wilderness of Manitoba / Miracle Fortress / Imaginary Cities / Young Galaxy)
Thursday, March 10, 2011.
This is an expansion of my initial notes from the festival, which can be found here.
8:00 P.M.: The Wilderness of Manitoba @ Lee's Palace
For their first time at Lee's, these local folk harmonizers were happy to be playing in their own backyard ("just a twenty minute walk from our house"), making for an easier time than the bands coming from all around the world. They were also playing, at the outset, to a crowd that they could have fit in their house, facing the that typical festival early-slot slightly antiseptic sight of an empty-ish bar with about a half-dozen camera-toting types in front of the stage, snapping away — and not much else.
Showing some awareness of the environment they'd be playing in, the band put together a very well-constructed setlist. After starting with "Hermit", just to announce themselves, they followed with a few quieter songs while the room was quiet — "The Great Hall" got a very nice reading — and after that ramping it up as the place filled in, ending with their more rambunctious material. That meant Will Whitwham's vocals weren't lost along the chatter too much. There was also a nice mix of older and newer material, with "Evening" and the fine new "Chasing Horses" rubbing shoulders before the set closed out with a rollicking version of "Dreamcatchers".1
Listen to a track from this set here.
9:00 P.M.: Miracle Fortress @ Lee's Palace
"We'd like to introduce you to some new songs," said Graham Van Pelt as he finished his preparations. True to his word, he presented a set filled with material that would emerge a couple months later on sophomore album Was I the Wave?. He also brought his own lights, laser-y pinpoints that zigzagged around the dancefloor, occasionally blinding audience members with direct light blasts2 while leaving the stage almost entirely in darkness. The Remain in Light-ish textures of "Tracers", including an extended instrumental intro, showed off Van Pelt's new sound, which brings a definite unified sensibility, although a rather different one than he displayed on his first album. Although I'd had a hint that this was the direction he was going in, one got the sense that some people in the crowd were disappointed that it was different songs and a different sound that what they already knew.
Also on stage was drummer Greg Napier, who also plays alongside Van Pelt in Think About Life as well as in his own project Special Noise. Right up front and facing the singer, he was turned perpendicular to the crowd — a layout that may well bring to mind Woodhands, which can only raise unflattering comparisons to that band's Paul Banwatt. Here, rather than driving things, Napier felt more like window-dressing, adding accents to the rhythm tracks. The show could have gone on without him, but he did add some kineticism on stage.
It turned out to be a relatively quick set — just five songs — ending with the I'll-House-You-isms of "Raw Spectacle". But it was certainly enough to make a bold statement of what his new album would be like.
Listen to a track from this set here.
10:00 P.M.: Imaginary Cities @ Lee's Palace
Weirdly enough, when I had previously seen Winnipeg's Imaginary Cities, it was also while I was waiting to see Young Galaxy. And the most glib evaluation I could give of them would be to say that they are a pleasant diversion to pass the time while you wait for another band.
That last time 'round they were pretty new as a unit and a generally unknown quality, their biggest calling card being Rusty Matyas' known affiliations with The Waking Eyes and as a touring member of The Weakerthans. But less than a year later, they definitely had a few woo-hooing fans, and, impressively, one dude who stood up front, mouthing all the lyrics to himself.
And there were signs of a band with a lot more miles on the road — "Say You" had a bit more belt to it, and the band presented with more swagger generally. Marti Sarbit's soul-referencing vocal stylings are the band's best feature, and she was in good form here.
Some of the material felt like stuck-in-first ballad-fodder, like "Where'd all the Living Go" — even if it gave Matyas and the bassist a chance to show off some co-ordinated "rock" moves. And it was good to see that the band is expanding their songbook with new material like "Cherry Blossom Tree" and "Marry the Sea", but maybe because the set was front-loaded with the older, road-tested stuff and the latter part with more of their newer songs that I found it most pleasant at the start followed by diminishing returns.
They certainly put their all into it. By the time the band went out with slow-dance "That's Where it's at Sam", Sarbit sounded winded. And they'd clearly won over a few more people, though ultimately it just doesn't seem like they're fated to have a particularly electrifying effect on me.
Listen to a track from this set here.
11:00 P.M.: Young Galaxy @ Lee's Palace
Swapping fire for water, Young Galaxy decided to push themselves out of their safety zone, reinventing themselves with a glossier, more-dancefloor/less-rock sound on their Shapeshifting album, which they were launching with a quick tour before pausing for some parental leave. And though it is a sonic departure, it's also a continuing evolution from where they had been. Including, for example, in the increased reliance on Catherine McCandless as the lead vocalist, announced here right from the start on "Blown Minded". She has a striking vocal presence, and puts a more unique stamp on the music than partner Stephen Ramsay. For this show, whether it was the challenge of playing new songs with a new lineup or the added wrinkle of being pronouncedly pregnant, she wasn't quite nailing all her marks here — "Phantoms", for example, felt like it was just hinting at its potential.
"It's all so new for us. It's like a new band, basically... it's the first time we've played these songs live." said Ramsay, who was still in top form in handling the bulk of the banter. Now a five-piece, Ramsay (guit) and McCandless (keyb and electronics) were joined by an additional keyboard player, bass and drums, and for this being the first show for this incarnation of the live band, it went generally well. That Ramsay was pretty open about it all ("we're not slick yet... so thanks for your kindness.") made it feel more endearing than stiff.
"This is the dance test," Ramsay said before "Peripheral Visionaries", and after an opening shapeshift-y trio of songs, there was an "old one", with "Queen Drum" to act as a reminder of the past. Even it had some additional electronic textures in the background, and in another switch, "Long Live the Fallen World", which had served as set closer for the past while, had been supplanted by "B.S.E.". That'd be "Black Swan Event" to the less acronym-minded, and its refrain of being "intoxicated by re-invention" was sort of the key to the whole thing.
Listen to a track from this set here.
* A note on nomenclature: for years both the industry showcase and music festival components were known as Canadian Music Week. But as of 2009, 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 Fest presented by Canadian Music Week" throughout.
1 No pending live dates for the band, but if you're seasonally inclined, they've just released a couple xmas songs.
2 Miracle Fortress: come for the songs, stay for the free laser eye surgery! It should be noted that at CMW, with so many media types around, a standing-in-the-dark type of stage presentation often has the unintended effect of forcing the photogs to break out the flash, kinda undermining the effect.
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.
* 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.
Artist: Imaginary Cities
Song: Temporary Resident
Recorded at The Mod Club, June 17, 2010. (NXNE 2010)
Imaginary Cities - Temporary ResidentMy notes for this set can be found here.
NXNE — North by Northeast Festival, Toronto, 2010.
Thursday, June 17, 2010. Featuring: Imaginary Cities, Young Galaxy, The Besnard Lakes
7 P.M.: Imaginary Cities @ The Mod Club
Into the Mod Club just a tick before seven o'clock. Pretty quiet inside for the early show.1 I wasn't here to see Imaginary Cities so much as because there weren't a lot of other options at this hour. And anyways, this was where I wanted to be later on.
Imaginary Cities, taking the stage at seven sharp, turned out to have a familiar face in Rusty Matyas (of Winnipeg rockers The Waking Eyes, and recently passing through town as a touring member of The Weakerthans), who had formed the band in partnership with singer Marti Sarbit. Some supplemental reading informs that the band came together after the pair bonded over some classic soul covers, and that influence comes out strongly in Sarbit's vocals. But the band isn't merely some sort of Motown revival vehicle — the sound was generally soulful, but without resorting to over-the-top signifiers. Maybe call it "trucker hat soul", after the most popular headgear on stage. They did take from their R&B influences a likable penchant for quick, punchy songs — the band packed eight in their half-hour set — but there were also a lot of other things in the mix. "Calm Before the Storm", for example, simmered nicely in almost a trip-hop way, featuring Matyas' agreeable trumpet at the end.
Sarbit was more than a capable vocalist, animating the songs without overdoing it. And the band — still a fairly new unit — were competent, growing towards the end of the set towards more of a big guitar rock sound.2 Given the vox and musical performance, it felt like the material was the weakest link, as the songs didn't really stick with me. There's a solid base here, so let's propose that there's still room for growth. And in the meantime, they were fun enough to listen to.3
Listen to a song from this set here.
8 P.M.: Young Galaxy @ The Mod Club
Things were now filling in pretty well for what would be an extraordinarily loud set from Young Galaxy.4
Besides the volume, the band also had some Electric Company-ish animated projections behind them. All of which is suitable, as this is a band whose musical vision implies some spectacle. Singer/keyb player Catherine McCandless certainly knows this, and brought a sequin-y dress and some dramatic, back-lit gestures to accompany her vocals, which have arguably become the best thing about the Montréal-based band.
The set started off with "Invisible Republic" which segued into "Sister", one of the highlights from last year's top-notch Invisible Republic.5 "Come and See" was dedicated to The Besnard Lakes6 — that and set-closer "The Alchemy Between Us" would be the only selections in the set from the band's self-titled debut. "Long Live the Fallen World" ended with a lively raveup while the band also debuted a new song, "We Have Everything", a mid-tempo number with lead vox from McCandless that would fall more towards the "pop" end of the band's spectrum. An interesting number, but it felt like it was building towards a chorus that wasn't there.
A solid set, which might sound like faint praise, save for the fact that I was underwhelmed the last time I saw 'em and was glad to see a stronger spark here. Once again I kinda had that sense that there wasn't that same on-stage excellence that had first won me over to the band. On the other hand, if Young Galaxy have reached the point where they're more impressive in the studio than on the stage, I'd take that, given the high level that they're at there. Word is the band is striking while the iron is hot, with their third album slated for release early next year, and I am looking forward to that.
Listen to a track from this set here.
9 P.M.: The Besnard Lakes @ The Mod Club
After that chest-shaking set, I was wondering how loud The Besnard Lakes — a band known to like their volume — was going to be. The band, just by virtue of their milieu, tend to get labelled "indie rock", but sonically they're pure stadium-sized classic rock, more suited to an FM station playing full album sides than to a playlist. Singer/guitarist Jace Lasek certainly courts these kinds of associations, rocking a look that falls somewhere between Ian Hunter in 1973 and Chicago pitcher Steve Trout.7 There's also a certain Devil's Boogaloo Ball vibe that the band likes to invoke, including the use of a rather large amount of dry ice, which filled the stage to the intoning voice of Carl Sagan's Cosmos as the band took the stage. They started with an unrushed Floyd-ian intro to "Like The Ocean, Like The Innocent" (the leadoff track to this year's ... Are the Roaring Night) which segued into "Devastation", with Olga Goreas — who had emerged onto the stage wearing devil horns — on lead vocals.
The set was pretty focused on the new album, only reaching back for "Disaster" and the tasty "And You Lied To Me" (from 2007's breakthrough ...Are the Dark Horse) nearly an hour into the set. In fact, we might not have even gotten those, save for the fact that the headliners weren't getting the regular showcase half-hour-ish NXNE set. This seemed to surprise Lasek as much as anyone else, as he asked between songs "we don't have to stop at 9:40?" Told they could keep going, Lasek promptly promised a three-hour set, and the band celebrated by playing "Chicago Train", which wasn't in their setlist. Lush and downtempo over its first half, one could see why this might not make it into the compact set, but it was a nice change of pace here. The best one-two punch came with single "Albatross" followed up by "And This Is What We Call Progress", which had a pleasingly evil undertow to its groove. All told, the band actually played seventy minutes, and that included a one-song encore of "Land of Living Skies".
A satisfying set, and a nice reminder. It had been quite awhile since I'd paid any attention to the band, their new one slipping past me for one reason or another, so there was a sense of rediscovery. It didn't make me fall in love with them or anything — I'm still more of a casual admirer than a fan. I can dig the powerful volume and the bombast, but that's not something I'm looking for all the time. Jace Lasek's falsetto even less so. But still, the band do what they do exceedingly well, and deserve all the success that they're finding.
Listen to a track from this set here.
1 Although as the opening band, Imaginary Cities didn't get as much of an audience to impress, the uncrowded area in front of the stage and the venue's bazillion-watt lighting rig meant that it was open season for photographers, who were out in force for this set. So if nothing else, this should be a particularly well-documented show for the band.
2 Although the keybs could have been notched up higher in the mix.
3 For those who would like to check 'em out for themselves, the band has a couple local dates coming up: October 5 at The Dakota (with Peter Elkas) and October 7 at The Horseshoe.
4 Seriously — when the The Mod Club start getting so loud? There comes a point of diminishing returns for so much volume — and, frankly, something of a public health risk, even for patrons wearing ear plugs, which, fortunately at this show, I noticed many were.
5 The would-be title track, it should be noted, is not from the album, but rather from the follow-up digital No Art EP.
6 The two bands are frequent touring partners, and Besnard Lakes frontman Jace Lasek has done production work on both of Young Galaxy's albums.
7 Not, however, that the band aren't any sort of devout recreationists of past sounds. Lasek also had a laptop close at hand to run some sound manipulations, to give one example.
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