Category: Music

The Hillside music festival appears to have a very low profile in the blogosphere… curious, because it’s one of the best I’ve attended. I suspect it’s just a way of keeping a good festival for the locals, and fending off the Toronto hordes. A very low-key festival, a great lineup and a nice location on an island in Guelph Lake. The only trick is getting tickets – they sell out of weekend passes in a matter of hours, and tickets sell out in under a week. And that’s in April, two months before they’ve even announced the lineup.

Anyways, my highlights from the festival this year:

• woodhands. Great electro, playing to a thrilled and bouncing crowd. Watching the geeks crowdsurf was well worth the time
• patrick watson. An intriguingly loose and brave rock crew, fresh from a Polaris prize win. Very interesting sound, and great percussion.
• the clues. This Montreal group played a super-tight, slick rock/pop set, but were clearly off-kilter from the weather. A massive thunderclap/lightning strike forced the stage crew to power everything down minutes before their set, and the reboot clearly harmed the band’s polished sound setup and cut a deep hole in their playlist. Too bad – they were excellent.
• great lakes swimmers. I’ve heard the buzz, but never seen these introverted folkies. Nice, sweet, and a little reminiscent of Sufjan Stevens.
• the tallboys. You won’t find a disc in the name of these jazz profs and studio musicians, but they played a great set.

My musical listening time has diminished dramatically in the last year, since I finished my graduate degree and moved to full-time work in the transportation field. Unlike my past jobs, my work does not involve extended periods of concentration at a computer with the headphones on, and I don’t take in nearly as much music.

The main musical event of 2008 was a trip to Guelph Lake for the Hillside festival, with a great lineup—Broken Social Scene, Harry Manx and many many more over the course of a full weekend.

At any rate, I did put together a quick mix of some recent favourites for myself and anyone who’d care to hear it. Drop me a line to hear the mix.

1. amon tobin. people like frank. jazzy drum & bass, from permutations, 1998.
2. xploding plastix. more powah to yah. jazzy drum & bass, from amateur girlfriends go proskirt agents, 2001.
3. v.l.a.d. transcom_t.v. techno, from D, 2002.
4. mouse on mars. untitled states of. ambient / experimental, from agit itter it it, 2001.
5. ml. sidedish. experimental, from everyone looks like somebody else, 2002.
6. elliott smith. independence day. pop, from xo, 1998.
7. harry manx. only then will your house be blessed. blues / world, from wise and otherwise, 2002.
8. sufjan stevens. romulus. folk, from greetings from michigan! the great lakes state, 2003.
9. yppah. again with the subtitles. downtempo, from ninja tune: you don’t know, 2008.
10. radiohead. reckoner. rock / experimental, from in rainbows, 2007.
11. kevin drew. fcked up kid. rock, from spirit if…, 2007.
12. feist. past in present. pop, from the reminder, 2007.
13. hot chip. playboy. soul / electro, from future sounds of jazz 10, 2005.
14. caribou. melody day. experimental / rock, from andorra, 2007.
15. milky globe. ode [scsi 9 moscow mix]. ambient, from susumu yokota: lo compilation, 2006.
16. justice. newjack. electro, from t, 2007.
17. gary davis. the professor’s here. disco, from four tet: dj kicks, 2006 (original release 1982).
18. the herbaliser. gadget funk. funk, from ninja tune: you don’t know, 2008.

My winter and spring have been so busy that I never made the time for any year-in-review posts here. Six months late, here’s a midyear update on music.

Last year, I finished a major music project: listening to every album in an mp3 library I had access to, whether I liked it or not. Overall, it broadened my taste and music history knowledge quite a bit, particularly in 1970s and 1990s rock that I would otherwise have missed entirely. Many thanks to those who added shoegazer and prog. rock to my vocabulary! Most of the new albums I discovered in 2007/early 2008 were from that library.

The exceptions were new purchases, mostly after seeing concerts. Kieran Hebden (a.k.a. Four Tet) put on a fantastic show at the free Beats, Breaks and Culture festival in July, doing the best take on improvised jazz with electronic equipment that I’ve seen to date; his album with Steve Reid doesn’t fully capture that experience, but check out the videos:

• Shows the energy of the performance, but you can’t really see what Kieran’s doing unfortunately.
• More closeups of Kieran’s hands, although it’s still confusing
• Mostly talking, but a few good music clips.

The other show that blew me away was Caribou. Eric has been pushing this guy for some time, but I didn’t really get it until I finally listened to Andorra in its entirety. Beautiful, weird rock/pop with at least one track that pushes the Boards of Canada sound in new directions.

And there have been other shows, mostly excellent: Michael Brook, Kid Koala, the Foals, We are Wolves, Monolake, Royal Wood, Odessa/Havana, Cinematic Orchestra, The Most Serene Republic and Fuck Buttons.

At any rate, here is the list of the best albums I listened to in the last eighteen months.

Great Albums (8/10)

• caribou. andorra. rock, ambient.
• cat power. the greatest. rock.
• radiohead. in rainbows. rock.
• various artists. matador – everything is nice. rock, hip hop, ambient.
• various artists. matador – matador at fifteen. rock, hip hop, ambient.
• various artists. mo’wax – headz 2a. trip hop, downtempo.
• xploding plastix. amateur girlfriends go proskirt agents. acid jazz.

Good Albums (7/10)

• angelo badalamenti. twin peaks soundtrack. soundtrack, jazz.
• feist. the reminder. rock, pop.
• four tet. dj kicks. rock, pop, folk, ambient.
• funky lowlives, the. inside ep. downtempo.
• jerry bonham. interpretations ii. house, trance.
• justice. t. house.
• kevin drew. spirit if… rock.
• kieran hebden & steve reid. tongues. acid jazz.
• king cobb steelie. junior relaxer. downtempo, rock.
• kruder & dorfmeister. conversions: a k&d selection. downtempo, drum & bass.
• sander kleinenberg. everybody. tech-house, trance.
• two lone swordsmen. stay down. downtempo, ambient.
• underworld. a hundred days off. techno, downtempo.
• underworld. dubnobasswithmyheadman. techno, downtempo.
• various artists. blue note plays jobim. latin, jazz.
• various artists. chains and black exhaust. funk, rock.
• various artists. colette no. 5. electro, synthpop.
• various artists. eighteenth street lounge music – easy tempo. jazz, latin.
• various artists. eighteenth street lounge music – modular systems. downtempo.
• various artists. hip bop ‘n’ funk. funk, jazz.
• various artists. matador – what’s up matador. rock, pop, folk, ambient.
• various artists. music for tv dinners: the ’60s. jazz, downtempo.
• various artists. rephlex – the braindance coincidence. drum & bass, techno.
• various artists. stage diving to the oldies. punk.
• various artists. sweet relief ii: the gravity of the situation. rock, pop, folk.
• various artists. the best of blaxploitation. funk, soul.
• various artists. the tarantino connection. rock, pop.
• various artists. warp – artificial intelligence. ambient.
• various artists. warp – routine. ambient, minimal techno.
• velvet underground. the velvet underground and nico. rock.
• vikter duplaix. dj kicks. downtempo, acid jazz.
• violent femmes. violent femmes. punk, rock.
• vive la fête. nuit blanche. synthpop.
• v.l.a.d.. d’. electro, techno.
• waldeck. the night garden. downtempo, trip hop, dub.
• way out west. intensify. trance.
• we are scientists. with love and squalor. rock.
• wilco. yankee hotel foxtrot. rock.
• wiseguys, the. the antidote. big beat, hip hop, downtempo.
• yann perreau. western romance. pop, français.
• yeah yeah yeahs. show your bones. rock.

I saw Kid Koala play last night with Bruce and others. I think this is the fourth time I’ve seen him, but he’s still a memorable performer and I had a great time at the show. He did a longer-format set than I’ve seen before, mostly hiphop mashups with his signature turntablist pieces mingled throughout. I actually quite liked the mashups – he’s incredibly fluid and clearly has a wide range of musical tastes, making for some great mixes. For the Toronto crowd, he threw in a hilarious old “Let’s go to Yonge Street” record, which he seamlessly mixed back-and-forth with some scifi tech-house… very slick.

If you’ve never seen him do his Moon River piece, check out the YouTube video below. I love this performance – it was the centrepiece of his “for the romantic couples set” in a velvety red room in the basement of the Vancouver planeterium I saw a few years back. At last night’s show, the video screens showed him carefully moving the needle around the record to play the right notes in the strings section – so cool. He uses three copies of the same Audrey Hepburn record to put this on, and it looked like the strings part might have been the B side of the same record.

[Update: the original YouTube has been taken down, but here’s a video at Daily Motion]

One of these days, I should check out his latest two albums, I suppose!