Straight out of East Vancouver, Hot Sex & High Finance is comprised of rapper Pop Pete (Dylan Jones), and producer Skyrpt (Lennon Burback). Refinanced is a remix album of their debut XXX & $$$, which was released in October 2010. With that record’s recent release in mind, perhaps this new set is a bit premature, but it depends on how you look at it. While performing at festivals like Rifflandia and Olio, the group met artists like Flint, MI electro artist Tunde Olaniran, who are now lending a hand in giving their tracks a new spin. Read More
Monthly Archives: March 2011
Erland & the Carnival
Nightingale (Full Time Hobby)
Review By Kaitlin McNabb
Nightingale (Full Time Hobby)
Fashioned together from relics the Cult, the Verve, and Blur, Erland & the Carnival are a supergroup of sorts, but one more concerned with paranormal phenomenons than prestige. With their second release, Nightingale, the band continues its contemporary arrangements of traditional Scottish folk songs and English literature but mixes it with that of modern lore, specifically the Enfield poltergeist phenomena of the late ‘70s. Read More
Explosions in the Sky
Take Care, Take Care, Take Care (Temporary Residence)
Review By Christian Voveris
Day 1
When Explosions in the Sky released The Earth is Not a Cold Dead Place in 2003, the passionate post-rockers hit upon a musical sweet spot that appealed to more than just the obscure circles in which they were previously worshipped, landing them on the soundtrack of Friday Night Lights and associating them with a generation of football jocks. Despite the album’s success, the band chose not to linger, preferring to take cautious yet expansive explorations with their sound, of which their fifth studio album, Take Care, Take Care, Take Care, is a result. Read More
Chain & the Gang
Music’s Not For Everyone (K)
Review By Daniel Lins da Silva
Music's Not For Everyone (K)
Not Good Enough
If you’re looking for garage rock with a serious slant, then Chain & the Gang’s new release, Music’s Not For Everyone might not be for you. Frontman and mastermind Ian Svenonius is known for his caustic humor, and this album is no exception. His bitter monologues and malicious lyrics are certainly the main attraction of the record. Opening track “Why Not,” an ode to defeatism and apathy, sets the mood atop funky, slow-change blues and a scorching harmonica solo as Svenonius’ distorted vocals explain just how little of a damn he gives about anything. In the next track, “Not Good Enough,” the negativity is turned against the listener with a chorus consisting of Svenonius and secondary vocalist Sarah Pedal jeering, “If you feel like you’re not good enough / Well you’re probably not / And you know what? You never ever will be.” Read More
Armen at the Bazaar
Noor (Unsigned)
Review By Adam Clarke
Armen at the Bazaar
Heart and Thoughts
Armen at the Bazaar is the project of Montreal-based multi-instrumentalist Armen Bazarian. Proving himself to be incredibly skilled in the art of song writing, Bazarian’s EP Noor showcases an eclectic mix that sets a relaxing atmosphere for the listener. Read More
Elekwent Folk
“If we just posted up on a corner with speakers, I’d say within an hour, cops would come and bust us,” says Slippery Elm. “So [we] stay somewhere for half an hour [and then] bike somewhere else.”
By Chibwe Mweene
Illustration by Shane Scott-Travis
I first met Slippery Elm in a UBC anthropology class a little over a year ago, but back then I only knew him as Geordie Kennedy. We’d exchange a few words every class, but I knew there was more to him—he always wore headphones while burying his nose into a little notebook. Fast forward to sometime last fall when I discovered the smooth styles of local hip-hop outfit Elekwent Folk, which features none other than Slippery Elm himself. In retrospect, he was probably writing down rhymes in that book. Read More
Peace
with Hard Feelings & Jubilee, March 25th @ Princeton Pub
Review By Fraser Dobbs
Photo by Steve Louie
The Uma Uma Truth List
The procession of percussive instruments into the Princeton Pub might have been the first warning the grizzled pool sharks had as to the night’s planned festivities. The regulars’ backs were straightened and their road-worn leather jackets ruffled up early on over the intrusion, but none of the pub’s patrons could have expected the onslaught of plaid-decked ruffians that would soon engulf the venue. The battlefield was primed for neighbourhood sweethearts Peace to promote their new album, My Face. Read More
Sun Wizard
"'What the fuck? Is Malcolm freestyling over the music right now?" I looked up and he was! Frankie was pissing in a bottle next to him."
By Cail Judy
Photo by Michael Irvine
Sun Wizard are clearly enjoying themselves when Discorder meets up with them at Reno’s Restaurant on Main and Broadway. James Younger and Malcolm Jack, the band’s two guitar-weilding lead singers, play off each other like a pair of comedians, cracking jokes over clubhouse sandwiches, further demonstrating the solidarity evident in the band’s debut album, Positively 4th Street, which was just released on Light Organ Records. The album boasts roaring guitar riffs, harmonica jams and choruses that stay lodged in your brain. Songs like “Middle of the Heart” and “Little Less In Control” have the warm, hazy tint of a Vancouver summer. Since starting up in 2009, Sun Wizard (comprised of Younger, Jack, Francesco “Frankie” Lyon on bass and Ben Frey on drums) have made their aspirations clear about making it big by doing what they know best: playing catchy, hook-laden rock ‘n’ roll. Discorder had a rousing chat with Younger and Jack about their thoughts on their new album, Vancouver’s music scene, touring, and the numerous Tom Petty comparisons that have been thrown at them. Read More »