By Lindsey Hampton
DJ Tameil is one of the most highly respected Baltimore Club producers. A prolific producer and active DJ, he performs at the hottest parties in the USA and Europe. Discorder was lucky enough to catch him the first time he was in Canada for an in-depth interview, where he talks about the over 60 member Baltimore-based DJ crew Brick Bandits starting up, dubstep, DJing with cassette decks, Wikipedia, amateur DJs flooding the internet and being Redman’s neighbour growing up.
Brasstronaut @ China Cloud by Steve Louie
Did you catch Brasstronaut at China Cloud? If you missed it here’s what it looked like. Sounded pretty good, too.
Read More
SSRIs - Effeminate Godzilla-Sized Windchimes
The Wheat Pool - Behind the Stars
Rattail - George Mounsey EP
The listener will know exactly what to expect from Pineapple’s debut release just by looking at the artwork. The album cover depicts four indie-nerds and a roaring grizzly bear superimposed against a glowing intergalactic night sky (an obvious choice of graphics for a band named after a popular tropical fruit). Featuring songs with titles like “Snoodle” and “Wahow”, the mishmash of quirky indie-pop contained on the album proves to be just as odd as the cover art.
The project is the brainchild of Cameron Dilworth, formerly of Niens Circa, who brought together some of his friends from Prairie Cat, SSRIs and the Joint Chiefs (along with the recording talents of Caleb Stull of Parlor Steps) to help contain and translate some of the songs that have been bouncing around his head. The resulting eleven tracks center around Dilworth’s strange, whimsical lyrics and his unique Fred Penner meets Lou Reed vocals. For the most part, the poppy tunes are catchy and fun. They are lighthearted and endearingly childish both lyrically and in instrumentation. This, however, proves to be a blessing and a curse, as some songs are clever and well delivered while others end up sounding just plain silly and interrupt the flow of an otherwise good album. On a whole though, it is nice to hear some music by talented musicians who don’t take things too seriously!
JDH - Arms Legs Feet
While the album is a collage of covers ranging from Sufjan Stevens to Fugazi, it’s not a creative cop out in the least. “Quiet Noise,” a stripped-down, almost vintage-sounding track, is hypnotic, and chronicles the musician’s plight since he started the project. During the time it took to make Arms Legs Feet, JDH survived cancer, had a baby and broke both wrists after a 12-foot fall. With the soft crooning and slightly honeyed tragedy in his voice, “Quiet Noise” is a perfect summation of this artist’s life events. Read More
Chemical Brothers - Further
Vancouver-based Bad Fate have delivered their debut album, Olympic City. It’s a garage rock, off kilter, crunchy, out of tune, indie madness, guitar mash of an album. And all that is packed into just seven songs!
Bad Fate’s sound is really a throwback to the early ‘90s slacker noise bands. Think Pavement with a dose of Dinosaur Jr. and you are on the right track. Great guitars, low key vocals and and a lot of noise.
“Brain Enthusiast” is the best track on the album by far. It’s a tight little tune that should be immediately added to your playlist this summer. “Mongrel MAN” is another standout with a greater sense of urgency than the other tracks. Veering off the indie road, it is a great pop song — but never fear kids, the distorted guitars are still here.
All in all, Olympic City is a great ode to the city that it was created in.
Bad Fate are hurtling across the country until mid-August, so try and catch them live if you can. Stay tuned folks: it will be interesting to see where Bad Fate go from here.
advertisement
advertisement
follow us
Casiokids
with Light Pollution & Einar Stokka, August 21 @ Media Club
Review By Sally White
I’m not sure what I expected the crowd at a Euro electro-pop show to look like, but it wasn’t what I saw at the Media Club on Saturday night. Opener Einar Stokka, a college friend of the Casiokids and self described “melancholic act,” played his mellow acoustic rock with notable stage presence, despite the crowd of roughly 25 people tightly hugging the walls of the club. He seemed to think he was still in the US, but was forgiven for that slip after offering his CDs for free at the merch table. Up next was Chicago-based band Light Pollution who did their best to get the crowd up on their feet and “fill the void” with their scratchy, bouncy pop rock, managing to get one solo male jumping around front and centre to the song “Good Feelings.” Read More »