Always On My Mind

It hasn’t been easy for The Rest to get to the point of being able to release their latest record. From the get-go, things were shaky: Dan Achen, who had produced the band’s first two albums, suddenly passed away while playing hockey. The Rest forged on, deciding to honour Achen by continuing to record in his converted church studio, “in the same manner that we would have if he were there.” From there, everything went ahead as well as it could have, but just as quickly as Achen left them, so too did the hard drive that held every piece of the band’s recorded and mix material. All of it, gone, just about a month out of completion.

Over what I can only imagine was an absolutely agonizing six months, the band had tapped a team responsible for airplane black box recovery to extract the drive’s data and piece it back together. Fast-forward to now and SEESAW is ready to go, a year after the fact, and you can listen to a new track off it each week up until its release on June 12. From the five tracks that have been posted on their Bandcamp page already, it’s a beautiful and intricate piece of work, running the full gamut of sonic possibilities in a cacophony of reverb and orchestration.

SEESAW will be knocking us all over on the 12th thanks to Auteur Recordings.

+MP3: The Rest – Always On My Mind

Connect to The Rest: Bandcamp // Facebook // Twitter

    My Love Don’t Belong

    Indicator Indicator is Sandy Taronno, better known as a quarter of the pop-outfit Quinzy, one of Winnipeg’s best-kept secrets. It’s not a name I expect many of you to know as Quinzy has, be it from lack of trying or otherwise, never really seemed to break out beyond the perimeter, despite delivering continually excellent tunes and putting on continually excellent performances. But the same can’t necessarily be said for Taronno’s solo-act, seeing as he just put out a video for his track “My Love Don’t Belong” using a crew of 40 people located at just about every corner of the Earth.

    It’s comprised of footage pulled together after wrangling people around the world to film the strange and varied jobs they were willing to do for a mere $5, and there’s everything from a Michael Jackson-esque dance number to an Australian dude screaming the lyrics while juggling chainsaws. The final product is charming and weird, and breaks borders in a way Taronno’s other gig hasn’t quite managed yet.

    +MP3: Indicator Indicator – My Love Don’t Belong

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    Connect to Indicator Indicator: Facebook // Twitter

      Tides Of The Summit

      As usual, things are crazy around here. So here’s Bravestation, a band out of Toronto whose name I’ve seen flying around in emails and blog posts over the past couple of weeks, with the first track on their forthcoming debut Giants & Dreamers that’s scheduled for release on July 10. All the info I can scrounge up on these guys seems to talk up the “tribal pop” end of their sound, which isn’t as overdone as I was worried it might be; it’s really working.

      +MP3: Bravestation – Tides Of The Summit

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      Connect to Bravestation: Bandcamp // Facebook // Twitter

        Nightmusic


        Polaris season is fast approaching, and as I’ve been saying for a while now, no ballot should be submitted without giving Grimes extraordinary Visions a few solid run throughs. Today, she has served up an awesome reminder of just how great Visions is with a striking video for the impossibly catchy “Nightmusic,” probably my favourite cut from the record. It’s not quite as consuming as the video for “Oblivion,” but more than makes up for that through Claire Boucher’s witchery and some unsettling woodland cinematography. There’s also couple of (tastefully) naked people hanging around as well, so you might want to err on the side of NSFW.

        +MP3: Grimes – Nightmusic

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        Connect to Grimes: Facebook // Twitter

          Cold Ride

          Things are really busy ’round these parts today, but I wouldn’t be able to deal with the shame of missing two posts this week, so I’ll just tell you to check out this toe-tapping number by Capitol 6 that I found over at Chipped Hip. ”Cold Ride” is taken off the “double B-side LP” Pretty Lost, which is being ushered out on June 12 by Light Organ Records.

          +MP3: Capitol 6 – Cold Ride

          Connect to Capitol 6: Bandcamp // Facebook