// Category Archive for: Canadian Content

Music Review: Sloan, Commonwealth

By Melissa Bratcher

Roughly a million years ago, or probably closer to 12, my new friend Dave and I were chatting with Sloan’s Andrew Scott after a show and Dave asked if perhaps one day Sloan might do something like KISS did in 1978: each member release a solo album at the same time and they could have matching covers and see whose sells the best. Andrew replied, laconically, “Oh, Jay would fucking love that.” (I’m not paraphrasing there; I’m pretty sure that’s what he said exactly.)

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Blu-Ray Review: Curtains

By Less Lee Moore

The 1983 Canadian tax write-off known as Curtains has long been out of print, except for deplorable VHS and DVD transfers. In the 30 years since its theatrical release, it’s become an iconic cult horror film, particularly because of its uniquely chilling ice skating murder sequence. Now, Synapse Films has restored the film from its original negative and released it on Blu-Ray. So, does Curtains hold up?

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Canadian Music Week Film Fest Review: Jimi: All Is By My Side

By Less Lee Moore

When Jimi Hendrix’s estate refused permission for writer/director John Ridley to use any of Hendrix’s songs in his movie, it seemed like the film was doomed. Yet, while watching Jimi: All Is By My Side, the lack of original Hendrix music seems nearly irrelevant. Like Todd Haynes did with Velvet Goldmine, his loosely-based-on-David Bowie love letter to glam rock, Ridley manages to make it work. Without the specter of “the hits” looming over the film, All Is By My Side plays like a stadium-filling band performing deep cuts in a tiny club. It’s more snapshots and impressions than a by-the-numbers biography.

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Movie Review: Meetings With A Young Poet

By Less Lee Moore

The account of a fictional young poet’s ongoing friendship with one of the world’s most treasured writers could be delightful and illuminating or dreadfully dull. Unfortunately for Meetings With A Young Poet, it’s the latter.

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Music Review: Odonis Odonis, Hard Boiled Soft Boiled

By Less Lee Moore

“Keep your halo tight until you choke us/But I would like to carry on”
—”Alexa Wait”

If you’ve been following the career of Toronto’s Odonis Odonis, Hard Boiled Soft Boiled will be a mild revelation. It’s way heavier and louder than the band’s previous releases. The Surf Goth tones of Hollandaze and the Better EP are almost completely gone, or perhaps just sublimated within all those layers of noise. Yet, under the distortion and grime, there are brutally gripping melodies. Relying more on guitars and bass than synths, Hard Boiled Soft Boiled is a nightmarish vision of jangly, reverbed dream pop.

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The Rainbow Kid Needs Your Help: Must Reach Crowdfunding Goal By April 14

By Less Lee Moore

Photo © Biserka Livaja

Whenever a movie is announced with an actor or actress playing the role of a special needs person, what is your first reaction? If you’ve seen movies like Radio or Riding The Bus With My Sister, it’s probably a groan and an eye roll (or worse).

But what about the very real scenario of an actor who also happens to be a special needs person? Dylan Harman is a 23-year-old actor with Down syndrome who starred in the award-winning 2012 short film Rainbow Connection from writer/director Kire Paputts (The Last Pogo Jumps Again).

Harman is also starring in the follow-up, a feature length expansion of the short called The Rainbow Kid. As Paputts notes, this is “not an episode of Life Goes On.” Here’s the synopsis: (more…)

Music Review: Lowell, I Killed Sara V.

By Less Lee Moore

Toronto and London-based Lowell has the kind of voice that veers dangerously close to being exploited in an iTunes commercial. Which is why it’s significant that her new EP I Killed Sara V. opens with the blisteringly original “Cloud 69.” That music and those lyrics could never be used to sell hybrid cars. The crush of percussion and synths and the descending “oooooh” in the chorus make the heart pound faster. It’s an extraordinary song and unlike anything else I’ve heard.

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New Video: The Cybertronic Spree, “Nothin’s Gonna Stand In Our Way”

By Less Lee Moore

The Cybertronic Spree
Photo © Paul Hillier Photography

If you haven’t heard of The Cybertronic Spree, listen up. It’s a band of Transformers—well, Hot Rod, Arcee, Rumble, Unicron, Spike, and a Quintesson, to be exact—who perform songs from the soundtrack to The Transformers: The Movie.

Interested yet? They also perform these songs live and in full costume. It’s pretty amazing. They recently released a video of an in-studio performance and recording of “Nothin’s Gonna Stand In Our Way” that must be seen to be believed.

Here’s a video of them performing “Instruments Of Destruction” last August at the Horseshoe in Toronto, as part of Nerd Noise Night.

And yes, they do perform “The Touch.”

For the full spectrum of the band’s online presence, check out TheCybertronicSpree.com

Music Review: Doomsquad, Kalaboogie

By Jeffery X Martin

It takes a certain amount of balls to name your band Doomsquad. It sets up myriad expectations. What kind of music do you expect when you hear that name? Totalitarian anthems, denouncing self and praising the Motherland? Some heavy-handed comic book villainy? Angry Norsemen with long hair and corpse paint?

Wrong. Try again.

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Interview With: Toronto R&B Musician Jhyve, Part Two

By Paul Casey

About a month ago, I had a conversation with a talented musician from Toronto. Jamaal Desmond Bowry goes by the name Jhyve and makes modern R&B. He also has a touch for Rap. His latest album, Supermegafutureshit, resulted from a collaboration with producer Soul. The album is an atmospheric thing and another sign of how the genre is regaining its standing with listeners and musicians. Get low, change the tone, push through a whole bunch of compatible influences.

I spoke with Jhyve for about an hour and our conversation covered many things that I feel are important, especially right now. While we discussed Jhyve’s history and how his music has developed, we also got to talk about how R&B has changed over the years and why it is that so many unfairly reduce its ability to address human problems. Read Part One of the interview.
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