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Familiars Premiere “Erebus & Terror” Video; Keep the Good Times Rolling EP Out Today

Posted in Bootleg Theater on April 7th, 2023 by JJ Koczan

familiars

Today, April 7, Toronto-based atmospheric fuzz rockers Familiars unveil their new three-song EP, Keep the Good Times Rolling, and if the title seems ironic or tongue-in-cheek, yeah, it probably is. However, for the trio of guitarist/vocalist Kevin Vansteenkiste, bassist/vocalist Jared MacIntyre and drummer Anton Babych, it’s also a three-years-later, three-song companion-piece to their 2020 debut full-length, All in Good Time (review here), which met the existential crisis of that year’s tumultuous Spring with lush melody and dug-in tonal breadth, cohesive melody and purposeful craft such that even the low-rumble punch of the bass-led “Barn Burning” was somehow mellow in its overarching affect. To bottom-line it: cool record, definitely not gonna complain about more from a band who’ve obviously put some work into their sound, style and songs.

Keep the Good Times Rolling — and yeah, three years later, the ‘keep’ in the title raises an eyebrow no less than ‘good times’ for its notions of momentum post-debut; there’s a reason most album cycles happen around the albums in question, though spacetime seemed to crease that Spring, so maybe in some dimension we’re still there, and in any case, why argue? — presents three tunes recorded once again by Simon Larochette that end up giving an efficient showcase for at least some portion of what Familiars accomplished on the longer release. One doesn’t want to read too much narrative into an outing that’s 14 minutes long and a band who put out their record after at least six years together, but Familiars were right to take their time in making the LP happen and Keep the Good Times Rolling comes across much the same.

It is melodically thoughtful in its three cuts between four and a half and five minutes long, the opening “Erebus & Terror” (video premiering below) reveling in its vocal echo over ranging fuzz, Babych‘s hi-hat active but not so much as to take away from the soothing spirit that prevails, while centerpieceFamiliars Keep the Good Times Rolling “Samsquanch” — a Trailer Park Boys reference, because Canada — offers a more uptempo chug at its core, tonally nodding toward Mania-era Truckfighters with twists that remind of the build in the Swedes’ “Last Curfew” while Vansteenkiste‘s breathy vocal take in the early going wouldn’t be out of place in brooding ’80s synthpop. That’s a compliment, and results in a fairly individual impression coming off the rolling Canadian landscape and crunch of “Erebus & Terror” — and yes, I know Mt. Erebus is in Antarctica; it’s cold there too — as whatever, ahem, familiar elements surround, the band work to establish their own context for them.

“Samsquanch” is instrumental from about the two-minute mark onward, and caps with an airy guitar lead over the still-laid-back groove, while “Wendigo” picks up at a faster-but-still-mellow clip with classic heavy flourish as it moves toward the tension-release of the slowdown in its second half, which fades out as one might imagine folkloric monsters receding into darkness, though admittedly the actual sound of the track is more sunlight-reflecting-on-snow than mysterious-figure-in-the-dark in terms of the mood being set. In keeping with the current boom of Canadian heavy, Familiars offer refreshing perspective on genre tenets and demonstrate a malleable balance between hooky rhythms and world-building that goes beyond the relatively brief runtime of this outing.

Whatever they do next — two-songer, EP, LP, etc. — their aesthetic proves immersive without letting itself get lost as it guides the listener through the material; storytelling as much in music as words. Keep the Good Times Rolling might have a tinge of sarcasm to its title, but in its roll and its being a good time, it lives up to the promise as well. One doesn’t generally think of bands who’ve been around for nearly a decade as ‘loaded with potential,’ and yet here we are.

The video premiering here for “Erebus & Terror” is duly stark in its grainy Antarctic footage, gorgeous and ancient in its threat, and the entirety of Keep the Good Times Rolling is streaming near the bottom of this post, in case you’d like to do precisely that.

Please enjoy:

Familiars, “Erebus & Terror” official video

On April 7th, Familiars will release “Keep The Good Times Rolling”, a continuation of stories and sounds captured during the “All In Good Time” sessions.

Tracklisting:
1. Erebus & Terror
2. Samsquanch
3. Wendigo

Produced by Familiars & Simon Larochette
Engineered & Mixed by Simon Larochette at The Sugar Shack Recording Studio in London, Ontario, Canada.
Mastered by Gavin Gardiner
Simon Larochette: Additional Percussion
Art Direction & Design by Kevin Vansteenkiste

Familiars are a Full Moon Records Recording Artist.
Written, Recorded, and Made in Canada.

Familiars are:
Kevin Vansteenkiste: Electric Guitar, Vocals
Jared MacIntyre: Electric Bass Guitar, Vocals
Anton Babych: Drums, Percussion

Familiars, Keep the Good Times Rolling (2023)

Familiars on Facebook

Familiars on Instagram

Familiars on Bandcamp

Familiars website

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Lammping Post New Two-Songer Better Know Better

Posted in Whathaveyou on March 28th, 2023 by JJ Koczan

Sometimes it just feels like a band has your number. And you know, every time Toronto’s Lammping put out a track, an EP, LP, whatever it is at this point, going into it I think to myself there’s no way the band can maintain the standard of craft they’ve set — not for any real reason on their part, I just feel like my expectations are unrealistic — but they absolutely do, and “Better Know Better” is the latest manifestation of that.

The single itself is a who-would-ever-need-more sub-four-minute nostalgia trip in the spirit of their prior work, with a playfully Southern-tinged lick of guitar met by dub-ish drumming that’s given further emphasis on the instrumental companion-piece “Better Know Better (End of Dummy Lane),” and a chorus melody that’s like Abbey Road emerging from the casual swing of the early verse and a satisfying build as it moves toward the oh-hello-there of the organ in its second half. No pretense anywhere, and it’s straightforward enough to make the wah on the guitar count, but it’s warm and inviting as Lammping seem so consistently to be, and yeah, they nailed it again. Seems to just be how it goes.

It’s been about nine months since Lammping issued their last single, “Desert on the Keel” (review here), and that’s actually kind of a long stretch for them, though in all fairness, if they wanted to just out a new song every month and a half or so from now until the electric grid crashes, I don’t really see how I’d complain about it. But as I write this I’m not sure if “Better Know Better” is leading toward an EP or album or if it’s just a standalone, but I’ll take it as it comes from these cats and in the spirit of the music itself, leave tomorrow’s worries for their own time.

V-I-B-E. Behold:

Lammping Better Know Better

New release from Lammping – Better Know Better

We’ve been recording a bunch of music for our new album. This joint started with a riff and ended up wherever this is. Probably not gonna be on the album, but its a cool ditty, so why not put it out. We started making beats out of our own songs as well, so the b-side is a remix of the single. Dig!

https://www.instagram.com/lammping
https://lammping.bandcamp.com/

Lammping, “Better Know Better” (2023)

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Blood Ceremony Announce New Album The Old Ways Remain Due May 5

Posted in Whathaveyou on March 2nd, 2023 by JJ Koczan

Been a while since the last word from Blood Ceremony, but the Toronto-based classic heavy prog rockers aren’t at all unwelcome as they announce that in addition to heading to Europe in May to tour alongside Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats, hitting Desertfest London, Soulstone Gathering, Desertfest Berlin and assorted sure-to-be-packed dates between them, the band will at last follow-up 2016’s Lord of Misrule with their fourth album, The Old Ways Remain.

Some of those old ways include, apparently, self-recording, which the four-piece ended up doing after their plan to abscond to London (where they’d done Lord of Misrule) hit the brick wall of global pandemic like so much else at the outset of this decade. How fortunate we are that everything is fine now, right? Right? And all we have to worry about are the oceans rising up to swallow us and our children’s children? Right? Right? Hashtag ‘blessed’.

I digress. Blood Ceremony were always a band that other people were more into than me, but I’ve seen them live a couple times over the years and only come away from the experience wondering why I don’t listen to them more, so I’m happy to have the chance to dig into something new and see how it fits. There’s no audio yet — respect. — but some footage from the studio has new sounds and that’s at the bottom of the post where that kind of thing goes, and the PR wire has details on the record if not the cover art, and it should be noted that the album is coming out through Rise Above Records, whose release calendar has been pretty light since 2020. Glad to see a return to activity there as well.

Here’s a snazzy pic of the band, the album info and those tour dates:

blood ceremony

Occult Flute Rockers BLOOD CEREMONY Announce New Album ‘The Old Ways Remain’ to be Released May 5th

EU Tour With Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats in May!

Seven years have passed since Blood Ceremony last released a full-length album, but that all changes in 2023! Pieced together during lockdown months, and brought to fruition with a host of esteemed special guests, the Canadians’ fifth album, ‘The Old Ways Remain’, is set to emerge May 5th.

Diverse, hypnotic and eminently groovy, the new songs push Blood Ceremony’s sound into new territory while also honoring the atavistic ethos that has led them to such triumphs in the past. Initial plans to repeat the successful formula that birthed ‘Lord of Misrule’ and fly to the UK to record again at Toe Rag Studios in London, fell victim to Covid restrictions, and so Sean and his comrades – Alia O’Brien (vocals/flute/organ), Lucas Gadke (bass) and Michael Carillo (drums) – switched to a simpler but equally satisfying Plan B.

“By late 2021, we realized that if we were ever going to finish a new album, we’d just have to record locally and do it ourselves,” says guitarist Sean Kennedy. “And that’s what we did. We started rehearsing the material again and were still really excited by it. Once we revisited everything, we had a new burst of energy. We found a local studio that had what we needed and we were off! Recording nearby allowed us to bring in friends like Laura Bates from (fellow folk-doom crew) Völur to play fiddle, Joseph Shabason added saxophone to ‘Eugenie’, and Mike Eckert played pedal steel on ‘Hecate’. We produced ourselves, along with our friend, Paul Keyahas. We worked with an engineer named Chris Snow who immediately got what we were trying to do. Richard Whittaker mixed the tracks at his London, UK, studio, and we think he did a great job.”

A vital testament to Blood Ceremony’s collective efficacy, ‘The Old Ways Remain’ is an album for those who love great songs, great riffs and cryptic tales from the outer limits.

‘The Old Ways Remain’ Track List:
1. The Hellfire Club
2. Ipissimus
3. Eugenie
4. Lolly Willows
5. Powers of Darkness
6. The Bonfires at Belloc Coombe
7. Widdershins
8. Hecate
9. Mossy Wood
10. Song of the Morrow

“We’re looking forward to releasing ‘The Old Ways Remain’. It’s been a long time coming, so we’re eager to finally get the songs out there and we hope people enjoy them,” Sean concludes, “We have a UK and European tour coming up in May 2023 with Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats which will be a great time. It’s been a rough few years, but the old ways remain and the ancient gods live on!”

Blood Ceremony hit the road with labelmates Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats in May:

SAT 06 Edinburgh,Scotland La Belle Angele OR Liquid Rooms
SUN 07 London, England Desertfest
MON 08 Brugge, Belgium Cactus Club
WED 10 Toulouse, France Le Metronum
THU 11 Madrid, Spain La Paqui
FRI 12 Barcelona, Spain Sala Apolo 2
SAT 13 Villeurbanne, France Le Transbordeur
MON 15 Zürich, Switzerland Plaza
TUE 16 Milan, Italy Santeria Toscana 31
THU 18 Budapest, Hungary A38 Ship
FRI 19 Krakow, Poland Soulstone Gathering
SAT 20 Prague, Czech Rep. Palac Akropolis
SUN 21 Berlin, Germany Desertfest Berlin

https://www.facebook.com/bloodceremonyrock/
https://www.instagram.com/bloodceremony_/
https://open.spotify.com/artist/2GCHfAuitdlOYPjRrgPhI6

https://www.facebook.com/riseaboverecords/
https://www.instagram.com/riseaboverecords/
http://www.riseaboverecords.com/

Blood Ceremony, The Old Ways Remain studio footage

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Witchrot Announce Spring Tour Dates

Posted in Whathaveyou on January 25th, 2023 by JJ Koczan

March 10 has been set as the arrival date for Witchrot‘s Live in the Hammer, the follow-up to their 2021 studio debut, Hollow (review here), and reportedly a herald of a second record to come from the Toronto-based four-piece. Fuzzed and Buzzed will handle the release, Tony Reed mastered, preorders are up, and everything seems to be in line to keep the momentum the band had coming off the debut, which came after a lineup split that went viral, blah blah.

I’ll be honest: I know that kind of thing is good for clicks, building a social media following, and so on, and I understand that the quantifiable terms of that following go a long way toward defining how well regarded a band is at this point in time, but I would have to work hard to care less. Whether or not someone becomes a meme has nothing to do with their music — somehow I feel old believing that — and it’s the music that will ultimately outlast any incurred virality. I hope they sold shirts, but I dug Hollow on its own terms and expect no different with the live record. Not even sure why I need to say that, so maybe I’ll just shut the fuck up and post the press release.

Here you go:

witchrot

WITCHROT Announce Spring Tour

Sizzling, soulful and bewitching, WITCHROT is gearing up for their latest offering Witchrot: Live in the Hammer, due out for its international release March 10, 2023. Shortly after, the band will hit the road in Canada in support of the album. Their tour kicks off on March 31st at the Ottowa House of Targ and wraps on May 13th at Sudbury Townhouse Tavern. Full dates below. Tickets can be found HERE or purchased at the door of each venue.

March 31 Ottawa House of Targ
April 1 Sherbrooke Murdoch
April 2 Montreal Turbohaus
April 13 London Richmond Tavern
April 14 Sarnia Mauds
April 15 Hamilton Casbah
May 11 Toronto Hardluck
May 12 Barrie Infinity Zero
May 13 Sudbury Townhouse Tavern
More about Live In The Hammer:

All sleaze and psych, Live In The Hammer has the fuzz fueled quartet playing in the grease trap of Ontario. Smoky vocals overtop mesmeric psychedelic doom fill the room to the brim. Pre-orders for Live In The Hammer are available HERE: https://witchrot.bandcamp.com/music

Formed in Toronto in 2018, WITCHROT was founded by Lea Reto (vocals) & Peter Turik (Guitar). After some international press over band disputes, betrayals, and a temporary break up, the band recruited Lea’s boyfriend Nick Kervin (Drums) and Cam Alford (Bass). Together they recorded the band’s debut full-length Hollow (2021) and most recently Live In the Hammer. Currently, Nick “Nido” Dolphin has joined the band on bass.

Pulling from the lost psychedelic masterpieces with fuzz erupting like a volcano and the ethereal shoegaze music of the late 80s and 90s, WITCHROT has carved their own haunting path. The all-consuming wave of divine music that is terrifying by its sheer velocity and force rather than dissonance.

Simultaneously beautiful and putrid, Live In The Hammer pays homage to the grime of the past, paved over by the glitz of the present. Live In The Hammer was recorded at Boxcar Sound in Hamilton, and mastered by Tony Reed at Heavy Head Recording.

The bubbling cauldron that is Live In the Hammer, serves as a bridge between Hollow and the band’s forthcoming next album, currently in the works. There’s no escaping the strange web of WITCHROT. Fall into the chasm and embrace the dark.

WITCHROT is:

Lea Reto – Vocals
Peter Turik – Guitar
Nick Kervin – Drums
Nick “Nido” Dolphin – Bass

https://www.facebook.com/witchrot
https://www.instagram.com/witchrotband/
https://witchrot.bandcamp.com/

https://www.facebook.com/Fuzzedandbuzzed-631019733954614/
https://www.instagram.com/fuzzedandbuzzed/
https://www.fuzzedandbuzzed.com/

Witchrot, Hollow (2021)

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Friday Full-Length: Nordic Nomadic, Nordic Nomadic

Posted in Bootleg Theater on December 30th, 2022 by JJ Koczan

This past summer, Canadian singer, guitarist, and songwriter Chad Ross released the solo album, Skull Creator (review here), through Ramble Records, Echodelick Recordings and NoiseAgonyMayhem, working under the all-caps moniker C.ROSS. He’s probably best known as the vocalist/guitarist of Toronto drift-psych heroes Quest for Fire, whose two full-lengths, 2009’s Quest for Fire and 2010’s Lights From Paradise (discussed here, review here), remain treasures to be sought, and the subsequent Comet Control, which has expanded the scope the prior outfit laid out, working in elements of space rock and other styles on 2014’s Comet Control (review here), 2016’s Center of the Maze (review here) and 2021’s Inside the Sun (review here), all of which, like Quest for Fire‘s albums, were issued through Tee Pee Records.

But his mostly-off-again-not-so-much-on-again incarnation, Nordic Nomadic, actually precedes or at least coincides even Quest for Fire, releasing this self-titled debut on CD in 2007 via Blue Fog Recordings. At that point, Ross was coming off his time in the more indie-minded The Deadly Snakes, so the unplugged-grunge vibe of Nordic Nomadic was something of a departure on the purposefully quiet, mostly-unplugged grunge of “Living Arrangements” and the presciently nodding proto-roll in album opener “The World’s Slowest Man,” on which Paul Vernon‘s drums are a spacious highlight behind Ross‘ own exploratory guitar and soft vocals. Volume swells on “A Child’s Eyes,” which feels a little hurried in comparison to the leadoff it directly follows, and hand-percussion on “Elk Horn Pyramid,” string sounds on “The Weather in Your Mind” and the standalone guy-and-guitarism of “Grey” assure that the 10-song/43-minute offering, touching on Americana in “Nice Young Man” and the pedal steel (credited to Dale Murray)-inclusive closer “Clouds That Spell My Name,” which is the longest inclusion at 6:25 and rises to an understated but engrossing jam before it’s done.

Through it all, flow remains central. The songs, recorded by Paul Aucoin at Hallamusic and Josh Bauman at 206 Dunn, both in Toronto, are drawn together despite varying intents through Ross‘ voice and the contemplative feel of the guitar work that’s mostly at their foundation, but they work outward from there to be sure, and along multiple paths, be it the woodsy fingerpicking of “Grey” or the full-band, organ-driven, multiple-vocal-layered “Ruby Rose,” which along with “The World’s Slowest Man” feels like a direct precursor to some of what Quest for Fire would offer a few years later. Nordic Nomadic‘s tunes are warm if not always completely molten and acid-soaked, and Nordic Nomadic SELF TITLEDthe subtle shifts in arrangement throughout the self-titled make it feel all the more like the material was built up in the studio, the songs worked on and pushed forward — Aucoin is also credited with “vibes” on the Bandcamp page from whence the player above comes, and that might be what that means (it also might not) — and set in motion patiently following after an ideal sound that’s neither too much nor too little, except where it wants to be one or the other, as in the incoming tide of distortion at the end of “Elk Horn Pyramid” or the door-left-open far-back feel of “The Weather in Your Mind,” contrasted almost immediately by the penultimate “NxNx” with its brighter guitar, emergent pedal steel and straightforward kit drums.

And in light of Skull Creator, as well as his work this past decade in Comet Control, there are hallmarks of Ross‘ style that pop up throughout Nordic Nomadic, whether it’s the declining progression of guitar at the two-minute mark in “NxNx” or the overarching patience with which the material is brought forth, each cut given its space and placed well to make the entire front-to-back experience more fluid. I don’t know the timing on Ross and his The Deadly Snakes bandmate Andrew Moszynski — who released an LP this year with the more garage-minded Strange Colours called Future’s Almost Over — joining Quest for Fire, but there are seeds throughout Nordic Nomadic‘s self-titled of what would become that group’s hallmarks, and the mellow and melodic procession of these songs, though none of them is especially long in itself with the opener and closer bookending as the two longest, manage a delicate balance of sounding fleshed out but not indulgent. They have what they need and not much more, and that need changes almost on a per-song basis, as it would if they were people, needing and wanting different things with different perspectives. Maybe that’s what it means for an album to sound alive. If so, this one does.

In covering the new record, I sprung for a CD of Nordic Nomadic‘s Nordic Nomadic — the project also released Worldwide Skyline (review here) in 2011 through Tee Pee — and it’s been waiting to close out a week ever since. When it came down to it, I didn’t want to let this year end without writing about it. I found it interesting that Ross, who discussed leaving Toronto a bit in an interview here last year, opted to put Skull Creator in his name rather than under the Nordic Nomadic moniker, since that seemed to be the place he returned to between one band and the next, whether it was The Deadly Snakes and Quest for Fire or Quest for Fire and Comet Control, whose future after three records and the aforementioned move I don’t know, but the mood-heavy spirit of Nordic Nomadic remains distinct atmospherically, whatever it might share in common with what came after, and the intimacy of its tracks imbued by the mostly quiet, light-on-effects vocals creates a quiet conversation that rewards repeat listens, even these 15 years after the album’s initial release. What is time anyway.

As always, I hope you enjoy if you’re reading this. I know it’s not exactly the most raucous of closures to have it as the last post for the year, but to be honest with you, it’s the kind of party I’m looking for right now and it’s something I’ve enjoyed getting to know better in the months since I picked it up. Maybe you’ll find yourself feeling similar. If not, there’s always next year, and if you didn’t hear Skull Creator, that’s on Bandcamp here.

Thanks for reading.

Kid’s been up early all week. Like, pre-5AM. And he’s come downstairs, plopped himself on the couch next to me, and said each time, “Daddy, can we watch Sesame Street now?” because he knows that if he doesn’t specify when the action is taking place, I’ll keep trying to sneak out sentences writing. I’ve been putting him back to bed if it’s 5:30 or earlier, because otherwise he’s basically done with the day at 2PM and the stretch from then until 7:30PM bedtime is a wreck. As I write this, it’s 6:20AM and he’s still asleep. Yesterday we went for a long walk in the relatively nice weather and played on the playground. I’ve never known someone whose well-being is almost singularly placed on whether or not they’re able to move their body. Dude needs to go, and has, basically since he was conscious enough to need anything other than oxygen and sustenance.

He’s been off from school as well, so that’s been a throwoff of routine. He goes back on Tuesday, which means I need to get through Monday and Tuesday on the two-week Quarterly Review to come while balancing that with taking care of him. Nothing I haven’t done before, but still gonna see if the babysitter (whom he loves) can come hang out on Monday for a while. They wreck shit together and my cleaning up afterward is worth the tradeoff of being able to get a couple good hours of writing in. You have to find ways to make these things work or they simply won’t.

Here he comes downstairs. Fine. I’ll take it.

I also hope to have the year-end poll results up on Monday, so please look for that.

You’ll pardon me if I’m light on grand reflections on the year’s end. This year had its ups and downs, like everything. I’m glad to have live music back, and I said earlier this year that I was worried that I was living the best times of my life right now, something I’ve always considered in the future. I’m working to appreciate these times as they happen. I remind myself all the time, and more often I still fail. I’m overwhelmed, I’m tired or I’m sad, or the persistent feeling-wrong in my own body is just too much. But I’ve got this house, I’m alive, my family is mostly healthy, myself included even with that knee surgery and the residual discomfort. These are things to appreciate. Blessings that in my better moments I remember to count, even though sometimes it feels like there’s a barrier between me and feeling good about any of it. That’s life.

So, Quarterly Review for the next two weeks. I’ve timed it poorly. There are a couple premieres that were already slated that I’ll need to do as well — it’s a different mindset going from doing 10 reviews at 150-200 words and digging into a video or something else; I’ve found that transition difficult at times in the past — but they’ll happen and survival is all but assured, even as I expect starting next Tuesday a whole bunch of album and tour announcements for Spring will happen as the music industry picks up after its general holiday break. So it goes. I’ll do my best.

No Gimme show today, but I’ll have ep. 101 next Friday. Pretty wild they keep letting me do that.

If you do up New Year’s as a thing, I wish you good times and safe celebrating, and I hope you have a great weekend either way. I’ll be glad to be in bed by 9PM on Saturday, maybe vacuum at some point in the next couple days. That’s how we (or at least I) party down these days: lightly stoned, probably doing dishes.

I need to check in with Dave MiBK, but I’m hoping to have some new merch at some point. My Bandcamp funds are nil and I didn’t have the PayPal credit I thought I did when I bought Quest for Fire’s demo off Discogs yesterday for $35 with money from my account that I don’t really have to spare. So it goes.

Great and safe weekend. Again, thanks for reading and here’s to more to come. See you next year.

FRM.

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The Obelisk merch

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The Obelisk Questionnaire: Ian Blurton of Ian Blurton’s Future Now, UWUW & More

Posted in Questionnaire on November 23rd, 2022 by JJ Koczan

ian blurton

The Obelisk Questionnaire is a series of open questions intended to give the answerer an opportunity to explore these ideas and stories from their life as deeply as they choose. Answers can be short or long, and that reveals something in itself, but the most important factor is honesty.

Based on the Proust Questionnaire, the goal over time is to show a diverse range of perspectives as those who take part bring their own points of view to answering the same questions. To see all The Obelisk Questionnaire posts, click here.

Thank you for reading and thanks to all who participate.

The Obelisk Questionnaire: Ian Blurton of Ian Blurton’s Future Now, UWUW & More

How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?

Guitarist/vocalist/engineer/producer/mixer/arranger/song and dance man. I’ve been doing it since I started singing into a skipping rope pretending it was a microphone at the age of five.

Describe your first musical memory.

The Banana Splits and Monkees tv shows had a profound effect on me and were my first exposure to music. I didn’t realize it at the time but I was watching Zappa and Tim Buckley guest on Monkees and listening to songs written by some of the best writers of all time. It also gave me a lifelong love of Michael Nesmith.

Describe your best musical memory to date.

Tough to pick just one but guesting with Randy Bachman was a highlight. I have been a Guess Who/BTO fan since I was a youngin’ and even use the same fuzz (Garnet Herzog) that he used on American Woman. Not Fragile is a total jam!! Seeing Sonny Sharrock (who is one of my fav guitarists) in the 90s was huge too.

When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?

Ummm…… every day.

Where do you feel artistic progression leads?

I think if you leave yourself free to experience everything, artist progression should take you into unexpected areas. I try not to edit myself while writing so I’m open to the unknown.

How do you define success?

To me success is a series of small victories so…..writing a good song, having a great show and connecting with people because of that is success. I would also add following and being true to the path in life you feel comfortable on is success.

What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?

Everything bad I’ve seen has shaped my life experience so while I would have rather not seen some things I also realize they are part of what life offers.

Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.

And give away my secret project I hope to do soon? I don’t think so.

What do you believe is the most essential function of art?

Communication of ideas. I also love how different people can see the same piece of art/hear the same song and come away with their own idea of what it means or how the idea of a piece can change for the artist over time.

Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?

Big fan of Honey’s ice cream (Toronto) and in general good food and good times with good people.

http://www.facebook.com/ianblurton.futurenow/
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http://www.instagram.com/ianblurton

http://www.seeingredrecords.com
http://www.seeingredrecords.bandcamp.com
http://www.instagram.com/seeing_red_records
http://www.facebook.com/seeingredrecords

https://www.instagram.com/uwuw_abh
https://uwuw.bandcamp.com/

https://www.facebook.com/wearebusybodies
https://linktr.ee/wearebusybodies

Ian Blurton’s Future Now, Second Skin (2022)

UWUW, UWUW (2022)

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Full Album Premiere & Review: UWUW, UWUW

Posted in audiObelisk, Reviews on October 20th, 2022 by JJ Koczan

UWUW UWUW

[Click play above to stream UWUW’s self-titled debut in full. Album is out tomorrow, Oct. 21, on We Are Busy Bodies.]

UWUW — said like “you-you” — operate as the base-trio of drummer/percussionist Jay Anderson (Lammping, ex-Comet Control, etc.), guitarist/vocalist/keyboardist/producer Ian Blurton (Ian Blurton’s Future Now, C’mon, so many others) and bassist/keyboardist Jason Haberman (The Wooden Sky, Yaehsun and others), but by the time you’re three seconds into “Scattered Ashes,” which opens their four-song self-titled debut full-length, they’ve already revealed themselves as more. The record begins in casual-cool motion, drums and bass with a groove out for the first of many walks to be taken in the relatively short half-hour span of the proceedings, and the guitar, bass and drums are almost immediately joined by a horn arrangement specifically geared to capture the feel of psychedelic soul and hard funk as portrayed by James Brown circa Hot Pants, earliest ParliamentThe Temptations‘ Psychedelic Shack and any number of other Norman Whitfield productions of the era 1968-’72.

Utilizing two guest singers in Chris Cummings — who bookends on “Scattered Ashes” and the more disco-minded finale “Box Office Poison” — and Drew Smith, who takes on the 13-minute cosmic funk epic “Staircase to the End of the Night” and the subsequent cooler-than-all death blues “Landlord,” as well as sax by Jay Hay (who handled the horn arrangements throughout), trombone by Tom Richards and trumpet by Patric McGroartyUWUW‘s UWUW is a tapestry of overlapping trippy, progressive and soulful, melodic songcraft.

With a sound further fleshed out by various comings and goings of synthesizer and effects, as the background of “Scattered Ashes” also demonstrates, there’s a world being created here not entirely separate but nonetheless distinct from the homage to nostalgic Toronto that Lammping make their own — Anderson is the right drummer for the job and proves it here on the hi-hat alone, never mind the rest of the kit and hand percussion, etc. — as UWUW draws directly from classic funk and soul music. Even in the midsection guitar space-out of “Scattered Ashes” or the ultra-flowing slow-motion dreamscapery of “Staircase to the End of the Night,” the rhythm holds, and it is there that the band’s process of building upward from initial guitar-bass-drum jams is revealed.

With Blurton doubling as producer for the material, there’s a smoothness to the overarching sound of the album that is very much his, but the effect of layering together these pieces, one thing on top of the other, then mixing them all together to come across as organically as they do, is a masterclass in modernizing retroism. “Staircase to the End of the Night,” with its repetitive guitar line, righteous shifts from verse to chorus, hypnotic repetitions early manipulated by effects, and outward direction takeoff after about six and a half minutes in — you’ll recognize it when the percussion starts in over the drums — horn solo, crash, return, shimmy, drift, and eventual wash of melody before returning to the lyrics, “Holding me up and holding me tight/The staircase will run to the end of the night,” is and should be an obvious focal point. It takes up nearly half the album’s runtime, and feels very much like UWUW claiming territory now to advance future exploration; or maybe that’s just me thinking wishfully.

UWUW

The sleek delivery of Smith on “Staircase to the End of the Night” underscores another point working in UWUW‘s favor, which is that the abiding fluidity of the production plays a role in uniting the songs as they operate with different moods and players. Yes, the horns appear on each track, and it’s only two singers, both male, and so on, but there’s no question UWUW operates in varied spaces, as the turn from “Staircase to the End of the Night” to “Landlord” and “Box Office Poison” on side B readily shows. The songs simply do different things and go different places — and that’s not to leave out “Scattered Ashes” either, with its surprisingly grim lyrical theme mirrored in “Landlord.”

Starting with the most gradual ascent of a fade-in here-present, the track opens at a markedly languid tempo; fittingly dreamy coming out of “Staircase to the End of the Night” but sweeping suddenly into its verse, with Smith reminding a bit as he did the song before of Sean Lennon in The Claypool-Lennon Delirium, but making a point of its tension in the verse line before the chorus arrives to mellow-strut and unfold its lysergic reach of melody, bringing in ethereal and funky keys before heading back into the verse for another round. They go back again to it to finish, but most of the second half of the track is given to the chorus and a post-chorus jam, which is not at all a complaint. The rhythm holds the underlying movement as the keys, guitar and vocals offer breadth that would in many less-skilled hands be contrasting the structure but here reaffirms it, and so the final turn is masterful instead of clumsy like so much else of UWUW‘s let’s-try-it-and-see-what-happens-hey-we-made-a-song moments.

And the tambourine and keyboard — never mind the bass; oh, the bassline — announce the arrival of “Box Office Poison,” which offers a standout hook even in the face of “Scattered Ashes,” “Landlord” just prior and “Staircase to the End of the Night.” With Cummings stepping back in on lead vocals, there’s a sense of unity with the beginning of the record that comes through even if you don’t know the personnel involved, but an immediately full arrangement is practically beating you over the head to get out to the dance floor. Where is the dance floor? And why are we dancing? Because it’s the end of the world, and that’s what’s happening. The clever engagement with popular culture in the lyrics suits the shimmer of the keyboard, and Anderson and Haberman once again leave no doubt as to where the soul in soul music is modeled.

They cap with a big swell in the horns riding the groove at half-time — prog heads will hear King Crimson there; I’m not sure it’s intentional and I’m not sure it’s not — and finish their debut album with a six-minute track that sounds like it only took three; pretty emblematic of the listening experience as a whole. These are busy players with musical lives outside this outfit, so I will not attempt to predict what they might do from here or when, but BlurtonHaberman and Anderson — with HayCummingsSmithRichards and McGroarty — find an immediate niche for themselves on ground few others could so successfully tread, and with songwriting at the core of what they do, manifest a work of gorgeous, lush heavy soul.

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The Obelisk Questionnaire: Rod Rodrigues

Posted in Questionnaire on October 14th, 2022 by JJ Koczan

Rod Rodrigues (Photo by Dexter Apogean)

The Obelisk Questionnaire is a series of open questions intended to give the answerer an opportunity to explore these ideas and stories from their life as deeply as they choose. Answers can be short or long, and that reveals something in itself, but the most important factor is honesty.

Based on the Proust Questionnaire, the goal over time is to show a diverse range of perspectives as those who take part bring their own points of view to answering the same questions. To see all The Obelisk Questionnaire posts, click here.

Thank you for reading and thanks to all who participate.

The Obelisk Questionnaire: Rod Rodrigues

How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?

I’m a solo artist and music teacher. Teaching is one of my biggest passions in life, I have been teaching for 25 years. I was not intentional, I knew since very early that I wanted to be an artist. I began doing oil painting when I was 10 years old, I was surrounded by art. My mom used to sing all the time at home, my sister was very into art too.

Describe your first musical memory.

I had my first stage experience when I was around 5/6 years old. My mom took me to sing with a professional singer at a rodeo festival in my hometown. That was a terrifying experience, but I had fun.

Describe your best musical memory to date.

When I got an answer from Alex Lifeson from Rush watching one of my videos. That was completely unexpected. I did a few collaboration videos with people from different parts of the world In the middle of the pandemic. That video was a version that I did with some friends of Rush’s “Leave that thing alone”. One of my students’ Dad watched my video, and I didn’t know that he’s Alex’s friend. He messaged me asking me if he could send that video to Alex . Then Alex answered my student’s Dad saying really nice things about my playing. I’m a huge Rush fan, that meant a lot for me.

Where do you feel artistic progression leads?

Personal and professional fulfillment.

How do you define success?

Being happy with what you do.

What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?

How cruel the social media has been these days. People criticize absolutely everything. If your hair is not the way that they think it should be, if your video is not in the way that they wanted to see, if your clothes are not the colour they wanted. They criticize you if you do or don’t post regularly on your social media. It’s an exhausting job, trying to please everyone all the time. I know people who got really depressed because of social media. It’s getting more dangerous than ever.

Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.

I would love to write music for movies or video games.

What do you believe is the most essential function of art?

How art can touch your heart and your soul. That’s one of the most interesting things about art in general. How you can describe an abstract picture, how that can touch you and the feelings that you get it from it. How the music can give you chills, how that can touch you to the point that makes you cry. Nothing else can give you such mixed feelings but art.

Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?

End of all wars.

http://www.rodrodrigues.net
http://www.YouTube.com/c/rodrodrigues
http://www.Instagram.com/rodrodriguesofficial
http://www.facebook.com/rodrodriguesofficial

Rod Rodrigues, “Woodbine Sunset” official video

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