In a small and cozy dimly light red room at Rockwood Music Hall, Scott Matthew graced the audience with his presence and talent.  The crowd quietly listened to the Australian born New Yorker play his new album, Gallantry’s Favorite Son, at his record release party.  The drums and bass were pushed far back as we listened to Matthew gently strum his ukulele.  There’s nothing more classic than watching a passionate musician only with his guitar, if there only was a fireplace crackling to the side, it would have been the perfect setting on a cold winter’s night.

The intimate environment went well with his personal songs about love and life’s complexities.  He sang some melodramatic melodies about past relationships, threw in some whistles and lightened up the mood.  It’s difficult to categorize his voice which makes it truly is unique and endearing. It features a touch of rasp, but yet feels pure, filled with vibratos and crescendos that create the right mix for his gentle folky ballads.

If you’re in the mellow mood, Gallantry’s Favorite Son is definitely worth listening to.

The Asteroid’s Galaxy Tour (once again) rocked their performance in NYC and played at the Irving Plaza.  It wasn’t too long ago where they played at the Bowery Ballroom. There were several similarities within the shows: the size of the venue, the wooden floors were shaking from the uncontrollable movements of the crowd, Mette was stunning as always, and their standout jazzy tones captured the audience’s heart. The one major difference was that they just released their new album, Out of Frequency, that day. We were all in for one big surprise….

They opened with a long instrumental introduction before Mette walked onstage.  Waiting in anticipation to see her ensemble, considering her role as a boundless fashionista, I instantly admired her look.  Looking as if she stepped out of Marc Jacobs’ Daisy ad, she wore a vintage inspired navy blue dress with a lace collar, pieced with Janis Joplin-looking sun glasses.  Accompanied by the intricate lighting, her blue dress beamed through the entire performance, literally. There are pictures to prove it.

Throughout the show, they played a variety of their old and new songs.  The six member band produced multiple layers of heavy jazz, classic funk, followed with a pop-rock twist, while incorporating a high-hitting perfect pitched voice.  I call the latter mix, “The Asteroid’s Galaxy Tour’s formula,” and it has yet to be topped.  They give an effortless attempt to master the funky and fun, yet casual and hip show. They played their classics; Sun Ain’t Shining No More, Golden Age, Sunshine Coolin’, Around the Bend, and ended with Push the Envelope.  Some songs they rocked from Out of Frequency included Major, Heart Attack, Suburban Space Invader (which they played in concert for the first time).

I’ve expressed my deep rooted love for this talented band because they are truly a jewel within the music industry and fresh breath of air.  My only question remains, when are they coming back to NYC?

This previous Saturday I was lucky enough to sit down with the fellas from the boom booms followed by their concert at Sugar Nightclub in Victoria.
Prior to the interview and concert I was excited as The Boom Booms are an up and coming band who seem to be perpetually expanding in song choices and career moves. Their success grew further recently as they were awarded the high up in the Peak’s “Top 20 BC Bands of 2011″.

The boys have remained humble and focused during the process of further recognition. They explained to me that they are doing what they have always done, but now they have greater recognition from the public and thirsty record producers. This of course feels nice to the band but is not the foundation of why they approached the music industry.

Every member of the six piece rock/Latin/reggae band emanates something musical, in their gate and the way they speak and the way they communicate with one another. They all complement one another in conversation and on stage. This is evident of a band that chooses members that are suitable and compatible. They have travelled extensively together and four of them live in the same house in East Vancouver, while the 2 members live within shouting distance. When asked how they manage this they explained cohesively; they have become used to one another and being together just feels comfortable.

The boys are taking off to Brazil this week to expand feed their musical curiosity, expand with their music and shed light on the current issues that attack one of the most influential countries in the world.

The Boom Booms live is an interactive experience, they make it their responsibility to get limbs loose on the dance floor which is exactly what happened in the packed in the Raptors venue. They each interact with the crowd and make sure the audience is connected, this connection is what makes their performances electric and lithe.

Their set lists are commonly designed before each show based off of who they are playing with and how they are feeling, allowing authenticity to each performance. The fellas include choreographed dance sways, sing alongs and even Nelly covers. The underlying foundation of the Boom Booms is fun, I anticipate this quality to stick with further musical evolvement during their time in Brazil.

The title track on The House Built around Your Voice is the only other example of music that resembles the legendary Antony. However the Darcy’s, (made up of four young gentlemen) are original; this is clear immediately. The all encompassing voice that captures overwhelming beauty and pain has only been achieved once before on this decade until these fellas rolled around. The haunting lyrics become alive through the evocative vocals that attack, release and resonate beyond belief.

The instrumentals are rich yet weightless and ascend listeners somewhere wonderfully frightening. Like a room filled with glow in the dark stars without any recollection of getting there. Each song takes listeners one step further into their inviting elevator to hell. “ The Mountains Make Way” sounds as if the song itself has been syringed with beautiful doom and “I Will Be Light” took be somewhere I have no plans to come back from.

It is revitalizing to hear a new band that is no afraid to expose the wonder of experimentation and the splendor in the dark.

All I can say about Das Racist (actually, I could talk for days about them) is they are dope. What I mean by dope is that they are the wittiest, swaggerlicious, intelligent, entertaining and raddest cats in NYC. 

The group played in their stomping grounds at Brooklyn’s Music Hall of Williamsburg, this being their last show of their U.S. tour before they head overseas. It’s always enjoyable seeing artists who are playing in their home town because there’s always a little more sense of community within the audience. Their technique of mixing humorous puns with important social and political issues is a challenging task and many rappers cannot fulfill this characteristic.

Williamsburg saw an easy-going performance; nothing seemed staged or rehearsed with Das Racist’s trio naturally spitting rhymes from some their greatest tracks. Michael Jackson, Power and You Oughta Know amongst others.  The show saw guest performances from their friends, as well as those featured on their tracks.  It was the type of show where you want to go on stage and hang with them because they’re just having a good time.

Their styles are naturally cool, their witty jokes are solid, their mojo’s are dope, their beats are creative, and their raps are addictive.  Enough said.

The cover of the forthcoming EP, So Outta Reach, shows a bunch of different shots of an unkempt Kurt Vile asleep sitting up in a big armchair at some party, and in each picture somebody has their arm around him and is smiling at the camera. Your first reaction is laughter, but there’s a certain seriousness to the title that makes you unsure. Certainly the songs on Smoke Ring for My Halo suggest a guy sleepwalking through life. In fact, on the final track, “Ghost Town,” Kurt sings, “It’s all right to peel myself up sleepwalking / in a ghost town / Think I’ll never leave my couch again / ’cause when I’m out I’m only in my mind.” Sleepwalking in a ghost town is a perfect image for a guy who says he can “see through everyone, even my own self.”

Kurt Vile’s spaced-out music, drenched in reverb heightens the effect of separation. It’s as though there were a membrane over whatever it is Kurt’s feeling or trying to tell us. Not only that, but he seems torn as to whether he even wants to say what he’s thinking, often saying dark and immediately countering it with some self-effacing joke. For example, in “On Tour,” Kurt sings, “I wanna write my whole life down / burn it down to the ground,” but goes on to laugh, “Nah, I’m just playing, / I got it made”–and then adding uncertainly after a pause, “Most of the time.” It’s like something is holding him back, making him play down his feelings.

Lyrically the album packs a punch. Kurt’s imagery is personal and dark. But because of the casual way it’s delivered, it comes off more as a prolonged whatever than some attempt at profound insight. It’s much better that way. As it is, listening to the album is like talking to some apathetic friend who’s lost his way, come unattached from the earth and started floating around aimlessly. But if Kurt took the songs more seriously, listening to the album might have been like talking to some insufferable know-it-all who was trying to convince you his feelings were mega important.

The album is not perfect. “Puppet to the Man” and “Society Is My Friend,” both the album’s heaviest songs and also the only ones not about him, are a drag. Since “the man” and “society” are two things people love to stick it to, it’s like Kurt Vile’s gotta get those out of the way before he can keep going with the rest of the album. He does give both themes sort of an original spin, I guess, since in “The Man” he readily admits that he’s a puppet to the man, and in “Society” he seems to lose focus before he can even get to his message. All the same, the tracks feel perfunctory, and stick out from the rest of the album.

But overall, it’s an excellent listen, one of the year’s best. As on the cover of So Outta Reach, there’s an ambiguity to it: underneath the casualness, how serious is he about the emptiness, the detachment, even at times what seems like suicidality? Thematically, that’s what’s cool about it, but the best thing is the music and the way he sings.

Chromeo began their set with their classic single, “Fancy Footwork.”  The perfect song to get everyone’s feet jiving.  Throughout their set, they played all of their hits “Bonafide Lovin,” “Tenderoni,” “Hot Mess,” “Momma’s Boy,” “Don’t turn the Lights On,” as well as many others.  It’s always enjoyable to see electrofunk come to life from your headphones to the stage.

There’s something about Chromeo’s tracks that always make it a danceable song, regardless of how good the track really is.  I always ask myself, what makes Chromeo so good? Is it their 80‘s era-inspired dance music that permeates the floor and makes the audience naturally conduct their fancy footwork?  Is it their theatrical performance including their recognizable suit and bow-tie ensemble, as well as, their back-up synchronized female dancers? Is it their hilarious sounding talk-box they use to speak to the crowd which always pleases the audience? Or it must be because they’ve been in the industry for a handful of years (circa 2004) and they have mastered the art of performing.  Regardless, I think it’s plausible to say, these righteous fellas have got their heads in the game.

“January” is an Irish traditional, but the way they jam on it sounds very much like the Grateful Dead, the quintessential hippie Californian band. This song fits the album’s cover, a landscape scene viewed by some psychedelic somebody dreaming of old English kings and knights. The lady down in front looks like some horny-toad librarian that hallucinations have turned regal and armored.

PG Six spends the entire album with one foot planted amid 21st century ordinary things and the other ankle-deep in trippy, archaic dreamy stuff. “Letter” is about pretty much what it sounds like–”I wrote a letter / to try and speak my peace / to try and set things straight”–while “Palace” details the hanging gardens he and his true love walk through… in his mind, man! It is all awesomely jammy, with the exception of ”Days Hang Heavy,” wherein he retreats from the album cover’s green field into his house as it starts to rain, standing in the kitchen by the window and looking out, with only the gray light filtered through the dark clouds. All the songs are good, but that one and “Talk Me Down” are particularly moving.

With psychedelic music the lyrics generally aren’t what’s important, but as with the Grateful Dead, PG Six’s lyrics are full of pleasant surprises that can grab you even if you’re not listening closely. Thematically, the contrast between the psychedelic stuff and the ordinary stuff is cool. It’s as if when his head comes down below the clouds he just can’t latch onto anything substantive enough to fill him up. “Wrong Side of Yesterday” finds him sober, unable to help contemplating the years during which “all the girls I knew [became] strangers.” It is certainly a melancholy album, though you might not guess it just listening to the jams.

Of course, the emphasis here is on the times when he’s feeling low and needs drugs to rise above it. This album isn’t any kind of comment on the long-term effect of psychotropics. It’s just a slice of his life. What he wants to tell us about is his starry mind; the fact that sometimes little messages from his sober self slip in to the story, and that they’re not very happy, isn’t supposed to make us question the rest of the album. Least I don’t think so.

Here’s something interesting: the whole second half is like a come-down. Notice how much softer it ends compared to how it began. The last song is in the same key as the first and has the same guitar tone and everything–clearly it’s meant to be a bookend. But it’s soft and quiet and slightly sad–that’s the progress he’s made over the course of the album.

This is worth a listen if you like psychedelic rock.

If this track doesn’t make you move and motivate you to sing along, I don’t know what would. His voice is not only contagious, but his easy-going sound is a breath of fresh air from many other strikingly heavy-bass electronic artists.  TEED has exploded within the blogosphere and it’s obvious why.  He has paved the way for a new refreshing sound of dance music and I’m anxious to hear what is next single has in stores for us.

If you want a spin on the song, check out the other remixes of “Trouble” from artists, Lapalux, Jamie Jones, and Chad Valley.

It would seem that Elliott Brood are something of a national treasure in training. At least on paper. They are a CBC Radio favourite and they played at the Olympic Village for the 2010 Winter Olympics in British Columbia. Their debut album, Ambassador, was nominated for a Juno in 2006 and they won the Galaxie Rising Star Award that year for Best New Artist. Another Juno nomination came in 2009 for their sophomore effort, Mountain Meadows, which was also shortlisted for the coveted Polaris Prize.

I wanted so much to love this album, the idea of which was so endearing. As the story goes, Elliott Brood were on their first European tour in 2007, when they happened upon a cemetery in France for Canadian soldiers who had died in battle during the First World War. Profoundly touched, the band vowed to make an album drawing from the experience and honouring fallen soldiers. Now how can you not want to get behind that??

Unfortunately, Days Into Years is nothing to write home about. Within its genre, it fits in but fails to stand out. The standout track, “Northern Air”, feels like a weekend trip to the cottage in a beat-up Volkswagen with your best friends. A long weekend. An honourable mention goes to “If I Get Old”, about a soldier’s sweet dream of living the simple life.