Cool Water
Some Party is a newsletter sharing the latest in independent Canadian rock'n'roll, curated more-or-less weekly by Adam White. Each edition explores punk, garage, psych, and otherwise uncategorizable indie rock, drawing lines from proto to post and taking some weird diversions along the way.
It was never my intention pursue premieres for Some Party. In particular, I assumed the weekly nature of this project would make it a fairly undesirable place for a band to want to break new music. Also, as I have no revenue stream and no advertising beast to feed, I don't have a lot of motivation to drum up traffic. Who wants to compete with clickbait and hyperbolic announcements when you can coast along the secondhand Internet at your own pace?
Yet here I am, premiering new music. Buckle up.
First off, this week Some Party had the absolute pleasure of premiering the new song and video from the Ottawa-via-Peterborough noise-punk duo Deathsticks. The band, which features guitarist Matt Post and drummer Laura Klinduch, have put together a new EP they're calling Deathsnacks. Look for it on April 27 (digitally at first, with a 7" to follow). The new record follows up their recent four-way split 7" with WLMRT, Nüshu, and Nightbummerz.
This song, titled "Finger Food" is, in the words of drummer Laura Klinduch, "about feeling insecure or inadequate about your place as an artist in the larger Canadian music community." You can check out the full write-up and video at the site. Deathsticks were one of the first live bands I saw after the launch of this newsletter last year, so on some emotional level, this feels like a win for me.
Watch: Deathsticks - "Finger Food" @ Some Party
This weekend today I also premiered a new live video from Winnipeg's 90s alt-rock nerds Colour By Numbers. The quartet features bassist Alex Kozub, guitarist Jared Adams, drummer Mike McDermid, and multi-instrumentalist Jesse Millar. They're following up their 2017 Among The Stars EP with their first shot at crafting a rock opera.
Check the Some Party premiere to see a live performance of "Thaddeus," the opera's main theme which sets up the protagonist. It was filmed at Winnipeg's Good Will Social Club this past February.
Watch: Colour by Numbers - "Thaddeus" @ Some Party
To top it off, this week I also premiered a surprise new EP from the enigmatic rock act Fool at Punknews. The project's new set of cryptic songs is titled Hiss Garden for a Lily Face. The Toronto underground rock label Art of the Uncarved Block has the release available now. When I talked to the Art guys about Fool, they namedropped such lo-fi legends as Daniel Higgs, Smog, and Jandek when describing it. You can hear Fool's new release in its entirety now at Bandcamp.
Listen: Fool - "Hiss Garden for a Lily Face" @ Bandcamp
Toronto's Pleasence Records has had a massive week.
First up they announced the singing of Petra Glynt. They'll release the follow up to her percussive electric art-punk LP This Trip sometime later this year. She made the announcement in neat curated mixtape feature over at UPROXX.
Next, the label announced the new full-length from the Toronto post-punk act TRAITRS, titled Butcher's Coin. The May release will be a joint with Manic Depression and Alchera Visions. The band premiered their first single, an authentically goth rock / cold-wave tune cheerily titled "The Suffering of Spiders" at Post-Punk.com.
TRAITRS features the duo of Shawn Tucker and Sean-Patrick Nolan. They're following up their 2016 EP Speak in Tongues on this release. Look for Butcher's Coin on May 19.
Listen: TRAITRS - "The Suffering of Spiders" @ Post-Punk.com
Finally, Pleasence announced the upcoming new full length from Calgary's guitar-pop act Feel Alright. The record, titled In Bad Faith, will arrive in June.
Feel Alright is the brainchild of Calgary audio/visual artist Craig Fahner. The band's evolved over the years from a solo recording project into a live act. It's relocated, along with Fahner, several times and has been based out of Pittsburg and Montreal for periods before landing in Calgary. This new record follows a 2011 LP titled Hahahahahaha and an assortment of short form releases (including a split cassette with Century Palm in 2016).
You can preview the "Cool Water," the first single from the new set, at New Noise. This song has become a minor obsession of mine, and it's been playing more-or-less on repeat in my office all week. Fahner told New Noise:
"I wrote this song when I was moving back to Calgary from Pittsburgh. I was thinking about the kinds of people who work thanklessly to contribute something vital to the music community, without receiving anything in return in terms of conventional ideas of success, and the cycles of exhaustion and propulsion that characterize being a cultural worker in a place like Calgary."
Listen: Feel Alright - "Cool Water" @ New Noise
Lesley Marshall of Ottawa's sludgy surf-punk group Bonnie Doon has taken a country turn. She recently debuted her new band Ginny, which also features former Plumtree guitarist Catriona Sturton and bassist Kristy Nease of Area Resident.
In March the band launched their first EP with a show at Ottawa's Concorde Motel. You can check out a recent feature from the Ottawa Showbox for an interview with Marshall that delves into the trio's origins.
Listen: Ginny - "Choose the Wrong Man" @ Bandcamp
This week the Vancouver punk trio Corner Boys revealed the details on their upcoming 7" for Dirt Cult Records. Love Tourist will feature four new songs, including a cover of "TV Love" by early LA punk group The Simpletones. The band recorded with Fashionism's Jeffrey McCloy.
Corner Boys features Hosehead Records' Patrick Bertrand, Joel Butler of Nervous Talk, and Wade from Stress Eating. Butler and Bertrand have been playing as members of the incredibly fun punk group Chain Whip recently as well.
Listen: Corner Boys - "Love Tourist" @ Bandcamp
Speaking of Fashionism, the Vancouver glam-punk group recently announced a couple of upcoming releases for the UK's Drunken Sailor label.
First up is an LP titled Smash Singles, which will compile material from the band's sold out singles along with a few bonus tracks and alternate versions thrown in to complete the package. It'll arrive alongside a brand new single for the power-pop tune "Come on my Baby." That one will be a co-release between Drunken Sailor and Vancouver's Neon Taste. Both releases will coincide with Fashionism's upcoming European tour.
While we wait to hear the new stuff, here's an early cut that should show up on Smash Singles. Back on the band's first 7", the subtly titled Smash the State (With Your Face), the group covered the song "Breaking Out" from the Rocky Horror followup musical Shock Treatment. You can stream it at below. Fashionism follows a long string of notable groups fronted by McCloy, including the New Town Animals and the Tranzmitors.
Listen: Fashionism - "Breaking Out" @ Bandcamp
Zen Bamboo, a rock band out of Saint-Lambert, Quebec, has been regularly releasing new material culled from a full-length session that they've split into four EPs. The first two instalments arrived last year and the third, titled Volume 3 – Carrière Solo, is now set for an April 13 release on Simone Records. The band premiered the first single from this batch, titled "La Mort," in a feature at Urbania.
You can find their video, directed by Charles-Antoine Olivier, below. The band recorded these songs with Malajube's Thomas Augustin producing.
Watch: Zen Bamboo - "La Mort" @ YouTube
Jonah Falco, drummer of Fucked Up and guitarist for Career Suicide, has released a new song recorded as his Lonely Wholesome solo project. "Nos Allures Sages" is a cover of a song by Elli et Jacno, an 80s French electropop group. There's no word yet if this is just a one-off or part of some future collection.
Listen: Lonely Wholesome - "Nos Allures Sages" @ Bandcamp
Montreal's Freak Heat Waves have released another new single in the lead-up to the April 6 release of Beyond XXXL. The band's core duo of Steven Lind and Thomas DiNinno have reinvented their sound on this psychedelic, electronics-heavy set. This track, titled "Soothing Limbo," gives a good indication of the spacey atmosphere they've crafted this time out.
The band is also among the performers slated to play the upcoming 10th-anniversary show for their label, Telephone Explosion. The show, slated for Friday, June 8 at Lee's Palace in Toronto, will feature Freak Heat Waves along with performances from Odonis Odonis, New Fries, Teenanger, and the former Deadly Snakes frontman André Ethier.
Listen: Freak Heat Waves - "Soothing Limbo" @ SoundCloud
Windsor hardcore punk group Brain Itch has released a video for their song "Poverty Cost." It appears on the band's upcoming EP Leave The Fold, which they recorded with Nick Kinnish at Serafina Studios.
A cassette release of the new EP is due in April, just as the band heads to the East Coast and back for a short tour. You can find those dates in the video's description
Watch: Brain Itch - "Poverty Coast" @ YouTube
Toronto hardcore act Twin Rivals recently premiered a new performance video for their song "Hell's Coming." The track will appear on the band's upcoming record On Tilt, which is due in the spring on Chimeric Records in Canada, State Of Mind Recordings in the States, and Useless Pride in Europe.
Watch: Twin Rivals - "Hell's Coming" @ YouTube
Vancouver's indie rock four-piece Jo Passed has another new video out from their upcoming debut LP Their Prime. You can find the Justin Gradin directed "Millenial Trash Blues" below.
Jo Passed features Joseph Hirabayashi, formerly of the band Sprïng, along with Mac Lawrie, Bella Bébé, and Megan-Magdalena Bourne. Their record arrives on May 25 on Royal Mountain Records in Canada and Sub Pop elsewhere.
Watch: Jo Passed - "Millenial Trash Blues" @ YouTube
2017 Polaris Music Prize winner Lido Pimienta recently took part in a live session for The Line of Best Fit, in which she performed an a cappella rendition of a new song titled "Para Transcribir." The studio version of this track is slated to appear on her next record, titled Miss Columbia, whenever it arrives. Thiss session was filmed in Reykjavik, Iceland at the recent Iceland Airwaves festival.
