Obsessed
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.
The Submissives: "Obsessed"
Watch on YouTube - Purchase at Bandcamp
Enigmatic Montreal group The Submissives recently resurfaced with "Obsessed," the first single from their upcoming LP Live At Value Sound Studios. The 13-song record is due October 11 through Celluloid Lunch, capturing the skewed girl group's live incarnation for the first time after years of solo output from principal Deb Edison.
In a recent interview with the Paperface Zine, Edison unpacks her roots in southern Manitoba and reveals the project's unconventional origins:
"The Submissives started in my head as more of an aesthetic vision of what the band was going to look like. Originally I imagined secretly writing and recording a tape and rehearsing with a band and surprising the scene in Montreal with a really heavily conceptual 'girl-group.' I guess I saw it as a sort of reactionary prank type thing. Originally I wanted to do just one show and then end it. All the band members when we started had never played live music before with the exception of the original second singer Marlee who is a musical genius. Although I intended for it to be a one show thing, we all formed a really solid bond immediately and it made sense to continue. We had a lot of fun as a band with choosing concepts for how the show looked and everyone was extremely musically talented and just hadn't had the opportunity yet to join a band. I also got addicted to writing these sort of catchy and creepy pop songs. The formula was fun to follow and I wanted to see how many songs I could write."
The lead single, "Obsessed," is featured in an uncanny new video that accentuates the track's off-kilter qualities. In the Paperface interview, Edison describes the song as an exploration of "the agony of addiction to drugs and love."
The upcoming LP follows three cassette releases and the band's 2022 vin debut Wanna be Your Thing. That record surfaced through the Parisian label Bruit Direct Disques. The band's found a spiritual kinship among the Celluloid Lunch roster, a catalogue of impressively offbeat takes on deceptively familiar sounds.
Live At Value Sound Studios features Deb Edison on guitar, violin, and vocals, Talia Boguski singing, Christina Bell on guitar and trumpet, Emily Gray on bass, Marissa Cytryn drumming, and Olivier Dumont on flute. The band recorded with engineer Garrett Johnson in the spring of 2017, with Josh Boguski mastering.
Botfly: "Elle Is For Love"
Preview and purchase at Bandcamp
Halifax post-hardcore mainstays Botfly are back with "Elle Is For Love," the first single from their upcoming EP Open Letters. The four-song set is due October 11 through No Funeral and the French label Fireflies Fall.
The group, currently on the road with Single Mothers and Birds In Row, notes that the piece is "the one and only true love song in our discography." Given the gap between their last full length and the new EP, the band's taking their meticulous quality control seriously. They note, "as always we've poured our hearts and souls in to these songs and this one is certainly no exception."
No Funeral teases that the EP's a heavier outing that leans into Botfly's hardcore side. The set follows 2021's Lower than Love, a landmark LP for the band that expanded their dynamic range by tempering their traditional noise-forward attack with increasing moments of melodicism. "Elle is for Love" seems to further that approach while simultaneously keeping the intensity high, pulling from a toolkit that fans of Alexisonfire should appreciate.
Botfly features guitarist/vocalists Keegan Goodspeed and Alex Babineau, bassist Sean Mcinnis, and drummer Dewayne Shanks. Last year, the group issued the live EP Live At Yeah Yeah's Pizza. It followed a 2022 split with Montreal skramz act dianacrawls.
Dany Laj and the Looks: "Meet Me On The Floor"
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Montreal power-pop outfit Dany Laj and the Looks are back with "Meet Me On The Floor," a new single and self-described "party anthem" that celebrates their return to the road following several years of downtime. Blame the pandemic.
In a statement, Laj expressed his frustrations with the group's extended stay on the sidelines:
"Honestly, we were sick of not touring. We miss it and the road is where we belong... In 2021 we made what we thought was a great record, Ten Easy Pieces, but we haven't had a chance to tour it yet. Every time we tried to go out on the road, the world just kept stopping."
The band recorded "Meet Me On The Floor" at their Montreal studio, La La Pop Shoppe. The track finds Laj on lead vocals and guitar paired with longtime bassist/vocalist Jeanette Dowling. The track debuts two new additions to The Looks, with David Laplante joining on guitar and Alex Pauzé drumming. Stacey Case of Toronto surf-punks Tijuana Bibles (formerly of The Weirdies) makes a guest appearance on tambourine.
Dany Laj and the Looks have a few headlining Northern Ontario shows on the books for September, with a comprehensive West Coast trek planned for October backing the Montreal ska-punk outfit K-Man & The 45s. They'll follow that with a run of US dates before returning home for November for a string of Canadian shows supporting Paul Collins' Beat.
With roots in Kirkland Lake, Ontario, Dany Laj and the Looks last issued the 7" single "You Should Know" in 2022 through I-94 Recordings. Their LP Ten Easy Pieces, arrived a year prior through We Are Busy Bodies.
Zouz: "Sobre"/"Une main lave l'autre"
Watch "Une main lave l'autre" YouTube - Preview and purchase at Bandcamp
Montreal post-punk trio Zouz recently unveiled "Sobre" and "Une main lave l'autre," two new singles that preview Jours de cendre, their sophomore full-length due in October through Simone Records. The material finds the band bouncing their homegrown "rock bruitiste" style off of a new collaborator, co-producer Alexandre Martel (Hubert Lenoir, Lou-Adriane Cassidy).
These tracks retain the group's dark undertones but buoy them atop a compelling groove. "Sobre" builds to a driving crescendo as David Marchand grapples with themes of dependency. "Une main lave l'autre" extends those notions of addiction to an unbalanced relationship amidst a crash of crunchy dance-punk. The latter's showcased in a new video from director Charles-David Dubé.
Zouz features vocalist/guitarist David Marchand, bassist/keyboardist Étienne Dupré, and drummer Francis Ledoux. Their new material follows up on their 2021 debut Vertiges. We first previewed this record in May with the single "Messie."
Burly Wood: "Side by Side"
Watch on YouTube - Preview and purchase at Bandcamp
Affable Montreal alternative quartet Burly Wood recently shared "Side by Side," the premiere single from their upcoming EP Horror Vacui. The propulsive rocker is the first from the group since 2021's "Erreur 101," a French-language track issued as part of that year's Chalet Émergent project (the band's first song issued in French).
François Lafleur engineered and mixed the group's new material at Studios Mixart. Burly Wood features Guillaume Séguin on rhythm guitar and lead vocals, Ulric Corbeil-Trudel on lead guitar and backing vocals, Payo on bass, and François Lelièvre drumming. The song's youthful enthusiasm comes to the fore in a new video featuring Séguin's young son, issued earlier this week.
The new EP follows Burly Wood's eight-song 2017 collection Watch it Burn.
