Jennifer Castle Monarch Season Toronto, ON Idée Fixe/Paradise of Bachelors RIYL: Linda Perhacs; Kath Bloom; dad-mode Bill Callahan
Over the past 15 years, Jennifer Castle has quietly built up a devoted following with her beautiful, humane folk music. From her early days at intimate Toronto venues like the Tranzac Club and Double Double Land to her jam-packed winter solstice concerts each December, she has spent the past decade recording and performing with a large band, adding pieces to her caravan until it became a choogling country-rock chuckwagon. That changed in 2019 when Castle’s solo tour dates opening for Neko Case inspired her to make her sixth LP completely on her lonesome, returning to the spare sound of her origins as Castlemusic.
Finding time away from work as a doula, Castle was joined by producer Jeff McMurrich in her rural home by Lake Erie. Recording with the light of the moon and the sound of the water lapping through her windows, she wove together the understated sonic tapestry of Monarch Season with only her voice, acoustic guitar, piano, and a healthy dose of harmonica. On these nine songs, Castle’s quivering voice and unhurried melodic approach meditates on big ideas including justice, the environment, and how cities aren’t changing fast enough to keep up with their problems.
In a sly nod to soul singer Jimmy Ruffin, Monarch Season closes with Castle posing the question “what becomes of the broken hearted?” She might not have an immediate answer, but does believe in bringing troubled people together, packing sheet music inside copies of the album so anyone can sing and play along.
Deep Digs: Pascal Languirand – De Harmonia Universalia (Minos, 1980)
By: Jesse Locke
In Deep Digs we take a look at significant albums from Canadian history, with an emphasis on music that might have been overlooked the first time around. This month writer Jesse Locke focuses on the sonic explorations and “New Classical Romanticism” of Pascal Languirand’s De Harmonia Universalia.
Pascal Languirand is a musical shapeshifter searching the cosmos for universal harmony. A decade before he could be heard jamming on keytar with hi-NRG synth-pop group Trans-X and their hit single “Living On Video,” Languirand’s debut album Minosbecame one of the earliest Canadian releases linked to the genre of New Age music. Fusing acoustic and electronic sounds, its ambient meditations looked to deep space and earthly lost cities to enrich the mind, body, and spirit.
According to The Canadian Encyclopedia, “New Age music had its first proponents and has developed its strongest commercial infrastructure in Quebec” with labels, distributors, associations, and awards set up for the burgeoning subculture. Languirand’s second album De Harmonia Universalia cemented his position as both an innovator and outlier in this field, drawing on elements of space music and krautrock while creating a style he described as “the New Classical Romanticism.”
Languirand was a globetrotter from day one. Though his parents are Canadian, he was born in Paris and spent his childhood flying back and forth to Mexico with his father, the celebrated (yet allegedly abusive) writer, actor, and radio host Jacques Languirand. Imbued with a sense of creativity and curiosity, Pascal began studying electronic music at McGill and cinematography at Concordia at age 18. In an article from the website Amazings, he describes his earliest self-directed studies. “Above all, I loved experimenting. I used to do so with tape, especially with my four-track recorder, with the electric guitar, something like Pink Floyd, playing with echo, the bass. Therefore, I based my work on the manipulation of sounds. My university studies, in actual fact, did not have any real usefulness for me. I preferred to experiment on my own.”
These approaches culminate on De Harmonia Universalia, originally released as a cassette on Languirand’s label Minos. He plays every instrument himself, with an array of electronics that includes the Roland Guitar Synthesizer and Farfisa Synthorchestra (a favourite of his kosmische counterparts Klaus Schulze and Cluster). “Inesperdistan” sets the scene with vocoder-drenched vocals pitched up to sound like a haunted boys’ choir, before “Abalii” sails into the distant galaxies of New Age with washes of cymbals and swirling pianos set adrift on synthesized bliss. “Atlantis” is the album’s mystical centerpiece, as Languirand’s voice returns alongside acoustic guitar strums, welcoming listeners to imagine they’ve arrived on Plato’s mythical island somewhere in deep space.
The pair of lengthy pieces that fill side two, “O Nos Omnes” and “Nova”, introduce cycling arpeggios that wouldn’t sound out of place on soundtracks such as Tangerine Dream’s Thief or Vangelis’s Blade Runner. Fulfilling that prophecy, Languirand’s next album Vivre Ici Maintenant includes his themes from the television series of the same name. Yet while Languirand’s early releases share a searching quality with Tangerine Dream and other giants of the space music genre, his sonic explorations are less rock-oriented and ostentatious. By including lyrics sung in Latin with the plainspoken delivery of Gregorian chant, Languirand’s music is rooted in ancient times and earthly forms of reverence, welcoming everyone on his voyage.
In 1983, Languirand found his greatest commercial success with Trans-X’s infectiously catchy “Living On Video.” Jamming on keytar above pumping synth bass and a relentless onslaught of electronic hooks, this infectious earworm blasted onto dancefloors around the world. As he explains in a 2016 interview with Inner Edge Music, the group’s name was a direct response by Kraftwerk’s “Trans Europe Express” (revealing his continued interest in German elektronische musik) yet Trans-X’s sound shares more traits with the Québécois strain of Italo Disco popularized by the label Unidisc. World tours with fellow Montreal new wavers Men Without Hats led to sales of two million copies for Trans-X’s debut album and a platinum certification in Mexico, where they remain rock stars to this day.
Languirand returned to experimental realms on the ’90s albums Ishtar and Gregorian Waves, and has most recently tied together the various threads of his career with New Age elements woven into the 2020 Trans-X single “Carry Me Away.” With his trademark asymmetrical haircut and oversized sunglasses, he has settled into the role of a veteran artist hovering between the boundaries of pop star and cult figure. If you have found comfort lately in the contemporary abundance of softness, take a trip with De Harmonia Universalia and float away to a soothing realm somewhere beyond.
As a musician and freelance journalist, The Fear has been strong in 2020. Every day brings closing venues, closing newsrooms, and an absolute lack of certainty for the future in a pair of industries that had already been pronounced dead before the pandemic. What’s kept me pushing forward is a renewed focus on reorganization, finding ways to band together outside of the system and create something better, like we’ve done so many times before.
That’s the ongoing motivation behind New Feeling, as we now share our second issue. Behind the scenes of assembling these features and reviews, the members of our cooperative have been busy. This includes formalizing our set of values and putting a business plan in front of our steering committee, which you’ll be able to learn more about in the near future. Our collective numbers have grown as we welcome three new members: freelance journalists Chaka V. Grier and Luke Ottenhof, and organizer Lenore Maier, who also drums with spooky surf-rock group The Garrys.
On the editorial side, we’ve assigned a few roles that will rotate between New Feeling members. I’m currently taking on the position of Features Editor, and Laura Stanley is now our Reviews Editor. Other members have been active elsewhere, with Katerina Stamadianos appearing on the ISO Radio show Solidarity in Soundto chat about what we’ve been doing, and Michael Rancic guesting on the podcast Nick Flanagan, Weakly. Last month, Melissa Vincent moderated the Venus Fest panel Shifting The Conversation(co-presented by New Feeling and Pop Montreal), where she joined a group of panelists to discuss the evolving roles of media support and marketing for artists.
It’s been an inspiring process to pull our second issue together, hearing the seeds of ideas planted in spirited Discord meetings and watching them emerge as fully bloomed features. Rather than offering you straightforward scary stories for the month of October, we decided to put our own spin on what “The Fear” can entail. That includes Laura Stanley’s compassionate profile of musician Michael C. Duguay, who has struggled through experiences with homelessness, addiction, and spending time in jail on his road to recovery. Leslie Ken Chu spoke to Vancouver experimental hero Anju Singh about the ways funeral music and Mozart requiems have helped her confront mortality. Michael Rancic is our MVP this month, turning in a fascinating feature on the ways sample clearance hinders the creativity of artists like horrorcore rapper Backxwash, and the first edition of our Deep Digs review series on Lucifer’s Black Mass, the 1971 Satanic music album by Moog composer Mort Garson. The scary cherry on top is this month’s cover design by artist Sam Reilly.
Alongside a wide-ranging selection of album reviews, this issue also includes the results of our first Reader Survey. Katerina Stamadianos has collected the responses of 144 individuals and transformed them into a compelling report, illustrated by Melanie Nelson, with additional commentary from musicians Cadence Weapon, Paul Carpenter, and Dusty Lee. As Katerina writes in the survey, “we believe that a successful publication is one that is both responsive and accountable to the community.” This issue continues our baby steps towards the process of collective ownership. We hope you enjoy reading it as we rally together against The Fear.
Tommy Tone Finally Punk Trashtronix Vancouver, BC RIYL: The Queen Haters; The Village People’s “Food Fight”; Pink Panther Punk
Tommy Tone has achieved the final state of subcultural metamorphosis, but its spirit was inside him all along. Decked out in his trademark neon windbreaker and shiny black mop, he pushes back against the punk police who want to dress him up in their costumes and pose him like a doll. Anyone who’s been sucked into the Tone Zone knows his forms of artistic expression are far less rigidly defined than the liberty spike brigade. On Finally Punk, his glittering synths and pumping drum machines have more in common with the genre-agnostic innovations that arrived after 1977, poking fun at the rock star mythos while reveling in theatrical performance.
Those RIYLs at the top of this review share Tommy Tone’s belief that punk is a movement worth satirizing and celebrating in equal measure, yet he shares more sonic traits with Tuxedomoon or maybe even Chainmale. “They Tried To Make Me A Punk” is the album’s rallying cry, before he lets his guard down on the new wave love song, “She’s So Cool,” letting us know there is a sweetness behind the facade. He closes with an acquiescence to the power of caveman rock and roll, as ripping guitars and pounding drums propel “How Does The Mountain Die.” Near its conclusion, Tommy deadpans “I never wanted to have fun.” It’s hard to believe him with this level of commitment to the bit.
Sarah Davachi Cantus, Descant Late Music Calgary, AB / Los Angeles, CA RIYL: Kali Malone; Grouper; sailing through endless skies
On the first release for her Late Music imprint, Sarah Davachi holds a mesmerizing pipe organ séance. Cantus, Descant was recorded in various sacred spaces throughout Vancouver, Los Angeles, Chicago, Amsterdam, and Copenhagen. There has been an influx of similar projects in the past decade, with keyboardists recording in churches until only the cleaning staff are there to keep them company. Yet the prolific Calgarian composer has always done things a bit differently than her peers, adding ghostly pop elements to contrast the divine stillness.
In an interview for Tone Glow, Davachi explains how the pipe organ in Amsterdam that’s most prominently featured on Cantus, Descant was recorded over several hours of playing and experimenting, then later edited into short snippets. After returning to her home in Los Angeles, she added electronic touches such as the melodramatic sound of a Mellotron’s orchestral samples. The album’s most stunning moments occur when Dacachi weaves her own voice into this haunting tapestry, such as “Play The Ghost,” where she borrows a watery effect from Black Sabbath’s “Planet Caravan.” She has hinted at a future release of all vocal songs in this vein, yet no matter where she brings listeners next, it’s sure to be spellbinding.
Itchy Self Here’s the Rub Celluloid Lunch Records Montreal, QC RIYL: Neon Boys; Mirrors; reading zines instead of the internet
Joe Chamandy (Protruders, Kappa Chow) continues to push back against the modern world with the tunefully scuzzy proto-punk of his new band Itchy Self. Rounding up a gang of longtime collaborators and fresh faces – including Chris Burns of cult ’80s garage-rock group Terminal Sunglasses – this five-song EP also marks the first release from Chamandy’s zine-turned-label, Celluloid Lunch.
The band’s Sailor-Ripley-esque belief in individuality and personal freedom is showcased in the EP’s opening song, “B What You B”, before this motivational theme is flipped into a sarcastic call-and-response on “God Bless The Ego.” Here’s the Rub’s title track is an onslaught of Quine-style skronk, but the band prove they’re capable of slowing things down on “Reprobate” and the bent Velvet Underground strut of closer “Playin MTV.” Carrying on the traditions of what they call “de-professionalized rock music,” Itchy Self scratches hard to reach spots that have been there for decades.
Amery Sandford swaps out the beachy slacker-rock of her band BBQT for a sleek electronic sound on the debut release from Alpen Glow. As she explains in an interview with Also Cool, the project initially began as a practical way to keep her mind occupied during COVID lockdown. “I wrote it all when I was deep in quarantine so that I could go somewhere else mentally – on the days when I could actually make music,” she says. “I also cried a lot and watched a lot of reality TV.”
That melancholy streak permeates the four songs of Amertape 2020, and with the production assistance of David Carriere (TOPS, Paula), Sandford successfully vaporizes it into retro-futuristic synth-pop. She also used her time at home to create a series of computer animated videos for each song on the EP, welcoming listeners into a 3D fantasy world with locations like the hot new dance club, Amerbar. Until we can get together again IRL, this entrancing audio-visual combo lets us bask in a new kind of glow.
The Switching Yard Brent Cardinal Fuzz/Little Cloud Records Saskatoon, SK RIYL: Spacemen 3; TV Freaks; Tonstartssbandht
Saskatoon’s Chris Laramee has been involved in a laundry list of excellent projects, from instrumental doom-rockers Shooting Guns to the organ-drenched dream-pop of the Radiation Flowers and the dubby damage of his solo outlet Wasted Cathedral. With this resume in mind, it’s easy to predict what kinds of hallucinogenic sounds you’ll hear on the latest album from the Switching Yard, yet another long-running band with Laramee counted among its members. Brent drifts from pissed-off punk gnarl (“Cardinal Strut,” “Scorched”) to echo vocal laden shoegaze (“Easy Feeling”) and druggy extendo-jams like “World of Shit” or the nearly 12-minute “Endless Fever.” Slipping in a spoken-word interlude about parasitic bugs and the classic Cheech and Chong “Dave’s Not Here” sketch gives the album a timelessness that could place it in any period since the invention of the bong.
New Fries Is the Idea of Us Telephone Explosion Toronto, ON RIYL: DNA; Palberta; rock music smashed into 1,000 pieces and taped back together again
Since stripping down to a trio, the arty post-post-punk sound of Toronto’s New Fries has become even more distilled and abstract. Singer Anni Spadafora’s bass playing maintains a hypnotic rhythmic throb, while the guitars that previously clanged have become just another texture in their tapestry. Tasking synth wizard Carl Didur with production has given these songs both grit and bleariness, merely adding to their hazy disorientation. In between the album’s more traditionally structured songs, New Fries include short experimental interludes, each one titled “Genre.” When they finally provide the satisfaction of settling into a groove, like on the propulsive “Ploce” or twitching “Lily,” the band blur the lines between mutant disco and no wave. By continually reimagining their own idea of themselves, New Fries will never go stale.
