This album dropped last year in the UK and is just now being released in North America. However, it would have fared better if it came out nine years ago in the UK when people loved hearing this stuff in car commercials and bullet-time fight sequences. The Young Punx call their sound “mashpop and punkstep” but to me it’s the aural equivalent of running the gauntlet on American Gladiators. Except instead of guys named Malibu and Turbo pounding you with foam batons, washed up electronic musicians of yore are hitting you with every stagnant genre of dance music you can imagine. This album has them all—deep house, big beat, jungle, disco, breaks and electro—for what seems like a never ending 13 tracks plus five interludes. Unless you’re Wesley “Two Scoops” Berry, you’re probably not going to make it through the whole album without receiving a painful shot to the ear (Berry is in jail right now for robbing a bank so chances are you aren’t him). The cringe-inducing lyrics in “You’ve got to…” include “You’ve got to rip it and burn it and pump up the sound. You’ve got to pod it and blog it… yeah.” Allow me to reluctantly suggest doing the first two. Definitely not the last three.

Ultra

2/5

–Michael Mann

Newsies from The Last Shadow Puppets - discovering more from the pairing of Alex Turner from Sheffield’s Arctic Monkeys, and Miles Kane of Liverpool’s The Rascals.

Deja vu sets in at the sight of two mop-topped Northern boys walking in tandem and singing without making eye contact with us… 1996 seems like it was uhh yesterday…

ANYway it looks like these two actually like eachother - I guess they’ve only so far put out an ep. Eep. Video (and more) behind the cut.

In other news, what the hell is up with the American accents on Mick Jagger and John Lennon, in discussion about Dirty Mac, a Lennon side project with Mitch Mitchell, Eric Clapton and Keith Richards… kinda puts the Gorillaz in perspective..

And just while we’re on this haircut,

…and related? possibly:

My immaturity lets loose when I ask you about the CD cover: is it a desert landscape? Or perhaps lean mountains? Respectable as you are, you answer “No, those are breasts, little lady!” The album name is very telling—everything about this album relates to sexuality. Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo (of Daft Punk, also lucky possessor of the longest name in the universe) produced Sexuality and his producing lives up to his extremely long name. Each song is great and some are particularly great, possessing pearl lead sounds and spot on piano fillers. Although almost all of the songs have slow tempos, if they make a video out of the upbeat “Divine,” I expect to see a thousand Sébastien Tellier bobble heads ‘ba-ba’ing away on a world of skin. Speaking of which, in sixth grade ‘divine’ was my favourite word, but let me say that this album is far better than any notion I had of the word. It makes you want to dance and—here it comes—in sexual ways indeed! After this, all you will be saying is “C’est sexy!”

Lucky Number Music

4/5

–Stefana Fratila

Supergrass is the kind of band that can do anything it damn well pleases. Mr. Coombes? Gareth, Gaz…from where did you spawn? You surprise fans with each musical endeavour! A mélange of eclectic sound, unpredictable vocals from one song to the next, and tight execution paired with a sound that can hardly be described without the amusing image of you bobbing your head to the music because it’s just too much. “Diamond Hoo Ha Man,” like every Supergrass album opener, is a crashing flood of gritty guitars and pounding drums; “When I Needed You” is nothing short of brilliant, and it would hardly qualify for any other band if Coombes’ emphatic vocal swagger didn’t completely knock you on your ass. No one song is like the last. It’s been three years since the dark, long-drive-home album Road to Rouen and it seems Supergrass has crash-landed in a Scandinavian garage, only to blast out some of its best songs since 1997’s In it For the Money. If we all grew mutton chop sideburns and wore tweed vests and white fancy shoes, would we all be this great?

EMI

5/5

–Patricia Matos

Los Campesinos! first full-length album starts off in a twee explosion with “Death to Los Campesinos!” The rest of the songs race along full of shouted choruses, and boy-girl trade-off verses; it’s also lovely to hear the glockenspiel sharing the spotlight with the keyboards, guitars and drums. This seven-member outfit from Wales is high on energy and fixated on having fun. It’s no wonder that they borrowed their first hit single, “You! Me! Dancing!” from their debut EP and placed it on this album for a repeat listen. “Broken Heartbeats Sound Like Breakbeats” stands out for its dance punk transition into shoe gazer territory at its end. And the best song title (so far this year) goes to “This is How You Spell: HA HA HA, We Destroyed The Hopes and Dreams of a Generation of Faux-Romantics.” To decipher all the album lyrics, a careful listen is needed so gems like And when our eyes meet all that I can read is “You’re the B Side” aren’t missed. One more thing: !!!!

Arts & Crafts
3 /5

–Emily Khong

When I first heard that Scarlett Johansson was recording a Tom Waits cover album, I was pretty confused. Maybe a little turned on, but mostly confused. I mean, I like Tom Waits, and I like that ScarJo is…bosomy, but other than that, it kind of came out of left field. But when I heard that M.Ward and Zooey Deschanel were collaborating on an album, finally, there was a musician-actress combo that made sense: the indie prince of folk, and the folksy princess of indie. Not only is it not surprising, it just makes good sense. While comparisons to Patsy Klein or Dusty Springfield will fly, by the second line of album opener “Sentimental Heart,” Deschanel lays claim to the album as her very own. Meanwhile, Ward happily plays the man behind the woman, providing instrumentation tailor-fit to showcase Deschanel’s easy-listening vocals, which hit their peak in the country ballad “Change is Hard,” and the decidedly more ebullient “Sweet Darlin’,” where the actress really gets to play with the down-home twang that peppers her voice throughout the album. Volume One is a promising marriage of Ward’s relaxed folk and Deschanel’s emotive charms. It’s a match made in indie Camelot.

Merge

3/5

–Nojan Aminosharei

This album is a giant relief. Not just because the tension that precedes sophomore releases is like looking for a red tag in your locker when you’re Wesley Snipes trying to make the opening day squad of the Cleveland Indians, but also because Gnarls Barkley is a band loaded with pressure. This will inevitably happen when you have the credits and credentials of two men like Danger Mouse and Cee-Lo Green. After pleasing a variety of FM radio listeners in 2006 with St. Elsewhere (and over-played single “Crazy”) we finally get to see where the odd couple are planning to take us with their creative pleasures. It’s satisfying to hear Gnarls Barkley turn down the rap, and turn up the soul. Danger Mouse is a far better pop music producer than he is a hip-hop producer, and he’s not too bad at that to begin with. I imagine this record (like Cee-Lo) will only get better with age.

Atlantic

3/5

–Trevor Risk

For April’s Of The Month, we teamed up with talented Toronto-based photographers Joseph and Jaime to highlight the new Marimekko collection for H&M.

Bright prints and bold shapes ruled, and model Justine (from Elmer Olsen Model Management) did too.

We also tasked them with giving us a gorgeous new image for our Masthead page.

Behind the scenes stuff to be found below…

Hey - check our our first post from our saucy new contributor, Annabel Thompson - she’ll be joining us with fashion-related musings from time to time.

Vancouver-based, but with a healthy wanderlust, Annabel will be our go-to gal for all things fash and all things wack.

————————————————————————-

I realize we are now well into spring, and this is a little late, but in a city where its cold, dark, and raining 364 days out of the year, I can’t imagine anyone’s been out, desperately looking for what to wear for the next scorcher…

SO, on that note…

Spring 2008…what can I say…some of the shit this season really blows my mind - in good ways and bad, but mostly bad. I don’t know…Maybe I’m just not ready to move on quite yet from these wardrobe habits I’ve developed over these last few months (and by that I mean black, white, and grey). I’ve been really enjoying the lack of colour in all my clothes. Black is so effortlessly striking and badass. Once you turn to the dark neutrals, you never go back; colours just begin to look so…gay. but ANYways. enough about that, heres some looks that stood out. Some predictable, some not so much…

First things first - Spring coats. They’re fun because they’re made to be completely useless. They’re entirely designed for look, with no real practicality involved. Which is why Spring 08’s coats have been really impressive actually…See, instead of the classic waistcoat, designers have been poppin these minimal smock-like jackets. Super basic solid-coloured boxy, simple coats…

narciso rodriguez marni

aquascutum

celine

Proenza Schouler

derek lam

And on the other end of the spectrum, we have the fucked up coat. These coats are kind of sweet because they don’t make any sense - asymmetrical sides and detached sections make for a totally unfinished whack-job look…

armani

hermes

Veronique Branquinho

Marc by Marc Jacobs

comme des garcons

Now here’s one I’m the MOST excited about. Remember how I was saying I don’t ever want to wear colour again? Well, Lagerfeld, Neil Barrett, Helmut Lang, Gucci and Margiela ALL say there’s no need for colour. This is a perfect antidote to the rest of the season’s ultra-femme flowers, colours, and lingerie looks; standard two-piece gothic edgy suits showing shrink-to-fit jackets, with equally narrow pants. In fact, pay special attention to the pants, because they’re the best part. I like the ones that puff at the top and taper at the bottom above the ankle. drool.

rag&bone V&R

gucci

neil barrett

margiela jens laugesen

Erdem

Pretty hot shit…but anyways. See that Erdem see-through blouse? Well that shit’s EVERYwhere. Fall/Winter really emphasized nude with dark tones, but now its all about being literally nude, with translucent fabrics. It’s pretty serious stuff. i have yet to see a line that didn’t somehow utilize this look…oh, but the other fabric thats everywhere is that really thin plastic-bag looking material.

lagerfeld

doo.ri

givenchy jil sander

Gaultier (this line almost made me barf)

armand basi

marc jacobs

anna molinari

chloe

Now, like I was saying about those pants on the womens’ suits - baggy around the crotch and then tapered above the ankle. Seriously, my favorite look of the season. you can’t go wrong. The black pant is doing some other stuff too this year though…lots of glossy fabrics and cigarette shapes…

jens laugesen

Gucci

iceberg

Luella

OKAY. now if you look at that last luella picture, you’ll notice some tit action. Now, runway models don’t exactly HAVE what it takes to express these incredibly low slung deep-v’s designers are cutting into their shit, but if you just work with me on this one and IMAGINE an actual woman WEARing these, you’ll notice that a mass amount of cleavage is intended for all these looks…

armani

d2 (this is an exception)

todd lynnlacroix

mcqueenblumarinejil sander

Benjamin Cho

sophia kokosalaki

Layers are a given of Spring…except that spring layering is fun because you kind of just pile a bunch of thin pieces on and it looks and feels rad. Super sheer light pieces under solid sweaters…

lanvin

dolce&gabbana oscar de la renta

emporio armani

Ruffles, frills, and PLEATS are fucking everywhere too. From subtle and small, to big and obnoxious, these big details are really prominent in dresses this year…

viktor&rolf Giles

anne valerie hash miu miu

Marc by Marc Jacobs

Erdem

brian reyes

Now heres a reocurring summer look: 60’s and 70’s panache. I guess its kind of a given now, the whole prairie calico floral prints and seventies free flowing fabrics. Eh, i could do without.

Cavalli

Prada

Maurizio Pecoraro

Pucci

Sue Stemp

armani

And finally, the look i’m most undecided on. the onesy. Effortless and rad looking…yes. but honestly? I wouldn’t wear one if you paid me.

Sonia Rykiel

stella mccartney

Erdems

Brian Reyes

Well i guess thats sort of it. Nothing really caught my attention except for those suits…but whatever, at least Fall/Winter 08’s already out to peek at…things are really looking up on that side of things.

You know when you walk into a store and they’re playing a song that you’ve heard before but can’t quite put your finger on it. It’s probably from this album by the Apples in Stereo. They’re kinda like the Byrds but with more Dr. Feel Good. So pretty much, a tad bit more upbeat than your typical 60’s wannabe rock band with its jingle jangle, catchy, clap your hands kinda pop. I gotta give it some brownie points though for the song “Stephen Stephen,” written for and originally performed on The Colbert Report. A cute, funny song that makes the album a bit more interesting. This album needs more songs like “Stephen Stephen” and less songs named “The Apples Theme Song” which is completely cheesy and unnecessary.

Yep Roc

3/5

–Kristin Cheung