AWmusic

In addition to my six figure contract with AW Music I’m a budding producer/writer/filmmaker (ed note: lots of zeroes but you should really check out his other work). I’m in the midst of a really energetic project and, to cut to the chase, I’m looking for some great music to supplement my latest project.

This is a legitimate offer and a great opportunity for anyone with some ambition and a little ingenuity. Let’s hold hands and make become superstars together.

Listen up..

To all musicians.

So here’s the deal:

We’re producing a pilot for a TV show (http://highwaystofairways.com/what.html) and we want great music to showcase on the soundtrack. No road show is complete without a great soundtrack and that’s what we’re after.

What we’re simply offering is exposure for your band on the show in return for using your music free of charge. Tunes for air time. We end up with a great soundtrack for the show and you get valuable exposure for your band.

We’re trying to create a groundswell here to gather enough music to fill the pilot AND start us on the way once the show sells. The chance for you to be heard grows as we grow.

Your music will be played during the travel video montages of the program and you will be fully-credited in whatever episode you end up in. The best part of this comes when the show is picked up by a network (we already have interest even before the pilot is complete) and the eventual CD soundtrack comes out. If your music becomes a fan favourite guess who’s going to be reaping some nice royalties once the compilation hits the store shelves?

Rest assured this is a legitimate offer. I’m an artist myself and I have no patience for someone trying to screw me out of my life’s work. In this deal, you help us and we help you and we’ll meet for champagne at the launch party. Promise.

Please visit the Highways To Fairways website and submit a link to your music (no attachments please). If we fall in love with your stuff we’ll be in contact with you.

charlie@highwaystofairways.com

Important links:
Facebook group page.

Things on the west coast are either behind of ahead of the times. In fact it’s both. That trivial time zone thing notwithstanding, life and culture out west seems to be a humble bow to the past combined with a hopeful nod to the future.

Perhaps it’s the laid back lifestyle or the more agreeable climate but things just seem to happen at a different pace out there. The music – that aural reflection of society – just seems different the closer you get to the Pacific Ocean. So much of it seems timeless, not so much in its elegance but in the simple fact you have one helluva time telling some of today’s stuff from something unlocked from the musical vaults of the past. Date-stamping by sound alone is virtually impossible.

Immaculate Machine certainly fits that description. The Vancouver Island-based band at times reminds one of a band born in the frazzled and freeloving of the sixties with harmonies and almost juvenile riffs reminiscent of something from Hair or Jesus Christ Superstar. Then, at other times, they sound new and very contemporary.

The band’s been with us since late in 2002 and have produced two independent albums the View and Transporter which garnered the band some good vibes through heavy play on college radio, Immaculate Machine is essentially long-time friends Brooke Gallupe (vocals/guitar), Kathryn Calder (vocals/ keyboards), and Luke Kozlowski (vocals/drums) who – as I mentioned – sound like something out of a different time and place with their unique three part harmonies and simple analog instrumentations.

High on Jackson Hill is, at its bare minimum, a mild homage to the threadbare sixties but, at its pinnacle, a new sound seemingly built on a very old sound. Too many bands badly try to replicate what they weren’t around for, figuring its more about the acoustics and lyrics than it is about the very essence and the vibe. Immaculate machine ramps up the What and How and pretty much disregards the much more strivial When. With this offering High On Jackson Hill manages to capture that elusive timeless quality where ability triumphs over style – as it always should.

Immaculate Machine – Sound The Alarms
Immaculate Machine – Blurry Days

“Hi, we’re Foreign Born and we’re from California,” lead singer Matt Popieluch yells to the crowd gathered at Toronto’s world famous Horseshoe Tavern – which is both the band’s introduction to Toronto this night and to this reviewer completely.

I’m there early – The Veils are headlining – and you never know what, or who, you might see. This is the kind of place and the kind of night one can make potentially-amazing musical discoveries and, what makes it especially intriguing is the chance to see them live before I even review this album. Most of my music is charted out in reverse.

To clarify Popieluch’s proclamation, the group is technically from California even though Matt himself spent his formative years with his banker father in Hong Kong. It’s not hard to see the international influence in the music.

Foreign Born reminds me of a lot of bands. They’re a mix of Afripop – at times (Early Warnings) you’d think you’re listening to Vampire Weekend – and they have rhythms and vocalizing (Vacationing People) that reminds me of another recent discovery, Harlem Shakes, although the latter are a little more dance-oriented (I also prefer them).

Word has it that Foreign Born is still very much a work in progress (Popieluch apparently still needs to block out chunks of time off from his LA-based groundskeeping job to allow for the continent-wise touring). Knowing that you can’t help but (a) wonder at how little money the band actually makes and (b) cheer for Matt and the band to get over that damn annoying financial hump almost all of us are stuck behind.

As for the album Person to Person itself, it’s good, as in six out of ten good. One of the vibes I got from their live performance was their energy and their music collective mentality. They felt and sounded and looked like a band as opposed to a band backing a phenomenal lead (The Veils are more like that). That appeal comes across on the album.

Foreign Born makes great use of percussion. Seems anything that can be hit and banged during a song (cowbells, cans, who knows) is hit and banged. Most of the music – Winter Games for example – has addictive bouncy rhythms that aren’t dance but rather communal jams, as if we’re all invited to join in, and anytime a band can elicit that kind of response from a listener, you know you’re well on the right track.

Foreign Born – That Old Sun
Foreign Born – Winter Games
Foreign Born – Vacationing People

Musical side projects tend to fall into three distinct categories:

The high-concept album (Neko Case in The New Pornographers)
Genre changes (Dallas Green in City and Colour)
Self-Indulgence (too many to name).

Clues (Band name Clues as well) is the latest side project to hit the streets and, while the album occasionally wanders into something musically-interesting, it qualifies mainly in the latter, self-indulgent category.

Likely the only person you’d even recognize is Brendan Reed of Arcade Fire, although Unicorns Alden Penner may strike you as familiar (points for that). There are some elements of Arcade Fire in here – mainly in the low-tech communal feel – but if you’re expecting any kind of AF undertones you’re about to be disappointed.

I guess that’s the point though. It shouldn’t sound like anything you’re particularly familiar with, and it doesn’t. Track two, Remember Severed Head, starts to sound a little Jane’s Addiction, and because it doesn’t, it sounds odd or even incomplete.

What you really start to notice with Clues is the myriad of ways the band seems to be heading. Elope has this mystic quality reminiscent of Lovedrug; Let’s Get Strong has you thinking Ron Sexsmith. Neither track is enough to convince you.

The majority of the album has numbingly low-tech warehouse feel (actually Hotel2Tango Studios “during a deep Montreal winter freeze”). As a collective sound it’s jangly rhythms and clanging guitars, that fuzzy, indirect sound that screams garage band. That, in itself, doesn’t make this a failure. Some people like that sort of thing. It’s just that there’s not enough here to make you want more of this music and more of Clues.

In other words, keep your day jobs.

Clues – Elope
Clues – Crows
Clues – Ledmonton

She has an impressionist’s spirit but a realist’s demeanour. Seems as if she knows she needs the occasional poppy hit to keep this vehicle moving and on her latest album Ladyluck there are more than a couple potentially radio-friendly tunes. Thing is, the rest of the CD smacks of experimentation; not in the Bjork sense but this lady simply likes stretching traditional aural boundaries.

She loves strings, she loves uncommon rhythms. If I didn’t know better – and I don’t – I would say Ms. Taylor is still in pursuit of her true voice. It’s not that she’s lost; more that she’s testing so many flavours she’s not sure which her favourite is yet. Whereas most contemporary singer/songwriters simply duplicate a comfortable formula with each album, Maria continues to try on musical shoe after musical shoe.

Ladyluck is Taylor’s third full-length album after toiling in a number of groups and as part of the Azure Ray duet. She’s been a regular contributor to soundtracks for shows like Bones and Grey’s Anatomy. She has also in the past, collaborated with such musical luminaries as Moby and Bright Eyes. Even REM’s Michael Stipe guests on the Cartoons and Forever Plans, the final track.

On Ladyluck Taylor goes from mystical to predictable to sublime. There is a certain accessible comfort level to some of her songs, almost bordering on ordinary. Maybe she’s just so adept at doing pop songs that they come across as less-than-genuine efforts. Count Ladyluck and A Chance in this category.

But, for as much as Taylor ventures into the banal (and she doesn’t do it often) she also shows a clear sense of aural wanderlust; her songs breaking the bonds of contentment and venturing into areas yet unknown.

Take Orchids for example; it starts as simple two-part harmony but breaks into soft chord strumming, as if U2 had decided to go acoustic, and My Favorite…Love (interestingly, my favourite), a song softly-layered beneath a lone strumming guitar and a small string quartet. It almost sounds like fable put to song. Call it modern Baroque.

The ten songs are so varied and different musically that ultimately you’ll have a difficult time believing this is not a compilation disc or some sort of tribute album. Taylor’s voice is the lone common thread.

Although Ladyluck isn’t about to challenge the current champions in your record collection I dare say there will be a couple songs on this commendable effort you’ll want to add to you playlist. Exactly which ones they are will illustrate which Maria Taylor flavour you’re most particular to.

Ladyluck by Maria Taylor
Orchids by Maria Taylor
A Chance by Maria Taylor
Cartoons and Forever Plans by Maria Taylor

I’ll go out on a limb here and assume your imminent satisfaction level with The Appleseed Cast (new album Sagarmatha) is based solely on what it is you hold in your hand the most. If it’s an IPod you’re regularly clutching I’m going to guess you’ll find them agreeable at best. If it’s a microphone you prefer (as in karaoke) chances are you won’t like the group. But, if it happens to be drumsticks or the neck of a (working) guitar you’re holding, I’ll hazard a guess you’re going to like them.

The Appleseed Cast – a quartet originally from California but now based in Lawrence Kansas – is what happens when musicians make music – as opposed to musicians making songs – or, even worse, when simple people make (simple) songs.

They’re like poets reading other poets. There music isn’t readily-accessible but it can be appealing. It’s the sonic equivalent to moderately-priced wine feeding the masses. Those with broader tastes – in this case, ears – are likely to find the music more agreeable to their palate.

Look them up on Wikipedia and you’ll find, besides the obligatory timeline and FYI, a good portion of each of the four member’s bios is filled with a detailed listing of the weapons they wield, right down to the effects pedals (lead Chris Crisci, for example, uses an Xotic RC booster, Fulltone Fulldrive 2, Line6 Echo Park, Boss TR-2, Line6 DL4, and an Electro-Harmonix Deluxe Memory Man in case you were wondering).

Thing is, these guys – Crisci along with Aaron Pillar, Marc Young and Aaron Coker – know their audience. They play to an eclectic, learned crowd. They’re exploratory artists. If you want structure and an anthemic chorus, look elsewhere.

Their songs –a term used rather loosely in this instance – vary anywhere from a minute and a half to eight minute wonders. As Little Things Go, the first track hits the 6:22 mark before you hear the first word (although you’d be hard-pressed to know what it is) while other cuts are simply instrumentals. Let it be said though that this isn’t a detriment; it’s more about adapting your listening style. If it’s structure you seek, turn on the radio. If you want to hear some guys and their wandering axes, listen closely.

While I’d like to say this is a monumental album, it isn’t. It’s way past ordinary; somewhere in front of decent and nipping at the heels of excellent. Personal favourites include the aforementioned opening track along with The Summer Before and An Army of Fireflies. Exactly why I like them is pretty much a mystery and therein lays the beauty of The Appleseed Cast but I can guarantee something about them, some element, one song or two, will appeal to everyone. How much you appreciate them as a group and Sagarmatha as an album, is dependent on aural music sensibility and penchant for playing music as much as listening to it. And, with that, I’ll stick with my initial theories.

The Appleseed Cast – A Bright Light
The Appleseed Cast – As Little Things Go
The Appleseed Cast – The Summer Before

Stephaines Id is about as far away from that tired stereotype as one can be. If you were to pick them a hometown based solely on their sound you could easily say Oslo or New York City or Montreal. They eschew acoustic, opting instead for a collection of keyboards, bass rhythms and monochromatic drums. It’s not techno. It’s not rock. Call it pensive pop or brooding electro folk and, while it’s not entirely original, it’s not all too boringly familiar either.

They seem to have a thing for those instruments not easily associated with the musical zeitgeist (band member Krum plays the sleigh bells in case you were overly curious) and what makes this album so listenable is the mere fact that no two tracks seem to sound that similar. The mystery in determining Stephanies Id distinctive sound grows deeper and more inconclusive as you progress through the album.

The one constant would have to be lead singer Stephanie Morgan’s breathy, at times aching voice. She mutates from a quiet and breathy Kate Nash (minus the thick Brit accent) to a polite and audibly-discernible Bjork (minus the spontaneous impious shrieks). Ms. Morgan seems willingly buried within the songs, as if each is a specific tale and, in each, she takes on a specific, slightly-different role. You’re left with the overwhelming feeling she’s telling you stories as much as she’s singing you songs.

Any one of the first seven tracks from Warm People (their third full length album) could be considered exemplary of how good this band actually is although Mission from God, Hello From The South and The Weakling would be on the podium if I this were my Olympics and I was holding a collection of medals.

Sadly the CD drops off precipitously with the final three tracks on the album. You get the feeling they had rhythms and melodies they couldn’t fully cultivate before the CD was pressed. While it’s not nearly enough to wipe off that musical smile created with the first seven, you wonder if maybe this deserved to be shorter and, in turn, sonically sweeter.

Still, after all is sung and done, this is a very good record. It deserves to be heard by more people than are actually likely to hear it. Stephanies Id has staked their claim on the southeast and in Ashville and likely the greater North Carolina area. How far they will go seems solely dependent on how much people are willing to expand their own musical geography and aural horizons.

StephaniesId-The Weakling
StephaniesId-Hello From The South
StephaniesId-Mission From God

They hail from Edmonton which makes their sound that much more unique. If this band hailed from New York or Los Angeles it would make a lot more sense. They are a blend of soft-shelled punk, sounding very Talking Head-ish although, in this case, David Byrne has lost his voice.

Whereas The Talking Heads had bounce and rhythm Hot Panda has a myriad of stops and starts, riding on the undulating keyboards and glockenspiel (yes, I said glockenspiel) and a certain affection for hollow guitars and a spastic bassline. It’s not that the music isn’t good; it just doesn’t feel refined. It screams jam session.

Hot Panda’s lead duo – Connelly and Maghan Campbell – spent time abroad indulging in the vibrant Norwegian music scene and it’s not hard imagining this band calling Oslo home but, like most bands from across the pond, some things like street directions and dinner orders just don’t translate well, or well enough.

You get the vibe this band is an amalgam of sensibilities with all the members fighting to get their flavour on the record. You have the formidable accordion work and the infamous glockenspiel (indie) mixed with off-balance vocals and an occasional run at The Hill of Rock n Roll; each with their own merit but, in this recipe, they all collide awkwardly, creating a translucent and indigestible stew. It’s like everyone is auditioning for star status except they just happen to be doing it together.

The songs’ lack of structure isn’t really any kind of fatal flaw. There is plenty to carry the band and there are some purely-instrumental interludes on the album that can really appeal to a person, that is, elements of the songs themselves are actually pretty good. It’s just that when Connelly starts to “sing”, the bubble bursts. It becomes muddy and it becomes a haphazard, occasionally interesting collection of noise.

Perhaps they’re a great live show. Maybe Connelly’s quirkiness and warble works in a different avenue. Just – for me at least – not here.

Hot Panda – Chinatown Bus
It’s Worth Eight Dollars by Hot Panda

To enter into the world of jazz is an act of pure treachery whether it’s as a listener or an artist. Few genres of music are as haughty and unforgiving to wide-eyed neophytes. It’s not that there isn’t room in the club for another, just that you really have to try hard to gain a spot.

Madeleine Peyroux found hers back in 1996 in a way very common to jazz newcomers – via enormous cult status and a subsequent smash debut album (Dreamland).

Of course jazz “rules” state that one can only gain critical acclaim in the world of horns and riffs by paying homage to the recognized masters of the jazz style and sensibility; that is, you can only gain acceptance by doing – contrary to pretty much every other musical faction – personal covers from the deep library of jazz standards. Should you pass this demanding initial litmus test, you are ushered in and thus proclaimed worthy of this exclusive club.

This is precisely why I believe most jazz to be annoyingly snotty and transparently pretentious and its followers – for the most part – even more so.

Jazz maintains a snobbishness matched only by hardcore poetry and impressionist art. It’s not that there isn’t actually any talent and endearing qualities in the music, it’s just that is so deeply buried beneath layers and layers of arrogant posturing.

For Madeleine Peyroux – the artist – she has the requisite history and sincere bohemian background to solidify her place in the genre. Her youth was shared between New York City and California, then Paris by way of her parents’ (self-proclaimed hippies) divorce. That, combined with a life of eclectic music and higher education, seemed destined to send Madeleine to a life amongst the bebop set.

She set forth to topple the genre from within, tackling such esteemed icons as Billie Holliday, Bessie Smith and Edith Piaf. Her covers not only paid reverence to them but added her own personal Peyrouxesque flavour to the mix. Madeleine Peyroux had become the Next Big Thing.

And now with the release of her fourth studio album Bare Bones she attempts to put a permanent stamp on her own status within the jazz realm. Ms. Peyroux is doing this entire recording with not one old record or reanimated favourite. Bare Bones is entirely her.

For those who haven’t heard Peyroux sing before, you’d have a hard time believing she isn’t the result of some musical time machine. Her voice is smoky (aren’t they all?) and sultry with a breathiness and hush that seems much older than her thirty five years (again, aren’t they all?).

What makes this album unique are the ways in which she’s tried to embellish this offering in her own way. A lot of this music is simply historically un-jazzy. There are mood changes and alternate rhythms and lyrical depths not usually found in your typical jazz album.

Take River of Tears which is about as far away from typical jazz (read: upbeat) as you can get or Homeless Happiness which recalls her early life as a street busker (A bench by the shore/A coat for my pillow/A future with no guarantee/The world was a rat race and I had my fill oh/ No hurries no worries for me) or even To Love You All Over Again, a hopeful (yes hopeful) commitment to leaving behind the lovelorn and damaged past with the chance to start renewed.

Some will bemoan Peyroux’s latest primal scream and lament her unwanted personal signature on this storied style of music but then, they’re the ones in it more for the image than the music anyway. Great music, as the hardcore jazz aficionado needs to realize, didn’t die in 1962. Madeleine’s here to remind them of that.

Madeleine Peyroux – Instead
Madeleine Peyroux – River of Tears
Madeleine Peyroux – To Love You All Over Again

It will only take you only two Simple Times tracks to realize if Joshua Radin’s music works for you or not. It with either sound sappy, boring and contrived or so pure and effortless you’ll have a hard time believing he’s essentially an industry beginner.

Joshua Radin’s sounds are the breathy whispers from a lovelorn, introspective minstrel. You can imagine him wooing the girl from the castle or lamenting not having been able to do so. His transparent vulnerability is Radin’s strength and possibly his weakness.

His rise to glory is the stuff of inspirational legend. A screenwriter by trade, he managed to capitalize on a connection to his old college buddy Zach Braff, who helped him get his music heard on numerous TV shows, starting with Scrubs and eventually leading to others like Grey’s Anatomy, One Tree Hill and American Idol. His soft introspective tone, showered in melancholy provided the emotional perfect backdrop for what people like to watch – and to hear – in today’s viewing culture.

But therein lies the rub. Radin is so good at this – at providing musical accompaniment to television’s visuals – you get the distinct feeling he writes with that goal solely in mind. He’s so adept, so soon in his career, he’s quickly become the John Williams of the small screen.

And he’s already garnering so much positive press his rise to superstardom seems almost imminent, almost unstoppable. Assisting him in this sophomore effort are such industry luminaries as Patty Griffin and Meiko.

His musical talent, without a doubt, is formidable. His songs are so nuanced, so elegantly layered; you can see and feel his deft hands at work. Radin simply knows his craft. He knows his forte and plays to it.

Brand New Day is about as hopeful and optimistic as you can get in a song and They Bring Me to You is a meandering duet (with Erin McCarley) so true to who Radin wants to be portrayed – whether that’s to his betterment or his detriment. Vulnerability, as mentioned, is his high card and he plays it often.

The overwhelming feeling you’re left with after listening to Simple Times is how friendly and accessible this music is to the masses. You can’t help but imagine each and every song on a soundtrack and as background to a love affair, either onscreen or off. Perhaps it’s no simple coincidence given Radin’s original career choice. Either way he saw his destiny as much visually as he now does aurally. Whether he made the right choice is really left to you to decide.

Joshua Radin – Brand New Day
Joshua Radin – Friend Like You