AWmusic

Ghalib shared his experience on Extermination Music Night – an event I eagerly want to go to now.
Carmen reviewed E.S.L.’s Eye Contact – impossible to search for this band. I love the Canadian content these guys are pitching in with.
Speak of Canadian, Adam (writes a blog The Edge 102.1) reviewed Kathleen’s Turner Overdrive E.P (too long so I’m lazy to write it/copy and paste it).

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Other reviews:
The Rhumb Line by Ra Ra Riot* I gave it a 5/5 meaning it’s likely on my best of the year list.
Oceans Will Rise by The Stills
Asking For Flowers by Kathleen Edwards
Memory Drawings by The Drift
Rip It Off by Times New Viking
The Devil, You + Me by The Notwist
Feel Good Hits of A Nuclear Winter by Laurel Collective
Fast Times at Barrington High by The Academy Is…

Other:
Adrian covers the Cutting Edge Music Fest in the first of a two part series.

Some blogosphere commentary:
Please freakin stop with the Bloc Party hype. Even if you hate the bloc party or like them, I’m sick of tired about hearing about their latest single or whatever fucking opinion you have on their new album. At this point, I hope their album receives a 5.0 something from Pitchfork so the blogs can talk about some more meaningful music.

Okkervil River plans to have videos promoting their latest album. They have some performances the latest and probably the awesomemest is with AC Newman of the New Pornos taking over Jon Meiburg’s duties on vocals in a star studded duet that makes me drool (and potentially wet – I keep that secret) with Wil Sheff playing the new single Lost Coastlines. Watch below if you hate navigating.

TI released a new song. Didn’t listen to it.

The Walkmen’s You & Me scored an 8.5 from P4K. You may be seeing a review from us though probably not from me (I haven’t listen to their past albums and it wouldn’t be right).

An uneventful week for me. I struggled with sleeping issues and my knee is going to take another 6 weeks to heal (10 TOTAL) as I can’t do any sports that involves any twisting. That blows.

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Back to Edwards, she’s an Ottawa native (boo) and her release of Asking For Flowers is her 3rd LP and received good reviews (where reviews were written anyway) especially on receiving a 7.9 out of 10 from the highly esteemed P4K. I personally heard about Kathleen through some blog comments and I checked out her work from then. Her music is strictly defined as on the country/roots side of things.

Asking For Flowers begins with Buffalo, a slower paced track. From the start, I absolutely dig the vocals, one would have to be incredibly picky to hate it. It’s a bit of long track for me at 5 minutes and I find it a little tedious with an extra 50 seconds of a piano at the tail end. I hate long outros to say the least. My favorite song on the album, is (no surprise) one of the poppiest in The Cheapest Key. I like the alphabet intro but otherwise it isn’t the greatest songwriting.

I think Kathleen Edwards is solid, just that, she has some good song writing ability though I’m not captivated enough to be a little more then half interested, her voice is great but I still can’t pinpoint where she stands out from the crowd. Another note is that I really thought the song “Oh Canada” was going to blow. I hate hearing the national anthem and it’s true that Canadians probably don’t indentify themselves as Canadian first (I can’t help it, saying that I’m Cambodian/Khmer always gets a ooh from the ladies) but it turns out into a decent track. Edwards is pretty explicit and straight forward in her direction, maybe a storytelling indicative of the country genre but it’s not one of my preferences. A song more about racism in Canada which is welcomed because Canada isn’t that great. Living in Jane and Finch for 15 years now and having a few of my friends still frightened to drive me home (they’d rather let me bus and walk home a bit – thanks guys ) it’s a little bit of a different story in Canada though. It’s more of a news story if a black kid gets shot in a black neighbourhood where it’s called gang violence whereas things occurring in white areas tend to be hushed-hushed.

Anyway the album is solid but it didn’t surpass my expectations that I had originally when I checked out her myspace and didn’t want to bother. Some decent stuff on this album but alas country isn’t cool for a lot of people and I’m just not as enthusiastic about I guess.

Rating: 3.25 out of 5

The Cheapest Key by Kathleen Edwards
Oh Canada by Kathleen Edwards

After the jump check out my rankings and my uneducated “predictions”.
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