When You Come Knockin': 'Hot' Canadiana 2006
Jon Rae & the River, as snapped by Lee Towndrow this summer at the Boat.
For the record, here's the list I submitted on Friday to Matthew I Heart Music's poll on "hottest" 2006 Canadian musical artists. Because I am semi-autistically literal, this list is not exactly what I would have compiled for my list of "best" 2006 Canadian musical artists, which is, I realize, what everyone else will do. Instead it takes into account the impact that each artist made this year, within their circumference, large or small. The order is just short of random. The comments (after the jump) were written in great haste as I was rushing out of the office on Friday afternoon, when I was already late getting it to Matt. But it will do:
1. Destroyer; 2. Final Fantasy; 3. Junior Boys; 4. Cadence Weapon; 5. Nelly Furtado; 6. Laura Barrett; 7. Feuermusik; 8. Malajube; 9. Jon Rae & the River; 10. Garbage! Violence! Enthusiasm!
The results of the poll are due to be published tomorrow.
1. Destroyer
Vancouver's Daniel Bejar may get less than his due in end-of-year polls because he made most of his impact very early in 2006. But after nearly a decade as Canada's most distinctive and commanding songwriter, the part-time New Pornographer finally got some of the attention he deserves this year with his latest album Destroyer's Rubies. Touring with his own band for the first time ever, including high-profile appearances at summer festivals in Europe and the U.S., Bejar also showed off the strides he's made as a live performer, long his weakest point. And all without dumbing down his brilliantly allusive and jovially barbed literary style by one iota. Bejar is also a third of the triumvirate behind November's much-anticipated disc by Swan Lake, with his compadres in outsider rock, Carey Mercer of Frog Eyes and Spencer Krug of Wolf Parade and Sunset Rubdown, whose Shut Up I Am Dreaming was an unhinged masterstroke in its own right.
2. Final Fantasy
Owen Pallett's clinching of the first-ever Polaris Prize this fall was just a dusting of sugar atop the year that saw him release He Poos Clouds, an album using metaphors drawn from Dungeons & Dragons and video games to evoke truly courageous emotional themes of sexuality, mortality and the family romance, all folded into string-quartet arrangements closer to Sondheim or Bartok than to any of the collegiate cliches of indie folk-pop (insert mutterings about Sufjan Stevens here). Forget novelty value - what Pallett's making are works of art as sophisticated as what any novelist or visual artist in the country has achieved. And yet, as the Polaris and his live shows prove, he does it all with a disarming charm and subversively potent nerdy self-assurance.
3. Junior Boys
Two years ago, when Hamilton, Ont.'s Junior Boys released Last Exit, it seemed like the kind of perfect moment that could never be recaptured - a tuneful pop sense meeting an up-to-the-minute awareness of innovative electronic techniques. Stunning, but probably a one-off. Well, right and wrong: This year's So This Is Goodbye wasn't a retread of the formula, but a maturing project (under singer-songwriter Jeremy Greenspan) unafraid to take up unhip notes of nostalgia to stay true to its muse. And unlike Last Exit's mid-Atlantic feel, this one seemed distinctly Canadian. As deliciously sad and sweet as it is in itself, it was even more exciting in its promise of great music for a long time to come.
4. Cadence Weapon
The Calgary Edmonton rapper, producer, critic and blogger's Breaking Kayfabe turned heads in 2005, but 2006 was when everyone else found out that Canada at last has a forceful black hip-hop artist who doesn't seem like an echo of any American blueprint - whether gangsta or "positive," underground or mainstream - but an inimitable northern hybrid. He won't yield or slow down for anybody, whether it's the music industry or the hip-hop-cred police, and he's just getting started.
5. Nelly Furtado
Breaking out of the tiresome shell of a tastefully exotic songbird, Nelly swooped into pop stardom on the wings of some top producers in 2006 as perhaps this country's boldest contribution to mainstream R&B ever. Yeah, it was manipulative. Yeah, it wasn't all top-shelf. But it was unCanadianly sassy and sexy and rude and a hell of a lot of fun. If she can drop some of her earlier musicianship back into the mix while keeping the thump and bump, she'll really be on to something.
6. Laura Barrett
Bringing classical-piano chops to the unusual primary instrument of kalimba (African thumb-piano), this diminutive young Toronto singer won over audiences at every turn in 2006, with her self-released EP going into edition after edition and her song Deception Island Optimists' Club nominated for the Socan Echo Songwriting Prize. Also a member of the boisterous Henri Faberge & the Adorables, Barrett combines all the craft of a conventional pop songwriter with an insatiable curiosity and imagination that transports her music into its own dimensions, in a manner reminiscent of maverick ladies from Kate Bush to Joanna Newsom. A worthy addition to the pantheon of out-songwriting Toronto voices such as Eric Chenaux, Sandro Perri (Polmo Polpo) and Alex Lukashevsky (Deep Dark United). Barely heard at the start of the year, she's now on tour with the Hidden Cameras, which is just phase one of what Toronto observers are starting to call simply "Laura Barrett takes over the world."
7. Feuermusik
It took just a few tricks for this Toronto duo to cross over to an indie-rock audience that seldom embraces free jazz: Yes, they both had backgrounds with indie bands such as Rockets Red Glare. But more important, drummer Gus Weinkauf plays buckets instead of a regular kit, while sax player Jeremy Strachan gives his post-Coltrane compositions minimalist heads (which is jazz for "hooks") that expand in intensity more than complexity - all of which makes them a little punk, without ever plugging in, and nothing hamfisted about it. Their forays into an expanded brass-and-reed lineup (with members of the Association of Improvising Musicians of Toronto, or AIMT) late in the summer made it all the sadder when they went on hiatus as Strachan went off to study in the Maritimes. But they left Goodbye Lucille, one of the best Canadian jazz discs of 2006, to remember them by.
8. Malajube
Their surrealist-rock approach is nothing especially new, but the confident joy with which it's played made Malajube that very rare case of a francophone band that anglos outside Quebec have taken to heart, and that demands celebration.
9. Jon Rae & the River
From a raw, raucous, whiskey-addled country-folk shambles to an ecstatic, psychedelic-gospel 2006 answer to The Band - how did Jon-Rae Fletcher and his merry band of brigands get there? The old-school way: Driving and drinking their way from venue to shitty venue across the country and refusing to think any show good enough unless it left them giddy, sweaty, exhausted wrecks. The nation's unlikeliest testimony to the power of the work ethic. And extra points for going after the big subjects - faith, fucking, love and death - without the self-protective coyness that makes most indie musicians seem scared of both their bodies and their feelings.
10. Garbage!Violence!Enthusiasm!
Finally, a left-field nomination - a Toronto trio who've bloomed out of the much-misunderstood "Bad Band" scene, which ranks spontaneity, energy, conceptual humour and participatory culture ahead of the boring indie values of self-expression, craftsmanship and cool. Playing clad in motorcycle helmets that allow them to smash toys and instruments over one another's heads while they shout out the lines in theatrical playlets of aggression and abuse, G!V!E! goad audiences into a strange ritual of dancing-turned-playfighting that's unlike any other live experience - some of the most fun I've had with live music in the past year. They've been improving by the month, and their upcoming album should draw many more people into finding themselves in compromising positions with this band in 2007.
Most regretted omissions: If I rewrote this list right now, I likely would drop Malajube and substitute Sandro Perri or Eric Chenaux. Ghislain Poirier deserved a spot and so did DJ Cyber-Rap. I am still waiting to hear the new Tim Hecker album. Pyramid Culture's, Ninja High School's and the Phonemes' new records haven't been released yet. My favourite band of 2007 is probably forming in some basement in Regina next weekend. Such is the nature of these exercises: An expense of spirit in a waste of shame...
Read More | | Posted by zoilus on Monday, October 30 at 12:26 PM | Linking Posts | Comments (7)
COMMENTS
Re: Cadence Weapon Calgary/Edmonton confusion: Duh! Sorry, I always do that!
Re: Swan Lake. They're not on the list because (a) I don't really consider them a working band, and this list is about artists overall, not just releases; (b) I'm still making my mind up about the record; and (c) I mention them in the Destroyer entry (viz Shongo's "1(B)" comment). Along with Frog Eyes and Sunset Rubdown, though I'm now feeling like the latter should have been in the list in their own right.
Posted by zoilus on October 31, 2006 3:58 PM
why isn't swan lake on your list?
Posted by chap on October 31, 2006 1:59 PM
I corrected that in his comment...but now everyone will see Carl messed up anyway!
Oh, and the list is posted now.
Posted by matthew on October 31, 2006 12:16 PM
Hey Carl, Cadence Weapon is from Edmonton, not Calgary!
Posted by Tyson on October 30, 2006 8:19 PM
"Because I am semi-autistically literal, this list is not exactly what I would have compiled for my list of "best" 2006 Canadian musical artists, which is, I realize, what everyone else will do. Instead it takes into account the impact that each artist made this year, within their circumference, large or small."
I attempted to do that with my picks as well, which resulted in having 4 of your top 5 in my list as well.
Posted by Quinn on October 30, 2006 7:10 PM
Ditto on the hecker album -- it's pretty great.
Spencer Krug sort of feels like "1(B)" to Bejar's "1(A)" this year, although those three records (Rubies, Shut Up, Beast Moans) are all amazing and one-of-a-kind.
Chad VanGaalen's "Skelliconnection" deserves some love, too.
Posted by shongo22 on October 30, 2006 4:38 PM
can't say enough good things about the new tim hecker album. everyone, buy it.
Posted by markp on October 30, 2006 1:36 PM