Red Mass / Chocolat / Twink / Room / Teke::Teke
1: Red Mass Bored b/w Ecstasy Of The Fire Snake
It’s been a great year to be a fan of Red Mass. Their full length album Kilrush Drive, released earlier this year is a standout of 2019 and since it’s release the band have played a residency in New York, opened for The Cult for the Montreal date of their Sonic Temple anniversary tour, performed at ‘77 Fest and have also just released a new 7” on the legendary Sympathy For the Record Industry imprint.
Red Mass tackle Destroy All Monsters’ track Bored. It’s a great choice given the common rock n’ roll threads that run through both Red Mass and the legendary Detroit band. Destroy All Monsters musical boundaries pushed between punk, noise rock, psychedlia and metal and Red Mass meet the challenge of laying down a tense version that edges towards the original, while sounding as Red Mass stand in 2019. Vucino captures the wailing shrieks of guitar while pulling them up into the stratosphere and Hannah’s vocal’s exuding cool chic.
Bored is backed with the excellently titled Ecstasy Of The Fire Snake, the first original new music the band have released since Kilrush Drive. It would have fit nicely on that albums second half but serves as a nice companion piece to Bored. The song is built around a great tension between the quiet and loud parts, simple percussion and acoustic strums manifest into a tremendously loud and rewarding thunder crack of a chorus. The narrator pleading for rebirth through the flame. The song displaying the kind of lyrical imagery that we have come to love about Red Mass, a confluence of tension, darkness and beauty.
Red Mass will be closing Fish Fest 2019 on August 17, at L’Escogriffe.
Red Mass/Fuzzy Undertones/Blood Skin Atopic/ Broken Column
Tickets are $12.00 in advance and $15.00 at the door.
2: Chocolat- Fou fou fou mon minou/ Heavy
Chocolat have just released two new songs indicating that a new album is imminent, further proof that this Montreal band continue their upward trajectory, constantly taking what they have done previously and building upon it, continually pushing their sounds in new directions. From the garage (Piano Élegante) to krautrock hued psych (TssTss) to progressive rock (Rencontrer LooLoo) Chocolat have always maintained a consistency to their musical catalogue that most bands rarely achieve. When Fou Fou Fou mon minou and Heavy were released, the band stated that one was for the beach and the other for the road. Fou Fou Fou mon minou is awash in sunny AM bliss, Jimmy Hunt’s hushed croon floating atop the band’s funky rhythm and neon guitar licks. Heavy emerges mechanical and propulsive with crunchy guitars weighing down on the gas as you drive further towards the horizon. Since Chocolat emerged from hibernation in 2014 they have been on fire and these two new songs burn bright.
3: Twink- Think Pink IV: Return To Deep Space
John Alder has been making music as Twink since 1970, prior to that he was a fixture of the psychedelic movement of the sixties in England. Playing in such bands as The Pretty Things, The Pink Fairies, Tomorrow, Stars, Shagrat etc... must have fuelled a penchant for collaboration. Described as a multigenerational collaboration that crosses time and space, on Think Pink IV:Return To Deep Space Alder is joined by Moths & Locusts and Heavy Friends, who consist of Ian Blurton (Change Of Heart/ C’mon/ Public Animal), Barnaby Bennett, Jay Ferguson (Sloan), Gregory MacDonald (Sloan) and Arlen Thompson (Wolf Parade). This collaboration wields plenty of mind altering musical voyages featuring a variety of sounds emerging from behind the cosmic candy counter. Sara From The Sahara lays spoken word over eastern tinged soundscapes. Fear the Unknown slinks forward through crunchy guitars and and razor sharp synth. Lyrically the album is rooted partly in fantasy and partly in reality, the words coming off as mantras emerging from a dream while musically the band open up portals to other worlds. This collaboration successfully ties a contemporary sound to Twink’s already established psychedelia, resulting in an album that sounds fresh but has deep ties to older conventions of psych. Ain’t Got A Clue struts forward with urgency, Alder calling out ego and it’s misguided intentions, the guitars linger like flames while flutes rise above to the songs climax. The album has a great balance between the more meditative songs and the mind melters. Love Ashore and Sunbeams and Moonbeams and Silver Stars and Bluebeard lean toward the former, opportunities of reflection, while instrumental piece Year Of The Muskox mixes spy thriller soundtrack music with the uneasiness of an unexpected trip. High and Dry creeps out of the desert amid lilting flute and minimal guitar, Alder guiding the listener to a parting of ways, that builds to a thunderous roar, a squall of sound picking up out of nowhere like a dust devil. Witches Of Love sees the album out, moody and soaked in a subtle psychedelic glow and aims straight for the centre of the universe. The world Alder and company have created with Think Pink IV: Return To Deep Space is a worthy trip for any sonic traveller ready to dip their toes into psychedelic waters, so why not check out one of the originals who’s had his hand in the mix since the beginning?
4: Room - Room ep
Room is a Montreal experimental hip hop project by Leo Mignault and Jonathan Legault. This project runs in similar territory than that of Legault’s other experimental outlet Brakhage. This is not your younger sibling’s hip hop, Room breaks free from convention and expectation of what that term means today. Part field recordings, sampled audio clips of dialogue, part spoken word and musically chameleonic with stuttering beats and glitches makes this 7 track release nothing short of captivating, Sans Defense sees Mignault waxing over pendulous beats, distorted shrieks keeping time like razorblades on a blackboard, until the heaviness is lifted away by a sampling of the Delfonics’ Baby I Miss You.. At just over a minute long, New Guidance sounds as though Gregorian Monks have been chained to the ocean floor while The Street/The Sky lumbers along with hiccups of dialogue like stitching, keeping the seams of the low end from splitting. The hypnotic loop of Hold The Drugs seamlessly transgresses into Game of Chance, with swaths of acoustic strings warming up the mechanical heartbeat. Much like Brakhage, the tracks presented on Room Ep come and go sooner than you would like, so it will have to remain on repeat until a full length materializes.
5: Teke::Teke - Jikaku EP
Having been tipped off about Teke::Teke just prior to the release of the Jikaku EP in May of 2018 has meant that this four song set has been played a multitude of times at home and on The Go-Go Radio Magic Show. Having witnessed them perform for a second time recently in the opening slot for Turkish via Amsterdam folk-psych band Altin Gün has sent me back to this introductory collection of songs. Originally conceived as a tribute band of sorts for the eleki movement, a sixties Japanese musical movement that resulted after the Ventures toured Japan, has transformed into a full blown outlet for band members Serge Nakauchi Pelletier, Etienne Lebel, Ian Lettre, Yuki Isami, Hidetaka Yoneyama, Mishka Stein and Maya Kuroki. The JIkaku Ep features two covers Takeshi Terauchi’s “Ai No Kizuna” and Maki Asakawa's "Chicchana Toki Kara" are coupled with Teke::Teke original’s “Jijaku” and “Omae No Karada”. The band have wet the appetite for a debut full length album and with new material on display during their performance a few weeks back, it will be worth the wait. Their live performance was revelatory and endlessly satisfying, filled with surf hooks and psychedelic flourishes, converting the uninitiated with hypnotic visuals and an utterly captivating set, proving that among Montreal’s current crop of bands, Teke::Teke deserve everybody’s attention.