Chris LaRocca - "Wild"

MARK YOUR CALENDARS!!

August 23rd. That's the date Chris LaRocca drops Voila, his new EP and you need to book some time off that day to absorb the record and probably some more time to head home and play it under the covers with your lover.

Forget #followfriday on social media, today with "Wild" it's #f**kfriday (even though this dropped on Wednesday).

Get it on.

Jen Cloher - "Regional Echo"

 I started typing "Jen Cloher" into Google to look up info on her after receiving a digital submission of her self-titled album and auto-fill inserted "Courtney Barnett" as soon as I hit the space-bar after the "H" in Cloher. So, yeah, apparently the Melbourne, Australia singer-songwriter and co-founder of Milk! Records is inextricably tied to her co-founder Barnett. But hopefully, with the release of the new album on August 11th, she'll step into the limelight on her own. "Regional Echo" (below) is certainly my favourite on first pass, but Jen Cloher is front-to-back good.

Cold Specks - "Fool's Paradise"

I didn't catch this on Monday when it dropped as I was dealing with the implosion of my worklife (building the station broadcasts from had total power failure and we were off air), but happy to hear the title track from Cold Specks' forthcoming LP now that things are returning to normal.

This is some subtle soul.

Ex Eye - "Xenolith, The Anvil"

Described as "post-everything" Ex Eye is the brainchild of Canadian experimental music icon Colin Stetson who goes super deep and super loud and finds himself on Relapse instead of his usual home at Constellation. Not sure if  this'll qualify for the Polaris, but it's a front-runner for my ballot right now if it does.



You can hear the record in its' entirety and buy it over at Bandcamp.

My Polaris Prize Ballot - 2017 Round Two

So if you missed the post about my first round ballot for the 2017 Polaris Music Prize, just a refresher that I voted for the following 5:

01 A Tribe Called Red - We Are The Halluci Nation [Radicalized Records]
02 BADBADNOTGOOD - IV [Arts & Crafts]
03 Klo Pelgag - L'Etoile Thoracique [Coyote Records]
04 BEYRIES - Landing [Bonsound]
05 Alejandra Ribera - This Island [Pheromone]

My #4 and 5 sadly did not make the cut of the longlist, meaning I had to look at my own personal longlist to fill those spots on the second ballot.

All told, of 25 albums I had under consideration, 9 from my list made the actual Longlist so I had to pick two from the six albums that weren't in my initial ballot.

This is the final ballot I submitted:

 01 A Tribe Called Red - We Are The Halluci Nation [Radicalized Records]
02 BADBADNOTGOOD - IV [Arts & Crafts]
03 Klo Pelgag - L'Etoile Thoracique [Coyote Records]
04 Louise Burns - Young Mopes [Light Organ Records]
05 Figure Walking - The Big Other [Disintegration Records]

We'll see how I fared tomorrow morning as the Shortlist will be announced at 11am ET / 8am PT on the CBC Music Facebook page. (just click the hyper-link)

KOKOKO! - Tokoliana / L.O.V.E.

Man, this is some FIRE. Only two tracks from the three KOs, but they are stunners, particularly the a-side, "Tokoliana." Post-punk from the Democratic Republic of Congo? Sign me up.

Yazmin Lacey - "A Mother Lost"

The entirety of the Black Moon EP is worth your time, but start with the subtle, jazzy "A Mother Lost." Yazmin Lacey's vocals manage to somehow seem both light and effortless, while conveying weight and depth in this beautifully sad song.