I have to say I am terribly embarrassed about the dearth of soundunheard posts over the last many months. Not to delve too much into the nitty gritty… but it has been somewhat of a transitional period for me and some of the other writers. In the mean time I have seen a lot of this country, and very little internet. I have settled, am returning to my regular listening habits and plan to get the site going again, this time from the other side of the country.

In the mean time, here is a review I wrote for another great – more up-to-date and widely read – site, of Toronto-based electro-indie-rock duo Woodhands.

Woodhands – Dissembler

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Woodhands – Coolchazine

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Woodhands – I should have gone with my friends

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Lollapalooza emailed the complete festival schedule to its mailing list subscribers today, and although Perry has once again put together what looks like it will be a great festival, I want to bring your attention to another festival happening the same weekend, August 7th-9th. Now in it’s eleventh year the Wolfe Island Music Festival will once again feature festival favourites and big names like Holy Fuck, and the usual smattering of the local Kingston scene with acts like P.S. I Love You, The Rural Alberta Advantage who we’ve talked about before and a personal favourite of mine Ohbijou.

So if you’re low on funds, don’t want to drive the twelve hours from Toronto, or like me currently don’t have a passport, why not come down and camp on a beutiful rural island where lake Ontario meets the St. Lawrence seaway. It’s only a twenty minute free ferry-ride from downtown Kingston. This is the music festival equivalent of giving up the fast pace of the city for some relaxation in the country; you won’t have to rush between the stages (there’s only one), so you won’t miss a beat. Plus I plan to bring lots of wine to share.

Here’s a sampling of the festival’s performers to listen to while you plan your trip to the nation’s first capital:

Ohbijou – Black Ice from the recently released Beacons LP

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Woodhands – I Wasn’t Made for Fighting

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PS I Love You – 2012

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Full lineup after the jump…

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As I’ve previously alluded to, I usually try to avoid lifting news for soundUNheard directly from sites like Pitchfork, but that’s not to say I don’t check up on them frequently (ok, religiously). Also if you’ve been reading for a while, you might have guessed that a band like Pearl Jam (for the uninitiated, they’re those guys up top there) is not our usual cup of tea. But something that Pearl Jam and Pitchfork, albeit to a much lesser degree, have in common is the way people who read this and other blogs might roll their eyes if you try to inject either one into serious musical conversation. The former is either simply too old, or has too recently damaged their credibility. The latter evokes the same response, when mentioned, as discovering some one’s entire wardrobe is actually a combination of Urban Outfitters and American Apparel: they didn’t actually just trans-locate from the streets of Brooklyn.

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One of the more exciting things to come out of SXSW so far, in contrast to the innundation of Tweets, is a new single from a past favourite of mine, Voxtrot, who will also be playing two shows during the festivities according to their website. “Trepanation Party” is not a drastic departure from material found on the band’s first two EP’s, but it does capture one’s attention more than anything on their full-length effort. The lyrics and vocals remain true to form, but are set against a much more varied backdrop of synth and peppy drums. The result is more cohesive than it sounds, and it makes you wonder why it took two years of inactivity to stumble upon such a formula. Perhaps some of the credit for this renewal is due in part to the contribution of Jim Eno from Spoon to the recording and production of the track. No word if any more material will be forthcoming.

Voxtrot – Trepanation Party

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Via Stereogum.

As some of you already know, everyone’s favourite Canadian combination of dance beats and heartbreak, Metric, are back at it again with a new album, Fantasies, due out on April 7th from Last Gang Records. It will be almost four years since the release of their third album, Live It Out, which was not a complete disappointment but was perhaps more exciting as remix fodder for MSTRKRFT than as an actual album, especially when compared to Old World Underground which managed to do in six songs what the former could not do in nearly double that, actually get me dancing.

UPDATE: Right after posting this I noticed this over at Sterogum. So through the magic of the internets, we can also stream the whole album, right here! (MP3, and streaming version of the album after the jump)

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The blogosphere is all a-twitter with activity today. So here are some of the things that actually caught my interest (via Sterogum and P4K):

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah debuted a new song last night on the new Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. They have made it available as a free download from their website (email required), so I will not be posting it here as that would be uncouth. The performance, however is available on YouTube:

Grizzly Bear’s upcoming release Veckatimest has leaked. You can read what they have to say about it on their blog. I have not listened to it yet, but I’m sure if I did it would only convince me to buy it immediately once it’s released on vinyl. You should do the same. Read our previous post about their live show in Brooklyn.

Zooey Deschannel, the one woman I would leave any other woman for, is starring in an upcoming film (500) Days of Summer, that seems to be something like Nick and Norah for twenty-somethings. Anyway, here is the preview, it looks pretty cutesy, but what has Zooey in it that isn’t. Also if you haven’t heard M. Ward’s latest Hold Time with Zooey, among others, guesting, you should.

Finally, it’s the battle of indie rockers with similar first names. Wayne Coyne of The Flaming Lips, whose “Do You Realize? was recently voted Oklahoma’s official rock song, has trash-talked Win Butler of Arcade Fire in a Rolling Stone interview, saying, “they treat everybody in their vicinity like shit.” Butler responds on Arcade Fire’s website saying something to the effect of, “you don’t even knoooow me.”

This video does not require an introduction, however, you may require a few moments afterwards to stare off into space contemplating what you just experienced.

Four of us (two other SUers and one revered guest), just returned from a whirwind tour of NYC the main goal of which, you guessed it, was to see Final Fantasy and Grizzly Bear play with the Brooklyn Philharmonic at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM). There was, needless to say, a lot of anticipation, and fairly high expectations. After all here’s what The L-Magazine of Brooklyn had to say about it in its bi-weekly concert listings:

“Two of indie-rock’s most drooled-over acts perform backed by the Brooklyn Philharmonic. This is the musical equivalent of winning the lottery on your birthday, or something like that. Something really, really good.”

Well the concert did not disappoint. Final Fantasy’s material, already written for a string quartet, took on a much fuller sound and grandiose quality compared to his stripped down solo performances with just a violin and a sampler. Grizzly Bear’s set seemed much more like the musical experiment that one might predict. Pallett, although admittedly neurotic about others performing his work, still seemed, given his classical background, relatively comfortable with the orchestra. Grizzly Bear however, were decidedly awkward about the whole affair, this was echoed in some songs as the sound of guitars and drums seemed to be issuing from, and floating on a different sonic plane then the violins and violas, never truly melding into one. Despite this, Grizzly Bear managed to deliver songs that had never been played live before, and they said, would never be again unless some other opportunity to play with an orchestra presented itself.

Grizzly Bear returned, sans orchestra, to perform an encore which included “Deep Blue Sea” (see video below), and “He Hit Me (It Felt Like a Kiss)” which our travelling companion has already pointed out is a cover.

Grizzly Bear encore Deep Blue Sea at BAM from lofi.tv on Vimeo.

The new material presented by both parties, sounds very promising, and I am eagerly anticipating both Final Fantasy’s next LP Heartland, as well as Grizzly Bear’s Veckatimest (May 26, Warp). Below is an excerpt of a bootleg (RAR) from the concert.

Grizzly Bear – Plans (Live @ BAM)

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It’s not exactly the kind of music you want to play on a car ride with your family, but The Field still somehow is unmistakenly great electronica. Somewhere in between the ambience of Eno’s Music for Airports and a pepped up Apparat album their previous effort From Here We Go Sublime, made a lot of 2007’s best-of lists, including my own. I even gave it to my brother for christmas that year, a much more discerning house fan than myself. The album, Yesterday & Today is due May 25th from Kompakt, the famous German minimal house imprint and home of another favourite, Supermayer.

The Field – The Little Heart Beats So Fast

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Supermayer – Two of Us (Extended Album Version)

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Of course fellow Brazillian Kompakter, Gui Boratto, also has an album due to drop even sooner. Take My Breath Away has already leaked on the tubes, but will be officially released on March 9th. Now there is no “It’s a Beautiful Life” on here, but the album and this track are still worth a listen.

Gui Boratto – No Turning Back

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To start off I just wanted to bring to everyone’s attention a very good piece Sal has over at Ca Va Cool about Kingston’s very own Grad Club. It has been nominated for best live venue on by CBC Radio 3 listeners, and now it is in the top ten, you can help it out by voting for it. I was conducting an interview with Julie Fader today for The Queen’s Journal and since she’s playing at the club on Friday this fact came up over the course of our conversation, she told me how great Virginia and the staff are, stuff that as an avid Grad Club frequenter I already know of course.

What I didn’t know, was that Julie, previously unbeknownst to me, actually makes a part of a network of many artists very familiar to me. I can’t divulge too much of the rest Julie’s story before I write my Journal piece, which I will link to when it’s up, but I can update you on a few of the band’s in her universe, a universe mostly centred around acts affiliated with the Hand Drawn Dracula imprint.

A couple members of Holy Fuck are helping out with the album, and since they are a perennial favourite of mine I will grace you with one of my perennial favourites of theirs.

Holy Fuck – Lovely Allen

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Brian Borcherdt is the main guy behind Holy Fuck and has a long history in Canadian music dating as far back as acts like By Divine Right, that’s, like, before blogs existed. His album, Coyotes, released last fall is his first release under his own name. Although, he previously released material under the moniker The Remains of Brian Borcherdt, I suppose that makes Coyotes the first-helpings of Brian Borcherdt.

Brian Borcherdt – Coyotes

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Mike Bigelow, a former/guest member of Holy Fuck, has gone on to a project known as Contrived. I have not yet determined whether the name or the band itself is a joke. To make matters worse their third album is dubbed Blank, Blank, Blank, perhaps indicative of the expression on a listeners face after the first listen. There’s nothing technically wrong with this album, but it just doesn’t do anything that hasn’t been done before, and better by another of Bigelow’s projects: Wintersleep.

Contrived – Firing Squad

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This track by that same Halifax Band recently evoked spontaneous singing and dancing from a small group of us gathered on the second floor of the Grad Club so even though it’s not quite fresh, it is at least topical.

Wintersleep – Weighty Ghost

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Finally, no tour of this corner of Canadian indie would be complete without a checkup on Great Lake Swimmers, Fader has toured with them extensively in the past, and will be continuing to do so on the lead up to the release of their new album, Lost Channels, which she also guests on. The album is due for release March 31st on Nettwerk, but they’ve made one track available on their website. There’s nothing new here exactly, but the strange blend of down-tempo folk and hushed choir refrains remains somehow compelling.

Great Lake Swimmers – Everything Is Moving So Fast

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UPDATE: Here’s the online version of my piece for the Journal, also another writer did a great piece on Brian Borcherdt.