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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I’m on the road till this thing drops. The truth is, no one raps about slinging coke like Clipse, and this has to be one of the most hotly and highly anticipated Hip Hop albums of the year. In a time when you can never be too sure what genre your favourite rapper’s new album is going to be (see: Wayne does Axl-meets-Alien or Kanye does Andre 3k meets Thom Yorke meets WTF), you can always count on the Clipse to continue rapping about cocaine, and street stuffs …

The new record will feature production by Kanye West, Swizz Beatz, The Hitmen, J.U.S.T.I.C.E. League, Dame Grease, DJ Khalil, long time collaborators The Neptunes, and the legen (wait for it) dary, Rick Rubin.

This morning, the first cut from the album, called “Kinda Like a Big Deal” was released on their blog. It’s a very big deal. Featuring Kanye West, getting his College Dropout on (and by that I mean rapping very well), the beat is harder, and more filled-out than anything you would’ve heard the twins rap on in recent history – and while it’s not a gritty throwback to “Trill” or “Keys Open Doors”, it’s a banger which will definitely resonate in the places it’s meant to – bbq cookouts in Philly and basement parties at your baby mamazeses.

Clipse – Kinda Like a Big Deal (feat. Kanye West)

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Torngat is one of many groups, including Belle Orchestre and formerly the Arcade Fire, of which horn-player Pietro Amato is a member. This instrumental trio caught my attention back in 2007 at a show they played at Kingston’s Grad Club, where I had attended based mostly on my love of all things horn related. Despite a very intoxicated young Kingstonian lady dancing distractingly provocatively and yelling such witticisms as “Torngat? Pfft… more like TornGUT”, the show definitely was worth checking out.

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Being born and raised on the East Coast of Canada, to me Alberta was where you went to pay off student loans or make cash money to send back to your defeatist-have-not fellow Nova Scotians. A concept album about rural Alberta sounded about as appealing as the latest Nickleback effort. Torontonian group, the Rural Alberta Advantage, have made such an album work with Hometowns. I haven’t managed to get a copy of it yet (it’s available on their website: www.theraa.com), but from what I’ve heard at their recent concert in Ottawa at Cafe Dekcuf and in the songs I have managed to track down, they manage to combine oil, wild roses and the Rockies with a good dose of heartbreak (and  drumming well beyond your average alt-country fare) to craft what I can only assume is an accurate portrayal of life in the Texas of the North.

The Rural Alberta Advantage – Don’t Haunt This Place

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The Rural Alberta Advantage – Frank, AB

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The Rural Alberta Advantage – Sleep All Day (Green Go Remix)

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Exciting news everybody, theoretical physicists from Cambridge have recently discovered the formula for the perfect song and published it in the journal Science. The following is an excerpt from an interview with the papers author, “…it was simple really, we isolated the components and ran them through our supercomputer and it ended up with a beautiful correlation… really quite fascinating”. The equation was one part infectious beat, two parts jangley guitar and one part wailing vocals. Ok, so since this is my first post and I want to start off on a good foot I’m going to level with you, there was no paper from Cambridge, there was no interview, there are no theoretical physicists, I made the whole thing up. The important thing is that if there was a formula for a perfect song it would be that, and one song that would fit this formula perfectly is 1901 by Phoenix off their upcoming album Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix. I have to admit I am fairly new to Phoenix’s work, however, from what I’ve heard so far I like ‘em and so will you. This French four-piece started out in the mid 90’s on the mean streets of Versailles. The band itself has some very strong ties with other high profile artists having initially worked on a remix of French band Airs song “Kelly Watch the Stars” and Laurent Brancowitz having been in the band Darlin’ before joining Phoenix with Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homen-Christo who later went on to form a little group by the name of Daft Punk. This isn’t Phoenix’s first rodeo either; WAP is their fourth studio album and has the potential to be excellent so keep your eyes peeled for this one, out May 25 if all goes to plan.

Phoenix – 1901

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Updates after the jump.

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Even though the Apple Crisp Music Fest is a ways away (March 18th), if you were at the Grad Club on Friday night, you were one lucky enough to experience some premature crispiness straight out of the chilly Niagara region. Performing just before David Martel (MySpace) and The Wooden Sky, Matt Sajn set an evening precedent of lush musical prettiness, prettiness that reminds us that music is most universal when it’s downright specific. And Matt makes no excuses: he’s operatically in love with Fenwick, Ontario. Experience more of this haggard love affair here, or drop by ENGL386 every other Thursday – he’s the one copying off my quiz while I pretend not to notice. There’ll be a song about it someday. -Robyn

I first saw The Wooden Sky last semster opening for The Acorn at The Grad Club, along with a Toronto favourite of mine, Ohbijou. Even as an opener The Wooden Sky, formerly Friday Morning’s Regret, easily outshone my favourite Ohbijou numbers and supposed heavy-hitters, The Acorn. But they didn’t do it by out-muscling them, after all the latter rock a lot harder and the former pack some breathtaking string arrangements. The Wooden Sky simply commanded you to listen closely, with stripped down ballads where down-tempo melodies were perfectly matched to the tragedy of lead singer Gavin Gardener’s lyrics and the power of his voice. Now months later in March, headlining the show, they drew a larger, and more attentive crowd than their former tour-mates. It seems that their following is finally picking up, perhaps not with a lot of speed, but with a kind of unstoppable momentum reminiscent of the force of the material on When Lost at Sea. These guys might not ever be Indie starlets, but with the quality of their songwriting they are sure to at least become a Canadian favourite. -Justin

From the album When Lost at Sea: The Wooden Sky – The Wooden Sky

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The Wooden Sky – This Bird Has Flown

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Photos courtesy of Jess Swift and Robyn:

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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