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Music Profile | Ex Eye

Metal music comes in many forms, not just as a series of thrash licks launched from a pointy, hot pink BC Rich Warlock. The brassy attack of a saxophone doesn't often get enough credit for its heaviness, but consider the expressionistic proto-prog blaring of King Crimson's Ian McDonald, or John Zorn's screeching alto above his Naked City's free jazz death stomps.

Pat Lok Releases Full Length on Kitsune

Pat Lok is the only Canadian artist signed to Kitsuné Records, part of the Kitsuné Maison brand. They have an incredible reputation amongst both casual fans and DJs. Any time over the past decade they have come out with a new comp, every DJ in town has rushed to buy the record store out. Pat is also the newest signing to Pete Tong’s new publishing company, PTSongs. He has decided to forgo continuing making hit singles in favour of a full length, titled Hold On Let Go. 

Woke In The USA: Jackson Browne's Political Awakening

Jackson Browne has a lot to answer for. Not for his own music, which has remained pretty solid over a remarkable career that began in 1966 during a stint with country rockers the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, but for his perverted alliance with the Eagles, America’s icons of woe and decay, who he almost single-handedly quarterbacked to stardom by connecting them with David Geffen and their first record deal at Asylum.

Music Profile | Needles//Pins

It's a sleepy afternoon in Vancouver when ION sits down with Needles//Pins guitarist-vocalist Adam Solomonian to discuss Good Night, Tomorrow, his band's third full-length recording. As the mid-spring sun pours down on a coffee shop's wood-and-concrete patio, a butterfly gently lands on the punk rocker's shoulder to get an earful of conversation. "Is that a good luck thing?" the musician wonders before the cream-winged eavesdropper flutters off towards its next stop.

The King is Dead: David Peel & Death’s “King of Punk”

The recently departed David Peel was a shining beacon of vice and decadence during the halcyon days of hippiedom in the 1960s. While anti-war protests and the Civil Rights Movement woke conservative America from its dogmatic slumber, Peel was busy singing the praises of marijuana and getting stoned, releasing the aptly-titled album Have a Marijuana in 1968, backed by the underground hit “I Like Marijuana”. What can I say? The guy really loved his marijuana.

Music Profile | Feltworth

Feltworth think the kids are all right, but the power pop puppet band themselves are more than ready to grow up. Following a long run on the children's music circuit, the animal kingdom quartet of brother bunnies Dezi and Manny Feltworth, ivory-tickling tabby Morris Katzenburd, and percussive primate Cozy Balboa have just issued their first 7-inch single made for an older audience. Manny's A-Side, "Forget This Feeling", is an English glam slam that has more in common with Roxy-period Brian Eno than it does Elmo.

Music Profile | So Loki

So Loki knows there's strength in specificity. Just like how Drake anchored his Toronto experience by name-dropping the TTC Metro, Fort York apartment complexes, and the fine Italian cuisine at Sotto Sotto, the  Vancouver hip-hop duo's latest EP, Baggage, is packed with plenty of 604-specific wordplay. Possessed by producer Geoffrey "Natura" Millar's extra thicc snap beat and manically poked faux-xylophone sounds, the collection's "Ratchet Demons" has vocalist Sam Lucia giving a shout-out to city in-joke/hang out spot Dude Chilling Park.

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