Music

Valerie Teicher, or better known as her moniker Tei Shi, is described as a future pop songstress from Brooklyn, via Bogota and Vancouver. Her new music video for her single "Nevermind The End" was released March 6^th, and the production is as minimal as the song itself.

It's no secret that ION loves Slumberland Records. We've featured so many of their artists in our pages and on our site. One of our favourite parts of the year is "New Slumberland Sampler Day" and today brings us their spring 2014 edition.

Imagine for a moment what it might be like to suddenly find yourself in a decrepit, leaky, underground sewer tunnel below an abandoned factory, in the worst part of Detroit, in the not-too-distant future. It’s completely void of light except for the occasional beam of sun penetrating the cracks in a random manhole and faintly bleeding down into the black. The place feels like an oily catacomb. A bleak maze that defies logic or reason, like it was built by an insane city planner. The worst part is you have no idea how you got there.

I’m tempted to use this as an opportunity to explain why ‘Gramercy Riffs’ is an awesome band name, but I suppose the goal of an album review isn’t to ensure that readers pick up on obscure references made to 1980s cult cinema. It’s a shame really, but reluctantly I must digress. 

Theodor Adorno once famously wrote, “When the going gets tough, the tough gets going.” As a lifelong student of communications theory, I take Adorno’s work very seriously and it’s taught me how to look at music through a critical lens. The same lens any creator of culture, in this case, Jesse Rose, should look through when creating a new piece of music (culture). Unfortunately his creation, The Whole Twelve Inches, is terrible. This entire record is incredibly outdated and is one giant snooze fest.

It merely takes a few seconds of the album to play until you are taken back to an era of music that has long past. I hate the term revival, but it is very fitting for the Temples. This english band’s work has, to me, all sounded as though it should be played, and enjoyed on a vinyl record. This album, Sun Structures, is no different.

Blending blues and rock like singers of yesteryear, Kandle’s latest release further separates the young Canadian singer from the pack. With the release of In Flames, Kandle is cementing herself a place within the Canadian musical landscape. Her voice is haunting on “Demon” and “Gimme A Pill”, which set the tone for the album early on. Closing my eyes while listening, I can see a smoky bar with a band playing in the back.

The new HAIM video for "If I Could Change Your Mind" isn't really heavy on concept, but the execution is flawless. It features the three whimsical sisters performing on a stage that subtly references the nineteen seventies (just like their music) and a peppering of choreographed dancing.

Band of Skulls release their music video for their new single, "Nightmares", off of the UK trio's forthcoming album, Himalayan, which is set to be released April 1 and is now available for pre-order.