Canadian Music Thread Redux (one video per post) - Page 14

kwoldtimer · #**261** Posted **Oct 15, 2013, 6:05 PM**

Oldster here must ask - is that considered a band or a performance art group? Quite weird.

Allan83 · #**262** Posted **Oct 15, 2013, 6:24 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

Oldster here must ask - is that considered a band or a performance art group? Quite weird.

Which one? A lot of these newer ambient, electronic, bands, for lack of a better term are very visual as well. (Post-Internet is also a term that’s been used to describe Grimes and similar artists from the Montreal scene.)

kwoldtimer · #**263** Posted **Oct 15, 2013, 6:29 PM**

Post #260 - Phèdre

MonkeyRonin · #**264** Posted **Oct 16, 2013, 5:07 AM**

It's just a music video.

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MonkeyRonin · #**265** Posted **Oct 16, 2013, 5:08 AM**

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MonkeyRonin · #**266** Posted **Oct 16, 2013, 5:09 AM**

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SignalHillHiker · #**267** Posted **Oct 16, 2013, 4:38 PM**

A nursery rhyme from the 1700s that it's still quite popular here. Our First Lady of Song (Joan Morrissey, who unfortunately committed suicide in the 70s) probably has the most beloved cover of it locally. But the quality of its Youtube versions is too bad. It's a pity, she had a wonderful way of laughing under her breath while singing.

So... Crowe to the rescue.

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Allan83 · #**268** Posted **Oct 16, 2013, 6:08 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

Post #260 - Phèdre

Ok, there are a lot of elements in that video which are pretty common today. Grimes is one who has popularized a lot of this.

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I believe Grimes took ballet lessons for many years as a child, so there is certainly a dance/modern dance element for her as well.

Yamantaka//Sonic Titan is another band that visually explores somewhat similar themes, but their music is more guitar and drum based with a rockier edge. The band was actually formed as an art project when the two were going to art school at Concordia, so performance art definitely a part of what they do.
http://pitchfork.com/features/rising...a-sonic-titan/

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I think on reason why more bands are becoming more visual is as a way to create more interest and help draw people to shows. You can’t make money selling CDs anymore so you need people to come to your shows, or if you’re Grimes and you can draw millions of views on youtube you can make money that way. Grimes is a big name, however, and while she has likely made hundreds of thousands of dollars from youtube videos, not many artists are in that category.

Btw, ambient isn’t really a very good name for this kind of music. Ambient tends not to be dancey, and this is dancey. There are a whole slew of genre names that get applied to this kind of music, none of which have ever really grabbed me, but you should look them up for the fun of it. See “witch house” for one.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grimes_(musician)

There is a very good recent ambient album from a Canadian artists, however, and that’s Tim Hecker’s Virgins. This one will show up on a lot of top 10 lists at the end of the year, and not just Canadian lists. NPR was streaming it and I was going to give you that link, but apparently that has ended. Here’s one of the songs.

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MonkeyRonin · #**269** Posted **Oct 16, 2013, 8:06 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Allan83

Btw, ambient isn’t really a very good name for this kind of music. Ambient tends not to be dancey, and this is dancey. There are a whole slew of genre names that get applied to this kind of music, none of which have ever really grabbed me, but you should look them up for the fun of it. See “witch house” for one.

Grimes' stuff is most definitely not witch house. This or this is what witch house sounds like. Harsh, drudgy synths, scattered hip hop beats, stretched out vocals, gunshots, low-fi production. Aesthetically it's heavy on the occult themes, haziness, bleakness, and symbols (triangles and crosses and the like). It doesn't really exist as a coherent, evolving genre anymore, but its influence has worked its way into other genres, namely trap and hip hop, while the aesthetic has found its way into modern pop culture in general.

The bulk of Grimes' music is best (and quite easily) categorized under synthpop. Or more broadly, electronic is acceptable too.

kwoldtimer · #**270** Posted **Oct 17, 2013, 12:31 AM**

Geez, I live on such a different musical planet. The last two Canadian acts I caught live were Natalie McMaster (with the K-W Symphony) and local boy Steve Strongman (opened for BB King here the other night)! Most of the contemporary stuff will be forever unknown to me, I'm afraid.

kwoldtimer · #**271** Posted **Oct 17, 2013, 12:42 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by SignalHillHiker

A nursery rhyme from the 1700s that it's still quite popular here. Our First Lady of Song (Joan Morrissey, who unfortunately committed suicide in the 70s) probably has the most beloved cover of it locally. But the quality of its Youtube versions is too bad. It's a pity, she had a wonderful way of laughing under her breath while singing.

So... Crowe to the rescue.

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Those lyrics seem like a modernized variant of the bawdy U.S. version of the old English folk tune that most people would know with other lyrics (at least most people with British antecedents). I remember my Mom singing it (with the clean lyrics) when we were kids.

SignalHillHiker · #**272** Posted **Oct 17, 2013, 1:46 AM**

Doesn't surprise me at all.

I'm not sure if this beautiful young woman is from Canada, but her album was written here, her videos filmed here north of St. John's in Pouch Cove, and this particular song is beautiful.

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"All of life is this longing... to lay your body down."

Allan83 · #**273** Posted **Oct 17, 2013, 3:18 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

Grimes' stuff is most definitely not witch house. This or this is what witch house sounds like. Harsh, drudgy synths, scattered hip hop beats, stretched out vocals, gunshots, low-fi production. Aesthetically it's heavy on the occult themes, haziness, bleakness, and symbols (triangles and crosses and the like). It doesn't really exist as a coherent, evolving genre anymore, but its influence has worked its way into other genres, namely trap and hip hop, while the aesthetic has found its way into modern pop culture in general.

The bulk of Grimes' music is best (and quite easily) categorized under synthpop. Or more broadly, electronic is acceptable too.

Well, sure, but those are both very high level categories that don’t tell you anything about the music, other than they’re electronic and fit into some general category called pop. Lots of very different kinds of music fits into the category of sythpop or electronic. It’s when you start getting into the subcategories, like witch house, that it starts getting stupid. You swear that it isn’t witch house, and someone else will swear it is, and it all becomes meaningless. This isn’t new, btw. There were about 1,000 different categories of electronic music in the early 90s as well, and pretty much just a meaningless. They aren’t completely meaningless, of course, but there’s so much overlap that they become effectively useless, and the source of too many inane arguments.

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Allan83 · #**274** Posted **Oct 17, 2013, 3:26 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

Geez, I live on such a different musical planet. The last two Canadian acts I caught live were Natalie McMaster (with the K-W Symphony) and local boy Steve Strongman (opened for BB King here the other night)! Most of the contemporary stuff will be forever unknown to me, I'm afraid.

If you’re interested in new music I could make some suggestions. It doesn’t have to be new style music. What genres to you like? Here’s something that quite leading edge, but if you like symphonic music I think you just might like post-rock.

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kwoldtimer · #**275** Posted **Oct 17, 2013, 4:46 PM**

Interesting. I can hear the symphonic elements - a bit like contemporary classical although more melodic and more electronic. Even a bit of what I might describe as "New Age", although I am sure that there are more accurate descriptors.

I'm such a child of the disco era, I suspect I may have been permanently ruined for all things musical! Although I swear to God that people will still be bouncing along to Abba's "Dancing Queen" 500 years from now!

Allan83 · #**276** Posted **Oct 19, 2013, 5:41 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

Interesting. I can hear the symphonic elements - a bit like contemporary classical although more melodic and more electronic. Even a bit of what I might describe as "New Age", although I am sure that there are more accurate descriptors.

I'm such a child of the disco era, I suspect I may have been permanently ruined for all things musical! Although I swear to God that people will still be bouncing along to Abba's "Dancing Queen" 500 years from now!

I wouldn’t get hung up on the descriptors. Those are just fine. Did you like it? If you did then congratulations! You’re officially a hipster! Seriously, though, a lot of new music is an interesting mix of older influences, and some new ones too. There is some new disco influence music as well, but it’s not my kind of thing and I’m not really up on it. I’ll take any excuse for a flashback, however!