A NORTHERN CHORUS
Bitter Hands Resign (Sonic Unyon, www.sonicunyon.com)
With the smashing of the drums mixed with the bending of notes along the guitar as an intro, this album is an example of some of the great bands creating music in Canada. With the delicate vocals intertwined with the build of simplistic, and yet powerful instrumentals, this band gets two thumbs up. With songs like 'œSubjects and Matter,'? this album had an intense sound that was dark, and yet melodic, ultimately reminding me of the Stills album, Logic Will Break Your Heart. Having every song be over three minutes long, each brought you into a little story that seemed to coincide with the pictures above the lyrics of each piece. The intimacy, and beautiful craftsmanship of this album was demonstrated with songs like 'œPrisoners of Circumstance,'? which grows in sound as the cello and drums explode and then abruptly stop, leaving an a cappella ending. With few or no breaks in between songs, you get the feeling that you are stuck in a story that one should listen to from beginning to end, as the vocals and instruments seemingly pour their hearts out to the listener. ­­-- JASMYN BURKE
File Next to: The Stills.

MAXON BLEWITT
Antwerp and Aalst (Independent, www.maxonblewitt.com).
With a voice that reminded me of Lou Reed, it was hard not to like the vocals on Maxon Blewitt's self-titled album. As it began I found the CD case, having two guitars on the back, demonstrated exactly what this album has a lot of '“ the acoustic guitar. The songs all seemed to be mastered in a way that showcased the sound of the acoustics, making for a sound that combined a little rock'n'roll with some twangy sounds in the background. Each individual song sounds good, but as a whole they all sound the same. At the same time, when I heard 'œPut on the Light,'? and 'œStupid Cupid, '? which both combined their acoustic guitar playing with the synth, I thought Maxon Blewitt could strike upon a cool sound if they combined these two instruments and went in a more experimental direction. Overall I liked the second part of the album that had more electric guitar, and steered away from the more organic sound in the beginning. The album wasn't bad, but I'd prefer that they used more of the electric guitar and synth, as I thought it meshed with the singer's voice, and made for a more appealing album. '“JASMYN BURKE
File Next to: In between your Shania Twain and Metric albums.

COUNT BASS D
Down Easy/Holdin' On (Ramp, www.countbassd.com)
Count Bass D is sort of like rap Einstein. He's so much of a genius that it doesn't even make sense, he can't be compared to anyone and you can't say what's amazing about him except that he came up with this thing out of nowhere. Down Easy isn't even rap, really. It isn't even anything. AND, I think he made up the words all at once and didn't even think about whether or not they had to work, because he's hyper, like, ahead of everybody or even anything anyone will ever come up with. I'm not even sure it could be copied and used by other people. He's like an insane cross between Biz Markie and Mase and The Wu Tang Clan and De La Soul, if you can picture that. I'm listening to it and I can't picture it. All I know is I'm freaking out so hard over it and it even kind of makes me feel sad in the enjoy-a-thing-that's-sad way, which NEVER happens! '“MATT FUCKING COLLINS
File next to: Just... NOTHING, I guess. Too amazing. Not even just not NEXT to, but not even FILE.

ELEVATOR
August (Bluefog; www.elevator.ca)
Holy shit! This is fucking amazing! The last few Elevator albums have been delving further and further into structureless drones and squalls, focusing more on texture than their early efforts and becoming more like aural wallpaper. August, however, marries the best aspects of Elevator's recent albums with the pop structure of their Elevator to Hell days. Some of the tracks, like the opener and closer, drag on a little long, repeating themselves for a few minutes longer than my attention span can sustain, but they have a danceable quality that I never would've expected from an Elevator album. All the other tracks fit in nicely around four minutes. They combine the ebb and flow of shoegaze with beefy bass and guitar rock. I want to experience this live, surrounded by a massive crowd of people who are all going out of their minds. '“RYAN MCLAREN
File next to: Rock n' rave.

THE EVENS
s/t (Dischord; www.dischord.com)
We must give praise to the god of DIY, wherever s/he may be, for the fact that after 25 years in the scene, fortysomething punk Ian MacKaye just can't not be in a band. Teen Idles, Minor Threat, Embrace, Egg Hunt, Fugazi, and now The Evens. With Fugazi on semi-permanent hiatus, Ian's new band is a duo with drummer/vocalist Amy Farina (The Warmers). Spare, sparse, bare bones, stripped-down '” these are the adjectives inevitably attached to The Evens. Indeed, the band is aptly named, with its steady balance between MacKaye's baritone guitar (a low-tuned six-string) and Farina's tastefully brushed percussion, and the pair's delicate voices. Yes, Ian leaves the holler at home for the entire album, but this won't actually come as that much of a surprise to those paying attention to the Fugazian output of the latter '˜90s. The Instrument soundtrack even included the band's only piano ballad, 'œI'm So Tired,'? but whereas that was a little on the shaky side, on The Evens the man can really sing. Farina's harmonies complement his voice perfectly on this collection of duets. The dynamic isn't all restrained, however, as 'œIf It's Water'? chugs along on a classic Repeater style bass line '” but the key is it never explodes. With the first of hopefully numerous releases, The Evens have created a fantastically enjoyable exercise in tension, without release. And now, to the Dischord site's tour dates section... '“JONNY DOVERCOURT
File next to: All the awesome quiet bits on Red Medicine.

MARK FARINA
Mushroom Jazz 5 (Om, www.om-records.com)
San Fransisco's DJ Mark Farina is mainly known for his quarky yet funky house music. In the mid- 90's, however, the psychedelic traveler initiated a series of underground events in the bay area that focused on kicking back and smokin' blunts to instrumental hip-hop grooves. Shortly thereafter, the first Mushroom Jazz DJ mix was dropped and people around the globe were trippin'. '˜Shroom Jazz 5 is more of the same delectable goodness that has graced leisure lounges and living rooms for nearly a decade. Take a phat break, some deep bass, a crazy trumpet solo and the odd lazy rhyme, and it all adds up to a really good time. '“MARINKO JAREB
File next to: Instrumental hip-hop, DJ m-m-mix.

FOLK FESTIVAL MASSACRE
Something Else (High School Champion, www.highschoolchampion.com)
This album reminded me of lazy Sundays spent in my parents' basement looking through piles of junk. Or cold Saturday mornings sitting in the sun and watching TV with my family. Every time I put this album on, I started cleaning my room or cooking. With rotating vocalists including Wavelength MC Doc Pickles, and guitar work by Mean Red Spiders' Greg Chambers and Dave Rodgers, Folk Festival Massacre doesn't feel like a committed project but more like a weekend at a cottage with some friends and a four-track. It's simplistic and lo-fi, not to be taken too seriously. Even with the songs I don't like, I wish I could've been there when they were recorded. '“RYAN MCLAREN
File next to: The good parts of high school.

FRENCH TOAST
In a Cave (Dischord, www.dischord.com)
This band seems to be about getting right to the point '“ they like playing loud! Starting the album with 'œFloat Away'? was like turning on the car and forgetting you had the radio on full blast the night before; you weren't expecting such a get-ready-to-rock-out kind of song when you turned it on. This band definitely seems to like combining unique sounds; with songs like 'œNew Dub'? sounding like an '80s techno band, to 'œSeen Me,'? where the chorus seems to resemble the theme song from Batman. In listening to the album in its entirety, no two songs sounded alike which kept the album fresh since you were excited to hear the next song. Overall, the album had an '80s quirkiness to it, but it was this quirkiness mixed with catchy guitar riffs, alien sounding noises, and any other sound they were able to create that made it great. It's an album that grows on you; it's a hidden treasure that, as a whole, is really well out together and would probably be great to hear live. '“JASMYN BURKE
File Next to: I'm not even sure'¦(I'm speechless!)

IRON BITCHFACE
Enter the Goatheaded God(Independant, www.ironbitchface.com)
This is the most demonic record of 2005. It's also the best record of 2005. Right now, Wolf Eyes are listening to this and crying because they don't have a song as good as the title track or "Sacrificial virgins upon a bloody altar for the dark master". I've been following these guys since I was subjected to their hit, "Bryan", roughly seven times at a show in Kitchener during a split-city 30-hour speed binge; I wasn't ready for this though -- literally budda-budda drums and buzzsaw metal riffs with unintelligible fuzzy shrieking and completely insane and Down-Syndromey keyboard solos, with probably five true total mindmelts where you punch the air or yell "Of course!" or "It STARTED with the drum beat!" as opposed to what usually gets called mind melts which is when the Comets on Fire record was just a bunch of guitar soloing... no, these are real melts, where the world seems sort of dull and vaguely disappointing compared to the way it seemed when the melt happened. What I'm saying is that this record is like going really hard for 30 hours. "This is a song about a guy named Bryan! It's called... BRYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!" '“MATT FUCKING COLLINS
File next to: Serious people can never, ever, be this serious.

KILO
Augarten (Onitor, www.onitor.de)
Florian Bogner and Markus Urban aka Kilo, are a pair of ex-garage band guitarists based out of Vienna, Austria. Putting aside rock music, their Kilo project is about fashioning minimal techno from the sonic debris they create while strumming their guitars. The results, although often punctuated with deep bass and the throbbing pulse of a detuned kick drum, are so textured and delicate that they that they flow over the listener like a playful summer wind. Particularly interesting is the balance between electronics and acoustic guitar in the sense that layers of effects give way to the clear tones of guitar strings; the self-produced duo let the strings buzz and shine, bringing the beautiful tonal qualities of the instrument into focus at all the right moments. Kilo's Augarten is deep electro-organic brilliance. '“MARINKO JAREBFile next to:Kompakt, Minimal Techno verges on electroacoustic.

LENA
Floating Roots (Quartermass, www.quatermass.net/qmass.html)
Lena is Mathias Delplanque, born in Burkina Faso, furthering his African roots by adapting the music of his past with the influences of European electronics and Jamaican dub. Floating Roots can best be characterized as artificial dub music. Lena lays down grooves at a variety of tempos, from reggae speed skankin' to the quick pulse of dub techno, while guest MCs Black Sifichi and Tablloyd toast the bagels on a few tracks. The plastic sounds of Lena's dub are so synthetic that they'll inspire visions of bright sunshine piercing the thick morning fog floating through a lush jungle valleyÖthat's when the song ends and you realize it's just the ganja mist clearing out the bong and over your head. Cough! On the real, this album is getting regular rotation on the ghetto system. '“MARINKO JAREB
File 'œbetween'?: Burial Mix, Basic Channel, Studio One, Lee Perry

THE OLD SOUL
s/t (Hand of God; www.theoldsoul.com)
The Old Soul are here to fill the void left wide open by Mercury Rev after they became Disneyfied Jesus Christ posers. Recalling the joyous, maximally orchestrated wide-screen freak scene heard on lost Rev classic See You on the Other Side (released in '95 on now-defunct Sony imprint Work, and totally worth tracking down, by the way), The Old Soul's self-titled debut is a real creeper of a pure pop pleasure. These hard-drinking, well-dressed gentlemen deserve some backslaps for knowing what an album's supposed to be: a non-stop hit parade. Mainman Luca Maoloni has gone on record as being sick of the Brian Wilson comparison, so I won't belabour describing the Smile-y-ness of the layered harmonies that abound here, so instead I'll invoke another reclusive musical architect, Kevin Shields, and his now-famous, Canadian-record-label-christening quote about 'œunpeeling the layers of a sonic onion.'? This is the first new record I've heard in seemingly ages which has made my ears engage in this immensely satisfying activity from start to finish. '“ JONNY DOVERCOURT
File next to: Listening as work as play.

TONETRAEGER
This Is Not Here (Quartermass, www.quatermass.net/qmass.html)
Tonetraeger is Volker Bertlemann (Hauschka, Music A.M.) and Torsten Mauss (Twig) who hail from the industrial town of Dusseldorf, Germany, a city whose music scene has seen some fresh energy lately. Tonetraeger is self described as 'œT-rock'? or techno rock and although that may be an appropriate description in Germany, it is misleading to the Canadian music fan. I think of techno rock as dance floor oriented techno or electro beats with grinding guitar sounds '“ think T.Raumschmeire or International DJ Gigolos. Tonetraeger's emotionally charged music, however, comes across like a mash-up between down-tempo electronica and folky emo. It's very clean and nice sounding, even relaxing. The sound is not entirely unlike Stereolab but with a primary school twist for extra cuteness. As much as I like the idea of Tonetraeger, a 'œband'? that pairs electronics and live instruments to create avant-pop, I feel like they are a band that one would need to see live in order to fully appreciate their sound. On a CD, in the context of my home stereo system, their music seems a little contrived and overdone. '“MARINKO JABEK
File Next To: Karaoke Kalk, Epic Folktronica / Turbo Folk.

TRESPASSERS WILLIAM
Different Stars (Nettwerk, www.nettwerk.com)
I don't mind listening to someone whine, so long as they learn and grow and stop complaining about the same things after a while. This album is like a sappy whine that keeps the same steady and boring drawl for a little more than an hour. It's too hard to take. 'œLove You More'? sums it up with 'œAll of my songs are for you, all of my songs are sad.'? Maybe I'd like this more if the lyrics even changed a bit, but they don't. It goes from 'œOh I need and don't want to need more than I should'? to 'œI see it when you do just what I said and I don't feel then that my heart knows the difference.'? What? '“RYAN MCLAREN
File next to: Chunky Monkey and crying.