Single Premiere: Gone Cosmic – "Faded Release"

by Christine Leonard

A shimmering beacon amidst the dark matter of outer space, the latest track to be leaked from Gone Cosmic’s much-anticipated debut album, Sideways in Time, lands like a feather fallen from the headdress of Osiris. Rising from the frost-traced canyons of Mars, the sleeper hit gathers disparate elements from the realms of metal, jazz, psych-rock, R&B (and more) to form a blazing phoenix that streaks across the galaxy.

Flaming meteor and commanding vocalist, Abbie Thurgood describes the song’s whiplash-inducing orbit as “a throat-punching, face-melting, melodically-driven trip.” A soul-strafing tirade that “touches on the ultimate sacrifice and give-all nature that takes place for a loved one,” Gone Cosmic’s “Faded Release” is an offering fit for any stargate altar or playlist.

Gone Cosmic’s new album Sideways in Time will be released through the Kozmik Artifactz record label on April 12.

25th, March 2019

in • Alberta, MUSIC

GrimSkunk - 30th Anniversary Interview

Politipunks GrimSkunk Celebrate 

30 Years of Making a Grand Stink 

By Christine Leonard 

Photo by Carl Thériault

CALGARY – French, English, Russian, Spanish — There’s no language barrier that can’t be bridged by the fragrant vibes of Quebec’s legendary ska-rock orchestra GrimSkunk. The veteran politipunks are celebrating 30 years of making music and mayhem under the flag of hemp and justice for all.

“When we started our career punk and metal had already gone around the block a couple of times,” says lead singer/organist Joe Evil. “It was sort of getting repetitive. We wanted to mix in a new style. How we became creative was to do punk and metal but mix it completely with any sort of style or language.”

GrimSkunk has always maintained an amazing sense of humour and grace when it comes to exploring inroads to spiritual harmony and mutual enrichment.

“We sort of did it when it was okay to do it and now it’s like, the news is pretty harsh, and can I understand cultural appropriation. We’ve taken elements from everywhere. We’ve had Greek songs, we’ve had Spanish words over flamenco-style music, and we’ve had North African songs with Persian words. We’ve done them just for the fun of doing it and the influences that they’ve had on us. Because as a ‘global band’ right at the verge of the Internet, or before the Internet, there was world music and that was a big influence on us. We were turned on by those styles and wanted to integrate it into our punk rock and psychedelic rock.”

A multilingual montage of genres that keeps the punk rock party thumping, GrimSkunk’s latest release, Unreason in the Age of Madness, was dropped on the band’s own Indica Records label in 2018. Also ringing in their 20th anniversary as a company this year, Indica has long been home to an exotic blend of artists who might not have been heard were it not for GrimSkunk’s musical green thumb.

“Obviously, as times goes by, different styles become popular,” Evil acknowledges. “We are getting influenced by ourselves earlier in our career finally. Now, I can finally start to relate to bands that have been around for decades! I can finally relate to Rush!” 

GrimSkunk perform March 27 at Wild Bill’s (Banff), March 28 at The Drake Public House (Canmore), March 29 at Broken City (Calgary), March 31 at Doc Willoughby’s (Kelowna) and April 4 at Venue (Vancouver)

22nd, March 2019 

in • Alberta, • Shrapnel, CITY, MUSIC

Melted Mirror Reflects on Past Lives - Interview

Melted Mirror Wrestle With The Strange Passage Of Time

by Christine Leonard

You know that recurring dream you have about playing full-contact laser tag with Joy Division? It’s about to come true! Sliding out of the shadows of the recording studio and back on to the neon dancefloor, where they belong, Calgary-based synth lovers, Melted Mirror are pleased to present a glimpse into the future with the release of their second full-length album, Past Life.

A glossy high-resolution follow-up to 2016’s Borderzone with its wandering stars and flying fortresses, Past Life crystalizes Melted Mirror’s dark charisma and cunning intellect into a collection of shimmering electro-pop tracks. Two years in the making, Past Life reportedly took Melted Mirror only two short days to record, thanks in part to the prowess of producer/engineer Nik Kozub (Shout Out Out Out Out).

“After our first album, a friend suggested we look into recording with Nik at The Audio Department up in Edmonton,” says vocalist Chris Zajko. “Between 2017 and 2018 we recorded a total of ten songs over three sessions and then narrowed it down to eight tracks for the album. The biggest challenge was simply trying to get everything done in the time that we had booked for the studio.”

Pressure makes diamonds and that’s exactly what the refractive trio, rounded out by synth player/programmer Cian Cocteau and guitarist Jeebs Nabil, has composed and delivered with the icy lustings of Past Life. One thing that technology cannot fabricate is human emotion, that essential element relies entirely on the organic beings at the center of Melted Mirror’s retrofitted motherboard.

“It sounds silly, but when you’re recording by yourself, you may not have that many resources or fancy equipment, but you generally have the luxury of time. You have time to try things that may or may not work, or play around with parts, or leave and come back to a song the next day,” Zajko intimates.

“Past Life refers to the idea that we are all part of a vast continuum that is largely beyond our choosing and control. Since we can’t choose where and when we are born, our world is an inheritance of history from the multitude of ‘past lives’ of the people who lived before us. We try to claim an ownership to something that is our own and permanent, but really, we’re all just passing through.”

14th, March 2019 

in • British Columbia, MUSIC

Album Review: Hawksley Workman – Median Age Wasteland

Hawksley Workman
Median Age Wasteland
(Isadora Records)

The business of making music has long been child’s play for singer-songwriter Hawksley Workman. From polishing the glam-pop pole with “Stripteaze” to warming the hearth of humanity with “Almost a Full Moon” the multi-talented instrumentalist and author has successfully encapsulated the modern Canadian experience while panhandling his way into the hearts and record collections of rock and folk music fans around the globe.

Sizing up personal demons on his self-exploratory 16th studio album, Median Age Wasteland, Workman (who turns 44 this month) applies his careful yet ebullient craft to tracks like the equally luminous and humourous “Lazy” and the small town summer ditty “Battlefords.” As ever, soaring vocals and cafe corner guitar rambles ease any sense of awkwardness as the true north troubadour dives headlong into another library of unabashedly innocent and sentimentalized moments. “Birds in Train Stations”, cigarettes, lucid dreams, bingo cards and cars perched on blocks are all fair game as the obtuse and observant “Skinny Wolf” catalogues his impressionistic adventures. Elevating the mundane, he readily points out “Nobody really asked for this,” but by the time you’ve reached your 40s it’s not so much about getting what you want, but rather claiming what you need.

by Christine Leonard

08th, March 2019 

in • Record Reviews, REVIEWS