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Culture » Hot Disc

Hot Disc: Broken Bells

Posted March 10th, 2010 | 2:30 pm | By Eli Yarhi | 2 Comments

When it comes to heavyweight pop collaborations, there’s a lot to be fearful of: Stepping on toes, amounting to the sum of two parts, going through the motions. Broken Bells’ self-titled debut is nothing of the sort.

Broken Bells is James Mercer, principle songwriter for the Shins, and Brian Burton of Danger Mouse fame. Together, they’ve made an empyreal pop record. One that’s psychedelic, atmospheric and hypnotic. It’s being drawn up to a 21st Century Pet Sounds made with special tools. And it’s damn good. Read the rest of this entry »

Culture » Hot Disc

Hot Disc: Brasstronaut, Mt. Chimaera

Posted March 3rd, 2010 | 4:30 pm | By Eli Yarhi | No Comments

Photography by Jeff Petry

Consider the mythical chimaera. It has the body of a lion, a serpent’s head for a tail, and a goat’s head jutting from its back. Weird, right? But considering its relevance to Brasstronaut’s debut full-length, Mt. Chimaera (Unfamiliar Records), it’s not all Classics Club geekdom. Grazing and gobbling up genres in its path with cunning sensibility, Brasstronaut manages to fuse pop, electronica, klezmer (yup, pokey clarinet) and jazz into one highbred take. Every moment of Mt. Chimaera is fresh—dashing your anticipations at each unexpected turn. Read the rest of this entry »

Culture » Hot Disc

Hot Disc: Woodhands, Remorsecapade

Posted January 28th, 2010 | 3:30 pm | By Eli Yarhi | 1 Comment

FMhotdiscWoodhands_lg

We don’t recommend you sit at home and listen to Woodhands’ Remorsecapade (Paper Bag). Get out and request their songs when you’re at a sweaty dance party—you’ll bounce along with this record’s front loaded punch and intensity.

Woodhands is Dan Werb and Paul Banwatt, an inditronica drum and keytar synth based in Toronto who rock in both drollery and sensibility. On Remoresecapade you’re either having far too much fun, or on the verge of bumming out. On tunes like “CP24,” Werb lets you know that “I’m gonna’ be on CP24, pointing sixteen-hundred roman candles at your door.” It’s relentless, it’s spastic, entirely danceable and lyrically odd. Read the rest of this entry »

Culture » Hot Disc

Hot Disc: Four Tet, There Is Love In You

Posted January 26th, 2010 | 2:06 pm | By Eli Yarhi | No Comments

feb10FourTet_lg

Kieran Hebden first started releasing upbeat patchwork productions as Four Tet back in 1999 in order to find a creative outlet beyond his post-rock outfit, Fridge. Dialogue and four subsequent full-lengths constantly shifted personality while staying within the indie-electronic category of digital looping, slicing and pasting.

On his latest outing, There Is Love In You (Domino), Hebden shows that his work remains as richly syncopated, dynamic and elemental as it’s always been. This time around though, Four Tet plays partial to arching soundscapes over the hip-hop inflected basement-nerd tunes previously offered. Read the rest of this entry »

Culture » Hot Disc

Hot Disc: The Magnetic Fields, Realism

Posted January 22nd, 2010 | 10:30 am | By Eli Yarhi | No Comments

FMhotdiscMagnetic_lg

Always experimenting, but consistently sincere, you can always trust The Magnetic Fields aren’t just playing a one off. In the past they pulled out all the stops on 69 Love Songs, an album so comprehensive it spread across three discs and many, many inconsolable hours of your life. Then came Distortion, a much different tune, paying homage to shoegaze drone-fuzz and the Jesus and Mary Chain. Now on Realism, The Magnetic Fields’ third Nonesuch release, singer-songwriter Stephin Merritt takes the band into ersatz production on what is ostensibly a variety-folk concept album.

Read the rest of this entry »

Culture » Hot Disc

Hot disc: Woodpigeon, Die Stadt Muzikanten

Posted January 12th, 2010 | 2:00 pm | By Eli Yarhi | No Comments

Photography by Lindsey Baker

Photography by Lindsey Baker

Woodpigeon is often compared to Sufjan Stevens and Belle & Sebastian, which could have something to do with what follows. Woodpigeon’s third LP, Die Stadt Muzikanten (Boompa), offers some of the happiest sad songs we’ve heard in a while. Writing in a small Berlin apartment, Calgarian songwriter Mark Andrew Hamilton started “thinking in terms of couples, of people coming and going, of walls and windows,” he says. Read the rest of this entry »

Culture » Hot Disc

Hot Disc: Ke$ha, Animal

Posted January 6th, 2010 | 3:53 pm | By Eli Yarhi | No Comments

Photography by Jason Nocito

Photography by Jason Nocito

Right about now, if you beat Lady Gaga in the download charts you’re doing something right. Enter Ke$ha. She spells her name with a cash symbol, sounds like she’s got somewhere better to be, and her slow-banger “TiK ToK” is beating out “Bad Romance” on iTunes. We had to check out her debut full length album, Animal. Read the rest of this entry »

Culture » Hot Disc

Hot disc: K-os, The Trill: A Journey So Far

Posted December 11th, 2009 | 2:00 pm | By Eli Yarhi | No Comments

Photo via EMI

Photo courtesy of EMI

The Trill: A Journey So Far (EMI) is a condensed collection of K-os’ sprawling pastiche, a compendium of singles and album standouts that listens like a mix-tape (remember those?) you might make for a friend to prove that K-os has the chops. Read the rest of this entry »

Life and Health

We go grocery shopping with greens guru Sam Graci

Posted November 30th, 2009 | 2:28 pm | By Eli Yarhi | No Comments

Photography by karindalziel/Flickr

Photography by karindalziel/Flickr

We shopped one-on-one at Whole Foods in Toronto with Sam Graci, Greens+ magnate and superfood researcher, to learn how to maintain a balanced body chemistry. He says we need to create an even pH level—where alkalizing and acid forming foods are balance—for higher energy levels and better memory, mood, libido and skin. “Our body is a very exquisite chemical processing plant,” says Graci.

Here’s what we picked up: Read the rest of this entry »

Fashion

Give us this day our daily bread shoes

Posted November 13th, 2009 | 3:05 pm | By Eli Yarhi | 3 Comments

nov09breadshoes2_lg

Stumbling across Bread Shoes was a pleasure cruise through bizarre waters. They’re quirky and funny–and utterly strange. Naturally, we had many questions for the designers, twin brothers R&E Praspaliauskas: “Is the bread’s crust hardened with anything? Will these slippers grow mould? Will they go stale?” We detected some playfulness in their design—slippers made from loaves of bread, c’mon—but the joke was still on us. Read the rest of this entry »

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