Author: Simon New

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Music

A Swift Friendship

Damien Jurado and Nick Thune are Sad Music, Sad Comedy

Singer-songwriter Damien Jurado and comedian Nick Thune are both prominent artists from greater Seattle, but they never met until their mutual friend and collaborator, Richard Swift, died of complications from alcoholism in May, 2018.

Swift was a producer and multi-instrumentalist that worked with groups like the Shins and the Black Keys. Thune and Jurado came together to eulogize Swift at his memorial show, and became friends.

“I had never met him before, my oldest son and I were both big fans of Nick,” said Jurado. The show went so well that the two have decided to tour the east coast together, bringing music, comedy and sadness to L’Astral on Jan. 24. The show has Thune doing new jokes and stories, and Jurado playing cuts off of his newest album, In the Shape of a Storm. 

Thune is a veteran comedian and actor whose Comedy Central half-hour debuted in 2008. He’s known for his laid-back and dry style, as well as his sharp wit. He seems like the friend who’s the funniest in the group and is always getting away with something. Thune came up playing acoustic guitar as a bed for his jokes and has always been attracted to music, having originally wanted to become a musician. On stage, he would often open with a line to warm up the crowd: “Can I get more laughter in the monitors.”

“Comedians want to be musicians and musicians want to be comedians,” said Thune. “This tour kind of feeds into that idea.” His last full-length special, Good Guy, premiered in 2016 on Seeso (RIP) and focuses on the birth of his son. Since then, his son has turned five, he and his wife have separated, and he has gotten sober after the culmination of a serious battle with alcoholism in 2018. After the news of Swift’s death, Thune checked himself into rehab, and has since been feeling more creatively focused.

The romance of intoxication and drugs producing good art is false,” said Thune. “I don’t go running down these paths of a funny idea that I think I have when I’m drunk, then I hear about it when I’m not as drunk and I’m like ‘what was I thinking there?’”

While tired tropes of drugs and creativity populate all art forms, Thune noted that for him, sobriety was the clear path forward for not only his life, but his livelihood. When he was drunk, his thinking was clouded. “You’re really missing a lot more than you’re hitting. Right now with clarity and sobriety I’m hitting way more,” said Thune.

“Putting that show together, it felt like something that Richard would have loved to watch,” said Thune. Jurado and Swift were longtime collaborators. He produced songs on In The Shape of a Storm, which Jurado says makes up most of his setlist. The record is stripped down to just Jurado and his guitar. The songs are written intimately with themes of love––they are as vulnerable as they are powerful. This is sure to be a unique contrast with Thune’s brand of humour. “It’s fun because the audience feels like they’re getting different drugs,” said Thune.

“It’s a sense of laughter and sadness,” said Jurado. “I don’t have any expectations. Each individual person’s going to get their own experience out of this.”

The two cite influences in musical comedy, but the formula of a musician and a separate comedian on stage is rarely done. The duo share a bond that transcends art in their friendship with Swift.

“I was on stage and I was thinking to myself this is so crazy that Richard’s not here, to witness Nick and I not just being friends now but also going on tour,” said Jurado. “It’s a very strange missing part of the puzzle here.”

The show is sure to be a night of laughter and tragedy, and a common thread of two friends from the Pacific Northwest who shared a close friend. “Damien goes on first and makes you think about life, then I come on and make you want to end your life,” said Thune.

Speaking to them from their hotel in Pennsylvania, the two clearly share a sense of humour. I asked what Jurado and Thune want people to take away from this tour. “A ton of merch,” Thune said.

Sad Music, Sad Comedy plays at L’Astral on Jan. 24, at 8:00 p.m.

 

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Music Quickspins

QUICKSPINS: DaBaby – KIRK

DaBaby

DaBaby has canonized himself in the game faster than he starts rapping on any song off of KIRK

“Straight off the rip, you know I don’t wait for no drop,” raps DaBaby on “OFF THE RIP.” It’s a running joke that he never waits more than a few seconds into the track to go in, and during a white-hot 2019, DaBaby has canonized himself in the game faster than he starts rapping on any song off of KIRK.

After his tape Baby On Baby birthed the hit Suge earlier this year, DaBaby’s phone has been ringing off the hook for a feature. Derided by some for making the same song over and over again, DaBaby’s eagerness combined with his undeniable rap ability and the fact that this album has at least three different song formulas means that the Charlotte MC is only on his way up.

On KIRK, DaBaby reminisces about his father who recently passed. Not all of DaBaby’s lines or flows hit as hard as they could, but if you’re bored by any particular moment, you can count on him switching it up before you have time to think about it. Complete with appearances from Migos (sounds like Migos feat. DaBaby), co-baby rapper Lil Baby, and an Acid-Rap loosie of a Chance The Preacher feature, among others. While the songs run together at times, it is clearly more diverse and polished than Baby On Baby, and is a show of momentum that promises DaBaby will take much longer to fade than he did to come up.

7.5/10

Trial Track: BOP

Star Bar: And I still got a lotta shit on my mind that I can’t undecide/

Got me ready to slide, feelin’ like Doughboy when his brother died – DaBaby on INTRO

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Music

New age of Fantasia

Disney classic is backed by a live orchestra at Place Des Arts

“You have to kind of take a leap and go experience it,” says Francis Choinière, president and co-founder of GFN Productions. On June 22, Choinière and his team will bring Disney’s classic Fantasia to life with a live orchestra at Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier in Place des Arts. As a classically trained chorist and conductor, Choinière has branched out into producing orchestral concerts set to popular films.

Last year, the company sold out two nights of a live orchestral version of Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring with over 80 musicians and 150 singers. It was GFN’s first production, and Choinière was in charge of preparing the choir. This time around, he has opted to direct the show offstage, with conductor Alain Trudel. Choinière says that although he prefers conducting over directing in the long run, the two serve a similar role. “Conductor is the role of a facilitator,” he says. “It’s to help find one thread of musical expression that unifies everyone.”

After the success of Lord of the Rings, Choinière sees the power in fusing cinema and symphony; the cinematic element tends to bring a new kind of crowd to orchestras.

“People who come to see Lord of the Rings are not necessarily people who come to see a symphony orchestra or have ever seen a symphony orchestra,” he says. “For them, it’s a new experience to see live musicians like that, so for us, that was really important.” As a student beginning his masters in Orchestral Conducting, Choinière says he sees a decline in the mainstream appeal of orchestras, even citing the Montreal Symphony Orchestra’s difficulty in filling their hall. “This visual aspect is an interesting way of keeping things fresh,” Choinière says. The addition of a live orchestra to GFN’s production of Fantasia is in the innovative spirit of the film’s 1940 release, when it was the first commercial film released in stereo sound, a novel way to immerse audiences.

Choinière has come to terms with the fact that symphony orchestras are competing for more casual music fans. “We’re much more visual now than we ever have been,” he says. Enjoying a symphony is an auditory experience, although the orchestra itself can be visually fascinating. Having a narrative to grip onto will surely ease some newer fans into the world of classical music.

GFN’s Fantasia will blend the 1940 classic with Fantasia 2000, the millennium reboot. “Fantasia is one of those films that helped people discover classical music,” says Choinière. “We’re touching two different generations.” The blend of live orchestral Bach and Tchaikovsky with Disney’s dreamlike animations is sure to be timeless.

Tickets for Fantasia at Place Des Arts can be purchased here.

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Music

FKA Earl Sweatshirt

“I don’t wanna see no struggle hands for this,” said Kgositsile.

Rapper Thebe Kgositsile tries to move past his pseudonym and his past music

“Mask off, mask on, we trick-or-treatin’ / back off, stand-offish and anemic.” These lines broke the four-year gap between Thebe Kgositsile, known as Earl Sweatshirt’s 2015 album I Don’t Like Shit, I Don’t Go Outside and his most recent Some Rap Songs. The grim imagery, disjointed syntax and nine-syllable close rhyme are tools of Kgositsile’s trade.

With his latest album and tour, Kgositsile has tried to distance himself from Earl Sweatshirt, the moniker that symbolized his come-up in 2010 alongside Odd Future. At 16, Kgositsile was spitting horrorcore bars about knocking blunt ashes into the caskets of catholics. His lyrics were as brash and boorish as they were vivid and dense, with a monotone that magnified their intricacies. After his mother sent him to a reform school in Samoa for acting out, he came back to release three of the best rap albums of the decade. As Kgositsile grew up, his maturity came with reclusion. Once a foul-mouthed delinquent, he wrestled with depression and his music became more lucid and introspective.

Some Rap Songs deals with the death of his father in January of last year, who was a lauded South African poet and absent during Kgositsile’s childhood. The ensuing album is predictably dark, but where I Don’t Like Shit, I Don’t Go Outside was brooding and focused, Kgositsile’s footing on Some Rap Songs is unsure. The album cover is a blurred closeup of his face, and much of the tape has him sorting through wreckage and piecing his story together. His bars come across as poetic and that’s because they’re intended to be: “It’s really dense. It can be overwhelming and have an air of exclusivity to it, a pompousness that I feel is only balanced out by me being like, I know what I’m doing to you. So I’ma sprint for you. I’ma act like your time is valuable,” Kgositsile told writer Sheldon Pearce.

Photo by Simon New

Kgositsile entered stage in a flannel, sweats and Air Force 1’s. His lyrics rang out with a force like flowing water, these were his truths. He moved slowly, like a wise elder and had no time for the extraneous. Every word hit even harder than on the album and there was no sign of backing vocals. He took playful jabs at the audience, almost trying to calm them down. I overheard a conversation about how a girl was switching lockers to be next to her boyfriend. These were the kids that he had made fans as the best rapper in Odd Future. It felt like Kgositsile was a prophet that had grown up simultaneously with the crowd but not alongside them. He was telling tales of pain and tumult as well as a spectrum of fame and experience that were just beyond the audience’s grasp. As he shuffled from one side of the stage to the other, he would rap into the air and, as he glanced at the audience, would look away as if he couldn’t face them. It was powerful to see the struggles in his music manifested.

Kgositsile played consecutive songs from the new album, dipping into I Don’t Like Shit, I Don’t Go Outside, and hesitated to go back further in his catalog, even though tracks from 2013’s Doris had the crowd the loudest. Kgositsile was evading a past that his fans haven’t let go of. Some Rap Songs is Kgositsile’s definitive album; it is unique in how excruciatingly personal it is. Hopefully as Kgositsile takes the mask of Earl Sweatshirt off, his fans will embrace the storied character of Thebe Kgositsile.

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Music Quickspins

QUICKSPINS: Phonte – Pacific Time EP

Phonte, a velvet voice and frontman of Little Brother, one of the most important underground rap groups of the 2000s gave fans a treat to get them to summer. Pacific Time is a four-track waterslide in the sunshine. While Phonte is known for his whip-smart bars and folding flows, he has always impressed with his R&B persona, and this tape has him singing at his smoothest. The opener, “Can We,” is a gorgeous ode to a lazy day with a partner. It’s the most fleshed out idea on the project, and the longest track at four minutes. The other standout moment is a classic Phonte verse on the Kaytranada-produced closer, “Heard This One Before.” Pacific Time could have been an excellent R&B album, but its 10-minute length makes it feel inconsequential. Still, that opener is a must-add for your bedroom playlist.

7.5/10

Trial Track: “Can We”

Star Bar: “’Cause life’s a B when your E-Y-E’s can’t seize the intangibles
It’s like stumbling and tumbling through a drum machine
So kids, read the Lin-Manuel
Miranda Rights, no plans tonight” – Phonte on Heard This One Before (feat. BOSCO & KAYTRANADA)

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Music

Fire it up

Thebe Kgositsile, known as Earl Sweatshirt, is about to set the Corona Theatre ablaze on Thursday. After having released one of 2018’s standout, original rap records, Some Rap Songs, Sweatshirt has embarked on a tour with a name as long as it is apt: “Thebe Kgositsile Presents: FIRE IT UP! A TOUR STARRING EARL SWEATSHIRT & FRIENDS FT. BBYMUTHA, NA-KEL SMITH, LIV.E, MIKE & BLACK NOI$E.” With the release of his newest album, Kgotsitsile notably distanced himself from the stage name that eponymized his extraordinary shock-rap come-up in 2010 with Odd Future. He views Earl Sweatshirt as a project or a persona that shifts and changes with his collaborators. On this tour, Kgositsile has collected not only his friends that helped Some Rap Songs to be the poetic, singular project that it was, but his associates that have helped shape his persona over the years.

Nobody on this bill can make a bigger claim to shaping Kgositsile’s current sound than MIKE. The New York rapper with flows wise beyond his years shares a lot of energy reminiscent of early Earl. At 20 years old, MIKE has headed sLUms, a New York-based crack squad of lo-fi literate rappers that have had the Kgositsile co-sign since near its inception. Kgositsile shouts out members from the group throughout Some Rap Songs, and their musical influence is undeniable. Kgositsile cites brevity as his tool for the raw humility that characterizes his latest album. MIKE and his crew are known to have little in the way of hooks and filler to spread their message thin. He developed his style in the image of Earl Sweatshirt; now Kgositsile has partnered with MIKE for what should be a rap masterclass.

Detroit-based producer Black Noi$e has previously toured with Kgositsile and represents another wave of upcoming artists defining their sound. Noi$e met Kgositsile through Queens-based collective World’s Fair, and hails from Detroit by way of Nova Scotia. Noi$e comes at hip hop from a hardcore background, and is sure to bring pure grit to the decks.

Liv.e clocks in at the opposite end of the spectrum. With a golden voice, she raps and sings over electronic-leaning R&B production that veers into experimental territory closer to MIKE’s.

Na-Kel Smith is a skater and designer that is known for his association with Odd Future, as well as his recent starring role in Jonah Hill’s film mid90s. On Earl Sweatshirt’s 2015 album I Don’t Like Shit I Don’t Go Outside, Smith gave a gut-wrenchingly raw verse memorializing his friend. Smith got news of his death while he was on LSD at Kgositsile’s studio, then wrote and recorded the verse on the spot. It remains a defining moment of the Earl Sweatshirt discography. Smith dropped his debut album Twothousand Nakteen laced with the kind of trap-driven braggadocio that every good rap show needs as an opener.

Chattanooga, TN rapper bbymutha is another name sure to turn up the heat. The self-acclaimed “antichrist of female rap” has an over-the-top, oversexual, vibrant aesthetic that is as innovative as her sound is classically southern.

If it wasn’t apparent, this show isn’t one to miss. It is expected to be a showcase of a wave of massively creative underground artists under the image of Earl Sweatshirt. Even if Kgositsile is moving past the moniker to find himself, it served as a vehicle to unparalleled artistry that was able to take hits and make mistakes along the way. If Earl’s friends can follow in his footsteps, Corona is in for a treat.

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Music

Montreal indie staple Homeshake delivers a performance more vague than entrancing

Peter Sagar pitched his voice up for most of his set. Photo by Simon New.

Lo-fi lethargy

“Feels like a loosely-packed living room in here,” said Peter Sagar, Homeshake’s frontman. The crowd didn’t know whether or not to take it as a jab. It didn’t matter.

Homeshake, for those who don’t wear Vans in the winter, is a project started by Sagar, former Mac DeMarco guitarist. He left the band when Homeshake started to gain traction. Based out of Montreal, Sagar’s brand of concerningly chill, stumblingly smooth indie-rock has become omnipresent in the city’s lo-fi circle. Fresh out of DeMarco’s band, Sagar’s sound started similar to his prior squad’s, but has gained gained a more hazy and abstract R&B bent with each of his four albums since In the Shower in 2014.

That distinction could have been refreshing if the haze hadn’t obscured any clear direction or trail for the band to blaze. Melodies never quite get fleshed out and Sagar’s lyrics rarely stray from the mundane and the faux-profound. The result, in the form of their latest Helium, is an album that knows it wants to be chill but not much else. Critics of DeMarco have levelled kindred complaints with his music, but his live shows are notoriously raucous. He got detained by the police at his own UCSB show in 2014. Sagar, emancipated from DeMarco, arguably toned down his set for Wednesday night’s Théâtre Fairmount crowd.

Sagar was set behind a buffet of effects, an SP-404 sampler, and a pitch shifter for his voice. His falsetto vocals wavered between what felt like two notes. The bassist was centre-stage most of the time and provided some movement to an otherwise standstill set. The drummer, equipped with a kick, two cymbals, a snare and a drum pad, was on point, but the percussion was expectedly sparse.

Sometimes though, a woodblock on the 2 and the 4 is all you need, and Homeshake posted deep in a groove, locking the audience into a real trance at moments. Everything coalesced into something tangible that the band should have showed more of; music that was inconsequential by design but served a very specific purpose to a select group of people on a single Wednesday. Mostly though, the melodies were vague and Sagar’s R&B crooning lyrics even more so. Even some of the band’s more musically defining tracks like “Give It to Me” and “Call Me Up” lost some of their character; the lack of animation and Sagar’s bizarrely quiet stage presence revealed how similar all of the songs really were. The main riff on “Give It to Me” was still hard as nails.

Photo by Simon New.

The audience was riding a thin line between vibing and boredom. Sagar was aloof to a degree that his level of fame doesn’t usually allot for. After an opening track, the audience applauded and he visibly shrugged. “You’re fuckin’ quiet, I like that,” he said. But they weren’t in some deep reverie as much as they were just looking for something to latch onto onstage. Homeshake could be excellent as a house band; people in the back of the venue were catching up and talking shit. This show could have been a 5-star Off The Hook employee networking event; Homeshake was a stellar soundtrack to chat with acquaintances to. Unfortunately, the music was just as surface-level as some of those catch-ups.

Homeshake closed with “Every Single Thing,” and just as they started to bring the energy up, they left without a word. “Peter! Peter! Peter!” A group of girls started a chant in the front row. But Sagar is known to be anti-encore. It might have been the strongest stance he took that night.

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Music

Raphael reaches out

Raphael and Ridgely hit some devastating harmonies. Photo by Simon New.

Montreal singer-songwriter navigates continents and mental health issues

“My parents don’t even know I sing,” admitted Edwin Raphael to the crowd at Petit Campus on Thursday night. He moved to Montreal from his parents’ home in Dubai five years ago, where the most he did was play guitar. He just released Will You Think Of Me Later, his first full-length album.

After moving to Montreal to study economics at John Molson School of Business, Raphael became disenchanted with his studies and immersed in his craft. “I was procrastinating, trying to write music. I was like ‘anything’s better than studying economics,’” he said. His biggest song, “Queen of Coasts,” from his 2015 EP Ocean Walk, has over 2 million plays on Spotify.

Dubai, said Raphael, has a more mainstream, corporate-feeling music scene that he found uninspiring. Montreal was a breath of fresh air. “There’s a live show every fuckin’ night; there’s music everywhere,” he said.

Raphael had the crowd swaying on every note. The show, which marked the launch of Will You Think Of Me Later, felt like a hometown gathering at a house party, attended by friends, fans and other local musicians. Raphael’s sound is innately intimate, his smooth voice gliding across gentle instrumentation from his band. He gave the band a break to do a few songs solo with his guitar, backlit by a spotlight. Raphael cites Ben Howard as someone he emulated when he was writing in his dorm room.

There were powerful moments in Raphael’s set, when he brought up singer and rapper junï, for their collaboration “Bloom.” The track is a downtempo, nostalgic elegy of a relationship with a lover, studded with a blaring organ sample that brings the hook to a boil: “You say flowers don’t bloom / Like they’re supposed to / When we’re hanging out / Shit’s just different now,” sings Raphael. Golden-voiced Montreal pop singer-songwriter Claire Ridgely joined him for “Tangerine Skies,” a top-down, summer romance ballad that was as sweet as it was sad.

When Raphael was writing Will You Think Of Me Later, his guitarist Jacob Liutkus would offer his opinion as a co-writer, as well as writing all of his own guitar parts. The two aimed to speak frankly of mental illness, from the outside. “For me, the story was how to deal with someone dealing with addiction,” said Raphael. Liutkus added that the project is meant to reach out. “This album was about [how] you’re never alone in terms of what you’re feeling, if you ever think ‘I’m the only one feeling this way,’” he said.

On “Sober,” Raphael is losing his lover to addiction. “You’re crying out for these words I know / With you moving out cause you’re losing hope / Won’t you come around / Just be sober now, just be sober,” he sings. Raphael acknowledges the limit of this perspective as a second-person narrative. “Me looking at it from the outside, like I can’t tell you what to feel, because I don’t know what addiction feels like, and there’s only so much I can do,” he said. “That was me understanding that I don’t understand. People try to think they understand addiction because they’re addicted to something, but there’s so many levels to that.” Will You Think Of Me Later is Raphael doing what he can to help others understand these struggles—it is an invitation to join in learning, without forgetting to be a remarkably smooth listen.

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Music

Mother Mother dances and cries

I wanted to ask Ryan Guldemond where his sleeves went, in the tone of an uncle that asks you if your knees are cold in your ripped jeans.

Vancouver indie-pop outfit reaches out to L’Astral’s crowd

A familiar riff breaks the chatter at L’Astral in the fourth quarter of Mother Mother’s set. The crowd roars like they hadn’t before on this Friday night; there was a noticeable jolt in the energy of the room. It was the opening of “Hayloft,” the single that defined the band’s presence as an alt-rock Vancouver heavyweight a decade ago.

Molly Guldemond and Jasmin Parkin, the two supporting vocalists, began the electric hook: “My daddy’s got a gun, you better run.” The tune that tells the story of two lovers evading a crazed, armed father leverages it’s vivid simplicity and effervescent melody. There was a gripping imminence in the lyrics thoroughly encapsulated in the breakneck riffs which the frontman Ryan Guldemond, Molly’s brother, handled easily.

The song was released on Mother Mother’s 2008 album, O My Heart, to critical acclaim. While floating in pop-rock waters, the tape was anchored in Ryan’s incendiary confidence and unique melodies that landed the Vancouver band in a saltwater limelight. The lyrics were playful but vivid, the instrumentation was tight and textured. On the following album, Eureka, Mother Mother posted their portion of the pop-rock patch, with Ryan’s voice coating the project in a signature gloss. You could find them at the fringe of pop, tip-toeing between heaviness and more tender moments.

As Mother Mother progressed however, their tonal range became more restricted, moving their voice closer to the indie-pop centre. The band lost some of its shimmer in what could only have been a grasp at a wider audience, sacrificing their charming verses and hooks for lyrical platitudes.

Mother Mother opened with “I Must Cry Out Loud,” the first track on their newest record Dance and Cry, after which this tour is titled. Unfortunately, this album doesn’t travel into much deeper thematic waters than dancing and crying. Ryan traded the hoarse, unhingedness of “Hayloft” for a safer, more anthemic chant borrowing from the trite indie-pop formula epitomized by The Lumineers’s 2012 burden of a chart-topper, “Ho Hey.”

If they opened with the ‘cry,’ they followed up with the ‘dance,’ playing the title track on which the hook starts with “Dance, dance, dance / While you cry / Dance, dance, dance / As you try,” and ends with a repetition of the album’s title. The song has an Apple-commercial cleanliness that is as present in its sound as its lyrics. Not that there isn’t a relatable core to the cathartic idea of dancing while you cry, it would just be nice if the reason for it went further than an escape from a vague “valley of darkness.” “Bottom is a Rock” was a highlight from the new album, taking up the Sisyphytic cycle of life’s highs and lows. The melodies were similarly safe, but the rhythm and chords were satisfyingly heavy.

Sanitary lyrics fortunately came with crisp, rich sounds as the whole band was undeniably sharp. They meshed synths with tight basslines and strong lead guitar in a way that left no frequency unaccounted for. This was especially apparent when they covered “Creep” by Radiohead, with Molly delivering an excellent v

ocal performance. The band’s movement was comparably tight, Ryan’s super saiyan-esque spiked blonde hair and intense features had the audience captivated. During faster songs, they head-bopped, bounced and yelled the words in a way that was oh-so-respectful of me and my camera gear.

Mother Mother was very gracious with the audience, involving them in a way that showed their humility. “This shit is the best form of group therapy there is,” said Ryan. He went on to say how he wished he could sit down with the crowd and pass around a talking stick. Drummer Ali Siadat gave a speech in broken French about the band’s love for Montreal.

Mother Mother’s set was frustrating in its safeness, but seeing hardcore fans getting red in the face going word for word with Ryan, I knew those shoutouts were for them. The band connected with the captivated audience, despite their music becoming harder to spot in a crowd. Still, no moment that night came close to when “Hayloft” dropped, and L’Astral turned into Vancouver in 2008.

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Music Quickspins

QUICKSPINS: DaBaby – Baby On Baby

Charlotte, NC native and recent Interscope signee DaBaby dropped an album that sounds like he’s late for something and doesn’t have time to record, but his haste gives the project life. His urgency in spitting and singing catchy hooks builds purely infectious energy. Beats are fun, jittery and simple. Baby’s charisma shines while showing that he has no time to build a pattern and break it. Every song structure is so fleeting that it’s hard to get bored track-to-track, even though each one is almost tonally identical. While the freshness is satisfying, it doesn’t give any single cut a chance to shine. Songs featuring Offset and Rich the Kid, among others, dot the tracklist of this solid introduction to DaBaby’s frenetic world.

6/10

Trial Track: Tupac

Star Bar: “I’m like the 2Pac of the new shit / A hundred thousand hoes and they like the way I do shit” -DaBaby on “Tupac”

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Music

Anemone brings the sun

From left: Chloé Soldevila, Samuel Gemme and Zach Irving. Photo by Simon New

The Montreal pop band was conceived in the west, born in the east

“I’ve been playing music all of my life, and I had friends who were doing music as a living,” said Chloé Soldevila, the creator and songwriter of Anemone. “I always had this weird conception in my mind that I couldn’t do it.”

The Montreal band came to La Sala Rossa on Friday, Feb. 15 to launch their debut album, Beat My Distance. Their sound is serene pop at its centre, with Soldevilla’s bright vocals enveloped in psychedelic instrumentation from her band. The group started with six members on stage, including an extra percussionist, and became more and more numerous throughout the night.

Soldevila was raised around classical music and formally educated in jazz, but held herself back from stepping into the scene herself. She had been travelling in California in the summer of 2015, tagging along to music festivals with friends who were in bands. Her conception of the music scene turned on a dime. “I remember being at a festival, in the artist space with all these people who are in big bands,” said Soldevila. “And in my young mind it was like ‘ah they are so special,’ and then I talked to them, and I hung out with them, and I realized, well, you know, we’re just all the same,” she said. Soldevila wanted to bring the sound and the sun back to her home in Montreal. “There’s not just sea and sunshine and positiv[ity] on the west coast,” she said. “It’s all over the world. It’s a genre of music that exists everywhere.”

Anemone was born after that summer, when Soldevila met Zach Irving at a show at Poisson Noir, a DIY venue in Mile Ex where Irving was playing organ. “It’s really been natural,” said Irving. They began working on an album as they recruited Miles Dupire-Gagnon, Gabriel Lambert and Samuel Gemme. “I was looking for people who had that do-whatever-you-want vibe,” said Soldevila. They were based in Montreal, making music tinged with the west-coast psychedelia that had inspired her during her Californian summer. “It’s a benefit that we live in minus twenty, cause all of the music that we made, we made it in the winter. Honestly, you’re so depressed, you need something to kind of pull you out of the water, so you really appreciate that music,” she said.

Irving going in on keys. Photo by Simon New

After four years of work, and their debut Beat My Distance just released, the band admits the tape doesn’t quite capture what it’s like to see them live. “The album has a bit of a red-light vibe where it’s like ‘recording!’ and then you get a little constrained in a way, because you kind of freak out,” said Irving. “You’re sticking to the formula. Live, we don’t have a formula.”

Lambert with equal parts shred and smolder. Photo by Simon New

When Anemone took the stage, it felt like a free-for-all in a musically triumphant way. There was camaraderie, shredding and champagne. Soldevila led the pack, but every single band member took the group in their own direction at one point. As if they had discovered something and wanted to share it on stage with their friends, the band’s sincere interconnectedness allowed them to trust each each other to explore uncharted territory. Soldevilla would be dancing or riffing on vocals and have the jam coalesce around her. You could see a deep smile come across her face when she discovered, as the audience did, a new and interesting groove. The crowd loved it, and the band minced no words about how essential they were.

Soldevila catching a vibe from stage right. Photo by Simon New

“Most people don’t realize that they’re part of the magic that’s happening around them,” said Irving. “Exactly, and that for me is so important to share, and I don’t know how to tell them,” said Soldevilla. “I’m terrible at talking on the microphone. So the only thing we can do is show them, and it’s tricky, so I hope they get it.” Indeed, she let her actions speak, save for a few moments in the act. “Thank you!” said Soldevila to the fixated crowd. “It’s all for you.”

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Music

Mick Jenkins spits truth for a cold crowd in his sister city

Mick pulled off insane flows without missing a syllable. Photo by Simon New

Mick Jenkins had L’Astral’s crowd chant the motto that epitomized his come-up. “Drink more…” “Water!!” It is the central theme of The Water[s], the 2014 mixtape that put rap fans on notice regarding Jenkins.

The project was acclaimed for its thick, sub-marine production and Jenkins’s thoughtful, pithy lyrics. Held together by the concept of water as a metaphor for truth, it explained that both were equally necessary. The “drink more water” line that punctuated The Water[s] urged listeners to learn more and to seek more truth. Jenkins’s confident, astute delivery made for a gripping listen, promoting water while many other rappers pushed lean. “I pray it’s never too preachy but I’m preaching,” admitted Jenkins on “Martyrs.” The mixtape remains his most popular body of work.

Jenkins rose with what is now recognized as a new-school wave of Chicago rap. His friends and collaborators include Chance the Rapper, Noname, Saba, Smino and Joey Purp. The Water[s] was significant for Montreal as well. At the time, Jenkins’s manager lived in the city, and Jenkins would make trips every few months. “I think it’s very similar to Chicago, at least on the creative spectrum,” he said in his 2015 Montreality interview. He collaborated with Montreal hip-hop veterans Da-P and High Klassified on the title track of the mixtape. Jenkins also made an anthem for the city, “514,” that became iconic for his Quebecois fans, rapping “I’ve been in the 514, my French getting too clean / Customs is routine, eating hella poutine, I think I’ma buy one more.” Since then, he has released albums and mixtapes that stay true to his standard of quality and pensive, quotable style, but failed to capture the cohesive nature of The Water[s] that had internet rap fans in a frenzy five years ago. It seems then like there are two factions of Jenkins fans, those that discovered the The Water[s] and maintain it as his pinnacle, and fans that may have missed the wave but know him as an excellent MC for his newer work.

Standing at a solid six foot five, Mick towered over the crowd while hitting the gas on the mic and never easing off. Photo by Simon New

It was clear that both groups made it out to L’Astral last Monday the 28th, surely more of the latter than the former. When Jenkins came out after opening California R&B rapper Kari Faux, he was visibly frustrated in the face of the crowd’s applause; after having technical issues and fixing them with his DJ, he tore into some of his new material. Standing at a solid six foot five, he towered over the crowd while hitting the gas on the mic and never easing off. Hearing his aggressive, labyrinthine flows thoroughly backed by his full, deep voice was truly impressive. Watching his new Kaytranada-produced single, “What Am I To Do,” felt like watching his COLORS episode unfold in front of you. All of this was over live drums and bass. Jenkins was accompanied by his DJ, a drummer, a bassist and frequent collaborator theMIND, for vocals and a feature song. The result sounded like butter, but it’s hard to rap in a vat of butter, and Jenkins often drowned in the instrumentals. In a rap show that focuses on a vibe or on the crowd yelling the words, that wouldn’t be an issue, but Jenkins can be hard to keep up with on record. His potent lyrics were stunted by the venue’s sound. This caused a disconnect between Jenkins and the crowd. He kept his movement to a simmer for most of the demanding set, putting energy into his voice over his body. His mid-tempo instrumentals don’t quite lend to dancing either. Fans who know his material were awestruck, while less hardcore fans were low-key about lyrics that weren’t quite clear. The divide in the fandom was never more apparent than when “514” dropped. The anthem by a Chicago rapper for a city that rarely gets mentioned in hip hop got a lukewarm enough reaction that Jenkins stopped in the middle of it to hype the crowd up. “Are you sure y’all know this?” he said, and motioned to cut the song to his DJ. He started it again and diehards rapped along, but couldn’t overpower the Monday-night energy that took over the casual listeners in the audience. It was gutting to watch the crowd go limp on the climax of the set: a song about their city. Near the end of the set, chants for “one more song” turned into “514.”

Mick found diehard fans in a spaced crowd. Photo by Simon New

Mick tried to level with the crowd. He demanded silence and got a drunk yell from the back. He got ahold of the audience and closed with “Social Network,” which finally put the crowd in the kind of frenzy that had me scared for my camera.

It seems evident that a blasé crowd can keep a good show from being great. Indeed, the few hardcore fans that dotted the room bounced and yelled the words to “514” and were still unsuccessful at getting the room moving. But Jenkins was ultimately unable to crack the subdued atmosphere that started with his earlier tech frustrations. He chose his lyrical integrity over getting wild and animated, like we expect of rappers. While we can’t know if Jenkins upping his energy could have won the crowd back earlier in the set, there was a certain pretension and expectation of reverence for his lyrics that, while justifiable, wasn’t elevating the mood. Bad crowds are plentiful, and it was hard to deal with one as divided as L’Astral’s, but in the face of divided attention, Mick powered through for a show that impressed but didn’t connect with the room. From a musical perspective, Jenkins put on a rock-solid set with a truly impressive performance, but the preaching tone held back what could have been a party in the 514.

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