SOUND SEEKERS: Phantom Shores’ release show — plus eight more concerts to rock your weekend

Sound Seekers by Fateema Sayani is published weekly at OttawaMagazine.com. Read Fateema Sayani’s culture column in Ottawa Magazine and follow her on Twitter @fateemasayani

The members of Phantom Shores, from left to right: Craig Mainprize, Ken Ain, Renée Leduc, Dave Smith, and Jenny Nasmith. Photo by Chris Barron.

There are shades of the mid-2000s Ottawa music scene in the new album from Phantom Shores. Fans of two now defunct bands: Jetplanes of Abraham — the six-member indie-rock riot, and chamber rock act As the Poets Affirm — will find familiar strains in the Phantom Shores’ debut album called To the Woods.

The musical constants are singer-songwriter Craig Mainprize, ex of Jetplanes, and Renee Leduc, former strings player for both bands. Mainprize brings a fiery folk vocal to a placid musical genre, while Leduc gives each of the 12 tracks a warm weight with violin, viola, keyboard, and accordion flourishes. Adding to the texture and feel of the tunes are Dave Smith (percussion), Ken Ain (bass, guitar), and Jenny Nasmith (vocals, percussion) with guest album artists Derrick Rathwell (bass) and Celeste Cote (vocals).

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SOUND SEEKERS: Big Ups from hip-hop trio Homebased, who are celebrating their album release on Saturday night

Sound Seekers by Fateema Sayani is published weekly at OttawaMagazine.com. Read Fateema Sayani’s culture column in Ottawa Magazine and follow her on Twitter @fateemasayani

Homebased holds its album release party this Saturday at Ritual. (Left to right: Kane "Kane B" Beard, Tom "Textstyle" Bent, and Liam "Betavel" Kendall.) Photo by Amy Sparrow Photography.

Ottawa hip-hop trio Homebased focuses on golden era-style hip-hop on their new album called Get Busy. Homebased is Liam “Betavel” Kendall and Tom “Textstyle” Bent on rhyme duties with Kane “Kane B” Beard on samples and scratches. Their feel-good tunes have a late-night vibe thanks to all those bassy samples. Their tune “Go On” gives you a good sense of the album’s style. Check out the video here and stream the entire 13 tracks of fierce mic talent here.

Homebased began nearly a dozen years ago when Kendall and Bent met as teenagers and tried out some rap stanzas. It was early-phase stuff with songs made up of big boasts and odes to hip-hop. As time passed, their writing became a bit slicker. One evening, the duo saw Beard’s sampling talent at a producer showcase and invited him to join their group. They put out a mixtape and started working on their full-length album. The results are big and bold with added dazzle from guest artists Ducats, Ghettosocks, Grusm, Jeff Spec, SD the Scholar, and J.E.T.S.

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SOUND SEEKERS: Hip-hop artist NDMA shows the Power of Getting Down — plus your weekend Hot List featuring Cai.ro, The Flaps, and more

Sound Seekers by Fateema Sayani is published weekly at OttawaMagazine.com. Read Fateema Sayani’s culture column in Ottawa Magazine and follow her on Twitter @fateemasayani

This video has been ricocheting around the internet. It’s from Ottawa producer and hip-hop artist Nilton de Menezes, 21, aka NDMA (um, is that a torqued club drug reference? Nope, it’s a handle comprising his initials and the word “art” de Menezes says).

The video is for a tune called “She Wants to Move,” with a story that seems like a slick take on a Leave It to Beaver-era issue of bringing home the new boyfriend. It’s unclear in this story whether the parents of the woman are suspicious — they don’t trust their daughter? They don’t like who she brought home? Is it a race thing? Well, apparently none of this matters. In this story — like it is in the narrative of all good club tunes — great issues of the universe are solved by dancing. (Dancing is also a release in this video from Ottawa band Silkken Laumann)

NDMA came to Ottawa seven years ago. His family emigrated from Luanda, Angola, to flee corruption. He went to Canterbury High School to study visual arts, then started a university program in international relations, but dropped out to work on music full-time. He’s holding an EP release for the album called 505 tonight at the Mercury Lounge (where some of the video was shot) and will hit the Bluesfest stage July 6.

WEEKEND BOUNCE
Toronto band Cai.ro are an indie rock band with an orchestral-folk bent. They’re inspired by Radiohead and Fleet Foxes, coming up somewhere in the middle of those two bands — or at least that’s how they see themselves. Taking a cue from publication trends and looking to shake up the traditional one-sheet bands use to market themselves, Cai.ro created this infographic (below) to describe their sound. It gives you an at-a-glance view of the band, or you can head to Avant-Garde Bar Friday to hear them play with Ottawa’s Orienteers and Montreal band The Bright Road.

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SOUND SEEKERS: New releases and upcoming shows from Ottawa boys Leif Vollebekk and The Steve Adamyk Band

Sound Seekers by Fateema Sayani is published weekly at OttawaMagazine.com. Read Fateema Sayani’s culture column in Ottawa Magazine and follow her on Twitter @fateemasayani

Leif Vollebekk plays Black Sheep Inn on Friday.

Leif Vollebekk’s new album of troubadour-style tunes is called North Americana. The title serves as a stylistic — and geographic — cue to listeners. Vollebekk, 27, is definitely Canadian (Ottawa-reared, in fact), and wanted to fuse a sense of his identity onto the album, which could easily be filed alongside such contemporary Americana artists as Gillian Welch.

The album was recorded primarily with Howard Bilerman (Arcade Fire, Rich Aucoin) at Hotel2Tango studio in Montreal and was released on February 19 via the Outside Music Label (The Besnard Lakes, Matthew Barber). It has 10 tracks that display a morbid, incisive lyrical bent and sad chords characteristic of the genre.

In addition to Hotel2Tango, Vollebekk took to a few other storied locations to record. Selected tracks from the album were pieced together at La Frette studios, in La-Frette-sur-Seine, France. That’s where Plants & Animals recorded and where Feist made her album The Reminder. Each track on Vollebekk’s album was cut to two-inch tape for that weighty sound.

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SOUND SEEKERS: Bluesfest 2013 — Gossip, speculation, and Fateema Sayani’s wishlist

Sound Seekers by Fateema Sayani is published weekly at OttawaMagazine.com. Read Fateema Sayani’s culture column in Ottawa Magazine and follow her on Twitter @fateemasayani

Bluesfest returns to Lebreton Flats on July 4. Photo by Mediaplus.

The annual speculation fest seems to have started early this year with the website Ottawa Start compiling rumours about scheduled acts for Bluesfest (July 4-14, 2013) on its website in early January. It listed Belle & Sebastian as a possible addition the lineup — and recently, the band confirmed its July 6 date via its website.

Ottawa Start suggests music fans who are looking for a sneak peek at the lineup may benefit from perusing the websites of nearby festivals (ie: Montreal Jazz Festival) and looking at blanks in the touring schedule of major acts to get a hint about who might be part of Bluesfest this year.

This tends to be the method for many news outlets year after year as reporters scour the web for concert listings. Thus begins the speculation season — along with the regular sport of bitching and moaning about various aspects of the festival. This is, perhaps, one way of getting through the drag-days of winter.

In keeping with the season, we here at Ottawa Magazine used our resources of concert listings and insider info to compile this handy lil’ guide to forecasting, complaining, and concert-going.

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SOUND SEEKERS: When you name your band Big Dick, you’re bound to get some attention

Sound Seekers by Fateema Sayani is published weekly at OttawaMagazine.com. Read Fateema Sayani’s culture column in Ottawa Magazine and follow her on Twitter @fateemasayani

Gilded frame or not, there’s no way you can call Dave Secretary, left, and Johnny O fancy-pants folk. They prefer to go by the name Big Dick. Photo by Rémi Thériault.

Dave Secretary and Johnny O aren’t trying to over-promise with a band name like Big Dick, rather they’re advertising their wares, so to speak.

It’s not the message one finds in back-page classifieds, but a message about their style of bleak, challenging punk rock in the vein of the Victoria, B.C. band NoMeansNo. The Ottawa duo takes their name from NMN’s song of the same name. (We’ll link to it here to spare you the endless results one gets when Googling “big dick.”)

“It was one of NMN’s more popular songs,” bass player Johnny O says, “and it was a drum and bass song by that band, which corresponds with us being a drum and bass act.” He says the duo likes that they’re named after a Canadian punk band that tended to be musically progressive.

“I know the name is a little ridiculous, but the band itself isn’t terrible,” Secretary says. He plays drums in Big Dick, under the stage name he’s been using since the days of playing in bands such as Party Knives and hardcore act Van Johnson.

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SOUND SEEKERS: Highlights from the 2013 concert calendar, including Elizabeth Shepherd, The Skydiggers, and more

Sound Seekers by Fateema Sayani is published weekly at OttawaMagazine.com. Read Fateema Sayani’s culture column in Ottawa Magazine and follow her on Twitter @fateemasayani

Elizabeth Shepherd, who performs as part of the NAC Presents series. Photo by Zuzana Hudackova.

It’s the dead of winter and some of us are buggering off to warmer locales, some of us are whinging and moaning about the cold, and some of us are celebrating the best of the season — such as those nice granola folks in Wakefield, Quebec who organize the annual In the Dead of Winter of Festival, which is a spin-off of a similar event that takes place in Halifax, Nova Scotia. This year’s festival, which starts tonight, features performances by Mo Kenney, Justin Rutledge, and others with balmy vocal tones. Full details here.

A couple of years ago, Elizabeth Shepherd released a jazzy album called Parkdale, which was full of observations about her Toronto neighbourhood of the same name. Shepherd’s got a cool vocal style which finds a line somewhere between hip-hop and doo-wop. On her current release, called Rewind, she takes a turn toward the mellow by performing standards like “Love for Sale,” but with more of an edgy delivery than the originals. She’s part of the NAC Presents Series at the Fourth Stage. See her there Friday, 7:30 p.m.

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SOUND SEEKERS: Hilotrons’ Mike Dubue on his borderline personality disorder, the new album, and the Kelp Records dispute

Sound Seekers by Fateema Sayani is published weekly at OttawaMagazine.com. Read Fateema Sayani’s culture column in Ottawa Magazine and follow her on Twitter @fateemasayani

Mike Dubue sits at the piano. Photo by Rémi Thériault.

After many years and three albums of dancing around the subject, Mike Dubue, the front man for the band Hilotrons has released a new album that more openly discusses his complicated head space.

The album is called At Least There’s Commotion! It comes out on 180-gram vinyl, CD, and digitally February 5 on Kelp Records.

Over 11 tracks, Dubue, 35, relays difficulties of head and heart, delivered in that syncopated, manic, Talking Heads-style familiar from previous Hilotrons albums.

Other tracks on the album are more sullen and crooning. That contrast is best displayed on tracks six and seven, titled “She Knows My Condition (Part 1)” and “She Knows My Condition (Part 2).” Part one is five minutes of longing and lamenting with brief pop interludes. He sings: “I know something about living in my own prison. I try to keep up above the water with you.” Part two is hyperbolic. It starts with a scream, and then bursts into a minute-and-a-half of operatic pop about said condition.

The musical ups and downs are just one tool of telling for this concept album about borderline personality disorder (BPD).

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SOUND SEEKERS: Ottawa recording news — part two! Featuring The Good Luck Assembly, The PepTides, Laurent Bourque, and more

Sound Seekers by Fateema Sayani is published weekly at OttawaMagazine.com. Read Fateema Sayani’s culture column in Ottawa Magazine and follow her on Twitter @fateemasayani

A hazy view inside Gus Van Go’s studio in Brooklyn, NYC. Ottawa band The Goodluck Assembly recorded their forthcoming EP there — in the middle of Hurricane Sandy. Photo by Jamie Kronick.

Last week we told you about the band Fevers. They are recording a full-length album with rock star producer Laurence Currie (Wintersleep, Mardeen, In-Flight Safety, Holy Fuck). It’s set for release this May. This week we look at what’s on the 2013 recording roster for some other Ottawa songwriters and bands.

The Goodluck Assembly will release their new five-song EP called Demonstrations in May. The Ottawa indie-pop band started out as Sojourn, recorded an EP in 2007, and later won the Big Money Shot radio contest, worth some $300K in deals and gear. The band members hand-delivered more than 500 copies of their 2011 release Glowscape to fans in Ottawa and filmed the recipient’s reactions. Then they set off to write this new album. In October of 2011, brothers Mike Libbos (bass, guitar, vocals) and Bruce Libbos (guitars, keys, vocals) holed up in their respective makeshift bedroom studios to start crafting the tunes. Last fall, they set off to the Williamsburg hub of Brooklyn, NYC, to record with producer team Gus Van Go and Werner F (The Stills, Hollerado, Priestess), along with drummer Jamie Kronick (also an Ottawa commercial and editorial photographer). The recording sessions started just before Hurricane Sandy hit and the band hunkered down to record during the day and even bunked with their producers for the odd night since lineups at the gas stations meant they couldn’t get back to their accommodations across town. “The days after Hurricane Sandy were a mix of feelings,” Mike Libbos says. “A sense of relief to have survived, a time to pick up the pieces, and being thankful for everything you have, along with moving on and not looking back.”

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SOUND SEEKERS: Recording news! Producer Laurence Currie comes to the capital to work with local band Fevers

Sound Seekers by Fateema Sayani is published weekly at OttawaMagazine.com. Read Fateema Sayani’s culture column in Ottawa Magazine and follow her on Twitter @fateemasayani

The band Fevers with their producer Laurence Currie. From left to right: Jim Hopkins (bass, backing vocals), Martin Charbonneau (keys, drum machines, samplers), Laurence Currie (producer), Mike Stauffer (drums, samplers), Sarah Bradley (vocals), and Colin MacDougal (guitar, backing vocals).

If you follow Canadian music at all, you likely have the work of producer Laurence Currie in your collection. He’s helmed albums by Wintersleep, In-Flight Safety, Mardeen, Inlet Sound, Amelia Curran, The Diableros, Hey Rosetta!, Holy Fuck, and Sloan as well as the classic can-rock work of The Gandharvas, among many others.

Currie plied his trade for years in Halifax, before moving to Toronto about eight years ago. This past weekend he was in the capital to record with Ottawa electro-pop quintet Fevers, working out of their studio in the Golden Triangle.

The band, which formed in 2009, is recording a full-length CD to be released in May. It will follow their debut, self-produced seven-song EP called Passion Is Dead that was released in October 2011 (you can download it for free here).

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