REVIEW – not your boys club

VIDEO PREMIERE: “DON’T GET MY HAIR WET” BY VENEER

Veneer (WPG) is the vulnerable pop project of friends Talula Schlegel (guitar, saxophone, vocals), Sam Sarty (bass, casio, trombone, vocals), and Claire Bones (drums, vocals).

Photo by Chelsea Neufeld

Talula and Sam have been playing, making, and performing music together over the last decade – even posting covers on YouTube that they filmed in their neighbourhood bushes. When they met Claire, their friendship and musical partnership became a triad, and in the summer of 2017, Veneer was formed.

I can attest that their love, caring, and reciprocating friendship translates into their live performance. In bearing witness to their set, you are offered a window into the ways they support and prop each other up to experiment, play, and explore: a truly magical experience.

Since their formation, they have been busy gaining attention and winning over the hearts of anyone who has a chance to see and hear them. In the last year, their first single, Unsure, was premiered by Stylus Magazine, they toured Western Canada, and did a live set at CJSW in Calgary.

Today, I am honoured to present Veneer’s first music video for Don’t Get My Hair Wet created by Allegra Chiarella (director) and Jesse de Rocquigny (cinematography).

The video perfectly compliments the audio as both starting points are tender, slow, and unassuming. When it builds musically in volume and intensity, it builds visually through the use of choreography, colour, and sparkle.

Don’t Get My Hair Wet is about consent – a topic that Veneer takes seriously, but doesn’t hold to one rigid standard:

“we wanted to write a song that reinforced the necessity of consent being taken seriously in any way it’s presented and which challenges and eliminates any notion of how consent is “supposed to be” delivered”.

Their intent through this song, and video, is to breach the topic of consent in a way that is accessible and to acknowledge that consent isn’t always given explicitly or sternly – however you assert your boundaries is valid and should be respected.

The opening of the song is reflexive and serious as you can see in their outfits, their expressions, and their actions, but playfulness quickly starts to build. They consistently introduce more colour and choreography until the canon (“even if you wanted to / please don’t get my hair wet”) which leads you to a staircase where they, now sparkly, are urgently climbing to get to a rooftop in downtown Winnipeg.

On this rooftop, they are dancing completely free and safe in their own bodies. When the song drops, you are left with their shadows playing against the building behind them – a closing as tender as its opening.

Veneer is a band worth watching – they might even be releasing their first EP in early 2019 😉

Contribution by: Nikki A Basset

ALBUM REVIEW: “ABSENTEE” BY MARY DEAR

Mary Dear’s Absentee is 10 tracks packed with diaphanous harmonies floating over mellow and severely locked in grooves. The band delivers complex lyrics that seem to touch on themes of being fed the fuck up, dreamy narratives and (sometimes painful) realizations.

Recorded in St. John’s in January 2017 with Jake Nicoll, keyboardist and vocalist Esmée Gilbert and guitarist and vocalist Leslie Amminson had collected most of the 10 tracks for Absentee over a few years from demos and RPM Challenge projects. Throughout their 6+ year career, the band grew from a two-piece to a five-piece band (Sarah Harris on bass, Peter Lannon on guitar and Jack Etch on drums), Gilbert says that many of the tracks hadn’t been backed by a full band before. You’d be hard pressed to guess that if you weren’t familiar with the band’s history as the album sounds very cohesive and very clean.

Spare instrumentalism (I say spare but it leads up to a really bomb guitar solo that really rips the hell out of er so don’t like crank it first thing) on “Nothing” showcases almost Baroque-ish harmonies. “Please Don’t Lie To Me” absolutely crushes some poor dork with a “simple mind” (ow) but like in the sweetest sounding way possible? Like you’d obviously perish if this song was about you but you’d also have to hand it to them because it also owns. “Strange Sort of Joy” has some real strong Plumtree vibes, noted and appreciated. And what a goddamned BOP is “Backbiting”—the bass bumps all to hell and back, just try and stop it. You can’t, so don’t try.

mrdr

Photo by: Heather Nolan

Amminson and Gilbert’s vocal skills alone could carry Absentee, but thoughtful lyrics and dynamic musicianship make the album super lovely.

Contribution by: Stephanie Johns (she/her) plays guitar in Not You and bass in Moon and has been writing about music for 20 years. She made two cute people that she spends a lot of time with these days.

PREMIERE: JUICE GIRLS

While working at a juice bar together in Halifax, Kirsten Todd (guitar/vocals) and Michelle Moraitis (lead vocals/harmonica) bonded over their love for shoegaze, the diy-ness of the riot grrrl movement, and their lived experiences of misogyny in their music community. At first, singing out their frustrations while chopping fruit was just their emotional outlet, but this inevitably planted the seed for the all-femme band, Juice Girls.

band photo

Michelle Moraitis, Kirsten Todd, Kelsey Crewson, Lauren Randles, Robin Fraser

Photo by Scott Randles

They rejected gate-keeping in their music community and encouraged each other to learn, create, and take up space. After playing as a two-piece for a while, they later invited femmes, Lauren Randles (keyboard), Kelsey Crewson (bass), and Robin Fraser (drums), who shared their frustrations to nurture and water this baby seedling with them.

Their first full length album, Juice Girls, is a shoe-gazy, slacker-pop, dreamscape. Each song creates a sort of uncertainty with it’s direction through the way they play with tempo, dynamics, space, and emotion. Like the tides, the drum parts pull you in and push you back. This album lulls you – it can pass you by, blurry and unaware. The jangly guitar, harmonica melodies, and delicate vocals offer listeners the opportunity to be introspective, yet it would be a shame to miss what they are saying.

Michelle and Kirsten’s songwriting is poetic and tender while playful and empowering – the imagery they create is both vague and dream-like while vivid and relatable. In ghoul gal, fish eye, and my baby, you’re offered stories about cute, maybe frightening, and potentially heroic creatures. milk me tall and castor soap are love songs for femmes while grapefruit is about disappointing boy-crushes. blueberry, watermelon, and when she comes offer insight into appreciating the duality of things, anxiety, and pivotal spaces that can be both difficult and exciting. They use gentle, affirming, and welcoming language in their songwriting to describe these mundane, idealistic, and even magical themes.

Juice Girls is a product of sweetness, femme resilience, and ripened friendship. While their tenderness is their greatest strength, they aren’t waiting for an invite into spaces dominated by men – they are taking up the space that they need.

Contribution by: Nikki A Basset

ALBUM REVIEW: “MERCURY RETROGRADE” BY YEE GRLZ

This August was busy for yee grlz as they released their EP mercury retrograde right before playing Out of Earshot and going on tour. A quick google search tells me that mercury will be in retrograde again on November 17th – a time when intuitions are high, coincidences are likely, and reflection is encouraged.

Deviating from their typical sound, s.a.d. starts the EP at a slower pace with more pronounced vocals. Vocalist Catherine Roberge sounds pissed off, sad, and aloof at the same time. The track ends with the lyrics, “night falls and light falls and so does everything”, making you feel like you won’t be able to pick yourself back up from sadness… until you switch to the next song thrift store treasure. I could be wrong but I think thrift store treasure is a love-lost song about a troll doll, which couldn’t be more on brand for yee grlz. I mean, “light pink hair! big brown eyes!” sound like admiration lyrics to me. The third song troll addresses an internet troll. Troll is my favorite track because the drums absolutely command the song. From the build up in the intro to the cymbals in the outro, drummer Jess Barry masters punk time (signatures) – the only punk time I don’t want abolished. The lyrics “you think you’re the authority / you think you are the shit / you make me wanna cry / you make me wanna quit” kind of gives you the idea that yee grlz feel defeated by this troll despite calling them out. However, the final track, authority, is the powerful response to troll. Authority makes no apologies – the killer riffs between sisters Becky Gibson (guitar) and Jess Gibson (bass) feel symbiotic. Authority finishes the way all good punk songs do – with a sick breakdown and one final riff that says “I don’t fucking care!”.

yee grlz

Photo by Isobel McKenna

Contribution by: Stephanie Muise (“smuise”)

ALBUM REVIEW: “BODIESOFWATER” BY RAE SPOON

Rae Spoon, a non-binary musician and writer who centres their own lived experiences within their work, recently released an album called bodiesofwater (09/07) – an electropop-rock album that articulates their intimate relationship with water.

rae spoon portrait

Photo by Dave Todon

This relationship is an exploration of the ways in which they feel connected to, and responsible for, water. The first track, I Held My Breath, gives the album an opening that feels delicate and hopeful while setting a precedent of uncertainty.

One recurring facet of this relationship is the parallels they draw between the way trans bodies and water are treated by our society: commodified and regulated. While It’s Not in My Body negates this harmful commodification and regulation, the pop-hit Do Whatever the Heck You Want, is an anthem to empower trans and non-binary folks to reject the boxes and binaries that others impose on them and to instead do, well, whatever the heck they want.

Rae Spoon’s relationship to water is also one of advocacy and reconciliation. They are calling us in, and calling higher power structures out, to protect and take care of the unceded lands stolen from Indigenous people. It’s Getting Close rejects climate denialism by reflecting on the anxieties we can no longer ignore as we are confronted with the effects of climate change (“It’s getting close and I can feel it / The sky is orange and my throat is burning / Where is the line between saving what we have and our lives“) where the dark and sludgy track, You Don’t Do Anything, sheds their frustration with the current Canadian government and their false promises of reconciliation (“How am I supposed to believe / That you really care when you don’t do anything?“).

They also acknowledge, and are grateful for, the healing potential of water. In Seascape, they explicitly sing “Meet me by the water / When I’m feeling low, that’s where I go / I will try to lift you / So that you can float” which offers insight into their coping, as well as their capacity to offer emotional support when others around them are sinking. In My Town, while less directly speaks to water, contributes to an important conversation of keeping survivors safe in music communities. While many may argue that it is possible to “remove art from the artist”, Spoon thoughtfully negates this in their lyrics, “If you think there’s still a question / Look into the crowd / Which person has lost nothing / And which one is not around?“. Until we stop supporting rapists and abusers in our communities, the survivors of their harm and violence will feel unsafe and isolated. This song resolves by using a drenching wave as a metaphor for a catalyst that results in a community-wide demand for safer spaces.

The album closes with Beach of Bones, a song that pulls this album together by encouraging, and being certain of, a sense of optimism. While the lyric “Put it back together now” speaks directly to the settlers relationship to the land, water, and Indigenous communities, it seems likely that Rae Spoon is also speaking towards the injustices and discrimination towards trans and non-binary people.

Rae Spoon will be playing the new RadStorm space (2177 Gottingen St, Halifax, NS) on October 6th with supporting guests respectfulchild (敬兒) (SK) and local two-piece Holy Crow.

Contribution by: Nikki A Basset