Musical Interlude

Aqualung’s Memory Man. Sounds like Ed Harcourt if he listened, or listened to more, Radiohead; verging on Coldplay.

One of this country’s best. Jim Bryson’s new cd Where the Bungalow’s Roam creeps up and takes you down for the count. Still play his last one fairly often. (He’s the guitar lead and a co-writer in Kathleen Edwards’ band; if you haven’t been listening to her its your loss). If the link doesn’t start up Sleeping in Toronto, make sure to get to it. Its one of the standouts from his earlier album.

Peter Elkas –don’t know where I heard about this but what the hell is this…another mopey middle of the road lounger John Mayer type marketed as something else.

Killers –yes, I know, who hasn’t heard Sam’s Town already a million times except me? Finally have access to a copy and despite my instinctive dismissal of any absurdly popular group/release I find myself once again hooked. Strains of Queen; in these songs and there is something very familiar about the bass but I just can’t put my finger on it.

The National –fine songs on this one (Boxer) but just wish they would let loose a little more. Almost every song has this tense buildup, all these undercurrents which threaten to break gloriously but rarely do. My first exposure to this group was to Sleeping Husband on Sad Songs for Dirty Lovers where the energy built and broke with the end of the song tearing apart as it finished. Since then I’ve bought everything they’ve put out (recommend everything really).

Justin Rutledge –I do love the title Devil on a Bench in Stanley Park. Took me a while to really listen to this because the first three songs are a little too country for me but then it goes more folky and enters Brighteyes territory with just a touch of Amazing Rhythm Aces when they were feeling wistful. Some really beautiful songs and overall the oddest lyrics, affecting and yet not quite making sense. Has one of my favourite singer songwriters Melissa McClelland doing backup duty (also a couple of Blue Rodeo rancheros and Oh Suzanna helping out).

Elliott Smith’s New Moon –new 2 cd set of older mostly previously unreleased material. Often these sorts of collections don’t quite match the standards of planned releases but in this case, this a must have for any ES fan and not for completism’s sake but just because it is good.

Wet Secrets –great Edmonton group. Just heard a couple of tunes recently on CBC3 and the songs rock though the titles had me cringing (I Teabagged Myself).

Wilco –never quite cottoned to the Ghost release (least of every one of their releases for me) but Sky Blue Sky has me back. Don’t think its great but its quite good. There are a couple of standout tunes and I like Tweedy going down the Jagger circa Some Girls route on Hate It Here and like the quasi-Santana guitar progression on Impossible Germany. Soulful and bluesy.