Animal Faces: The Wavelength Interview
September 13, 2014Purveyors of: Punchy goddamn guitar music, you know, like they used to make. File next to: Mystery Machine, Yuck, Archers of Loaf. Playing: WL 616 – Saturday Sept. 13 at Smiling Buddha. Toronto’s Animal Faces, comprised of humans with actual human faces, play quick-footed, clever rock’n’roll with the odd nod to the ‘90s. We caught up with bassist Zach Van Horne and tried to bait him
Zords: The Wavelength Interview
September 13, 2014Purveyors of: Synth jams simultaneously doleful and animated, with fetching bass hooks and cherub-like vocals File next to: Wild Nothing, Chromatics, New Order, Cut Copy Playing next: WL616 – Saturday Sept. 13 at Smiling Buddha. Forged in the sine wave, Toronto synth-pop band Zords attempt to make you move your bod while floating through the cosmic delight that is their live performance. With
ctznshp: The Wavelength Interview
September 12, 2014Purveyors of: Emotionally invested pop-rock that’s going to make it impossible for you to stay still. File next to: Mother Mother, Mates of State, Broken Social Scene. Playing: WL 616 – Saturday Sept. 13 at Smiling Buddha. Montreal-based, live-performance-loving band ctznshp is playing this Saturday and you should be there. Not only are the tunes off their newly released album, Doom Love
WHIMM: The Wavelength Interview
September 11, 2014Purveyors of: Gritty rock that ranges from ethereal dream pop jams to rough industrial noise-rock. File Next to: Mexican Slang, WTCHS, Odonis Odonis. Playing: WL 616 – Saturday Sept. 13 at Smiling Buddha. WHIMM is a Toronto based noise-rock band – with hints of drone and pop – that formed recently and put out an EP in February of this year. Now with a new drummer, they’re keeping that up mo
Freelove Fenner: The Wavelength Interview
August 20, 2014Purveyors of: Meticulously-constructed, succinctly-packaged popbursts with a tingly psychedelic aftertaste File Next To: Postcards, Broadcast, A Bell Is A Cup-era Wire Playing: WL 613 – Arboretum Festival: Ought, Fresh Snow, Freelove Fenner & Blue Angel @ House of Targ (Ottawa) Imagine a dream where you found a copy of Thurson Moore’s Psychic Hearts where all the songs were wiry Steely Da
Hiawatha: The Wavelength Interview
August 16, 2014Purveyors of: Electro-psych-noise-trance-pop File Next to:Throbbing Gristle, Night Slugs, Thrush Hermit Hiawatha is the brainchild of electronic artist David Psutka, a.k.a. Egyptrixx. This scrapyard psychedelic blend of modern electronica and industrial music makes for a sound both full and cavernous. His second Egyptrixx release entitled Bible Eyes (Night Slugs) in 2011 was followed with rela
Delta Will: The Wavelength Interview
August 15, 2014Purveyors of: Upbeat, dreamy, sonic experiences with synthesized pop beats, mesmerizing loops and an otherworldliness that avoids the clichés of what one would expect from music written by an alien. Yes, an alien, read on. File next to: the Avalanches, Beck, Owen Pallett/Final Fantasy Playing: WL 611 a.k.a. “Wavelength’s Endless Summer,” Saturday, August 16 at the Vintage & Flea Marke
Purveyor of: Spectral grooves and syncopated echoes from the back alleys of dub city File Next to: XXYXX, Tycho, Four Tet Playing: WL 611 a.k.a. “Wavelength’s Endless Summer,” Saturday August 16 at the Vintage & Flea Market (1251 Dundas St. W.) JFM is Jesse Frank Matthew’s electronic brainchild. JFM conjures up a sonic tapestry of abrupt rhythms and samples, which seem to dr
Alpha Strategy: The Wavelength Interview
August 13, 2014Purveyors of:Your next journey through Wonderland, lost and twisting in the deep dark woods. File Next To:Zack Kouns, Big Black, Swans Playing: WL 611 a.k.a. “Wavelength’s Endless Summer,” Saturday August 16 at the Vintage & Flea Market (1251 Dundas St. W.) Alpha Strategy is a band that celebrates all things weird and strange. Emerging as an independent project of Rory Hinchey, the
Comet Control: The Wavelength Interview
August 12, 2014Purveyors of: Shoegaze/sludge evolving cosmically and projecting outwards towards the Oort cloud. File Next To: Quest For Fire, Biblical, Black Mountain Playing: WL 611 a.k.a. “Wavelength’s Endless Summer,” Saturday, August 16 at the Vintage & Flea Market (1251 Dundas St. W) Since his days in The Deadly Snakes, Chad Ross has been a prominent member of Toronto’s independent music fir
New Horizzzons: The Wavelength Interview
August 16, 2014Purveyors of: Scarf rock, incense and fuzzy doom glitter. File Next To: Arrington de Dionyso, Pussy Galore, Flaming Lips, Black Sabbath, Tranz DéFoncé Playing: WL 611 a.k.a. “Wavelength’s Endless Summer,” Saturday August 16 at the Vintage & Flea Market, 1251 Dundas St. W. New Horizzzons are Robert Dayton (Canned Hamm, The Canadian Romantic, July Fourth Toilet), Craig Daniels (Leathe
Black Walls: The Wavelength Interview
July 23, 2014Purveyors of: Post-rock that doesn’t rock, swapping riffage for mood-enhancing drones and general thought-provoking nothingness (and awesomeness) File next to: Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra, Acid Mothers Temple, the most bleak moments of the Spiritualized discography Playing: WL 607, Thursday July 24 at the Monarch Tavern (12 Clinton Street) Black Walls is Ken Reaume and Ken Reaume
Kira May: The Wavelength Interview
July 21, 2014Purveyor of: Electronic, vocal-looped nocturnes populated by visions, ghosts, body parts, and wolves. File next to: Kate Bush, Bjork, PJ Harvey, James Blake, and Mike Patton Playing: WL 607 this Thursday July 24 at the Monarch Tavern with Nat Baldwin and Black Walls. The music of Kira May broods like a low-hanging fog diffusing moonlight. The versatility of her alto is nothing short of remark
Dirty Inputs: The Wavelength Interview
July 17, 2014Purveyors of: Moody soundscapes that are perfect backdrops for studying and/or deep contemplation/zoning out File next to: Pole, Clams Casino, Mogwai Playing: WL 606, Friday July 18 at 8-11 (Backyard of 233 Spadina Ave.) Aaron Dawson is a dude, and Dirty Inputs is his one-man moniker. A former member of Toronto ambient drone collective Off The International Radar, Aaron is a small town Alberta
Thom Huhtala: The Wavelength Interview
July 16, 2014Purveyor of:Music to take drugs to make music to; drone zone folk rock for surfing on the northern lights File Next To:Velvet Underground, Spacemen 3, Neil Young, Guided by Voices, Grouper, Neutral Milk Hotel Bad River front man and Tess Parks collaborator, Toronto’s Thom Huhtala writes and records songs the way ketamine hides the secrets of the universe at the bottom of the K-hole. It’s a jou
Khôra: The Wavelength Interview
July 18, 2014Purveyors of: Drifting forms and formlessness File next to: Nick Storring, Tim Hecker, Plato’s Timaeus Playing: WL606: Khôra + Dirty Inputs + Thom Huhtala @ 8-11 Matthew Ramolo has been releasing albums as Khôra since 2006, including his Silent Your Body is Endless, which was re-issued as part of the first volume of Constellation Records’ Musique Fragile series. Taking his name from an untr
White Poppy: The Wavelength Interview
June 19, 2014File next to: Peaking Lights, Walter TV, Maria Minerva Purveyor of: Gritty guitar, distorted dreams Crystal Dorval’s Bandcamp page for her musical project White Poppy proclaims: “EXPERIMENTAL THERAPEUTIC POP.” Based in Vancouver, she is signed with west coast DIY, cassette-tape gurus Not Not Fun Records, who release a lot of her music, including her first full-length and self-titled albu
Tim Hecker: The Wavelength Interview
June 18, 2014Purveyor of: Magmatic chambers of sound File next to: Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Brian Eno, plate tectonics Playing: Wavelength 602 at NXNE, Thursday June 19 at the Great Hall (1:00AM) Tim Hecker is a one-man genre, taking elements of ambient music, punk rock, contemporary classical, digital experimentation and Zen attitude into a molten sound blender, to create a beautifully ominous sound
Fresh Snow: The Wavelength Interview
January 28, 2015Purveyors of: Sprawling post-rock freakouts. File next to: GSY!BE, Broadcast, Mogwai Toronto’s Fresh Snow elbowed onto the scene in 2013 with their punishing and beautiful debut I, an hour of staggering epics that put the mental in ‘instrumental,’ an album carefully and painstakingly reconstructed from six hours of improvised material. Dean Williams caught up with guitarist Bradley Davis t
Twist: The Wavelength Interview
June 15, 2014Purveyors: Dusty, drum-machine-y music. Think Lana Del Rey with more heart and less collagen. File next to: Young Marble Giants, Juliana Hatfield, the Eric’s Trip tunes that Julie sang Playing the Wavelength showcase at NXNE June 19 @ the Great Hall On their official website, Twist describes themselves as “Laura Hermiston of the BB Guns flees to the desert and returns on a western- sunburnt e