P.O.S.
Never Better
Rhymesayers

It takes an outsider looking in to notice the problems and rectify the issue. Minnesota’s P.O.S. is the outsider and Never Better is the answer. P.O.S. (alias Pissed Off Stef, a name he received while playing in a high school punk band) grew up with a dire opposition towards hip-hop. Eventually he embraced it as an artistic outlet, one that can be done alone. His punk background is pummelled throughout the album with raw drum beats that smash through the album like an AK-47 in a freight train. The absolute hostility of P.O.S. is undeniable, but the direction he sends it is not the common course for Hip-Hop. P.O.S. sends his anger towards multinational companies like Wal-Mart and the...

Setting: Super hot night outside, mega ice-box, jet cooled inside. What were they thinking? A nice fog formed at the entrance though...

Anyways, shaking from the air conditioning, the ‘opening show’ of the Nuits d’Afrique festival (though there were two preceding nights of shows) started with (as usual) a lot of blabitty blah by the bigwigs. Fast-forward to the blissed out, trance/trad sounds of Tunisian/Lebanese/Quebecois Sokoun. Despite looking like stiff deer in the headlights, the three instrumentalists (violin, oud and percussion) were mesmerizing. Their all-original set of North African music was outstanding, particularly the work of the percussionist. The one inevitable slow jam was an (expected) bummer, as were the aggravating attempts at an applaud-along by the...

Photo by Sam Kaplan

Montreal's Les Beyond has been described by audiences as the “musical equivalent of a food coma.” That description might throw you off and make you think “is that a good thing?” And the answer is “YES!”  

Using an array of pedals and a guitar, Les Beyond adds layers of soft guitar murmurs, creating a drone soundscape so captivating that it transfixes you, and before you know it, her set is over, people around you begin to stir, and then you realize – the musical equivalent of a food coma has just enveloped you like a tryptophan-laced aural wave of hypnosis. 

After relocating from Vancouver, and leaving her main band of the last...

SometimeNever
Father Hope

Our collective scream for something new has gained such volume that it has crossed the Atlantic ocean and reached England. Punk and hardcore is seeing a re-emergence not unlike the late '70s in the U.K. Bands like The Ghost of a Thousand, Gallows, The Computers and SometimeNever are creating new concepts of Rock “N” Roll that we are steadily devouring. SometimeNever’s newest album Father Hope (due out on August 16th) is a compilation of ideas stitched together to form a cohesive unit. Sub-genres of music are getting far too vast and it seems that every branch that stems from Rock “N” Roll is stretching its limbs in forty different directions. SometimeNever have seemed to put together an album that did not forget its...

 I found this over at Pharyngula. It's an entertaining and eye-opening ten minute talk about the doctrine of positive thinking being used to quell dissent - for social control. Barbara Ehrenreich has an answer though: realism and collective power. Watch for yourself and see if you don't agree,

Summer is back and so is Montreal's most famous world music festival, Festival International Nuits D’Afrique.  From July 13 to 25, 2010 the Nuits d'Afrique invites you to come and dialogue through music with hundreds of artists, singers, and dancers from over 30 countries! With 53 shows this year, come and celebrate African, Caribbean and Latin-American culture, diversity and métissage on our indoor shows or our free outdoor stages. 

From DR Congo’s Konono No. 1 with their style of heavily distorted and amplified sounds to the sweet bossa nova & reggae vibes of Brazil’s Mallu Magalhaes, there is a show for you!  www.festivalnuitsdafrique.com 

Listen to CJLO’s “Pan African Hour” Wednesdays 12-1pm, “Grrls Groove”...

Dobet Gnahoré kicked off the 24th Festival Nuits D’Afrique in fine form. Literally.

Propelling herself into mid-air, spinning on the floor like a breakdancer, and gyrating torso muscles you didn’t know existed, Gnahoré demonstrated the breadth of her talents, which are deeply rooted in the traditions of Africa.

Then there’s her voice. Deep and robust, it seems to emanate from within her soul, from an ancient place connected to shamans and tribesmen who came before.

Gnahoré is clearly comfortable in her own skin. A well-seasoned performer, her experience as an entertainer is a pleasure to behold as she moves between instruments and styles with fluidity and grace.

At age 12, Gnahoré informed her parents that she intended to drop out of...

As July has begun with a sauna of a heatwave in Montreal, the thought of attending a show at Metropolis is the slightest bit daunting, especially when the Humidex is approaching 40 in the celsius column.

When the headliner happens to be The Flaming Lips, you tend to not care about these kinds of things (that is, if you're in the know).  If you are not, fair reader, allow me to attempt to do this experience some justice with words and put you into my eyes and ears for a little while.  Walking into the venue, I was greeted with the cool wash of an air-conditioned lobby, and audibly muttered, "Thank you Lord".

The opener Fang Island had just started manically strumming their set as I walked in, and their relentless assault of happy, heavy prog-rock was...

Here's some shocking news for you: I've never really been good at following trends.  To be honest, it's not that I can't follow them, I just don't want to. Why should I put in the effort to know what everyone is going all crazy about when they're just going to move onto the next thing in a matter of cultural milli-seconds?  I view it as a waste of time.  [Ed. note: Untrue, Andrew follows many trends. See: Andrew's JNCO pants and wallet chain.] Plus, if I follow what's "hot" at that time I might miss something I really enjoy, which is a crime in itself.  I tell you this because honestly I had NO IDEA what I was getting into when I asked our Metal Director if he could get me in to see A Day to Remember, August Burns Red, Enter Shikari, and...