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The Wesleys + Prism Shores + Absolute Losers Win at Casa del Popolo
‘Does Casa del Popolo have a generator?’. ‘Does it have A/C?’. These were notions that certainly went through spectators’ minds as they ran into the venerable show bar during a fierce electrical storm that left parts of the city in a blackout. At thirty degrees plus humidity, Casa’s ventilation would be put to the test, hosting three indie rock outfits whose high energy would push the system to its limit. It was worth it.
With roughly 40 to 50 people in attendance, there was enough room to comfortably pick a spot while holding much-needed liquid refreshment as Montreal garage-pop band The Wesleys took to the stage shortly after 9pm. Hot off the release of their self-titled debut album in March, The Wesleys took no time immersing the crowd in their brand of freshly vintage indie rock. Keeping banter to a minimum, the quartet set an impressive precedent, with a capable drum and rhythm section that served as an anchor, allowing room for riffing and harmonies associated with classic DIY surf and punk styles. Casa del Popolo’s unique - albeit restricting - stage usually means bands have to be creative with their presentation, which may have been why bass player Quentin Chisholm was positioned firmly front and centre, though it seemed in keeping with the band’s collaborative spirit, sharing in vocal responsibilities and otherwise free-handing musical duties, a through line that would be prevalent with the following acts.
Charlottetown, PEI’s Absolute Losers came next, lauding The Wesleys while referring to them as a ‘real rock n’ roll’ band. Yet the trio of brothers Sam and Josh Langille, along with drummer/vocalist Daniel Hartinger brought their own spirit of crushing indie pop to the stage, standing firm in their own rock essence while delivering effortless power hooks, mostly from their latest release, At the Mall. Though Absolute Losers’ unassuming and proficiently tight set may have run counterpoint to their looser, flashier predecessors thatevening, they proved to be terrific ambassadors of the rock n’ roll tradition as well, with Sam Langille pushing his glasses back onto the bridge of his nose with the microphone after jostling and bobbing through half their performance – as rock n’ roll a move as I can remember. Drummer Hartinger unassumingly served as the bands’ fastener, adeptly pulverizing his kit while contributing to splendid harmonies, key to the bands’ overall energy and sound.
By the time Montreal-via-Charlottetown contemporaries Prism Shores hit the stage, it was apparent that the crowd had begun to wane, with body heat catching up to the venue’s overworked ventilation system along with a 10:30 start time on a Wednesday evening. Thankfully, the 
headliners pushed through, working to keep their audience enlivened with songs from their well-received 2022 record Inside My Diving Bell as well as new music from a forthcoming album this year. Apart from a brief technical issue to address a frenetic G string, the band deftly traversed from their signature sonic evocations to an edgier, urgent sound (potentially due to a lack of space for a keyboard), which served as an irresistibly alchemic soundscape complimenting the two previous acts. Guitarist Jack Mackenzie and bassist Ben Goss divided the burden of vocal duties on songs like “Tennis Shoes” and “Acrobat,” buckling down under quickly rising temperatures, no doubt due to the combination of lighting and moving bodies appreciating the high-energy set.
With a trifecta of up-and-coming Canadian talent, the evening proved to be a rewarding showcase for a crowd seemingly satisfied with what they witnessed; an unadulterated, melody-driven mixed bag of styles indicating that what’s old is new and that ‘real’ rock n’ roll is alive and well, even in the dog days of May.
Donald is the host of Eastern Promises, a show about the inspiring and influential music of Atlantic Canada, Wednesdays 1:00PM-2:00PM
Yuki Isami of TEKE::TEKE Dazzles At Rives Album Launch Show
When most people think of Montreal group TEKE::TEKE, they think of loud abrasive punk, but then they also think of 60s psych, Japanese folklore and traditional Bulgarian music. Well, actually when people think of TEKE::TEKE they think of a lot of things. That is very much because the group is composed of seven members with various musical and cultural backgrounds. And with their stream-of-consciousness and jam-style approach to songwriting, their music is always fascinating, innovative and original.
A significant element of the group’s sound is the powerful, yet delicate, flute floating over the band’s pulsing rhythms. The person behind the flute is the very talented Yuki Isami. Born in Japan, Isami came to Montreal to study music at the studio of Claire Marchand at the McGill Conservatory. She is an accomplished player, performing in many different symphonies and in festivals across the world. To add to her repertoire, she also plays other traditional Japanese instruments such as the Shinobue, Shamisen, and Koto. And to add the final puzzle piece to her personality, she is also a synchronized swimmer.
Such an accomplished musician who forges their own path is the perfect fit for the band of pirates that makes up TEKE::TEKE. On their latest album Hagata, Isami’s playing can be heard playfully coming in and out, completing songs with twists and surprises. But, there is a particular track on the album, that doesn't last more than two minutes, called “Me No Haya” that is a little different from the rest. In this track, the focus is on Isami’s flute with the band slowly introducing their parts as the song blossoms before coming to its close. This track acts as a teaser for Isami’s debut album, where listeners are now granted the time to see her inspirations and interpretations expanded upon.
What makes her album Rives so fascinating is that Isami selected pieces that she found best reflected Japanese traditional music, but also how it adapted over time after the exposure of more Western-style compositions. The latter half of the album does the opposite and highlights Western compositions that were influenced by Eastern counterparts. In the press release, Isami talks about this cultural exchange as a reflection of her experiences of being a dual citizen of both Canada and Japan. The album is mysterious, and sometimes dark but always sharp and with purpose. Isami, alongside pianist Natsuki Hiratsuka and percussionist Patrick Graham, brought Rives to the stage on May 17th for the album’s launch show.
The stage was set at Salle Joseph Rouleau, a small venue on Mont Royal that most of us are used to walking past. The venue was humble but impressive in its acoustic treatment of the room. With the beautiful pine-coloured wood surrounding the stage, the room was glowing as if it were hit with sunshine. Isami took the stage at first dressed in a full kimono complete with zori sandals and tabi socks. The first act comprised of pieces from the album, again which were the Japanese songs interpreted or adapted due to Western influences and in this section she played up to three different traditional Japanese flutes. For Act 2, Isami and her players quickly went off stage with the flutist returning in a shimmering aqua blue gown, complete with thick dazzling silver jewelry, and from what I could tell at least 6-inch heels. She explained that in the next segment, it was a new era with new songs and a new flute, therefore she needed a new dress. In a reversal from Act One, Isami was now playing European pieces that changed after exposure to Japanese music. The highlight was on Debussy, of which the singer spoke of his adoration of Japanese culture. In this next segment, pianist Natsuki Hiratsuka really got to shine and percussionist Patrick Graham completed the pieces with his never-ending treasure chest of tools, which acted as his drum kit. For Act 3, Isami paid tribute to master composer Toru Takemitsu. In a fascinating piece entitled “Voice”, Isami performed with unusual techniques such as slamming her fingers on the flute, delivering piercing, sharp blows of air and shouting phrases in between notes at a rapid pace. This very experimental piece was again an attestation to her musical ability and also her diverse interests as an artist.
The performance felt all too short, but the crowd couldn’t complain as they were met with imported sake from Nico Fujita and hors d’oeuvres prepared by the team of Tomokazu Murakami in the lobby. The energy in the room was excited and buzzing, as audience members approached the glowing artist to give her their praises. It was heartwarming to see Yuki Isami shine on her night, a perfect concert which seemed to be truly curated by her own dreams.
Lisa Rupnik is the head music director at CJLO and co-host of The Last Stop. She is also an avid record collector, a “no nonsense” film lover and feels that her personality can be best defined by her two favourite bands: YMO and Sparks
A Loud and Hypnotic Night with Ride at Theatre Fairmount
In a Montreal spring, many days you look up, sure it’s about to start raining, the sky dark, and atmospheric pressure pressing down on you so much you almost feel under the weather, but the clouds never open, and that release of rain is never found. This was the case on Monday, May 13th, when Ride came to Fairmount Theatre with its equally pummelling guitars and abrasive sound.
The Oxford band found early success with their breakout debut Nowhere (1990), which garnered critical and charting acclaim and is still considered one of the most important shoegaze records released. Shortly after, in 1992, Ride released Going Blank Again, another beloved classic of the genre. The band released a few more records before disbanding in 1995, and finally reuniting in 2015, abandoning fans’ nostalgic wishes for them to continue in the shoegaze tradition and embracing broader rock sounds.
First up on the bill was local band Karma Glider. The band is fronted by Susil Sharma and features Jean-Philippe Bourgeois (bass), Jean-Philippe Godbout (drums), Charlie Neufeld (guitar), and was joined by Wesley MacNeil on keys, who you may know from fellow Mothland outfit Nightlunch. The band played mostly off their excellent 2023 record Future Fiction (#4 most-played release on CJLO last year). Karma Glider makes noisy indie rock, with a bit of a shoegaze bent, that was more on display in their live performance than their recorded music. The set was brash and energetic, with plenty of impressive guitar playing from Sharma. Later into the set, Sharma mentioned the next songs were from an upcoming EP. One of the songs, “Sugarcane” strongly utilized MacNeil for a more synthy sound.
Between sets, I talked with a local musician who told me that Karma Glider went drastically over their allotted time, which made sense, as it was creeping towards 9:00 PM, with another band to go and Ride set to play at 9:15 PM. With that, Philadelphia’s Knifeplay entered Fairmount’s wide stage, saying they’d be playing a shortened set due to time constraints. Knifeplay ended up only playing two songs, though, as a shoegaze band, both songs were well over five minutes. Knifeplay, which TJ Strohmer started as a bedroom project, now performs as a six-piece, crafting beautiful, slow tunes, layered with distortion. Despite their short set, Knifeplay certainly wowed Fairmount, with their packed stage presence and room-filling guitars. After their second tune, guitarist Johnny Klein leaned into the mic to say “We have merch in the back” and the band promptly left the stage. Ouch… but fair.
After a brief break, the lights turned down and recorded drum instrumentation began, the LED lights behind Fairmount’s stage lit up to say “RIDE,” and the crowd started cheering. The band entered the stage and launched into “Peace Sign,” the opening track off of their 2024 album Interplay. The band played through a few more tracks from Interplay, solid rock tunes, with less of the drony shoegaze sound the band originally became renowned for. But then, the iconic drum beat started and the venue knew it was time to go back to 1990 for, in my opinion (and that of resident CJLO shoegaze expert, Omar of Hooked on Sonics), the song we were waiting for – “Dreams Burn Down.” Cellphones went up in the air and the crowd started singing along to this classic. When the song finished, guitarist and vocalist Mark Gardener simply said, “That was a shoegaze song,” before going into the next track.
He did this a few times throughout the show, likely poking fun at the recent renaissance the genre is having. This Fairmount show consisted of mostly the demographic you’d expect for a band that’s been at it since the early 1990s. Unlike the Duster concert of a few months earlier, which was packed with teenagers shoulder to shoulder against the barricade, this audience was around the band's age. However, there was certainly still a fair share of eager high schoolers and college kids packed up front. It’s safe to say that Ride hasn’t hit it big on TikTok the way some of their peers have, which is a shame, as their early output is some of the best of its genre.
Ending off their set with their most famous song “Vapour Trail” and then the similarly-iconic “Seagull” and “Leave Them All Behind,” the audience came alive again, singing along to “Vapour Trail” especially loud.
Some highlights off their new album included “Monaco” and “Last Night I Went Somewhere to Dream,” which had the audience dancing to the catchy rock tunes. Interplay sounds almost nothing like the seminal Nowhere and Going Back Again, but live, somehow it works. While, yes, you could tell the audience was rearing up, clamouring to hear their favourite classic shoegaze songs, the band’s no-fucks attitude and technical skill made even the new stuff feel pretty great.
Aviva Majerczyk is the magazine editor at CJLO 1690AM. She is also the host of The Alley, a folk-rock show airing Fridays at 11:00 AM.
CJLO Takes Austin, TX: Metal Recap
Wow, at the time of writing, it's May. My how time flies! It feels like only a month and a half ago that I was down in Austin at SXSW, the largest, and arguably one of the most important cultural festivals in North America. I blanket statement "cultural festival" because SXSW has grown from a humble music festival to a behemoth, spanning nearly two full weeks with a tech, movie, and comedy conference rolled together to make a sort of unwieldy beast.
Oh... you know what? I actually have to write a review of SXSW. Shit... that's due at the beginning of May! Well, I don't have time to get further into the history of a festival. You can look it up on Wikipedia, so let me get moving on this review.
CJLO sent a bunch of representatives down this year for the music portion of the festival, and if you want to read about how our Head Music Director, felt about the trip, you can read their reviews, which I would summarize here, but again, there's no time, so go read it, I'll link our Head MD, Lisa's article.
As we entered the city of Austin, we were greeted by a Tide-wrapped wine bar where, at least I imagine, patrons were greeted with enough complimentary shots of Tide All in One and sufficient Tide Pods to snack on to their heart's content. Of course, I could make a larger point about the corporate co-opting of a music festival, diluting the very meaning behind why the whole thing was started, but, as I said, I'm behind on writing this review, so I simply have no time.
After checking into the hotel, I immediately ran over to Swan Dive, which had been turned into Canada House for an extended portion of the festival. Kicking off my musical experience was the Saskatoon-ish, Halifax-ish based art punks in Grimelda, who I interviewed after their set. Perhaps, a synopsis of the interview would be something that I should bring up here, but there's no time.
There is time for me to say that you can check it out on the Grade A Explosives portion of the CJLO website, however, so go do that.
After checking out Grimelda, I took the trek out to my favourite Austin dive bar, The Lost Well, to see an unofficial metal showcase featuring all Austin metal bands including Ungrieved, Slumbering Sun, Secret Green, and Dim Light. Not only did I see an amazing show, interview Secret Green, see members of Destroyer of Light (who have their last and great new record out for you to listen to here, I also ate some delicious tacos, and was able to pick up a vinyl copy of Disfear's Live the Storm, so all in all, a great night.
But, it isn't all about music. Keen readers may have noticed the word "conference" in the initial paragraph, so I took the next day to attend a panel on cross-genre music where I learned such valuable lessons as "hip-hop is dead" and "no one cares about rock music," which, to be fair, we all know.
But enough of that learning nonsense, this is all about music.
So, after a nice interview with Vision Video, I went back to Canada House to catch a bit of the Indigenous hardcore done by Indian Giver, who are a collective based out of Toronto, followed by Calgary's own metal sons in WAKE. This was all pretty wild to think about since everyone at the venue was listening to punk, hardcore, and progressive grind in the middle of the day. That seems to break some unwritten rule that every music festival seems to follow, namely that heavy bands must be relegated only to when the sun goes down, and also must be segregated from the rest of the bands so the delicate indie sensibilities of other bands and fans can not be disturbed by the angry, loud music.
In fact, SXSW seems to be segregating all of the metal away from most of the festival.
This is the third time I've attended, and this year marks the lowest number of bands who label themselves as "metal" on the SXSW schedule. However, this is paradoxically the most interesting set of "metal" bands, with none of the typical "stoner rock" fair that SX seemed to highlight the most in previous years.
Among the artists listed with this designation besides the aforementioned WAKE include:
- Zheani, who is mixing hyperpop and metal,
- Crae Wolf, who is mixing hip-hop and metal,
- Blind Channel, who is the Finnish Eurovision entry and is making metal in a sort of nu-metal meets hair metal style
- WifeKnife, who are doing a sort of loud punk mixed with a sort of NWOHM sound
... and aside from a couple of what I assume are joke descriptors, that's it.
"But Andrew, wasn't there a hardcore showcase you mentioned in your pre-SX article? You must be forgetting those bands because you are biased and hate hardcore," and on this point, you would be partially correct; not about my bias, but I did mention this hardcore showcase that was going to happen, courtesy of Flatspot Records. And with that, I guess this is as good a place as any to talk about the, let's call it "kerfuffle" that SXSW was embroiled in.
Directly before the festival started, a bunch of artists, started by Squirrel Flower, decided to boycott the festival over two main points. One, they objected to the U.S. Army being a "Super sponsor" of the event, and two, they objected to a panel being done by defence contractor company RTX Corporation, who most of us might recognize by its former name, Raytheon, known for their production of missiles, some of which are currently being used by a certain country in the Middle East to do a bit of a genocide on another group of people. All in all, more than 80 bands drop off of official SXSW showcases, including all of the Flatspot bands, a good chunk of indie artists, and every Irish band except for two.
So, that seems pretty important.
How did SXSW choose to respond to this? Did they bump the Army down to a non-super sponsor? Did they ask the Raytheon panel not to happen? I'd love to tell you those answers, but SX chose a different strategy, which was to ignore the whole situation and hope that no one pays attention.
That is until Texas' supremely conservative, unliked governor, Greg Abbott, decided to tweet about it, saying bands that boycotted weren't welcome in the state. Suddenly, SX had a response, because being aligned with the military and defence contractors is fine, but tacitly agreeing with Greg Abbott by remaining silent, well that's just too far.
Cue the black text on white background statement starting with the most important thing, that they do not agree with Abbott, and then continued about how the military is a part of the local economy and how the military, and industrial complex surrounding it, often is the impetus for us to get technologies, like cell phones and the internet, so we all should know what they're working on.
And look, as an American, I expect the military to somehow be involved in every large festival in the United States, and I'm sort of confused how any other American could think otherwise. People from other countries may be, rightfully, surprised by this take, but it's sort of a reality of the US, and also very not surprising. I mean, just picture what you think of when you think about the US and the military is probably number three, right below Jesus and guns.
And, SX's argument regarding technology is not incorrect. We do, whether we like it or not, owe a lot of the technology we currently use without thought to developments from their original military applications. The rub here, though, is that you usually don't get to make that argument while a very active and very divisive actual war is happening. To do so, regardless of intent, makes you look like at minimum out of touch, and at maximum like you actively support what's happening.
I could go on about this topic, but again, I don't have the time.
After checking out the slightest bit of the Ranch Magazine showcase, I headed over to the Marshall Funhouse at Parrish to see Irish rockers Therapy? who did an amazing set, putting in a good chunk of classic tracks from their stellar album Troublegum, which ended my night.
After a good night's rest, I went to the top floor of the hotel to do an interview with other Irish lads from the band Chalk. And since interviews are good in pairs, I then chatted with LA comedy band Wolves of Glendale. And, since humans love things in threes, I also got to chat with the people who wrote one of my favourite records of 2023, The Perfume of Decay, Tigercub. All of these you can hear on a future episode of Grade A Explosives, so stay tuned for that.
After that, on the way back, I got into a conversation with a member of staff at SweetSensei, a cannabis seller, and found out all about their Congress Avenue location and Texas' strange cannabis laws, though maybe that's a bit rich coming from a place where the province managed to mess up selling a substance that seemingly everyone uses.
Realizing that I had now gone many hours without watching a band onstage, I went to Creem Magazine's showcase to meet up with some of the other CJLO peeps to see the hip-hop / punk / occasionally metal crossover act, NYC's Ho99o9, who put on an AWESOME show! Truely, next time they come to Montreal if you miss them you are missing something special.
Wanting to keep the hip-hop crossover vibes going, I saw Crae Wolf, who I mentioned above. Apparently, she has a whole band back in the UK to do backup while she performs, which, if her performing to a single DJ is any indication, must be amazing. Did I do an interview with her as well that you can hear on an upcoming show? I think you know the answer.
Finally, tired from my 11.5km of walking, I decided to catch one last artist doing an odd genre pairing, so I stopped off at the Jaded | FRIENDS:FOREVER showcase to catch the superb weirdness of the hyper-pop meets metal done by Alice Longyu Gao. I'd recommend you go listen to her tracks, but, quite frankly, they do not do the unhinged performance she did justice. I mean, still go listen to her stuff, but know that if you see it live it will blow you away.
And, of course, only then realizing that I had not eaten anything for the entire day, I stopped by the Misfits Barbecue food truck and had their spicy Hatch Mac & Cheese. I include them, not just because the food was great, but also because I deeply regret not getting the Brisket sandwich, and I pray you do not make the same mistake as me.
Perhaps, from all of this, you're getting an idea of what the atmosphere present at SX is like and in case you haven't, let me sum it up succinctly.
It is chaos.
Here are but a few examples:
- Did I get enough C4 energy drinks to power a human until the end of time? For a normal person, yes! For me, no.
- Were mics set up at every corner on 6th street so people can choose to perform? Yes! Were a good chunk of them rappers, thus bringing into question the "hiphop is dead statement". Also, Yes!
- Were there people who had plastic containers full of snakes for people to pet? Yes!
- Was there an industrial artist from LA called Azarene who performed a track while on top of a car until he was asked to move by security? Yes!
- Did I get to have free tastes of whiskey in my hotel lobby with the drummer from Channel Zero? Yes!
- Was there a "suspicious package" that shut down part of the street and thereby got me to chat with a delightful member of The Austin Chronicle until the bomb squad arrived to investigate? Yes! The package was absolutely nothing, by the way, and honestly, the drunken mess that people are down there, I'm surprised it even was worthy of attention.
- Did the previous five examples of all this happen on the same day? Yes!
... and that's part of the weird magic of SXSW. It’s a festival full of blatant contradictions. Deeply corporate, yet having weirdness around it that would make most PR firms run screaming into the night. The ability to have a panel with speakers who say hip-hop is dead and yet the festival has more hip-hop on its lineup than anything else. Even both making a cogent argument about the military-industrial complex and how it affects our everyday life, while not being cognizant enough to know how that argument will sound with what's happening in the world.
So, do I recommend buying a badge and going to SXSW?
Hellllll no; it's like 1,200 USD for the badge alone!
But... if you happen to have friends or family that live near Austin, do I recommend going for a day to see what madness you might be able to find over 8 square blocks? One hundred percent, yes you should do that, and until next year, when I'll be writing a brand new entry into the "SXSW controversy" articles, I bid the festival adieu.
Andrew is CJLO 1690AM's Metal Music Director and the host of Grade A Explosives, Sundays 4PM-6PM
Growing Vegetables to Make Music: An interview with Shaina Hayes
CJLO DJ Lumina sits down with local artist Shaina Hayes to talk; childlike wonder, farming and finding inspiration in the “non-creative.”
I'm wondering, what was the inspiration for the name, Kindergarten Heart and what does this title mean to you?
That song specifically is about tapping back into your childhood brain. More specifically, a version of yourself that's not encumbered with the stresses and weightiness of being an adult. It’s about trying to let loose and be free and living in your childhood wonder. The song structurally is doing this thing where the verses are trying to remember that sentiment, trying to get back into it. And then the very end section, the chorus of the song is meant to be like what it would feel like if I were to be successful and suddenly time travel into my childhood brain. Kindergarten Heart as a title is about childhood but other songs deal with other moments in my life, like the early days of falling in love or memory at a large scale.
Do you mind speaking about your process when you write songs, how did you go about this journey to “retap into your childhood self”?
This album just came out in February, but in truth, the songs were written within a year and a half before, which meant I was still farming full time and with my first album as well. I was farming full time and, I think for me, farming has facilitated my process musically. In the cracks of my days, as I would get home and be tired and be getting ready for bed I would just mess around on the guitar and the music would come up. That's something that I think happened a lot during the farm work because you're doing a lot of these kinds of mindless tasks, a lot of the time. So it, I guess, it awarded me a lot of time for my brain to wander and it's in a beautiful environment.
To me, there's something very freeing about being in agricultural spaces, letting my mind wander like that and sort of just being surrounded by beautiful things. Even if you're not directly trying to make something beautiful about that specific beautiful space you're in, it still sort of influences it. I think there's something really important about surrounding yourself with beauty and letting it inspire you to make other beautiful things. So that's my process. Often the melodies and the chords and stuff come to me in little moments when I'm messing around on the guitar and the ideas and the lyrics are sort of a separate thing that take shape in those tasks. But I guess now I'm farming a lot less, so I'm having to be a bit more direct with it. So I am just sitting down and kind of hashing out these ideas in full. But, it’s a changing process.
Maybe this is a bit of an unfair question but I'm going to ask it anyway. Do you have a favourite song on the album?
I don't think it's unfair. I think people often have a favourite. I think it kind of depends on my mood. The last song on the album “Mastery” was one of the last to be written and I guess content-wise it's a bit more fresh in that way. But, gosh, I think lyrically my favourite is “A Thousand Perfect Words,” which was a song that literally just came up in full with no arrangement. I wrote the lyrics while I was on tour, in a car with my bandmate, sleeping beside me. I was kind of just driving this five-hour drive, writing the words, and it sort of all came together in one piece and I like that about it. It's very unprocessed. It’s hard to say though, I like them all, depends on my mood.
I really love the song “Sidewalk,” with its honky-tonk rhythm and I’m wondering if there’s a story behind it?
It's a lament to people who are pessimistic. “Your heart’s on the sidewalk, you drew it there in blue chalk and it's fading away with every raindrop.” You’re just like, "oh poor me, woe is me," and so long as you're saying "woe is me," it's gonna rain and your heart is gonna be washed out. If this is the tone you're taking with your life, then it's not gonna mend itself, essentially. With “Sidewalk,” I was trying to keep the childhood theme with that imagery. It's sort of a sassy, maybe too sassy, lament for people who are being too pessimistic, and we were very intentionally trying to make it sound like a saloon, like you're sitting in a dingy bar. We had a big vision for that one.
Some of your songs are addressed to “you.” I was wondering if you're talking to specific people or something else?
I guess it depends on the song. I think often they're directed at specific folks, but I try to keep it relatively broad. The first song “Early Riser” is to a good friend of mine, also from the Gaspé, who also moved away. The song is addressed to her and about how we're getting older at a distance and how we both miss home. “Sun and Time” was for another friend who I farmed with when I was at McGill and about how we both had such a hard time in the winter, because our summers were so full and so busy and so fruitful. The seasonal letdown in the winter was always really hard for us. Any of the sassier ones are probably with certain people in mind, but I try to keep them vague enough so that no one's ever going to notice, or it will never be offensive to anyone. I think I’m often writing to people.
Can you talk about your farming practice?
I studied agricultural sciences at Mac campus at McGill with a specialization in ecological agriculture, so organic farming, basically. I went on to work for a bunch of other vegetable farms not far from Montreal. In 2020 I was supposed to be running a farm for a restaurant, and because of the pandemic, they obviously closed, but it was March so I had already prepped a bunch of stuff. I made a deal with them where I used the land and the equipment and I started my own farm and did the basket program, which I had done before when I was at McGill, we ran the student-run farms. It was a full-fledged CSA Farm. You really had to learn quickly and you had to learn enough that you then had to pass on the information.
That’s so cool.
It was so cool. And it was enormous! We were doing like three market stands a week and like 80 CSA baskets. And it was such a great learning opportunity. The coolest thing at McGill.
So anyway, when the pandemic hit, I took over this farm from this restaurant and then kept doing that for three more years.
Last year, I officially retired from the basket program because the music kind of took over, but until that point, it was very, very full time and it was pretty much just me. I had some volunteers, but I kept it at a scale that was feasible for one person.
Can you talk a bit about the time in your life when you decided to pursue music more full-time and also about your career transition?
I just wrote an essay about it in TalkHouse.
There was a transition, but it was such a natural transition for me in the way that I mentioned that the farm was pretty influential in me writing my songs, it facilitated a lot of those first songs in many ways. As I said, it is such a beautiful landscape that you're creating, the baskets themselves are beautiful, the vegetables are beautiful. Initially, when I turned towards farming in my university studies which eventually led to me working at these farms and starting my own farm it was in an effort to pretty consciously, move away from music. I had studied music at CGEP, jazz voice and I found it pretty intimidating and really competitive and I felt like it wasn’t for me, and moved towards farming in a conscious effort to get away from creativity.
But, when I started my own farm and was realizing how beautiful it was, how much satisfaction I got out of that, I realized that my desire to farm at its core is still a very creative desire. What I love most about it is creating these landscapes and sharing this produce that I've created with people. So, the farming awakened my desire to be creating all the time and that's I think why in the cracks of the farming I was writing songs.
That's why in the winter I found myself drawn back to writing music because I had awakened this desire to be creative and had awakened my confidence to being creative.
I don’t think this would have happened without having had that farming experience, I would have never gotten there. And I think there's something to be said for not being a full-time musician all the time as far as you know, content of the songs and life experiences, I just feel like having had a more diverse life and having had a life where I wasn't just a musician surrounded by musicians all the time has made for, I think, perhaps more meaningful discussion within my songs. Hopefully… They seem like very different things and they are in a lot of ways, but for me, it’s a path that went directly from one into the other. They're intertwining.
Is there a message you’re trying to convey through your music?
I don't think there's one specific message, I guess maybe if there was, it would be if you have something beautiful that you want to say, you should probably just say it. You know, I wasn't avoiding making music actively for my twenties. I was busy doing other things but I do look back and I'm like you know, I love doing this so much now. I love making these songs. It's too bad it took me so long. No regrets, I think it’s been very rewarding to finally feel the confidence to do it. So I guess it's just that. If nothing else, you should give it a go. If you have something beautiful to say, say it!
We talked a bit about having a career previous to music and I'm wondering if you have any advice for people who are transitioning careers or want to pursue music?
I think the bottom line with my transition is it was incredibly gentle and incredibly patient. People might look at it and it might seem like I just made this drastic jump to this new thing, but I think the seeds were planted a long time ago and I just gently followed things that I was interested in, that being the farming until I was in a point where I was then interested in music and I followed that. I've always just done what interested me.
If you're looking for practical advice, it would be: apply for grants. There's a lot of funding available, especially for music and people don't realize it and if I had never applied for grants, I would never have been able to start a music career at all. Yeah, I would say, patience… but also applying for grants.
That’s super cool, that is like spiritual and practical advice.
Yeah, if I had to describe myself in two words it would be reasonable and spiritual.
Photos by Lawrence Fafard, courtesy of Bonsound
Lumina hosts Love Songs for Bike Lanes, music about things that matter, Mondays 11AM-12PM
Civil War: A wakeup call for journalism
Alex Garland’s film Civil War taps into the director’s trademark nerve-inducing wake-up calls that hit close to home about where we are at as a society. There was the wake-up call about artificial intelligence in Ex Machina and whatever nerves he wanted to provoke about humanity with his following films Annihilation and Men. The films leave the audience with a haunting, somewhat uneasy, feeling that makes me have questions about humanity. I normally end up doing deep dives on YouTube for explanations and in-depth analysis of these films. That same uneasy feeling came about in America and was felt across the globe, on January 6th, 2021, as an attack on The Capitol in an attempt to overturn a democratic election, caused democracy to hang in the balance.
Garland’s Civil War can be seen in the not-so-distant future as America is divided amongst itself into rival factions, as an incumbent president (Nick Offerman) tries to continue to hold power, despite the fact that people want to see him removed from power. The different factions in America are opposed to the loyalist states, with the loyalist states still in the union. The factions that are out to dismantle the loyalist states are The Western Force Alliance (California and Texas), The Florida Alliance (Georgia and Louisiana, aligned with The Western Force Alliance) and The New People’s Army Alliance (Idaho and Louisiana). Caught up in the crosshairs of these factions would be the associated press and journalists trying to cover the new world order amidst the chaos.
Instead of the war being the central focus we get a shift in focus: the bystanders of the war that hold truth to power with a war photographer, journalist Lee Smith (Kristen Dunst) and reporter Joel (Wagner Moura). Their main goal or objective is to gain an interview with the president of the United States, get him on record and hold him accountable before the fighting factions get to him. Along for the ride are veteran journalist Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson), who Lee claims might slow them down due to his age, and aspiring journalist photographer Jessie (Cailee Spaeny). Joel, Sammy and Lee impart their knowledge of the trade to newcomer Jessie who idolizes Lee and her work. Little backstories of the horrors of war are told through the photographs that Lee has taken, as she still seems haunted by them.
As the journey goes the group gets caught up with some resistance fighters who they tail as a full-fledged war is happening. They have to escape from a sniper on the side of the road. Probably the most harrowing journey comes with a full crescendo at the end of the second act as the team faces the harrowing militia soldier (Jesse Plemons, real-life married to Kristen Dunst) who holds the group at gunpoint and asks them what kind of American they are. One of the most villainous performances of the year that puts Austin Butler’s Feyd Rautha in contention for villain of the year. After the events unfold there is a great moment where the score from Ben Salisbury and Geoff Barrow takes over and Joel has a moment of rage and agony over how the events transpired.
The score is one of the other best reasons to see this film in theaters and the other would be the sound design of the guns in contrast with the camera’s shutters clicking capturing these moments. For those who might write Civil War off as an externally threatening war film about democracy, they are not wrong. Garland probably had those thoughts going on in his head as he watched January 6th unfold. The world still in pandemic mode was transfixed to their television that day as well. The underlying urgent war that Garland wants to get across is not only democracy, but to highlight the journalists and the press that risk their lives during war to hold truth to power through reporting and capturing the images. Journalists are the lifeblood during wartime that hold truth to power and people accountable.
Alex Garland’s Civil War is currently playing in theaters and out soon on a premium video rental release window in June.
Remi is the host of At The Movies Along Co-Host Danny Aubery every Tuesday morning from 8-9 AM only on CJLO 1690 AM. They cover local film festivals, have interviews with directors and actors, and talk about a new film or the classics.
Oneohtrix Point Never (+ Puppet) Create Magic at Theatre Fairmount
Brooklyn-based experimental producer and composer Oneohtrix Point Never (aka Daniel Lopatin) returned to Montreal for the first time since 2018 this past Monday, finishing off the tour of his 2023 record Again with a sold-out show at Theatre Fairmount.
Even if you have never sat down to listen to an OPN record, you’ve almost definitely heard him. With fingerprints on the tracks by FKA Twigs, Soccer Mommy, Moses Sumney, Caroline Polachek, and more, and soundtrack work on The Bling Ring, as well as being the Safdie brothers go-to artist for scores, as seen in Good Times, Uncut Gems, and most recently Benny Safdie’s The Curse, Lopatin’s sound is somewhat of a secret sauce running through many critic-favourite pop records of the last ten years. OPN’s most notable collaborative relationship is likely that with The Weeknd. Lopatin worked as musical director for The Weeknd’s 2021 Superbowl Halftime Show and co-produced mega-hit albums After Hours and Dawn FM. Dawn FM is where the two artists' collaborative chemistry reached a fever pitch. Though wildly different in genre, Dawn FM and OPN’s Magic Onoehtrix Point Never (released two years earlier in 2020) contain the same sonic theme of vintage radio stations lost in time.
On Magic Onoehtrix Point Never, as with his other releases, Lopatin has a fascination with outdated gadgets, vintage media, and found sounds, that weave seamlessly into his high-tech production, but never get to the point of feeling sentimental or nostalgic. Down to his name Oneohtrix (one-oh-tricks) Point Never, based on a mishearing of Massachusetts’ Magic 106.7 radio station he remembers from his youth, OPN blends elements of whimsy with harder industrial sounds.
OPN’s most recent album, Again, employs extensive use of strings, from simple guitar plucking to blooming string sections, layered with synths to create an immersive and surreal soundscape.
Opening the show was OPN collaborators Pedagogy, comprised of Eli Keszler and Nate Boyce. Keszler was on drums, with Boyce on guitar, both instruments blending into one another through heavy augmentation and distortion. The two were shielded by fog and light through their entire set, giving the performance a mysterious, eerie feeling.
Moving into Oneohtrix’s set, the density of Fairmount became apparent, as every spot of this shallow but wide venue packed in. A few minutes after 9:00 PM, Lopatin entered the stage with visual collaborator Freeka Tet.
Lopatin manned his large DJ controller set up, with his board connected to a distorted mic. Tet was over on the right side of the stage, standing by a small cube. Upon a closer look, there appeared to be a small puppet inside the cube– a miniature version of Lopatin, with his own miniature lights, miniature table, and miniature DJ controller. Through the show, Tet would maneuver the puppet, having him mirror Lopatin’s movements, mixing on his tiny stage, and the puppet’s actions would be broadcast on the screen behind the real Lopatin. At one point, Tet even had his hands inside the puppet box, playing a miniature guitar. The puppet was a funny addition to otherwise quite serious music, but still rather impressive in its own right, as Freeka Tet constructed the entire technical apparatus, live-controlling the figure with just his foot.
Oneohtrix Point Never’s show oscillated between moments of deep serenity, with the audience swaying in a trance-like state, and moments of high intensity, with harsh noise and strobe effects. OPN’s stage visuals were a dizzying assortment of vintage Disney clips, videogame characters, and floating metallic shapes, all perfectly complimenting the atmosphere of the music.
Mid-way through the show, Lopatin finally spoke to the crowd, thanking the city for coming out to the last show of his tour, and thanking Freeka Tet and the sound engineers in the back. Despite his mystique– from his eccentric taste to dating history that has Redditors obsessed, Lopatin’s stage banter was generous and personable, even shouting out Canadian composer and his collaborator on the album Instrumental Tourist, Tim Hecker, who he mentioned was backstage.
Several times during the show, Lopatin would duck down to play something behind his DJ controller. Despite not having the best view over the crowd (The Oneohtrix show, a bit of a sausage fest? Shocker), one instrument that was visible was a Daxophone– an experimental German stringed instrument played often with a bass bow. The live use of the Daxophone added an extra depth to the layered strings running through Again.
After leaving and returning for an encore, Lopatin asked the audience which song they preferred to end the night on - “Animals” or “Chrome Country,” a move that highlighted the calmness and ease of his stage presence. Altogether, the show was both high-production and approachable, a delicate balance only an artist on the level of Oneohtrix Point Never can strike.
Photo by @buscar_photo
Aviva Majerczyk is the magazine editor at CJLO 1690AM. She is also the host of The Alley, a folk-rock show airing Fridays at 11:00 AM.
An Intimate Evening with Slaughter Beach, Dog
Slaughter Beach, Dog’s (“SBD”) sold-out show at Le Ministère was both cozy and intimate. Instead of touring with the usual ensemble, SBD’s North American solo tour was led by none other than Jake Ewald. As one of the founding members of Modern Baseball, Jake is no stranger to the indie-rock genre. In fact, his past work with Modern Baseball and his current solo tour under the SBD banner are indicative of his role in defining the genre throughout the past decade.
One of the smaller music venues in Montreal, the stage at Le Ministère was set up with an assortment of vintage furniture and other household items that the artists picked up in different cities throughout the tour. The collection of different furniture and objects that populated the stage, whether intentional or not, created an atmosphere that was more akin to watching a friend jam out in their living room. It felt as though Jake invited you to his home and performed for you. Soothing and gentle, SBD’s melodies were sung to us as though they were sung to us by a friend we wished we had. In fact, when Jake Ewald addressed the audience throughout the show, it remained apparent that he was truly appreciative of his fans - even taking a song request from a member of the audience during the encore.
SBD’s setlist, as well as the choice of songs that they covered further cemented the idea that their show was truly one that was meant to recreate that “I'm watching my friend play the guitar in their living room” feeling for the audience. With the born and bred Nashville singer, Erin Rae, opening the show, her performance echoed the feeling of closeness that would permeate throughout Le Ministère for the rest of the evening.
Soon after the opening act, Jake emerged from the side door, shuffling through the crowd to finally get on stage. Performing the first few songs of the set alone, the solo act would later become a duo with guitarist Adam Meisterhans, and finally a trio with Erin Rae coming back on stage with her acoustic guitar. Performing songs from their latest album, Crying, Laughing, Waving, Smiling, as well as older ones, SBD also performed a number of covers, as an homage to the artists that inspired the band’s sound and style. While the show ended on a melancholic note with a cover of Blaze Foley’s “Clay Pigeons,” you could faintly hear the crow singing along, bridging the gap between the artist and the crowd and allowing them to become one.
During the show, Jake told the crowd that there is no better feeling in the world than being able to jam out with your friends. Feeling inspired, I texted my friend after the show, eagerly awaiting our next jam session.
Cadence Weapon on His New Album, Social Media, and Politics: “I Like to Stay Uncompromised”
Rapper, producer, author, and former poet laureate Rollie Pemberton - better known as Cadence Weapon - released his sixth studio album, ROLLERCOASTER, this spring via MNRK Music.
Having emerged as an artist who gave voice to issues of systemic inequality and racial disparity, particularly among Canada’s Black communities, with his 2021 Polaris Prize-winning fifth album Parallel World, Cadence Weapon returns with an urgency, addressing the dizzying contradictions of modern culture and technology with both precision and irreverence.
With ROLLERCOASTER, Pemberton expands his incisive commentary to the sprawling internet—a former utopian playground that’s turned into a capitalist junkyard—to remind users they don’t have to just “go along for the ride,” he says.
This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.
I was going to ask you the obvious question of whether you felt any pressure after winning the Polaris Music Prize for Parallel World, but thankfully you answered in your Substack that, no, this wasn’t the case. So instead, how did you approach ROLLERCOASTER from a mental and creative standpoint, considering that there was no pressure?
When I made Parallel World, I really had the concept so deeply in mind. I wanted to be really political and I really just wanted to let it rip about specific socio-political issues. On this record, there is the theme of technology and social media and things like that. But I think the way I approached it was ‘I just wanted to make some fun music.’ That was a big part of it for me, to get out of my head a little bit, and just try and make really colourful, ecstatic fun music. I couldn't resist still having a concept and a message and everything. I was really influenced by a lot of hyperpop-type stuff, and electro and a lot of the kinds of stuff that I like to DJ musically, and then I was just thinking of ways to integrate that into my own music.
Every artist is now expected to introduce a new era when an album comes out. Was it nice to get away from that, focusing instead on growing beyond album cycles?
I feel, musically, I always try to be a little bit different on all my albums, and it just happens naturally. [I’m] really just following my muse at the given time. It was a freeing experience, especially [as] the last record added a different kind of pressure than you would expect. It became this thing like, okay, so I'm like ‘the voice of a generation’ and I speak for Black people in Canada. I started getting invited to talk on all these panels as the Black guy on the panel. I really don't like being pigeonholed. I don't like to be seen as the political rapper guy, or the underground rapper guy. That is something that makes me want to zig. You know, it really makes me want to subvert expectations. That's really a strong urge in me – what people would expect from me, I always like to do the opposite.
What about this record do you feel subverts expectations most?
I feel like a lot of the more electronic stuff, like “My Computer,” “Exceptional,” “Lexicon;” songs that are just straight electro; stuff that are super-fast. I never really had any songs like that. But it's interesting because when I would play live, I would rap over instrumentals like that. Or if I'm at a party, and I just got on the mic. I would rap over stuff like that. I always felt really comfortable doing, but I realized there wasn't a lot of stuff in my discography that reflected that. I feel like some people might be surprised to hear me on tracks like that, but it’s actually second nature to me.
One of the tracks that fits that mold is “Press Eject,” which also plays like a thesis statement for the record as a whole. The song is from an artist’s perspective of navigating success online and wanting to log out of its constant demands, but now we've all become content creators in some way that we can all relate. Can we really reject the online world though?
I think it's possible. The idea is to just be more mindful about what you're doing and more mindful about your experience, because it's easy to lose track of what you're doing. That's what I'm really talking about on the album. We have to use these tools - artists, regular individuals - and it's really about using the tools and not letting them use us. Because it can easily go the other way, where it becomes like, I work in the content mine and I gotta have this many TikToks this week, otherwise, the foreman is gonna fire me. That's what it starts to feel like, honestly. You're on TikTok or Instagram and it’s like I've got to up my content quotient this week. It just feels terrible. I do think there is a future for me where I just don't do it at all and I'm just out of it. I'm really currently very inspired by Cindy Lee and their approach to the way they released their album.
It's a good point you make about using these apps as a tool rather than them using us. Out in the world as Rollie and not Cadence Weapon, how do you go about trying to make it a tool that can be of some benefit to your life?
I really follow my wife's model, because she's a journalist and is really mindful about her online diet. I'm really into Twitter, that’s the one for me. I love just the thoughts and ideas, and sometimes there's some really good jokes and everything. But it also has the most negative effect on my quality of life and my mood. If I wasn't promoting my album, I probably wouldn't be super active on these platforms. It's just really easy to get addicted to it all. I swear, it's worse than cigarettes. A lot of these apps are designed to be very addictive. I read this really good book about this called Please Unsubscribe, Thanks!, and [the author Julio Vincent Gambuto] talks about how to disconnect yourself as much as possible. One of the things that he talks about is doing a social media audit, and looking at ‘how many people here do I want to see their content and unfollow them?’ It's like ‘do I need this app for work? Is it making me happy?’ If it's not, delete it. He goes as far as being like, give up your phone.
On the album artwork for ROLLERCOASTER, you’re upside down, hinting that maybe not all is right. But you're also out in nature. In the press photos, too, you're lounging on the grass. It feels like, ‘alright, I did throw out my phone, and you know what, it's still a bit weird, but I'm enjoying myself.’
I feel like the idea is ‘touch grass.’ Every time I get into a Twitter fight, I need to just think ‘Okay, go outside now, go to the park.’
With the new record, you've said that, you want to recapture what made Web 1.0 special. The sense of community, which is still present, but without commercial forces getting in the way. Is it possible to get back to that form of Web 1.0 that’s more community-centered?
There's a few things that are of that old spirit. I think Reddit is still a bit like that. It's one of the only places you can get actual information, searching something and “Reddit” in Google. There's that and there's Discord. Those feel like the kind of old-school communities where it's real people all interested in one thing, and it's not like there's a profit motive at all. So I like that. I think some of the websites that you see that haven't changed at all, like Craigslist, that's another example. It just is what it is and it's not another thing. Meta’s whole thing [for their apps] is just to swallow the other apps and it's gonna be like 50 apps and one app is the ‘everything app.’ And it's like, man, jack of all trades, master of none. So I think it's possible. I feel like the way the internet is going, it really is becoming just this all-consuming funnel to sell products. I think anything that you can do that goes against that is great.
What I'm talking about on this album is really to be more mindful about what you're doing online and to take a bit more control. It's easy to get into this feedback loop of ‘I'm opening Facebook, I'm opening Instagram, I'm opening TikTok, I'm opening Twitter;’ and that's all I look at. Go on your own adventure. Do your own path and actually find [and] learn something, or do something that's just for you. And it's not to enrich someone else. And it's not for somebody else to profit [from].
I went to go see a 25th anniversary showing of The Matrix recently, and while it was very 1999 in its tech lingo, at the same time it felt really current in its concerns. Just swap out some of the more dated references with talk of AI and it would sound the same. It's funny listening to you describing Web 1.0 from around that same time and thinking, ‘if only they knew what was coming, they wouldn't have been so pessimistic.’
One of the reasons I made this record was really for younger people who weren't around for it, and for them to really know that there's a different way of doing things; you don't have to just follow the walled garden that the social media apps want you to be in. I want people to be aware of their own agency.”
I’m absolutely certain so many people have asked you about this quote from [Resident Advisor editor and friend] Gabriel Szatan, after he wrote it as the last line in the foreword to your book Bedroom Rapper: “next step politics, right?” In “EFT” you rap about “MPs all up in my DMs.” And now former rapper Wab Kinew is the premier of Manitoba. I mean, I think you know where this question is going.
There's definitely been a lot of interest in me doing something. Parties have reached out to me about running for different ridings. I worked on a political campaign last year municipally in Toronto [for mayoral candidate Josh Matlow]. I was working on their social media. I learned about how the sausage is made and what it's like behind the scenes, and it's pretty fucking ugly. Politics is ugly – it’s way worse than music. You will never experience worse people than when you're in the political world. They're just terrible, scum of the earth. The disappointing thing is they may start with good intentions, but it inevitably corrupts them, the power. It doesn't matter what part of the political spectrum they're on, it's just inevitable that it will. It just drains the life out of you. So, I think I won't be running for office anytime soon. I also feel I can get more done outside of this system. I feel as an artist, I don't have to check-in with anybody. I don't have to tow the party line. I don't have to do anything I don't want to do. I like to stay uncompromised.
Catch Cadence Weapon live in Montreal on May 2 at Le Système and on August 4 at the Osheaga Music and Arts Festival.
Photo by Jodi Heartz
Alex is the host of Ashes to Ashes, your home for modern pop in all its forms, Tuesdays 7PM-8PM
MIKE and Crew: Theatre Fairmount hosts an abstract hip-hop marathon
When I first heard MIKE in 2020, I was, as most first-time listeners are, surprised. At first glance, MIKE seems to be not much more than your average abstract hip-hop artist. Slurred bars laid over disjointed, chopped-up soul samples fill most of the rappers' tracks, but after a few minutes, it seems to transform. MIKE’s flows seem almost spiritual like he is nonchalantly tapping into a higher power to put any listener into some sort of jazz-rap trance. There is a friendliness buried in the soul chops and introspective bars, like a warm hug from someone you've known since childhood. With all this, it's easy to see how MIKE has hugely influenced the hip-hop scene. Mentored by Earl Sweatshirt himself, the New York MC has been crafting raps for almost a decade now and has formed a community of sonically like-minded individuals around him, working hand-in-hand with said community to create a prominent new sound in today's industry.
Avant-garde jazz rap is what most refer to it as, and it is a genre truly brimming with talent; Navy Blue, MAVI, Sideshow and Wiki are a few names that come to mind. This sound has even crossed the border to the North, with rappers like Toronto’s Raz Fresco and our city's own Mike Shabb toting similar sounds. And, while these artists all bring their level of talent and artistry to the game, it seems to always come back to MIKE; acting almost like the heart of the sonic space, pumping out inspiration and style throughout the game. Seeing this raw talent live has been on my checklist for almost as long as I've been a hip-hop fan, and last Friday this dream was fulfilled at Montreal's very own Fairmount Theatre.
Upon entry to the Fairmount, it was easy to tell what kind of sound would be hosted that night. The crowd was filled with familiar patrons, all toting merch from artists like Earl Sweatshirt and MF DOOM, like a sort of abstract hip-hop uniform. Even the DJ seemed to be in on the action, playing back-to-back hits from frequent MIKE collaborator The Alchemist. The all-around experimental rap theme didn't stop there; opening the show was a veritable abstract hip-hop hat-trick. First up was D.C. native El Cousteau, whose disjointed, in-your-face flow seems to vary just as much as his beats do. Hopping from Kanye-esque soul chops to heavy-hitting Detroit-style trap beats within the same song (listen to B/W), El Cousteau grabs listeners by the collar and drags them along a stylistic trip through his influences. Burning through a handful of tracks from his 2023 album Dirty Harry, Cousteau kept the entire crowd on their toes, an accomplishment for any opener. 
After a short 15-minute set, the rapper cleared the stage and Brooklyns' own Niontay took his place. Over pounding bass punches and melodic synth hits reminiscent of Pierre Bournes' best work, Niontay raps in the high-pitched cadence that his style of rap is known for; a slurry of words that feels drowsy, as if he couldn't care less about the bars he’s spitting. If I had to draw any comparisons to Niontays work, I’d look in the direction of Detroit rapper Veeze, who seems to hold the overall steez of his performance in the same high regard. With a similarly concise set to that of El Cousteau, Niontay covered most of his new album, Demon Muppy, before playing an unreleased track, and subsequently trading out with the final opener, 454.
Of the three openers, 454 is by a large margin the most prolific. Having worked with industry giants, from Frank Ocean to Denzel Curry, the Flordia native is already on the precipice of widespread adoption. His sound strays from the frequent soul chops that mark El Cousteau and MIKE’s work and goes even deeper into that “SoundCloud trap” sound that Niontay is known for. Most of 454’s music brings to mind the prominent underground hip-hop coming out of TikTok right now, with whining keys dancing over simple, bedroom-production drum loops. It's a sound that to many rap fans feels nostalgic, paying sonic respect to the 2016 SoundCloud era while still staying fresh and new. These three openers seem to form a posse of sorts around MIKE, appearing frequently on his past two albums. While their sounds are different, the unofficial group has a sort of coherency in the space they operate in; they each seem to represent a different side of the current underground hip-hop scene, meshing styles and sounds together to make art that is as unique as it is enjoyable. It seems that now more than ever, MIKE is bringing unmatched influence to the game, while still staying true to the music he wants to make.
After the underground trifecta of openers, the crowd was eager for the main event. MIKE’s stature is something he's known for (garnering him the nickname “Big MIKE”), so it was tough to miss the rapper as he strode out onto the stage. Before rapping a single bar, MIKE led the entire crowd through a series of warm-up stretches, then abruptly began rapping cut after cut from his 2023 critical hit Burning Desire. These are pure rap songs, with MIKE spitting verse after verse of soulfully introspective lines, but they were balanced out with a surprising amount of singing. MIKE sang along to every soul-chop sample played that night, encouraging the crowd to follow suit. 
It's clear that every second of the music counts to MIKE, as he embraces not just the raps but the beat in his all-encompassing musical exposition. In the words of one attendee, “There is a man who LOVES his beats.” Jumping throughout his catalogue, MIKE covered everything from early hits like “Hunger”, to tracks off of his newest collab with producer Tony Seltzer like the dark trap cut “Yin-Yang.” Throughout the music, MIKE’s flow floats with an elegant drawl, as if he's on the brink of taking a nap mid-track, but cares too much about the performance to bother. It's easy to trace and just as easy to get lost in, like he's casting some sort of soul-chop-powered enchantment on the crowd. By the end of the 18-odd song setlist, the crowd had morphed from a group of onlookers to a hivemind mass of positivity. A mass joined by MIKE who, donning a Palestinian flag as a cape, moved off of the stage and into the crowd, embracing audience members and mumbling along to the disjointed closer to Beware of the Monkey, “Closing Credits.” Between his all-accepting attitude, endlessly entertaining interludes and genuine, down-to-earth tone, MIKE is a generational talent. Very rarely do you find someone with so much to bring to the game remains as humble as MIKE, and I cannot endorse anyone more. And, at only 24, he’s still got a lot to give.
Check out MIKE’s newest album Pinball, a collaboration with producer Tony Seltzer, here, and his critically acclaimed 2023 release Burning Desire, featuring Niontay and El Cousteau, here.
Sam Kitch is the host of I Think You Might Like This, Tuesdays 11:00AM-12:00PM
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