Ontario musicians worth listening to
By IAN SANDS | November 28, 2006
Jonas Bonnetta |
Canada’s most populous province, Ontario, is full of promising, undiscovered acts. This month, three notable discs dropped from our neighbors to the north, two of which are self-released. The fourth, by the D’Urbervilles, was released earlier this year, also without the help of a label.Jonas Bonnetta, “French Toast” (MP3)
Matthew of I Heart Music recently went apeshit over this Peterborough singer-songwriter’s new Farewell to Harmony, spouting ludicrous lines like “This is the perfect album for anyone who wishes . . . Nick Drake was a little less precious . . . for anyone who wishes that Jeff Buckley hadn’t always tried to show off his vocal abilities.” This track is a perfectly pleasant acoustic number, gently strummed and chock full of nuggets like “We ate French toast for breakfast for 17 days in a row/She could use cinnamon so sparingly and make her specialty teas to go.” It’s just not quite the musical second coming St. Matthew would have you believe.
Sarah Hallman,“Shovel” (MP3)
Hallman’s a big deal up in Ottawa these days, having appeared on at least two on-line lists dedicated to that city’s best and brightest. And when it came time to record her latest album for Busted Flat, a number of respected resident musicians came out to help including Arcade Fire drummer Jeremy Gara. On this track, it’s easy to see what all the fuss is about: she has a gorgeous voice, and she’s not content to waste it singing crappy piano ballads. Toward the end of “Shovel,” she lets her hair down, skittering her vocals over the line “Just because it isn’t here doesn’t mean it’s not there” because, well, she can.
Jetplanes of Abraham, “Not Tonight”
Only recently assembled, Jetplanes of Abraham are already being touted as Ottawa’s answer to Toronto’s Broken Social Scene. And “Not Tonight” has the makings of a big fat indie-rock hit, with its insistent please-dance-to-me backbeat, an anthemic chorus you can hoist your drink to, and punchy horns. I actually laughed the first time I heard the punch line to the chorus (“Tomorrow you’ll be famous . . . the ladies they’ll be screaming your name”). Hate to ruin the surprise . . . let’s just say that the star in question isn’t quite as suave as he thinks he is.
The D’Urbervilles, “We’re Blowing Up” (WMA)
With a chorus as killer as “Oh my dear valued one/Can we drink from your success/In hopes that we become/Images of your excess,” this deserves to be blowing up somewhere. Singer John O’Regan doesn’t have variety-show pipes of Jetplanes’ Rick Devereux. But add a great groove to those lyrics and, well, that’s gotta count for something.
Related:
Online cameraderie, Plunder, pillage, and profit, Hot and cold, More 
- Online cameraderie
It was a photo of six tan friends — lounging around a table littered with bottles and cups on a shady deck, apparently enjoying vodka and lemonade — that spurred Matt Prepost to action in January.
- Plunder, pillage, and profit
When Napster, invented by a Northeastern freshman, threw the music industry into chaos in 1999, Steve Jobs didn’t panic. He saw an opportunity.
- Hot and cold
James Levine’s second French program this season with the Boston Symphony Orchestra was more compelling than the one with which he began the season.
- Pleasures still unknown
Ian Curtis (Sam Riley) of the Manchester band Joy Division wrote songs that evoke, with incantatory inevitability, terror, delight, and ecstasy.
- Magic numbers
“I like that Stone Roses song,” one of them noted. “You know the one I mean — ‘I Wanna Be a Door.’ ”
- Living large
The Hard Rock was donating all bar proceeds to the Boston anti-violence charity Peace Games.
- Rockin' neurotic
Nervously pacing the stage in a baggy T-shirt and jeans, Cat Power’s Chan Marshall is about the last performer you’d ever mistake for Tina Turner.
- Rise and fall
With its production of the Kurt Weill/Bertolt Brecht Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny, Opera Boston consolidates its position as this city’s most exciting opera company.
- Real housewives and blood diamonds
Literature, that slow cousin to Life, has in its prolonged non-engagement with reality TV been even denser and more dreamily backward than usual.
- Dreamgirls
The chorus has been singing for months now: Bill Condon’s can’t-miss adaptation of Tom Eyen & Henry Krieger’s 25-year-old Broadway musical is roaring into theaters to save a lackluster fall. Watch the trailer for Dreamgirls (QuickTime)
- The 40 greatest concerts in Boston history
The Phoenix picks the shows that have defined the scene
- Less
Topics:
Download
, Entertainment, Music, Pop and Rock Music, More
, Entertainment, Music, Pop and Rock Music, Singer Songwriters, Alternative and Indie Rock, Nick Drake, Arcade Fire, Broken Social Scene, Jeff Buckley, Less
