Doe Bay Love for Drew Grow ::: Photo by Josh Lovseth

Where do I even begin talking about what may have been the greatest weekend of my life?

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The Doe Bay Resort is situated on the far end of nowhere, about as far from the ferry dock on Orcas Island as one can hope to get. It is on the way to nowhere, and that is kind of the point. Among the yurts, cabins, campsites and forest, there’s no 3G to sap your attention. Only an idyllic setting to focus on relaxation and nature and the people you are with. A place to soak in the mineral spring and bathe in the expansive starlight, things normally obscured by the lights and pace of the big city.

Doe Bay faces southeast toward Cypress Island, and then the Cascades further on. An organic cafe overlooks the bay and getting up to watch the sun rise above the Cascades while cradling a hot cup of coffee is a favorite activity. We certainly spent our share of time waking up under a rising sun while sitting out on the Cafe patio, sipping coffee and attacking a truly delicious selection of breakfasts made with ingredients grown in an organic on-site garden.

Courtesy of resort den-mother and wonder woman Jami, our specially set reserved campsite ended up being a geodesic dome hidden among the trees on the opposite side of the inlet from the Cafe, a space age feeling structure with a bed. More importantly, it came with a pair of picnic tables spectacularly overlooking the resort. Prime property. These picnic tables would play host to series of mostly unplanned magical moments over the four days we spent at Doe Bay: A Hey Marseilles Doe Bay Session. Meeting new friends. A magnificent effort to fix our brand new generator that would ultimately be unsuccessful but a bonding experience just the same. A late night rap battle that went on and on. Getting a listen to a new Maldives song that is just exceptional. Having the privilege of hearing Kelli Schaefer and friends singing “Over the Rainbow,” with all of the festival bigwigs in attendance. And sharing countless Doe Bay hugs. It all added up the one of the most memorable and life affirming weekends of my life.

The Mainstage ::: Photo by Josh Lovseth


I think we might need to come up with a new word for what Doe Bay Fest is. Sure, it has a few stages, great bands are present, and it is nominally about seeing music. But calling it simply ‘a music festival’ doesn’t communicate the quality of interaction that a gathering in this setting encourages and makes possible. For four solid days I had no want to leave. In actively forgetting our worries and forgetting about clocks, Doe Bay became a real-life Utopia for those present, if only for an instant. And that’s not something that happens at just a ‘music festival.’

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The Sadies ::: Photo Courtesy of Yep Roc Records

The Sadies are the flagship band of the Toronto alt-country scene, a hardworking foursome with twelve years, thirteen albums, and numerous high profile collaborations under their tooled-leather belts. Exclaim calls them “a national treasure,” and every other Canadian band I hear interviewed has toured with them, is about to tour with them, or would like to tour with them. All of this might explain why their relatively unexceptional new album, Darker Circles, is on the Polaris Prize short list: perhaps the jury simply feels that it’s The Sadies’ time.

Now, Darker Circles isn’t a bad album. It could reasonably be described as “solid” all the way through, and a couple of tracks - the ghostly, reverberating “The Quiet One” and the epic lyrical poem “Violet and Jeffrey Lee” - are markedly lovely. For the most part, though, the fare is standard noir country, mournful lyrics of fear and regret laid atop classic country instrumental stylings and darkened up with a touch of moody psychedelia. It’s a style that quite a few bands are working in right now, and though The Sadies put forth a notably honed and polished version of it, Darker Circles doesn’t seem to offer any musical breakthroughs or point to any new directions for the genre.

My most noticeable impression of Darker Circles, in fact, was that after a dozen listens I had barely any impression at all. Had you asked me what I thought of it, you would have received a vague “It’s nice” in reply. “Very country,” I might have expanded. “Kind of dark.” Specific details of the album still elude my recall; my memories consist mostly of snippets of melody and hazy mental images.

The Polaris Prize is awarded for “creative artistic achievement in recorded music.” I hope to see a truly groundbreaking album take home the prize, something challenging and exciting like last year’s winner The Chemistry of Modern Life. Darker Circles may deserve a place in the dedicated alt-country fan’s catalog, but I can’t honestly believe that it’s going to change any lives or radically alter the future of Canadian music. Look elsewhere for the 2010 honoree.

“Odessa,” the lead single from Caribou’s latest album Swim, has been delightfully ubiquitous this summer. You’ve almost certainly spent some time tapping your left foot to it at a red light, or mumbling an off-key “she can say, she can say, who know’s what she’s gonna say?” while dancing in the shower. “Odessa” is the most blissfully catchy anthem of a dysfunctional relationship to capture our ears in a while, and in the world of pop music, that’s saying something.

As well as being Swim’s lead single, “Odessa” is also the album’s opening track, the sunny shore of Caribou’s nine-song wide electronic sea. It’s a logical placement — the song is both the record’s catchiest and most accessible. Continue past “Odessa” and you’ll find yourself wading deeper into the waters of both dance and experimental music. Synthesizers and drum machines combine with unusual instruments like Tibetan singing bowls, and a variety of textures and rhythms mix and mingle. Through all the heterogeneity, however, the album strongly maintains the feel of a cohesive whole.

Caribou - real name Dan Snaith - has a PhD in pure mathematics, so perhaps it’s not surprising that his music is very much about ideas. While Snaith denies that Swim is a concept album, it is certainly a concepts album, influenced equally by his immersions into dance music and, yes, swimming.

Almost immediately after accepting the 2008 Polaris Prize for his album Andorra, Snaith returned to his home in London (England, not Ontario) and submerged himself in the club scene. Though he had drifted away from dance music in recent years, he suddenly found his enthusiasm for it rejuvenated, and when seeking a direction for his new album it seemed a logical path to follow. “In the last year [I'd] been DJing more often, as well as going to more clubs and gigs, and I’ve just been more excited by the dance music I’ve heard, so it was a natural thing to have the music go in that direction.” Taking advantage of his friend Kieran Hebden’s DJ residency at London club Plastic People, Snaith club-tested many tracks before the album was even complete, gauging the crowd’s reactions to make sure the desired energy came across. It does: Swim is dancey indeed, but not frantically so; rather, its downtempo electropop encourages a sort of loose, liquid hip shaking, a languid sinuosity.

If Swim is, in the big-picture sense, about making you move your body, it is also remarkably intellectual at the details level. Here’s where Snaith’s newfound passion for swimming comes in: “Everybody’s familiar with how the sonic sense is different underwater and above water, and so [when swimming] you’re in this weird kind of sonic space that rocks back and forth. And I thought, that’s an interesting idea to do that with some sounds on the record. In one ear, the sound is very crisp and clear, and in the other it’s kind of reverb-y or echo-y, and then it oscillates back and switches the other way around.” Not only does this effect mirror the aural experience of swimming, but the sinusoidal pattern of the fluctuations gives the music a wavelike, oceanic feel.

Swim is modern and summery, energetic but not frantic, light and shimmery and atmospheric. Despite its nascence on massive club sound systems, this album will be just as at home in your car CD player, especially with the windows down and summer’s golden light pouring in.

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Caribou play Seattle on October 4th at The Showbox at The Market
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CARIBOU - Odessa from Caribou on Vimeo.

The Head and The Heart Sunset Session ::: photo by Abbey Simmons

As you will soon read here on Sound on the Sound, Doe Bay 2010 was one of the most magical experiences of our lives. (Narrowly edging out last years’ Doe Bay Fest for “best weekend ever.”) Not only were we surrounded by friends, family and incredible local music in one of the most idyllic and jaw-droppingly beautiful places you’ll ever see, we also spent the weekend working on an exciting project we’ve spent much of 2010 organizing: The Doe Bay Sessions.

The initial idea was to rent a yurt during the Doe Bay Festival and record acoustic sets with a couple of our favorite bands who were playing. We pitched the idea to the fine folks who organize and who own Doe Bay and from day one to the last day of shooting, they all bent over backwards to make sure the project could happen. What started as a typical DIY Sound on the Sound project turned into a professional video shoot inspired by the work of Vincent Moon and Yours Truly, complete with videographer Tyler Kalberg on the camera and sound guy extraordinaire Chris Proff manning our “mobile” sound set up. What we thought would be a couple yurt bound sessions, turned into 10 different video shoots all over Doe Bay with some of the best bands in Seattle.

For those of us who were a part of it and those of you who stumbled on to our sessions while hiking the trails or following the sound of the songs, The Doe Bay Sessions felt like a festival within the festival. Over the next 10 weeks we will be releasing videos featuring a candlelit session from Fences, The Head and the Heart (and the Doe Bay All-Stars) singing down the sun, Ravenna Woods using trees for percussion, a mid-trail serenade from Drew Grow and the Pastors’ Wives, The Maldives on a mossy knoll, picnic table perching with Hey Marseilles and many more.

We are so excited to share these videos with you and to usher in a new chapter of Sound on the Sound content. For now, we wanted to share a few stills from the sessions, as well as offer our sincerest thanks to Tyler, Chris, the bands, Doe Bay staff and maintenance crew, Artist Home, Bob from The Ballard Mine and the Doe Bay magic that made these sessions not just possible, but also so much more than we would have ever dared imagine.

Check back here on August 24th to see whose session we’ll share first!

Fences Candle Lit Session ::: by Tyler Kalberg

The Maldives on “Hobbit Hill” ::: photo by Josh Lovseth

Chris Proff ::: photo by Abbey Simmons

Ravenna Woods Session ::: photo by Abbey Simmons

See more photos from The Doe Bay Sessions on our Flickr

Dan Mangan ::: Photo Courtesy of Jonathan Taggart

It took me one minute and thirty-three seconds to fall in love with Dan Mangan.

“Road Regrets,” the first song on Mangan’s latest album, Nice, Nice, Very Nice, begins gently, with a few soft tones. Things build gradually from there: the muffled strumming of an acoustic guitar, a few electric notes, a bass. Finally, after ove a minute, drums. A crescendo builds, the energy grows, the song is about to explode — but then it doesn’t. Mangan takes us high and then drops us low, pulling most of the instruments out from under us, and we find ourselves in seven seconds of tranquil vocal free-fall. “It’s a cryyyyyiiiiiiing shame,” he croons. “Them’s the breaks –” but after this taunt, the drums kick back in, and we are carried back up and onwards.

The great pop climax does come, but only near the very end of the song, and only after another rise-drop-repeat cycle. It’s this capacity for unexpectedness within the well-trodden framework of folk-pop that first endeared Dan Mangan to me. The quality is demonstrated regularly on Nice: the earnest vocals of “The Indie Queens Are Waiting” belie the song’s slyly observed, Wharton-esque lyrics; “Basket” begins with sad resignation but shifts suddenly into shouts of defiance — only to collapse heartbroken at the end.

Surprises, though, can only surprise you so many times, so it’s lucky for Mangan that there’s more to him than musical plot twists. Nice’s title is taken from a Kurt Vonnegut work, and appropriately Mangan is quite a literary songwriter. Each song is populated by distinct characters: the irresolutely aging man in “Basket,” the frantic, strung-out scenester of “Tina’s Glorious Comeback.” In “You Silly Git,” the character may or may not be Mangan, declaring “The songs I sing are all about myself.”

Also featured on Nice is a track that has probably become Mangan’s best known thanks to its 2009 CBC Radio 3 Bucky Award for Best Song. “Robots” is a catchy little song with an easily discernible analogy that will resonates with many people. If this sounds dismissive, well, that’s not entirely my intent — “Robots” is a fine song, but Mangan has many better. His gift for narrative and his gift for melody are each carried further at other points on the album, marking “Robots” as an excellent starter point but certainly not Mangan’s magnum opus.

The crush comes on fast and heavy, but Nice, Nice, Very Nice is no fling. This is an album for the repeat listener, an album to play repeatedly in the car, peeling back the layers as you peel away the streets, or to cuddle up to with a cup of tea on the sofa on a rainy day. Nice is a keeper, a re-read, an record to have a long and satisfying relationship with.

(Didn’t your mother always tell you to marry a Nice guy?)
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Nice, Nice, Very Nice will be released in the U.S. on August 10.

Dan Mangan plays in Portland as part of Music Fest Northwest on September 10.
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The Polaris Music Prize is awarded annually to the Canadian artist or band who creates the best full-length album of the year. Open to musicians of any genre and judged solely on artistic merit, the contest awards the winner a $20,000 cash prize.

The Polaris is notable for its straightforward and democratic decision process. Artists and labels need not submit their work; any eligible album released within the previous year is automatically considered. After the annual deadline, a large panel of journalists and radio professionals submits individual top-five lists, which are condensed into a forty-album “Long List” and then a ten-album “Short List.” On the night of the Prize Gala, in September, an eleven-member Grand Jury selects the final prize winner.

This year’s Polaris Prize short list includes previous North of Northwest subjects Besnard Lakes and Radio Radio. The other eight nominees are:

Broken Social Scene, Forgiveness Rock Record
Caribou, Swim
Karkwa, Les Chemins De Verre
Dan Mangan, Nice, Nice Very Nice
Owen Pallett, Heartland
The Sadies, Darker Circles
Shad, TSOL
Tegan and Sara, Sainthood

In the weeks leading up to the September 20 prize announcement, North of Northwest will profile the eight remaining artists and their nominated albums, and make bold-yet-educated predictions on the big winner. Stay tuned to find who gets the big money and who’s left with just the short-list honors.

Wolf Parade ::: Photo by Meqo Sam Cecil

I probably don’t have to tell you about Wolf Parade. The Sub Pop four-piece has risen safely from obscurity to sell thousands of records and play Successful Band venues like the Showbox. What I can tell you, though, is a little something about their new album, Expo 86.

That little something is this: it is very, very good.

Expo 86 rings with the sound of a band coming into its own. Songwriters Dan Boeckner and Spencer Krug have said repeatedly of Expo 86 that it was the most fun Wolf Parade album to make, that it is the most cohesive, that it best showcases the true “essence” of Wolf Parade. “We’re embracing our strengths,” Krug told Pitchfork [http://pitchfork.com/news/38417-listen-two-new-wolf-parade-songs/], “just going with our initial instincts.” The result is a confident, mature record that still makes you want to shake your booty.

One of the most obvious characteristics of Expo 86 is the way it practically crackles with energy. This stems at least partly from the recording process — the band played in ensemble, to tape, allowing their renowned live energy to be captured, at least a little, for the home listener. With headphones on and eyes closed, you can often imagine yourself in the dance hall, crowd moving sweaty all around you.

Despite the band’s assertions of fun, though, they’re not only happy-go-lucky feelings that the album generates. Underneath the prominent danceiness often lies a layer of marked anxiety. This theme is set only ten seconds into the album’s first track, “Cloud Shadow on the Mountain,” with Krug’s tense three-peat refrain of “I’d say that I was all alone.” Even more than lyrically, though, this anxiety is manifested musically: dark metal notes come fast and hard, and free-form noise swells and ebbs just beneath the melody. Krug’s tone of voice - often reminiscent of the famously tightly-wound Matt Berninger of The National - is both taut and wavering, seeming to teeter on the edge of hysteria but never falling over. This lack of release, of course, simply extends the apprehension indefinitely.

Of course, from a band with two songwriters - each preferring a markedly different aesthetic from the other - and an avowed musical philosophy of “maximalism,” nothing is ever really straightforward. The eleven songs on Expo 86 are dense, multi-layered affairs, at times almost symphonic in the way melodies conceal sub-melodies and hidden themes and refrains chase each other around. And always, of course, there is the hook, and the beat that makes you want to move.

So here we seem to have the album’s central conflict: rich, catchy pop sensibilities versus darkness and foreboding. Here’s the funny thing though: it’s really not a conflict at all. Somehow, the two personalities of Expo 86 (which, admittedly, comes from a group who has basically made a career out of harmonious dichotomy) merge beautifully to create an absolutely fascinating listening experience: suddenly you find yourself in a place where the line between fear and exultation is delightfully, unnervingly thin. You feel a restlessness, and how you use it is up to you. The moment is yours. Do you run, or do you dance?
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Wolf Parade plays Monday, July 26 at the Showbox at the Market.
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Download mp3: What Did My Lover Say (It Always Had to Go This Way) courtesy of Sub Pop

P.S. I Love You ::: photo by Jeff Barbeau

The future of Canadian garage rock does not rest solely in the hands of Vancouver’s Japandroids and The Pack a.d. — another torchbearer lies in the east. Hailing from Kingston, Ontario is the innovative duo P.S. I Love You, who create a sort of back-to-the-future version of garage rock by blending elements of 1980s British post-punk and new wave into their reverb and shreddy guitars. The result is a sound that is both familiar and challenging, referential yet incontestably modern.

Three-fourths of this two-man band is Paul Saulnier, who somehow handles vocals, guitar, and a bass organ simultaneously. Saulnier’s guitar playing is accomplished and intense, especially when layered several tracks deep. The bass organ, a surprising touch, adds a depth that many two-pieces struggle to find. Drummer Benjamin Nelson now sits behind Saulnier, maniacally adding the backbeat, though early recordings used a Casio drum machine. The Casio’s human replacement has taken away a bit of the new wave feel, but has added a warmth and a (racing) heartbeat to the project.

Despite - or perhaps because of - his assertion that he spends very little time on songwriting, Saulnier’s lyrics are truly, if quietly, the star of the show. This is particularly true on “Subtle and Majestic,” the opening track of the band’s new EP. “I’m not trying to be romantic, but I made you this mixtape / It’s subtle and majestic / And I know that you’ve probably heard most of these songs before, but this time they’re from me.” Saulnier’s Morrisey-like androgynous wail, accompanied by his Dinosaur Jr.-inspired guitar playing, could easily lend P.S. I Love You’s songs the disaffected nature of those two artists. However, the devastating earnestness of the lyrics serves as a delicious counterpoint to these associations, and the emotional tension created therein adds beautifully to the musical tension of Saulnier’s winding guitar melodies.

Saulnier displays a very modern self-awareness that will almost certainly further P.S. I Love You’s success. Live, he often wears a headdress with a cotton ball storm cloud over his forehead and foil lightning bolts hanging beneath his eyes. “I wanted there to be tears shooting down my eyes, and my brain was the storm cloud. I think wearing my angst on my face is really funny. ” The duo also doesn’t shy away from its references, as evidenced in their “Facelove” video, an homage to Joy Division’s video for “Love Will Tear Us Apart.” The tables may soon turn, though: with a full-length and a tour with Japandroids set for the fall and Pitchfork’s already-offered stamp of approval, P.S. I Love You find themselves in a solid position to become the references of the future.
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P.S. I Love You has an EP available now through iTunes and Paper Bag.

Their full-length, Meet Me at the Muster Station, will be available October 5.
They play with Japandroids October 8 in Victoria, B.C. and October 9 in Vancouver.

See All of The Moondoggies Postcards from the Road:

Volume 1
Volume 2
Volume 3
Volume 4

After an incident-less tour, tragedy strikes in Kansas.