It’s a new year, and even though we’re taking a few weeks away from the show (we’ll re-post an oldie next week), we wanted to thank Nicole for recommending Denmark’s Agnes Obel. Her debut album, Philharmonics, was released in 2010, and earned critical and commercial success in Europe, as well as a number of awards in her native land.
Though we’re most used to singer-songwriters lugging around a guitar, Obel’s fragile voice is simply haunting when matched with the sombre piano notes that appear to be her signature. Tori Amos or Sarah Slean fans will probably enjoy, but everyone should check out the video for Riverside on a cold, January day…
This final episode of 2011 reviews our favourites (such as The Pack AD, Smith Westerns, and Beirut) , and consensus picks (such as M83, Bon Iver, and PJ Harvey) from the popular and no-so-popular presses.
Having to settle on 24 albums (plus two from 2010) in the independent/alternative oeuvre was far more difficult than it sounds. Culture progresses towards the musical singularity unabated, so behold a broadly genre-less future where you have no idea what you’re listening to, but it still sounds pretty damn good! In the end, this show is actually overflowing with music, including a pared down tracks by The Field and Toronto’s own Sandro Perri (and a tip of the hat to Impossible Spaces, which landed on Pitchfork’s list).
This isn’t a countdown, but we do end with our unqualified favourites of the annum: The Vaccines are a presence at the top with their shapely punk-rock re-boot What Did You Expect from the Vaccines?; and No Joy’s fuzzy dream-pop is a nominally Canadian, nominally 2011 release that compliments that sound nicely.
But it’s two ladies who steal the show this year. St. Vincent (aka Annie Clark) continued her ascent to the top of the inscrutable-pop-charts, and Little Scream (aka Laurel Sprengelmeyer) emerged out of Iowa to become Montreal’s most well-connected young musician.
We’re on break for a couple of weeks, but here’s one last song for a year that began a Tiger, and ended a Rabbit. Thanks for listening, and all the best in 2012!
jj – Still (Kills)
Cut Copy – Need You Now (Zonoscope)
M83 – Midnight City (Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming)
Miracle Fortress – Everything Works (Was I the Wave?)
John Maus – The Crucifix (We Must Become The Pitiless Censors Of Ourselves)
Atlas Sound – Parallax (Parallax)
The Field – It’s Up There (Looping State Of Mind)
Beirut – A Candle’s Fire (The Rip Tide)
Timber Timbre – Bad Ritual (Creep On Creepin’ On)
Girls – Love Life (Father, Son, Holy Ghost)
Smith Westerns – Weekend (Dye It Blonde)
Sloan – Your Daddy Will Do (The Double Cross)
Whitehorse – Emerald Isle (Whitehorse)
Dan Mangan – How Darwinian (Oh Fortune)
Fleet Foxes – Helplessness Blues (Helplessness Blues)
Lykke Li – I Follow Rivers (Wounded Rhymes)
The Pack A.D. – Pieces (Unpersons)
PJ Harvey – The Words That Maketh Murder (Let England Shake)
Sandro Perri – Wolfman (Impossible Spaces)
Destroyer – Savage Night At The Opera (Kaputt)
Bon Iver – Towers (Bon Iver)
Real Estate – All The Same (Days)
The Vaccines – Wreckin’ bar (ra ra ra) (What Did You Expect From the Vaccines)
The Vaccines – If You Wanna (What Did You Expect From the Vaccines)
No Joy – Mediumship (Ghost Blonde)
No Joy – Heedless (Ghost Blonde)
St. Vincent – Hysterical Strength (Strange Mercy)
St. Vincent – Year of the Tiger (Strange Mercy)
Little Scream – Amahl (The Golden Record)
Little Scream – Cannons (The Golden Record)
Little Scream – The Heron and the Fox (The Golden Record)
The holiday season is a happy and joyous time for community radio, unencumbered by corporate playlists and 50’s Boomer nostalgia, we are free (free! free!!!) to pick/choose/sample from the massive and ever expanding collection of songs about the darkest time of year. With zero commercials and minimal interruptions, we are very happy to present this two-hour holiday episode.
We call this our Christmas show, but up here in Northern climes there are enough cold, wet and gloomy reasons to require a cheer-up at the Winter solstice. It doesn’t matter what festival of lights you celebrate, a strong drink and a pat on the back offered up in the spirit of human camaraderie is always appreciated before the long, trudge home in the moonlit snow.
Speaking of snow, there’s plenty of it this week from ladies who know what they’re talking about. Highlights include a great new Meaghan Smith song that’s making the rounds (she’s from London, she gets snow), and one by Toronto’s Weather Station (who just played Hamilton last week).
We’re in love with a darling little tune by Owl & Mouse with the refrain, “Hiding from my family / In my parents room” that might resonate with some folks, and an aching Frightened Rabbit song evokes some of the bittersweet nature of the season.
Big shout-outs to Zunior (the independent online music store) for offering up annual doses of Canadian indie-rock Christmas music, and to Darren Hayman (of Hefner fame) and Fika Recordings, who released an amazing digital advent calendar of free songs called Christmas in Haworth.
Last show of the year is our Best of 2011, and then we’ll take a few weeks off in January. Have a happy holiday!
It’s almost your favourite time of year. Yes, that’s right the Christmas/Holiday/Festive/Seasonal episode of myboytheriotgirl is nearly complete. I have a few open spots for any last minute requests, so if you have one let me know (comment below). In the mean time, here are a couple of past episodes for your listening pleasure:
Twenty-eleven seems to have been a really, really good year for independent music. In programming these three best of 2011 shows, it became apparent that it would be more difficult than ever before to pick out those few albums that stood head and shoulders above the rest of the pack.
So this week we look back at some of the more notable releases from the past year–stuff that maybe would have grabbed more of your attention if it weren’t such a bumper crop. Mike listened to a lot of Washed Out on train-trips this year, and Austra’s Feel It Break has made its way to the top of NY Mags’ list.
Discs by Radiohead, Mogwai, and Iron & Wine were worthy additions to those bands’ discographies, but maybe didn’t garner all that much attention from fans. Cults came out of nowhere this year to a lot of buzz, and yesterday’s buzz-band The Drums issued a fun and very listenable album in [em]Portamento[/em], an LP that may make Smiths’ fans smile.
We’re going to take a week off next week so I can finish up my two-hour indie Christmas special (commercial and interruption free!), so send in any requests or old standards or new favourites through the website, or tweet us @myboyriotgirl!
Washed Out – Echoes (Within and Without)
Junior Boys – Itchy Fingers (It’s All True)
Austra – Beat and the Pulse (Feel It Break)
Jill Barber – Dis-Moi (Mischievous Moon)
Cults – Bumper (Cults)
The Drums – How It Ended (Portamento)
The Cave Singers – Black Leaf (No Witch)
The Kills – Future Starts Slow (Blood Pressures)
Mogwai – George Square Thatcher Death Party (Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will)
Papercuts – Do What You Will (Fading Parade)
Radiohead – Feral (King of Limbs)
The Antlers – Parentheses (Burst Apart)
Iron & Wine – Me And Lazarus (Kiss Each Other Clean)
The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart – Strange (Belong)
The Mountain Goats – For Charles Bronson (All Eternals Deck)
Join these great local bands at the cathedral on James N. this Saturday in support of a very good cause. I think all the information you need is in the poster, but here are the links to the bands’ pages, too. See you there!
This week we take a quick look at some of our favourite songs of the year (and next, in Kathleen Edwards‘ case). Given our tastes, the list is 3/4 Canadiana: people who hail from nearby locales who we’d like to have beers with, and who happen to be musical geniuses.
We heard a lot from Toronto’s Hooded Fang, Purity Ring, and RAA this year and reference accordingly, though Kansans (and husband-wife duo) Mates of State also make a more than token appearance. Plus, we rarely play a song thrice, but maybe The Decemberists’ “June Hymn” is most deserving of prettiest song designation.
Some boys are jags and play video games, so Lana Del Ray has to make an appearance. Like a classic video game playing jag, Mike proclaims Ohbijou’s “Niagara” his favourite song of the year on behalf of us both. It’s okay though, because it really is a great song.
Back next week with more of the best of the year–tune in at 93.3FM (Weds overnight, 2am and 6am), or here at the website.
Braids – Lemonade (Native Speaker)
Mates of State – Palomino (Mountaintops)
Purity Ring – Lofticries (Ungirthed 7″)
Hooded Fang – Vacationation (Tosta Mista)
Young Galaxy – We Have Everything (Shapeshifting)
Kathleen Edwards – Change the Sheets (Voyageur)
The Decemberists – June Hymn (The King Is Dead)
Destroyer – Poor In Love (Kaputt)
Lana Del Rey – Video Games (Video Games – Single)
Chad VanGaalen – Sara (Diaper Island)
The Rural Alberta Advantage – The Breakup (Departing)
We’re going to take a week off in mid-December to give Megan enough time to prepare for the 2hr Indie-rock Christmas Special that will air on the 21st, so that leaves us with three other shows to program in 2011. Our last show of the year will be the Best Albums of 2011, so we’re going to use the remaining shows to highlight some of the Rest of the Best of 2011.
And in a previously unthinkable move, this year myboytheriotgirl is going to purposefully drop the focus on albums for a week to hear some of our favourite songs of 2011. It’s been a very solid year in music, so we’re going to dedicate an hour this week to the artists and songs that really captured our attention in 2011 and deserve another listen.
So in the spirit of celebrating individual songs, I wonder if these three are the prettiest we heard all year long:
Having worked with some of the best of Montreal’s music scene, including members of Arcade Fire, Stars and Silver Mt. Zion, Laurel Sprengelmeyer is Secretly Canadian (even though she was born in Iowa). The National’s Aaron Dessner contributes on this awfully pretty tune from The Golden Record.
John Maus is simply inscrutable and that’s the way we like it. This reverb-soaked sing-along cover of the Molly Nilsson original is similarly simple, inscrutable, and has slowly became our favourite track off his 2011 disc, We Must Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves.
This lead track of RAA’s Departing is bittersweet, beautiful, and speaks for itself: “And if I ever hold you again/I’ll hold you tight enough to crush your veins.”
Odds and ends; bits and bites; crunch ‘n munch. This week’s full of one-offs and left-behinds, and we’re happy to play them before we get to the more album-heavy end-of-year shows.
It’s a Happy Thanksgiving for a lucky American listener because we have a random and brand new Jens Lekman song to throw her way, along with similarly freshly squeezed material from fellow Yanks Atlas Sound, and Wales’ Los Campesinos! The Campesinos, it seems, are not happy kids anymore.
A long lost Iron & Wine track goes well with the Great Lake Swimmers playing a classic Grapes of Wrath tune (from a neat compilation that has current Canadian artists covering 90s trailblazers). And since the XX cover we had last week went down so smoothly, why not another one?
We wind down with some Vaccines, who are well positioned in our collection of year-end favourites, and a neat a cappella version of a Panda Bear tune (the lead track of this year’s Tomboy) that I thought would be good to send us off into the night…
Feist – A Commotion (Metals)
Eight and a Half – Scissors (s/t)
Grimes – Oblivion (Visions)
Pattern Is Movement – Crazy In Love (Daytrotter Session)
The Antlers – VCR (The XX Cover)
Atlas Sound – Mona Lisa (Parallax)
Jens Lekman – I Don’t Know What To Do
Iron and Wine – California
Great Lake Swimmers – What Was Going Through My Head (Have Not Been the Same – Vol. 1)
Alanna Gurr – October (Oh, Horsefeathers)
Dan Mangan – Jeopardy (Oh Fortune)
Mates of State – Total Serendipity (Mountaintops)
Los Campesinos! – The Black Bird, The Dark Slope (Hello Sadness)
Over the past decade, Canada’s biggest cities have drawn thousands of young, creative kids from the hinterland into their vertical villages and crowded, chaotic streets. This has given places like Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver well-earned reputations as being the country’s artistic incubators.
It’s no coincidence that these metropolises are homes to some of our biggest indie-rock acts, and that these bands often form the nucleus of a larger music scene that permeates their hometown. Toronto’s recently-departed Broken Social Scene maybe best illustrates how one tiny seed can germinate into a sprawling tree, with each branch bearing delicious fruit (Feist, Metric, Stars, to name a few).
But to be honest, a lot of my favourite Canadian music is the stuff created solo artists in our rural hinterland. Whether its a single-minded genius cocooned in an abandoned grain silo (Great Lake Swimmers), or a passionate environmentalist writing odes to her favourite rural retreats (Sarah Harmer), the country is just as capable of nurturing brilliance as the city.
Nearby Guelph is well known for its natural beauty, its association with farming (it’s home to the Ontario Agricultural College), and the annual Hillside festival. This piece of Southern Ontario also seems blessed with a surplus of talented musicians like Jane Siberry, The Constantines and Royal City.
Now you can add Alanna Gurr to the list of young Guelph artists eager to get out and make a name for themselves
A newcomer to the folk-rock scene, Alanna independently released her first LP Oh, Horsefeathers last month to solid reviews, and she passed along a few of her songs hoping we might play a few. We couldn’t be happier to fulfill that request, since Alanna’s sweet, smoky voice and strong songwriting have monopolized our attention for the past few days.
Having previously opened for the likes of Bruce Peninsula and One Hundred Dollars, you might have already been lucky enough to see Alanna in person. If not, it sounds like she’s trying to line up a Southern Ontario tour in support of Oh, Horsefeathers, so keep your eyes open for local shows. In the meantime, enjoy a couple of Alanna’s tracks here before we play one on the show this week!
This final episode of 2011 reviews our favourites (such as 
Twenty-eleven seems to have been a really, really good year for independent music. In programming these three best of 2011 
This week we take a quick look at some of our favourite songs of the year (and next, in 
Odds and ends; bits and bites; crunch ‘n munch. This week’s full of one-offs and left-behinds, and we’re happy to play them before we get to the more album-heavy
