Music, musings and miscellanea

Chattanooga, TN (yes, that’s a real place) crew Moonlight Bride have found a nice middle ground in the indie world walking a thin line between the slinky post-punk of Joy Division and the swirling shoegaze of My Bloody Valentine.

“Lemonade” is the first song released off the band’s forthcoming EP Twin Lake. On top of perfectly showcasing the band’s musical dichotomy it’s got a nice anthemic quality to it, and kind of feels like the soundtrack to a deleted  One Tree Hill Scene (in my world, this is a compliment).

Twin Lake is out  Feb. 28.

Cousins have been flopping around the Halifax DIY scene for a while now delivering some garagey pop gems on a number of releases, including their cleverly named split cassette with Duz He Knew, DUZ/CUZ. 

Sophomore full-length The Palm at the End of the Mind should help raise their profile outside Atlantic Canada. It drops March 20 via Saved By Vinyl.

Check out/download “Jules” below.

Nardwuar the Human Serviette is well known for his off-the-wall interviews, but dude’s also in a long-running band called the Evaporators who have just dropped a new video for their song “I Hate Being Late (When I’m Early) featuring none other than professional party starter (and Nardwuar superfan) Andrew W.K.

The video was shot at Vancouver college radio station CITR at UBC where Nardwuar hosts a program on Fridays. He even gives a shout out to former music director Luke Meat and a number of bands including Needles//Pins and features a ripping guitar solo from New Pornographers member and the “JC” in “JC/DC Studios” John Collins, who’s played with Mr. the Human Serviette for years. Admittedly, the song isn’t the best, but it’s a nice reminder of my hometown and where I got my start in community radio.

Kathryn Calder turned a lot of heads with her own change of direction on sophomore outing Bright and Vivid. Second single “Turn  a Light On” gets a rustic video treatment courtesy of Vancouver filmmakers Leif Parker and Geoffrey Tomlin-Hood, who helped bring to life the video for “C’Mon Sea Legs” by Calder’s old band Immaculate Machine. Check the scenery below.

I’ve written a lot about Haligonian Rich Aucoin over the years, most prominently in last month’s issue of Exclaim! Some might accuse me of boosterism – and that would be fair – but in my defence, he’s just a hard guy to dislike.

Anyway, rather than go on about Aucoin, his live show, and his new full-length We’re All Dying to Live, I’ll just say watch the video below for his track “It.” You won’t regret it.