It is the time that I reveal the Top 10 Canadian and Non-Canadian albums in radio/podcast form!
Here is the Best of 2020 Edition of No Filter – Home Edition on CHUO 89.1 FM.
Giving props to Hiroki Tanaka and Pantayo to be in the Top 10 since 2020 has seen a lot of Asian acts releasing stellar albums.
Cindy Lee’s What’s Tonight To Eternity caught my ears and it is a mix of haunting and retro pop music.
Decided to pick U.S. Girls as the best Canadian album is because the album resonated with me and I loved hear the reworkings of three old songs.
Very last minute to add The Avalanches in the Top 10 but it was one those concept albums that is long forgotten in recent years.
Decided to pick Sault’s two albums as the best Non-Canadian because it is a powerful album that helped described 2020 with the pandemic and political uprise of Black Lives Matters.
I could have put Fiona Apple as #1 but Sault stood out the most.
Hope you enjoyed the Top 10 list of 2020.
Let’s make 2021 a better year!
See you next year!
Toronto musician Paul Cafcae released his album Miss July on October 23, 2020.
11 tracks of upbeat vibes of folk bluesy rock music.
About the album: “While playing at the Toronto Beaches Jazz Festival during a break between sets I was talking to a guitarist from another band. And he told me a story that began with these words: ‘I once had a girl she was 6 foot 3.’ It immediately fell into the rhythm with me so later that night when I got home I laid a quick and dirty draft track with three verses. The chorus then came naturally as a means to tie in the awkwardness of these seemingly mismatched relationships. It’s the first time that I’ve tried to keep the music very light, maybe even cheesy, while navigating a very sensitive social issue of body shaming. I like to put positive social messages in my songs but they are usually veiled with metaphors and euphemisms. This one is more direct: love is love, and nothing else matters!”
Miss July gets: /10.
Previously posted awhile back.
Today is the release of Filipina-Canadian singer-songwriter based in Toronto named Jenn Nucum with her debut album called Revival.
9 tracks filled with raw emotional music about navigating life as a diasporic queer woman of colour, with deconstructing complex fabric of identity with dreamy and ambient alternative rock melodies, honest lyrics, and emotive vocals.
This is one of these album where POC can really look up to and feel empowered to make their own music.
Rone is electronic producer Erwan Castex, and his fifth album is titled Room With A View which is out today and marks a major moment in the Frenchman’s career.
The album was produced alongside a live show commissioned by the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris and developed together with choreography collective (LA) HORDE and 20 dancers of the Ballet National de Marseille.
This new kind of collaborative approach allowed Rone to produce his most sincere and far-reaching music in some time.
Inspired by discussions of collapsologie and climate change, Room With A View offers food for thought on how to deal with one of the most pressing issues of humanity.
Room With A View sees Rone returning to his musical roots and the set-up of his early albums: purely electronic, solitarily conceived without any musical collaborators. At the same time, he was able to leave his comfort zone through a new kind of artistic liaison.
The production of the corresponding show inspired the album and vice versa, one fed into the other.
Room With A View works perfectly as a standalone album, still the outcome is a firmly intertwined piece of modern dance and electronic music that comes with a more serious goal than mere musical innovation.
After receiving carte blanche by the Théâtre du Châtelet, Rone chose to work with choreography collective (LA) HORDE because he admired their political and DIY approach as well as their ability to communicate a subject through movement of bodies. In France, the term “collapsologie“ is ubiquitous, meaning a school of thought that predicts the end of the world as we know it. Natural disasters everywhere and courageous kids united through “Fridays For Future“ remind us of the threat of climate change and urge us to act. Room With A View is a reflection on this. “I want to start a conversation without teaching a lesson,“ Erwan Castex describes the thoughts behind it. “We are all part of the problem, so we should all be part of the solution. The show will probably raise more questions than it can answer, but that is okay.“
Room With A View was written and produced in 2019 within nine months. Its foundation was laid during a stay at the former house of writer George Sand in the rural area of Nohant. It has become a habit for Rone to leave his home, family and friends behind for a while when working on new music. This time he happened to choose the place where Frédéric Chopin composed a third of his music. Some of the albums track titles reference trees in the mansion’s garden, others point to environmental themes or nod to the development of the dance piece. Musically, Rone manages to let his trademark sound shine in a new light, pleasing early fans as well as every electronica enthusiast. Typically melodic beats like “Ginkgo Biloba“ nestle against tracks that exhibit classic influences from Boards of Canada (“La Marbrerie“) to SAW-era Aphex Twin (“Raverie“), euphoric dancefloor rhythms sit next to contemplative synth work.
Tracks like “Sophora Japonica“ showcase Rone’s mastership in atmosphere, which sometimes requires no drums at all. Elsewhere, Rone is clearly reviving the club-centric vibe of “Tohu Bohu“ and experimenting with elements of dub. It all makes for and adventurous and rewarding listen.
Most importantly, Rone is redefining the notion of “organic“ in electronic music through use of field and voice recordings. Be it his own child chattering, Aurelien Barrau or Alain Damasio debating, or the dance troupe rehearsing and discussing the show – because the writing process of the album was very machine focused, it seemed appropriate to feed back a human touch into the music and to still have bodies involved. Thus “Esperanza“ uses the steps of the dancers as a rhythm to start a new track, while in “Human“ they serve as a choir. This idea of extended human collaboration becomes apparent also on the album cover.
The title Room With A View is quite open, offering many different readings. It has personal connotations for Rone, but it’s also connected to how we observe phenomena in the modern world. Whether through small screens or social networks, everyone is an observer. Everyone has their own perspective on the world, and thus the power to change it. This is the message Rone is sharing while observing from his own room.
The long awaited TOPS‘ fourth album I Feel Alive has come out today on their own label Musique Tops distributed through House Arrest.
This is probably their strongest album to date with its cool breezy indie pop music.
Has a mix of moody soft pop rock from the 70s and that synth-new wave pop 80s.
They are a cool band without knowing how cool they are.
It is one these albums that we need some uplifting at the moment.
About the album: The image captures the fraught nature of being alive, which the 11 tracks on the album explore.
Penny’s remarkably expressive voice is front and center. On this record more than any other,she sings with passion and energy, without sacrificing the honesty and introspection that gives her voice its depth. The songs cover a range of experiences but at it’s heart
I Feel Alive is a record about resilience, the ways we can grow from for our pain and the strength that comes from learning to stand on your own as an individual.
Best tracks:
Direct Sunlight
(Despite what we are dealing with at the moment. Do support them whatever you can!) Taylor McCluskey is an actor and musician from Sacramento, California.
Dropped his fourth album called Star Gold which is 14 tracks of good rocking music.
Describes it as “the full monty”, with each track featuring adrenaline-infused/turbo-thrusted/magnetic-radar/ echoes of love.
Musically, it’s akin to a sonic film, from the beginning, middle and end of the album.
To describe its sound as a whole, it feels as if Stoner Rock, Pop and Country had a “love child from another planet” and the result was Star God. The album’s themes range from love and loss, Good and evil.
Tracks such as Heartache and The Pain and Medicate really stand out as they deal with themes of alcohol and drug abuse, but more importantly overcoming these issues that can plague oneself.
(Despite what we are dealing with at the moment. Do support them whatever you can!)
There is a lot of hype surrounding Dana Gavanski.
Releasing her debut album called Yesterday Is Gone on Flemish Eye Recordsfor Canada and Full Time Hobby for outside of Canada.
She sounds like a mix of Angel Olsen, Weyes Blood and Andy Shauf.
It is an impressive debut that makes you grab hold of your emotions when listening to her music of love and heartbreak.
Basia Bulat wants to ask you, “Are You In Love?”.
Critically acclaimed singer-songwriter Basia Bulat joined forces once again with Jim James (My Morning Jacket) on the fifth album, Are You In Love? out on Secret City Records.
As always this is a lovely records of falling in and out of love.
Basia’s vocals is beautiful and full of emotions in songs like Are You In Love?, No Control and
It is so not easy to fall in love with her music.
A stellar album for those in love or getting over a break-up.
OK this is the best album of 2020! U.S. Girls‘ Heavy Light is the seventh album and is a big departure music/vocal wise.
Thought-provoking with the themes covered and brilliance to the output with it being a vocal driven album.
The reworking on Overtime, State House and the fan favourite Red Ford Radio brings more life and meaning.
I just can’t stop listening to it!
The long awaited album by Caribou called Suddenly came out on February 28, 2020.
It has been about 5 years since his last release which was Our Love.
While Dan Snaith has been focusing in being a father and doing other projects like Daphni.
Suddenly has been a long time coming for his fans.
Certain tracks in the album has that fluttery ambient feel and there are some that seems very mainstream with the sampling on the leading single Home and New Jade.
Suddenly is the most surprising and unpredictable Caribou album to date.
Though it retains the trademark Caribou warmth and technicolor, this album is littered with swerves and left turns.
Songs drop out and morph into something else entirely just as they’re hitting their stride, samples chopped up beyond all recognition burst out of nowhere.
