AMY MILLAN

Amy Millan sings, plays and writes in Stars and Broken Social Scene. For three years and over three studios, when not touring the world she wrote and recorded songs outside of her role within a band setting. Toronto weekly paper Now Magazine, having just voted Amy “Toronto’s Best Female Singer” declared, “in terms of sheer vocal ability, Amy Millan’s remarkable voice steals the award – a note-perfect mezzosoprano that flutters between girlishly flirtatious and huskily lonesome melancholy.”

APOSTLE OF HUSTLE

'National Anthem of Nowhere’ is for everyone who feels that they have no voice or can’t be heard. They hear this title and something stirs inside them. Then they hear this song and they feel that they “know” it. They meet strangers in nowhere places and will never forget those meetings. They wander out into the suburban, in-between zones and there they are welcomed

ARCADE FIRE

The band worked and played and worked, and as Christmas 2006 approached the recording was finished. NEON BIBLE was full of both half-assed punk rock mistakes and meticulously orchestrated woodwinds. Processed strings and mandolin. Quiet rumbles and loud rumbles. But mostly just eleven songs that the band thinks are really good. And that might be of some public interest. So, on with 2007.

BLACK MOUNTAIN

With the self titled debut album of Canadian art collective Black Mountain, City Slang delivers one of the most extraordinary, complex and adorable records in 2005.

BLACKMAIL

BLACKMAIL found each other at the end of 1993 at a time when it still made sense for musicians to advertise for members in the scene’s magazines. In 1997 their self-titled debut album was released on a local label and by February 1999 the band had released the follw-up”Science Fiction”. Both records were suitably celebrated, there were non-stop tours throughout the country and guess what happened? A major label pulled out its chequebook. ...

BROKEN SOCIAL SCENE

BROKEN SOCIAL SCENE our Canadian indie-collective, have finished a new album, the most challenging record in their history, a masterpiece of morbid beauty, this is what they want to say about it: “This new record is about us. It's about fears. It's a record about fear within the world. The first two were about hope, and let's go and challenge that. This is about standing still and choking on all of this.”

This record is what you hear in your head before collapsing. The weird humming sound that gets louder and louder until you feel your ears explode and than it’s all black and your nose is bleeding and you’re lying on the floor, it’s just you, darkness and the sound of your heartbeat and blood and you surrender into it, you give up and this takes the weight of your chest fort he first time and it feels so good.

BSS PRESENTS KEVIN DREW

This is only the beginning...

CALEXICO

Yes, you heard right! The new album is finished! 2008 will finally see the release of the follow up to CALEXICOS masterpiece GARDEN RUIN.

CARIBOU

“I've always made music for the escapist thrill,” confides Dan ‘Caribou’ Snaith. “I think my music looks inwards for some escapism from the world, rather than outwards.” Frankly, we don’t blame him. Gritty urban reality? Um, no thanks! We’ll have a double helping of the escapist thrills, please. On this, his fourth album, London-based, Canadian ex-pat Caribou emerges with his most wonderfully dense and moving album to date, the giddy delights of Andorra.

GET WELL SOON

City Slang welcomes GET WELL SOON. The band, a six, seven or eight piece on the live stage, is essentially one man, Konstantin Gropper, from Mannheim of all places. Konstantin grew up on all kinds of musical instruments, learned to play the cello at the age of five. Played in orchestras all his live. Until the electric guitar came along...

GOLDRUSH

Goldrush have spent the past few years dipping in and out of the Oxford, England countryside: building a studio, starting a record label, running a festival, touring the world; along with the small matter of writing a set of songs with inspiration far from the current climate: Legends like Neil Young, Nick Drake and The Band, and more recent American innovators like Grandaddy and Mercury Rev.

JASON COLLETT

Most singer/songwriters are lonely souls with only a stool, an acoustic guitar and a heart-worn sleeve. Not Jason Collett. Oh sure, the Broken Social Scene guitarist has his instrument and a stack of intimate tales to tell—but his new solo album, Idols of Exile, sounds more like a house party.

JUSTINE ELECTRA

Justine Electra stands near the oven heater, alert and feline, in her Australian army pants and faux-fur coat. At times a wide-eyed young girl, at others a coarse-mouthed poet, this girl's presence is undeniable. Her sweet sounding folk style is belied by an undertow of someone suspended between nostalgia for the past, and uncertainty before a glimmering future. Hers are songs of hope shot through with darkness, bright love serenades drawing shadows behind them. Justine Electra's blue-toned voice is an instrument of extraordinary versatility and power: it sings, drawls, lures and drowns the listener in a world of glistening perfection where the delicious and the dangerous are never far apart.

KURT WAGNER

The leader of the mighty Lambchop will go at it alone this fall. Please check the Tourdates section for the dates!

LAMBCHOP

"From it's alternative country beginnings, Lambchop has morphed into something far grander - a lush orchestral act, one part Lee Hazlewood, one part Curtis Mayfield and one part John Barry."
WALLPAPER

MALAJUBE

Malajube is a Canadian pop-rock quintet that in 2004 quietly impressed hungry listeners with their debut record Le Compte Complet and more recently has drawn a wide amount of praise for their second album Trompe-l’Oeil, springing out of the already artistically rich local music scene, with their unique and original sound.

MENOMENA

"Friend and Foe" shines Northwest indie
songcraft through a Chicago post-rock lens, illuminating the quiet recesses with an unpredictable,
experimental light.

NADA SURF

Having survived and thrived, Nada Surf indeed has a lot to feel lucky about. After listening to this new album, though, it becomes clear that we are really the fortunate ones.

O'DEATH

New York outfit O’Death’s third LP, Broken Hymns, Limbs and Skin, feels like a giddy junkyard hoedown, from the panicked fiddle screeches of opener “Low Tide” to the celebratory gallop of closer “Lean-To.” At times it sounds morose or contemplative, but underneath the melancholy is a gospel fervor—bashed from paint buckets, banjos, guitars and anything else in kicking distance—that defines their sound.

PANTHERS

They are probably the most untypical New York band ever and at the same time they embody the spirit of this city more than any of the westcoast cokeheads that moved there. They are furious libertines, who fight for freedom of speech and thought ... and they are the first band in years that coat the words "I disagree" in thick layers of heavy riffage, the biggest wall of sound since God helped out with the horns of Jericho.

PINK MOUNTAINTOPS

Pink Mountaintops is Stephen Mcbean (and also many of his friends when the full band is assembled to play live). Mcbean has been in numerous groups over the last two decades. Most recently, his psych-tinged maximal rock group Black Mountain captured a great amount of critical acclaim with their debut record.

PORT O`BRIEN

May we (for once) quote Billboard Magazine. Usually not the bible of frenetically played folk rock:
"Bay Area five-piece Port O'Brien has already shared stages with Bright Eyes and Modest Mouse without having a full-length to its name. That'll change this summer when the band will release its first record, "All We Could Do Was Sing," a collection of folk-tinged songs loosely involving the sea. But sea shanties these ain't, mate. Port O'Brien crafts beautiful, melodic tunes that utilize string instruments to their fullest. And the group is not afraid to rock out: "Pigeonhold" has it grinding down on guitars and "I Woke Up Today" revels in an Arcade Fire-style energy."

RADIO 4

"Radio 4 evoke the Clash, Wire, Les Savy Fav and neo-new wave, jamming epileptic rhythms with chunks of white noise to get a restlessly eclectic sound." ALTERNATIVE PRESS

SCHNEIDER TM

SCHNEIDER TM is really Dirk Dresselhaus. The name stems from a party joke that you just wouldn't understand. His first album MOIST is one of the most influential German Electronic records of the last decade. He has toured the US with Les Savy Fav & the Faint, his Smiths cover "The Light 3000" even turned my grandmother onto Electronica, he's workaholic, a visionary, a genius and a pretty normal guy that happens to come by your house to play you his new songs on the kitchen stereo.

SONGS FOR THE YOUNG AT HEART

“Songs for the Young At Heart” is an enchanting side project bought to you by Dave Boulter and Stuart Staples of the Tindersticks. Inspired by memories from their childhood of music from the radio, school room and television, “Songs for the Young at Heart” features the sunny, simple, dark and sad songs from the halcyon days of school holidays and endless summer afternoons...

SOPHIA

Sophia is the band of Robin Proper-Sheppard, who is an extremely gifted and unique songwriter, a master at crafting mournful, intimate songs. He first made a name for himself with the cult band The God Machine, and later with SOPHIA, which has released three full length studio albums and one live album.

STARS

After spending two years touring the world in support of the internationally acclaimed, gold selling album Set Yourself On Fire, Stars set to work writing and recording their fourth studio album. In Our Bedroom After The War was recorded at the Warehouse Studios in Vancouver, BC and was mixed by Joe Chiccarelli (Morrissey, The Shins, The White Stripes).

THE ALBUM LEAF

Jimmy LaValle is a classically-trained and prolific pianist and musician, whose ambitious projects have involved San Diego’s seminal ambient piano-rock outfit Tristeza, the noise punk of The Locust, the beat-driven GoGoGo Airheart and the gloomy, brooding epic-core outfit Black Heart Procession.

THE JAI-ALAI SAVANT

Chicago-by-way-of-Philly trio THE JAI-ALAI SAVANT (pronounced hi-a-lie- sa-vant) have been active since 2002. Their list of influences are vast and their sound eclectic, but it's their reggae-slanted post-punk roots that take the foreground in the most recent music of the band. Their genre-bending pop compositions coupled with an obvious love of bass culture have drawn comparisons to everyone from the Clash to The Police, Trench mouth and Fugazi. Groove-oriented and accessible yet still engaging and challenging to the idea of what punk-derivative music should sound like is what makes THE JAI-ALAI SAVANT a breath of fresh air in an otherwise stale and hype-driven world of independent rock music.

THE MOST SERENE REPUBLIC

City Slang got new friends: They're called arts&crafts and you might already know them, cause of former releases by Broken Social Scene and Stars. In January 2006 (very fresh young thing!) a&c opened a European office in Berlin with City Slang. So you have to check the first release - THE MOST SERENE REPUBLIC:

THE NOTWIST

The Notwist emerged from their famed Weilheim roots almost 20 years ago. Back in 1989 their sound was fuelled by a visceral sonic aesthetic more readily associated with hardcore Metal than with the musically diverse, widescreen productions that made their 2002 album “Neon Golden” their biggest commercial and critical success to date.

TO ROCOCO ROT

Their stated aim has always been the transfer of electronic music from the club to everyday life, in which music in its fleeting, non tangible form becomes something more concrete. It's an almost impressionistic style, one in which slight traces are the very heart of the sound. And here it works better than ever before to create a blueprint for a new music, neither abstract nor heavy handed, neither ambient or overbearing. TO ROCOCO ROT's music is gentle, dreamlike, graceful, utterly engaging and endlessly imaginative, and after six years influencing and inspiring the likes of Leftfield and Bjork it is ready to penetrate a world as widescreen as its intentions.