Tuning, the latest album by Halifax band Mauno, explores the emotional connections we form through music, relationships, and everyday experiences. Inspired by “The Soundscape”, a book written by musicologist R. Murray Schafer about our sonic environments and listening to the little things in our everyday lives, Tuning takes the theories discussed in the book and applies them to the bands’ own personal experiences and relationships. Theories on sonic environments and their effects on the human psyche not your thing? Fear not, Tuning takes a light-hearted approach while delivering a pop-rock album full of catchy riffs, solid melodies, and light-hearted lyrics. Continue reading New Music: Mauno Create An Auditory Kaleidoscope With Their Latest Album, ‘Tuning’
Tag Archives: Album Review
New Music: Starving Ghosts’ Hauntingly Beautiful ‘Une Année à Moncton’
When JE Sheehy isn’t shredding strings for Fredericton based hard-rock band, Deep Fryer, he apparently spends his time as a reclusive solo artist, specializing in ambient instrumentals. A triple threat of creativity, to his credit, Sheehy is not only a musician but also a bilingual journalist and radio host. Over the course of the last year, Sheehy has been releasing a series of singles and EP’s under the aptly titled moniker of Starving Ghosts. In December these tracks will be collected for the first time outside of SoundCloud, to form a proper album, released via local New Brunswick label, Bored Coast Records. Continue reading New Music: Starving Ghosts’ Hauntingly Beautiful ‘Une Année à Moncton’
New Music: Steve Haley Channels Neil Young In ‘Heat Vision’
Steve Haley’s Heat Vision is a group effort and a pure example of the confluence of camaraderie and musicianship. Part musical ode to the confabulations of apocalyptic fantasy, to the portent of dreams and to wild imagination, it reads like a bittersweet map of friendship, loss and the end of the world. Assembled from the parts of a small and vibrant music scene, in many senses the album is also an ode to place and space. It becomes easy to picture how the marshlands and mudflats of Sackville N.B., whose unbroken and foggy symmetries impart both a surreal sense of isolation and togetherness and of centrality and terminus could have helped to inspire the morphing and hypnagogic lyrics that flow through Heat Vision like a waking dream. Continue reading New Music: Steve Haley Channels Neil Young In ‘Heat Vision’
New Music: Brent Mason’s ‘High Water Mark’ Might Be His Best And Most Controversial Album
The painterly and textural artwork of Brent Mason’s new album High Water Mark looks like it could be the cover of a modal jazz re-release or the opening image to the latest cello suites by Yo-Yo Ma. However, it is inarguably a grassroots work of Maritime folk. The elegant and abstract wash of deep blues and greens sets the emotional queue for the album and the colour and feel of the music itself. It is a laid back and mellowed effort that genre hops with a gentle effortlessness, subtly bridging east coast fiddle music, country, bluegrass, rock, blues and, of course, folk sensibilities. Moving between upbeat head-shakers, ballads and slow-movers with ease, the tracks flow in and out between themselves almost seamlessly. It is clearly the thoughtful and intentional work of a musician who has matured in their efforts. With ten albums behind Brent Mason, one would hope to find nothing less. Continue reading New Music: Brent Mason’s ‘High Water Mark’ Might Be His Best And Most Controversial Album
New Music: AFTRR Debuts Self-Titled First Album As Halifax’s Newest Death-Metal Band
Nova Scotia has yet another strong player in the east coast metal scene. New to the community that has already produced the likes of Orchid’s Curse, Last Call Chernobyl and Black Moor, Halifax’s AFTRR is a relatively unknown entity whose self-titled first album will attract many ears with a daunting style of blackened death metal. Continue reading New Music: AFTRR Debuts Self-Titled First Album As Halifax’s Newest Death-Metal Band