NORTHERN EXPOSURE: The Polaris Prize Predictions

So here we are, today is one of the biggest days in Canadian music. The day that The Polaris Music Prize is awarded. This article is going to be pretty simple, I’m just going to go through all of the shortlisted albums and give my opinion of them along with what I think the chances are of the album winning. So without further ado, here we go (in alphabetical order).

Cadence Weapon - Hope In Dirt City

Rollie Pemberton A.K.A. Cadence Weapon’s latest album is again another solid release from the Edmonton MC. I think it’s an all around solid release, Rollie has his moments of cleverness like on the track “Hype Man” and the production is consistent on the whole. The problem is that I’m not really ever wowed by Hope In Dirt City. For that reason I don’t think it will win. There is the off chance that the jury might decide this is the year to finally award the prize to a hip-hop album but I highly doubt it.




Cold Specks - I Predict A Graceful Expulsion

This is an album that grew on me throughout repeated listens. Al Spx’s Cold Specks project’s debut album is a dark, brooding, but at the same time uplifting affair. But perhaps the most stunning part of this album is Spx’s voice. Her deep croon is unlike most female singers, including any that are on the shortlist. I think she’ll be in tough competition but will have an outside chance at winning the prize. It’s possible that she could fall in behind Grimes if the prize goes to a female artist.





Drake - Take Care

This is probably the most interesting album on the shortlist because of how popular it is. Historically the prize has gone to acts that weren't really in the eye of mainstream culture until last year when Arcade Fire won. There was a small backlash from people who thought Arcade Fire was “too popular” to win, so if Drake were to win that backlash would probably be off the charts. That said, I don’t think Drake should win. Take Care has it’s share of highlights but over it’s (too long) 80 minutes there ends up being more middling material than great material. I think if some tracks were left off Take Care it would have been a way better album.


Kathleen Edwards - Voyageur

This is another album that grew on me, but not really enough for me to consider it worthy of winning the prize. Voyageur features a lot of great melodies and just plain good songwriting. I also came to love the instrumentation. It’s pretty obvious that Justin Vernon had an influence on this album (he produced Voyageur). Even though this is a good album, I still feel like it’s a bit too plain to be a winner. I think winning albums should be adventurous and I feel like Voyageur really sticks to a familiar formula. So although it’s nice, there is nothing very unique about it.



Feist - Metals

Feist’s name carries a lot of weight in Canadian music and I don’t really feel like Metals lives up to the reputation that she has built. Honestly, Metals is kind of boring to me. I don’t really hear much on Metals in the way of hooks or melodies and the instrumentation feels a little bit bare to me. I can’t help but think that Metals is on the shortlist because of Feist’s name more than anything. I don’t think there is much of a chance of her winning when a similar artist like Cold Specks produced what I think is a better record.




Fucked Up - David Comes To Life

Fucked Up are the only previous Polaris winners on this year's shortlist and I think they have a pretty good chance of become the first ever two-time winners. I think David Comes To Life is probably the most ambitious album on this year's shortlist because of the album long storyline and the bombastic and overall uplifting songs. It’s an 80 minute album that actually warrants an 80 minute running time (unlike Take Care). Since Fucked Up are already in the good graces of the people involved in the prize there is a decent chance they they could win, but their previous victory could work against them.



Grimes - Visions

If I have to be blunt about it, I’ll say that I really, really dislike this album. Almost every song on Visions meanders without really going anywhere and the album overall just sounds very cheap. Even though I think that, Grimes might be the front runner. It’s impossible to ignore the hype and buzz that she’s gotten around the internet is 2012. There isn’t any denying that critics seem to love her. If I was betting I’d probably begrudgingly put my money on Grimes.





Handsome Furs - Sound Kapital

This album is unique because Handsome Furs actually aren’t even together anymore. I’m not sure if that might get them some sympathy points with the jury, but I doubt it will make much of a difference because they probably wouldn’t win anyway. Sound Kaptial is a likeable dance tinged rocker but to me it lacks a lot of the cold and rigid intensity that made me love their first two albums so much. It would be really interesting to see Handsome Furs win though, I’m willing to be it would be one of the only times that a broken up band won a major music prize.




Japandroids - Celebration Rock

What Japandroids produce is balls to the wall, non-stop rock music. Even though their alcohol soaked summer youth anthems can seem a little bit childish, they’re delivered with so much energy that I couldn’t really care. I’d say this duo has an outside chance of winning the prize but in the rock album category I think they’ll end up falling behind Fucked Up. That being said, Celebration Rock was almost unanimously heralded among critics and since it came out in so close to the deadline for the prize the buzz from Celebration Rock should still be fresh in peoples minds.



Yamantaka // Sonic Titan - YT//ST

This is the album I think deserves to win. It blends so many different genres from quirky J-pop to harsh and heavy metal. They created something that is totally unique which is exactly what I think the prize should be awarded for. They’re probably the most unkown band on the shortlist which could bode well for them after the (the extremely well known) Arcade Fire’s win last year. I think they have a decent shot of winning too. Maybe my perceptions are distorted because I love the album so much but jurors shouldn’t be able to deny that Yamantaka // Sonic Titan are doing something that no other bands on the shortlist are.



So there you have it, agree or disagree with me? Then let me know in the comments or you can reach me on twitter @Mark__Gillis. If you want to watch the gala you can watch the livestream tonight over at MuchMusic or you can listen to the gala over at CBC Radio 3. It all gets underway at 8PM.

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NORTHERN EXPOSURE: Yamantaka // Sonic Titan

(Northern Exposure is a feature where Mark incessantly rambles about music from his home country of Canada.)

Yamantaka // Sonic Titan are a bit of a mystery even when you just look at their name. I’ve come across more than a few people who think the band is some kind of collaboration between Yamantaka Eye of Boredoms and some band named Sonic Titan. However, that isn’t the case at all. Yamantaka // Sonic Titan is the music project of Alaska B and Ruby Kato Attwood. The two Asian-Canadians, who formed the band in 2007 after meeting at Concordia University in Montreal, come off as a bit of an enigma to me. Between their unique mixture of a number of music genres and their crazy live show complete with face paint, these girls are a duo to be reckoned with.

To date Yamantaka // Sonic Titan have only released one studio album titled YT//ST which was released in 2011 (and was reviewed by Steve over here). As Steve mentions, the music that Yamantaka // Sonic Titan is making is completely unique. This uniqueness is mostly a consequence of mixing so many genres like prog-rock, J-pop, noise music, psychedelic music and even some hints of metal. The duo has cleverly dubbed their sound as “noh-wave”. On paper, the result sounds like it could be a complete mess, but instead what you get on YT//ST is half an hour of focused songs that vary from beautiful to brutal, and everything in between. To top things off, YT//ST was shortlisted for The 2012 Polaris Prize which will be awarded on September 24, 2012.

Maybe the best thing about Yamantaka // Sonic Titan is that their best is obviously yet to come. While they managed to fit a what seems like a lot of music into only half an hour on YT//ST, their style is one that is meant for long-winded jams and dense operatic tracks. I’m willing to bet that whatever kind of album Yamantaka // Sonic Titan releases next, it will be seen as a progression and growth from YT//ST.

Even though I’ve never seen Yamantaka // Sonic Titan live before, I’ve heard nothing but good things from anybody who has seen them, just have a look for yourself down below. Any band that has face paint reminiscent of Kiss and weird dancing garbage bags are at least going to put on a visual spectacle even if they don’t wow you with their music (which they will).

Yamantaka // Sonic Titan just recently released a new song as part of the Adult Swim singles series (which you can download over here). The song it titled “Lamia” and it showcases the more heavy and sludgy side that we head on the latter half of YT//ST. They could decide to go in a number of different directions with their next album, but if it ends up sounding a lot like “Lamia” then I think they could do a lot worse.

Some even more exciting news came this week for Yamantaka // Sonic Titan when they announced their signing to Paper Bag Records (who I did a Northern Exposure feature on a while ago over here). This only strengthens Paper Bag’s artist roster and it will give Yamantaka // Sonic Titan some well deserved exposure. In my opinion it’s a win for both sides.

Paper Bag will be reissuing YT//ST for a release on September 11, 2012. There isn’t any word yet on it a new album should be expected in the near future, but whenever it does come we should all be in for a treat.

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ALBUM REVIEW: YAMANTAKA // SONIC TITAN - YT//ST

By Steve Jones.

YAMANTAKA // SONIC TITAN is the project of Canadian performance artists alaska B and Ruby Kato Attwood. YT//ST is their first collection of music, released in October of 2011. It holds 7 songs and lasts 31 minutes.

One real strength of YAMANTAKA // SONIC TITAN is that I can say with relative confidence that no other music groups are doing the same thing right now. YT//ST is a strange and wonderful amalgam of classic prog rock, noise, psychedelia, and Japanese popular music new and old. It's a short, half-hour long story, but it is packed with ideas and adventures, and it continues to sound fresh even after you've played it on repeat a dozen times in a row.

I don't have too many head-banging records, but this is definitely one of them. It is satisfyingly heavy throughout, with the drumming deserving of particular attention, but it keeps finding new ways to be heavy so as not to be overbearing and boring. I also want to stress just how good this album is at adhering to the spirit of classic prog, because not many new records do. "Queens" most fits this bill, with a snaking melody driven by an electric organ before the rock instrumentation takes over. There's even Baroque keyboard noodling in "Reverse Crystal // Murder of a Spider" that would sound right at home in a Renaissance or King Crimson or Gentle Giant song. But what really excites me about YAMANTAKA // SONIC TITAN's sound is this sense that it finds itself where prog and theatre meet. The band is influenced by noh theatre (calling themselves "noh wave" [he he]), and this fusion most brings to my mind the works that J.A. Seazer composed for Shuji Terayama's underground experimental Tenjo Sajiki theatre from 1970s Japan. In case I need to remind you, I love J.A. Seazer, and creating a modern band with similar operatic prog vibes is one of the best things you can do to guarantee my attention.

What is a little disappointing about the album, and which naturally follows, is the sense that I am only getting a small fragment of the whole story and whole experience. There's only so much information that can be held by a single LP, and YT//ST amounts to just a snapshot of alaska and Attwood's larger operatic ambitions. No doubt this is music ultimately meant to be heard in a live setting, but it still congeals together into an exciting half hour on plastic.



If I had to choose a favorite song, it would be "Hoshi Neko." I do enjoy me some J-pop, and "Hoshi Neko" is enjoyable in the way that it plays up a lot of J-pop elements to such a degree that they become affectionately satirical. Similar to the way much of J-pop takes western pop elements and amps them up to 11, this song goes in the reverse direction. The result is a narrative about a "star cat" that has a choral hook consisting of the phrase "watashi wa!", which is one of the first things you learn in elementary Japanese (it just about translates to "I am"). These cutesy, simplistic elements are still supported by a very strong pop song with an excellent chord progression and heavy arrangement. Whatever its intention, the song communicates a sense of fun which is found throughout the album.

What makes it all even better is the fact that the album's most pop-soaked song is followed by 7 minutes of pure noise rock. "A Star Over Pureland" contains shredding guitars, crashing drums, wailing voices, and a relentless assault of sound that at one point brings in a descending bell line which totally ties the song together. Honestly, the first time I saw their band name I thought the "Yamantaka" was a reference to eYe of Boredoms fame, and this track is representative of the kind of sound I expected from the album. I am glad that YT//ST is a much more ambitious and more satisfying work than a bit of Boredoms worship, but I am also glad that it has enough variety and competence to explore this sound. It's the longest track, but it feels like the shortest.

This is a hard review to write. In some part, I want to atone for not hearing this album when it was released ten months ago. I thank Mark for choosing it as a recent Album of the Week on our forums, because it is, in so many ways, music that seems specifically tailored towards appealing to me. And I guess I find it difficult to communicate why other people might like it due to the fact that I love it so viscerally. YT//ST is a magical experience for me, and there's only so much I can dissect about it. It's one of the best things I've heard from 2011, and I cannot tell you how pleased I am to see it on the Polaris Prize short list. YAMANTAKA // SONIC TITAN are the dark horse I'm rooting for.

YT//ST is a brilliant, unique, artful statement of appealing weirdness and accessible inventiveness. I can only hope it is a herald of many more things to come.

Score: Decent 9

Bandcamp it up, for my sake:



(Steve Jones wants to participate in any kind of theatrical venture involving star kittens. If you have any leads, hit him up at his Twitter @vestenet.)

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