Today’s Sounds: Blu & Exile

There is nothing lazier in music journalism than comparative analysis. You know the type: “This is better than II but not as good as III.”
In this case, that would be elephant-in-a-room-a-vision. The MC/producer team’s 2007 debut LP, Below the Heavens, entered the chamber with a humble 3,000-copy run and soared to top-shelf status on word of mouth and digital do-wrongery, becoming probably the most classic rap album no one actually owns a copy of — including, as of early 2011, Exile himself.

The XX bust the difficult second album myth

If you were as enamoured with the XX’s eponymous debut album as I was, you too had reason to worry about the follow-up. Would the guitar and vocal box-step between Romy Madley Croft and Oliver Sim be as dead cool and sexually tense? Would Jamie Smith (aka Jamie XX)’s spectral atmosphere and sparse production be as seductive? Could their second LP possibly have the impact its predecessor did?
What a relief. It’s been three days since the record’s release, and I imagine that you and Coexist are already in each other’s clutches.

Parisian Laundry Presents Two New Exhibits

Rick Leong’s “The Singing Tree” The Parisian Laundry continues to support innovative Canadian artists with its latest double exhibition: Rick Leong’s Hybrid Vigour and Dean Baldwin’s Lime Eyes. Leong’s series Hybrid Vigour is a spectacular collection of large oil paintings, lush with greenery and animals that harmonize with the sky around them. Sometimes hazy, sometimes […]

Kickstarting a many-media adventure

Steve Hardy still likes getting stuff in the mail. That’s perhaps why he was struck by his business partner’s 5-year-old son being completely perplexed by the concept of mail — when his father said they’d received some letters, the child corrected him by saying, “It’s email, not mail.”

Kumaré: Spiritual Prankster

Writer/director/prankster Vikram Gandhi posed as a guru to make fun of human gullibility. Then he got real followers with real issues. This funny and thought-provoking documentary shows what happened next.

Walk Off the Earth lay on the charm at Club Soda

Fronted by singers and multi-instrumentalists Sarah Blackwood, Gianni Luminati and Ryan Marshall, Walk Off the Earth came to public consciousness when their five-person, one-guitar cover of Gotye’s “Somebody That I Used to Know” earned them over 134 million YouTube views (and an appearance on Ellen).
Not bad, for what is more or less a glorified — though very talented (and completely adorable) — pop cover band.
Online views of subsequent videos of cover songs have reached into the millions but haven’t spurred the online virality of the Gotye song. Regardless, Walk Off the Earth is using the hype to finally record and release original material, some of which was welcomed warmly last night by throngs of screaming girls.

Bullhead: Here’s the Beef

Oscar-nominated Belgian drama Bullhead successfully mashes up dark drama and crime thriller, set in the heretofore unexplored world of illegal beef-hormone trafficking.

Five reasons to take your kid apple picking

Montrealers know how to make the most of every season, and the coming of the fall — sorry for using the F-word — brings with it a whole new list of cheap, kid-friendly stuff to do. The apple-picking season has begun, so here are five reasons to put your tam tams and white pants back into storage and head to the orchards with your children in tow.

Friday, Sept. 14

* Ladyhawke resurrect ’80s power pop
* ’40s-style glam is in effect at the Vintage Hair & Makeup workshop
* Dominique Pétrin’s mind-melting art
* Improv smackdown
* A Clockwork Orange with original droog Malcolm McDowell
* Spike plays guitar!
* Cult parties! And drinks! Again!

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