(Leisure Thief) CD
Essentially a revisit of Lee Huztulak’s last ten years of musical meandering and collaboration; Scarlet Lake collects tracks recorded and manipulated both digitally and on a 4-track. At times profusely reminiscent of Akron/Family’s self-titled debut (a group to which he warmly tips his hat), the vocals teeter somewhere between Mark Lanegan & Ariel Pink, while the music treads the sublime line between discordant experimentation & graceful melodies. Many of the tracks were born here in Victoria (Huztulak’s past home) & sound of the time when summer slips into fall & the island air seems to return from alien to indigenous. Like the mood encapsulated by Grizzly Bear, Scarlet Lake seems to capture the transition from one season to another & the melancholy & euphoria that comes with it.
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2 September 2008 by Tara Campbell
| Local, Pop / Rock
(Old Life) CD
A genuine article of note within the confines of our fun little shanty town here on Vancouver Island! Old Life Records is a meshed web of some of Victoria’s most promising new-ish groups. Swapping roles, instruments, vocal duties, styles, vibes, clothes & hi-fives, the Old Life camp inevitably recall Broken Social Scene’s tendril-like sprawl of indie-rock & some of it’s fun cousins. Label big guns Dreamboat, Colourbook, Cobras Cobras Cobras & Balacade feature here (all in fine form), but Vol. 2 also illuminates the talents of (relative) newcomers Onaping Falls, The Macadamia Brothers, Blanck, Mount Royal & Almonds, Cohen. Quiet folky ballads, twee-pop, dancey electro, laptop ditties & good ol’ rockin racket all appear here. We’re excited to hear what this collective produces over the next little while.
PS – the comp is only $3.00!
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1 July 2008 by Chris Long
| Local, Pop / Rock
