JIMMIE KILPATRICK – JIMMIE

JIMMIE KILPATRICK – JIMMIE
April 11, 2025 by | | Posted in: Blog, Shotgun Jimmie 0

Jimmie Kilpatrick’s first full-length release in six year opens like an elevator door. It may lift you up, it may bring you down. Either way, Jimmie’s still Jimmie (he’s just not “Shotgun” anymore!)

Along with Kilpatrick, Jimmie (the album) features appearances by Ryan Peters (Ladyhawk), José Contreras (By Divine Right), Aaron Goldstein, Leanne Zacharias and Jenina MacGillivray.

Co-produced by Ryan Peters, the album utilizes sonic explorations from sound sculptures and installations, which Kilpatrick developed while working on an MFA under the supervision of seminal art rocker/artist Lee Ranaldo.

Such sounds are featured on the album’s lead single Satellite, which opens with the dulcet murmurers of a mechanically bowed electric guitar sculpture, as well as the boisterous swooping sounds of a tangerine-sized marble rolling along the strings of a robotic bass guitar.

Track one entitled Tape Loop, was recorded utilizing an epic fifteen-foot, six-player tape loop. With one player recording the sound of the other five players, as they amplify various points along the loop’s timeline, the installation worked like an accelerated Alvin Lucier I Am Sitting in a Room machine. With each rotation of the loop the recording degraded and shifted, reinforcing and amplifying dominant room-tones. Tape loop is an aural documentation of time and place but also holds analog technology as a metaphor for the human body – constantly decaying, from time to time in need of repair, and eventually dying.

From the recording methodologies to the lyrical content, Jimmie (the album) is a meditation on life, death, love and friendship.

Jimmie Kilpatrick – Jimmie
(YC-067)
LP/Digital

Tape Loop
Answering Machine
Sharpie
Garbage Gloves
Super Tonic
Satellite
Gum
Kindness Killers
Spark
Julia
Reprise
Ginger Shots

Available April 11, 2025

THE BURNING HELL – GHOST PALACE

THE BURNING HELL – GHOST PALACE
January 17, 2025 by | | Posted in: Blog, The Burning Hell 0

The Burning Hell have been writing party anthems about the apocalypse since before the apocalypse arrived at the party. With “Ghost Palace,” the band presents their most joyful collection of songs about death to date, always finding something to smile about in the decay. Mathias Kom’s maximalist lyrics are underlined with fluorescent highlighter, with surprising twists and turns through pop culture, animal life, history, architecture, and science fiction. Pathos and bathos vie for equal time, the sublime snuggling up with the trivial, revealing moments of humour and beauty in the mire.

But “Ghost Palace” doesn’t dwell directly on the end of the world. Instead, the songs assume that our time running out is a foregone conclusion, and focus instead on what we might leave behind when we go, what might endure, and what surprises might be found amidst the remnants. Memory and the debatable usefulness of nostalgia are primary concerns here, peppered with occasional suggestions that we just might still contain the tiny, hopeful seeds of our own redemption through community and balance.

Though the core of the band remains the duo of Mathias Kom and Ariel Sharratt, working from their home in the woods of eastern Prince Edward Island, frequent collaborator Jake Nicoll produced and mixed “Ghost Palace”, and newest band member Maria Peddle added fiddle and vocals. The band solicited additional help from Steven Lambke (lead guitar), Carlie Howell (double bass), Amy Nicoll (oboe) and José Contreras (organ).

“Ghost Palace” offers a densely layered journey, with genre-crossing elements and instrumentation, and frequent nods to unexpected influences. “Brazil Nuts and Blue Curaçao” is the band’s take on “Margaritaville” for the post-apocalyptic vacationer, a beach jam about an abandoned resort where – in spite of collapse and ruin – a kind of broken utopia emerges.

Elsewhere, the band finds things to dance about in the scrap-pile of human memory. “Bottle of Chianti, Cheese and Charcuterie Board” is an off-kilter synth and double-bass hip-shaker about the ways we reduce our lives to the fragments of bourgeois luxury that we can’t take with us when we go. “Summer Olympics” is a rock song about the strange, hyper-specific moments that stick in our minds, hinting that details might be more important than the broader strokes of time.

But instead of taking an entirely dim view of our collective humanity, The Burning Hell searches for (and always finds) things to celebrate. “Celebrities in Cemeteries” is a joyful ode to the relationship between fame and mortality, and the ways our death rituals can retroactively beautify and dramatize a life. “Duck vs. Decorated Shed” is a country song that takes the ground-breaking architectural theories of Rob Venturi and Denise Scott Brown as a metaphor for not being afraid of showing the world exactly what you are.

“Ghost Palace” also wonders at the post-planet future. After we finish making Earth uninhabitable for ourselves, where do we go, and who gets to go there? “My Home Planet” is sung from the perspective of two Earthlings arriving on a new world, trying to convince the local administration to let them stay in spite of how badly they’ve botched things back home. “Luna FM” is the story of the first radio station on the moon, helmed by the galaxy’s loneliest DJ.

Finally, long after we’re gone, what if the last creature that remembers our species is a small brown bird at an abandoned service station? And what happens when the bird gets distracted by something shiny, and forgets all about us? “Strange Paradise” is a eulogy for our fragments, dressed in a rickety skeleton of acoustic noise. Album-closer “Ghost Palace” is a farewell to the abandoned castle of our memories: “We’ll leave all the lights on / We’ll see them shine for a while, after we’ve gone…” Goodbye, cool world!

The Burning Hell – Ghost Palace
(YC-065)
LP/CD/Digital

Celebrities in Cemeteries
My Home Planet
Brazil nuts and Blue Curacao
Luna FM
What Does It Do and How Does It Works
Bottle Of Chianti, Cheese, and Charcuterie Board
Summer Olympics
Duck Vs. Decorated Shed
Birds Of Australia
Strange Paradise
Ghost Palace

Available March 7, 2025

APOLLO GHOSTS – AMETHYST

APOLLO GHOSTS – AMETHYST
January 10, 2025 by | | Posted in: Apollo Ghosts, Blog 0

Bowing to popular demand and the insurmountable demands of musical enthusiasm and joy we have pressed Apollo Ghosts 7 song jangle garage ripper Amethyst to 10 full inches of sweet black vinyl! The perfect one-size-fits all physical manifestation of an album previously only heard in the digital realms. Our dreams made true!

Apollo Ghosts – Amethyst 10″
In stores January 10, 2025
Limited to 300 copies worldwide

With distortion pedals and walls of feedback, Apollo Ghosts – “Amethyst,” overflows with introspection, defiance, and the frustration of grappling with the world’s ills, contrasting the monotony of daily life with climate anxiety, the rise of autocracies with the rise of apathy. But throughout, the album cements Apollo Ghosts’ status as lifelong underground music defenders and eternal optimists. There are plenty of nods to 90s indie rock heroes Yo La Tengo, Dead Moon, Pavement, Guided By Voices, Eric’s Trip, and Built To Spill.

Amethyst isn’t just purple quartz, it’s a talisman that protects you from the the dangers of overindulgence. It turns thought into action. Wear an amethyst crystal, crank the crappy Peavy amp, record an album over a weekend. Bring it to an island, carry it through the forest, and spend the day ripping out invasive plants. Wildfires will still burn and storm surges won’t stop eroding our shorelines, but maybe an amethyst amulet will remind you to stay awake and keep fighting for a more just world.

Apollo Ghosts – Amethyst
(YC-064)
10″ Vinyl / Digital

Ripping Invasives
Fake Nurse
Sunset Over Ikea
Strawberry Moon
Faded Neil Young Shirt
Rave Heaven
No One Knows Your Mind

RICHARD LAVIOLETTE – ALL WILD THINGS ARE SHY

RICHARD LAVIOLETTE – ALL WILD THINGS ARE SHY
September 5, 2024 by | | Posted in: Richard Laviolette 0

Richard Laviolette wrote, rehearsed, and recorded All Wild Things Are Shy during the last five years of his life, in the time between his mother’s death from Huntington’s Disease and his own. As with much of his earlier work, including two previous releases on You’ve Changed Records, All Of Your Raw Materials (2010) and Taking The Long Way Home (2017), and a large discography of self-released CDs and digital albums, the songs on All Wild Things Are Shy confront death and mortality directly, while also affirming love, life, and a fundamental belief in the ability of music to bring people together.

Richard formed this band late in 2021, working with Ally Corbett (violin), Dave Snider (bass), Jordan Howard (guitar), Matt Reeves (guitar), and Rich Burnett (drums) to develop the album, with long-time collaborator Jessy Bell Smith (vocals) later joining the group. They played their first show in July 2022 at the Heartwood Hall in Owen Sound, and their last show in September 2022 at The Tranzac in Toronto. By the end of October 2022, Richard was unable to continue performing live. The Huntington’s symptoms came on hard and fast, including a loss of coordination and dexterity, loss of vocal control, difficulty answering questions or making decisions, anxiety, overwhelm, and what Richard described as a mental fog or “mental molasses”.

When recording began at Scott Merritt’s the cottaGe in January 2023, Richard believed that there would be more records after this one, but what was planned as a few weeks of recording soon became a slower and longer process. Richard tinkered with each of the arrangements, working to eliminate anything that was not essential and creating an immediate and direct presentation of the songs. The record is a testament to his unique vision of rock music, a vision which incorporated a great love for traditional forms of rock, folk, country, and gospel music, influenced by a life-long, embedded practice, working within a living community of DIY songwriters and musicians.

Milkweed and Motherwort opens the album with a Crazy Horse stomp, anxious verses broken open by agitated electric guitar. Welcome Back is a slowly building tribute to endurance, a song of experience and survival. Side One ends with the stunningly perfect gospel folk anthem Don’t Quit On Me. Florence and Delilah is stark, rudimentary rock and roll, with a group of singers declaring over a minor key “We are going to get through”, offering solace and solidarity in the face of any trouble or stormy weather. Catacombs is a slow, perfectly arranged epic, effortlessly holding a heavy, beautiful life-sorrow. On the gentle title track, Constantines singer Bry Webb and Steph Yates of Cots share lead vocals, finding renewed possibilities in new love, while a lovely, graceful verse describing pulling a copy of Magnolia Electric Co’s Josephine from the shelf reveals one of the major touchstones for this record. The shambling road-trip anthem Carter & Cash further salutes the music of family and community, as Richard, who worked for some time as a bus driver, travels with a large, rambling group to a small-town DIY show. Saved By Rock and Roll is an eerie and ambiguous dirge, featuring droning organs, haunted accordions, and a choir of deathless singers; “A little destruction will make you whole” Richard sings unforgettably, reveling in the “dirty beats and dissonant tones”. For those of us who loved him, All Wild Things Are Shy is a heavy listen. It is also a courageous and generous gift, a cathartic, beautiful work from an artist whose time was running out far too early, far too soon. Train of Death bravely manifests this loss of time, an impossibly stirring countdown, a sing-a-long dance to the edge. The album ends with the hushed and wonderfully distilled Constant Love.

In the last months of his life, his love for his family and his community and his desire to see this album through are what kept Richard going. Working closely with Scott Merrit and Rich Burnett, he was able to complete the recording process and to give clear directions for the mixing, artwork, and final presentation of All Wild Things Are Shy.

With the rapid acceleration of Huntington’s symptoms compounded by complex long-term health issues, Richard chose to receive medical assistance in dying (MAID) on September 5, 2023. We miss him dearly.

 

Richard Laviolette – All Wild Things Are Shy
(YC-063)
2×12″/CD/Digital

Milkweed and Motherwort
Welcome Back
Don’t Quit On Me
Florence and Delilah
Catacombs
All Wild Things Are Shy
Carter and Cash
Pack It Up
Captain Of The Nighttime
Saved By Rock and Roll
Train Of Death
Constant Love

Produced by Richard Laviolette, with assistance from Scott Merritt and mix assistance from Rich Burnett.
Recorded and mixed by Scott Merritt at the cottaGe, Guelph, ON, Canada.
Except for: Steel guitar (Captain), electric guitar (Milkweed), acoustic guitar (All Wild), and all hammond organs & acoustic pianos recorded by Rich Burnett at Lime Hill.
Reed organ (Don’t Quit) recorded by Andrew Collins at Wildlife Sanctuary Sound.
Mastered by Harris Newman at Grey Market Mastering, Montreal, QC, Canada

Performed by: Rich Burnett, Dave Snider, Tyson Brinacombe, Scott Merritt, Jessy Bell Smith, Andrew Collins, Matt Reeves, Jordan Howard, Ally Corbett, Meredith Grant
choir: sophia bartholomew, Rich Burnett, Andrew Collins, Lisa Conway, Scott Haynes, Grant MacLeod, Marnie McCourty, Jenny Mitchell, Kirsten Palm, Matt Reeves, Dave Snider, Claire Whitehead
Bry Webb and Steph Yates sing lead vocals on the track All Wild Things Are Shy

Album artwork by sophia bartholomew
Layout by Paul Henderson

JON MCKIEL – HEX

JON MCKIEL – HEX
February 7, 2024 by | | Posted in: Jon Mckiel 0

Jon Mckiel returns with a highly anticipated new album, the long-awaited follow-up to his underground classic Bobby Joe Hope!

The songs of Jon McKiel are born of the bruised marshlands of remote New Brunswick, from the craggy shores of the Atlantic coast; places where nature is a powerful wonder and the made-world is in slow decay. His new album, Hex, is a bloodshot pop record steeped in our dystopian present, tempered, across its ten tracks, by an existential umami. It’s the follow-up to 2020’s cult favorite Bobby Joe Hope, which Aquarium Drunkard called “an unlikely masterpiece” and Gorilla vs. Bear listed as one of their favorites of that god-forsaken year.

After two solid decades of refining his practice, during the creation process for Bobby Joe Hope, McKiel unlocked new sampling techniques, fundamentally changing the way he makes music. Hex sees that practice extended into even more evocative terrain. Performed and produced again in close collaboration with JOYFULTALK’s Jay Crocker, the duo offer up another collection of songs as disquieting as they are comforting. Expertly evoked by Paul Henderson’s twisted collage on the cover, Hex is equal parts flower field and burning building.

The music moves subtly between moods, carrying themes of fate, doom, family, love and distrust in the digital age. The eponymous lead track is an eerie, subterranean banger whose looped percussion and dirt-nasty bassline bring to mind low fi hip hop flipping early 70s Gene Clark. Elsewhere, on ‘Memory Screen Pt 1’, McKiel’s nostalgia-drenched vocals bring to mind more sounds of the 1970s that appear sonically wider than the largely mono “Bobby Jo Hope”. Then there are moments like ‘Under Burden’, whose skittering drum machine and saccharine synths suggest the cult works of that other Bobby Brown. The album also features McKiel’s first cover committed to tape, a haunting version of a tune called ‘Concrete Sea’, as sung by Terry Jacks (of ‘Seasons In The Sun’ and Poppy Family fame). An earlier version of the cover first cropped up on Aquarium Drunkard’s Lagniappe Sessions wherein Mckiel contextualized the selection: “This is actually a song from my childhood. Jacks was at the forefront of ’60s and ’70s-era musicians who were using their platforms to speak out or sing about environmental issues, eventually leaving music entirely to pursue a more peaceful and natural way of life, something that I deeply relate to. The chorus hook has been in my head for about 25 years…”

Regardless of mood, the songs are all adorned with the world-weary poetics heads have come to expect from McKiel. In his music, what might otherwise be construed as paranoia or pessimism, is softened by a genuine sense of longing and tenderness. His lyrics combine natural elements with bits of fantasy and lucid dreamscapes, all tangled with the transmuted horrors of our thoroughly modern present. When McKiel sings of “memories cooked down into usernames” or how “the color of time has gone from green to grey”, the listener is carried to the heart of our grim realities. When he suggests that “one song could kill the king”, we’re reminded that there may just be some dusty magic out there worth believing in.

 

Hex
(YC-061)
LP/CD/Digital

Hex
String
Still Life
The Fix
Under Burden
Memory Screen pt. 1
Everlee
Lady’s Mantle
Concrete Sea
Memory Screen pt. 2

All songs © Jon Mckiel 2024 except Concrete Sea by Terry Jacks
Recorded and Produced by Jon Mckiel and Jay Crocker
Mastered by Harris Newman
Performed by Jon Mckiel and Jay Crocker
with Nicola Miller on saxophone on HEX

Artwork and design by Paul Henderson – The Centaur, paper collage, 16 x 20 cm, 2023

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