Despite being a fan for about eight years, last night at the Biltmore was my first chance to see Do Make Say Think live and I was not disappointed. I’d been hearing for years how powerful DMST are on stage and I finally found out for myself.

The nine-piece band (four of whom had made their way to Australia over the past four years as members of Broken Social Scene) were absolutely immense. Two drummers, guitars, bass, horns and Julie Penner on violin all made their presence felt on Do Make Say Think’s vast soundscapes right from the opener Make. Very often bands can get a bit messy with so many people on stage but DMST have their show nailed down: the musicianship was simply incredible all night (in particular Justin on guitar and Charles on bass).

The beginning portion of the show was slightly slower and more contemplative but once the band hit Reitschule about halfway through the set there was no looking back. Fredericia, my favourite Do Make Say Think song, was a monster. Opening with haunting bass before exploding into a controlled cacophony of distorted guitar and bass, Freddy was mind-blowing. When Fredericia ended the set continued on an unstoppable march toward its finale as Horns Of A Rabbit (another highlight), Freddy’s Winter Hymn cousin, followed. The Universe!, Do, Auberge Le Mouton Noir and In Mind then rounded out the show in magnificent fashion. In Mind was a particularly fitting way to end the night as the band members actually stepped up to the mics to belt out the finale.

So after years of waiting and years of hype Do Make Say Think still managed to exceed my expectations. Hopefully it’s not too long before they’re back in Vancouver.

Setlist
Make
Executioner Blues
Say
The Apartment Song
Think
Reitschule
Fredericia
Horns Of A Rabbit
The Universe!
Do
Auberge Le Mouton Noir
In Mind

Pretty sure that setlist is correct. It differs slightly from the one on stage (the early curfew led to some set changes I guess). Thanks a lot to Gerald for the setlist. It was great to finally see you again! A few more photos of mine from the gig are up here.

The added bonus of last night’s gig was the fact the the support slots were filled by the Do Make Say Think side-projects of Ohad Benchetrit and Charles Spearin. Ohad’s project Years opened the night. I didn’t really spend much time with the Years album but I was pretty impressed with the material I heard last night. While Ohad spent a song or two on his own on stage, for a portion of the set he was joined by most of his DMST bandmates to fill out the arrangements.

There was no break after the Years set finished as Charles Spearin immediately introduced his “science experiment,” The Happiness Project. Featuring interviews with his neighbours that were then adapted into music (based on the melodies of their speaking voices), The Happiness Project is incredibly unique. Over the course of the half-hour set we met Mrs. Morris, Vittoria, Ondine, and Mr. Gowrie in a mix of spoken-word and live music. I think Vittoria’s story (born deaf, she received a cochlear implant when she was 31 to hear sound for the first time) was the most powerful and resonant. Like the Years set, Charles Spearin’s project was accompanied by most of Do Make Say Think. And since DMST took the stage just ten minutes after The Happiness Project wrapped up there was music practically all night long. A memorable evening for sure.

I’m generally not a huge fan of videos that are entirely computer-generated but this video for Massive Attack’s Splitting The Atom is something else: evocative, thought-provoking and full of images that are not easily forgotten. Splitting The Atom is the first single from Massive Attack’s new record Heligoland which is out next week. (How great is it to be able to talk about a new Massive Attack album that is actually coming out?)

The quality of the Splitting The Atom video really isn’t a surprise as the band have always made amazing music videos and taken a keen interest in the artwork that accompanies all their releases. The Guardian has a nice little overview of the visual side of Massive Attack.

Heligoland is available in a number of formats including the always annoying super Deluxe Edition from iTunes that includes the following bonus tracks:

Paradise Circus (Gui Boratto Remix)
Fatalism (Ryuichi Sakamoto & Yukihiro Takahashi Remix)
Girl I Love You (She Is Danger Remix)
Paradise Circus (Breakage’s Tight Rope Remix)
United Snakes
Pray For Rain (Tim Goldsworthy Remix)

If you make that available to buy on its own, I’ll buy it. If not, I will steal it. Having said that you can also preorder the Deluxe vinyl edition (as I did) which looks amazing. All the details are here but it includes four of the above bonus tracks on a bonus 12″. You also get the CD included. Not bad.

I’ll likely post my thoughts about the record next week (it’s better than I thought it was going to be!).

A couple weeks ago the Peak Performance Project ended, an ambitious radio-sponsored project that brought some well-deserved attention to a bunch of British Columbia bands (like The Painted Birds and Adaline). When the project reached its finale, three bands were left standing: We Are The City, The Left, and Bend Sinister. To be honest, at that point I thought it was a lock: Bend Sinister had this thing. They make incredibly fun, BIG music (imagine that Elton John mated with Queen and you have a hint of what Bend Sinister sound like). In addition, they are the only band of three that has a name that doesn’t totally suck.

I was not blown away by the little I’d heard by The Left and I couldn’t even make it through We Are The City’s record before hitting the delete button (and I’m pretty patient!). Of course, then, We Are The City won. While congratulations go out to all three bands (they all won quite a bit of money), Bend Sinister were robbed.

So I’m doing my little part to make sure Bend Sinister take over Canada. Check out some of their stuff below and go check out their live show (I have yet to…I’ve not been back long, gimme a break) which is, by all accounts, tons of fun.

Download
Bend Sinister – Jimmy Brown
Bend Sinister – Happiness Is A Warm Gun (Beatles cover)

RAWK.

On March 9 The Besnard Lakes will release The Besnard Lakes Are The Roaring Night, the follow-up to their critically acclaimed 2007 record, … Are The Dark Horse. The last record took a while to grow on me so I’m expecting the same from the new one. Or at least I was…because if Albatross, the first taste of the record, is anything to go by then this record might be a lot more immediate than the last one.

Albatross is immense. While the press release claims that the first single “has all the swagger of a Stevie Nicks-led Fleetwood Mac classic or Roy Orbison reimagined as a rollicking, snakeskin-booted Mazzy Star — dousing it all in gas and throwing the match as we hear its tale of Vancouver’s skid row and its inhabitants,” I hear a lot of 80s shoegaze influences as well. But no matter how you describe it, Albatross is a great song.

Download
The Besnard Lakes – Albatross

On Sunday night Radiohead played a benefit gig in at the Music Box Theater in Los Angeles to help raise funds for Oxfam’s Haiti relief efforts. Tickets for the gig were only available by auction and ended up raising over a half million dollars for Oxfam. Not much rehearsal took place before the gig (the band are currently recording a follow-up to In Rainbows) which resulted in an, at times, endearingly ramshackle gig. But for the most part the band were spot on, playing some of their most well-known material.

In the final encore, however, Thom came out on his own to play a new Radiohead song, Lotus Flower. He debuted this song last year with his ???? band but this was its first appearance at a Radiohead gig. Vulture points out that the song is “comically Radiohead-esque.” Download an mp3 below or watch a video.

Download
Radiohead – Lotus Flower (alt. link)

A complete recording of the gig (320kbps mp3) is available here. The good Karma Police will know if you donate to Oxfam after downloading the show…

The photo above was taken by Hazyskyline who also has a blog.

Back in 2008 Frightened Rabbit released one of my favourite albums of the year, The Midnight Organ Fight; in March the band will be releasing their follow-up to that great record and it’s called The Winter Of Mixed Drinks. Late last year they released the first single from the record, Swim Until You Can’t See Land which continues the band’s ability to write invigorating songs in the midst of heartache and pain. You can download the single and its accompanying b-side (which won’t be on the album) below.

Download
Frightened Rabbit – Swim Until You Can’t See Land
Frightened Rabbit – Fun Stuff

The band are currently on tour in Australia (miss u Laneway). The Winter Of Mixed Drinks will be out March 1.

One of the geekiest/coolest things I saw online this week was this post by Michael Deal. Michael is starting a project that explores The Beatles through charts and graphs. The above snapshot comes from a graph that details the authorship of every Beatles song. Be sure to check out the entire post for a few more infographics. Perfect for Beatles nuts like myself.

Which actually reminds me…I don’t think I even mentioned The Beatles reissues from last year. I bought the Mono Box Set and love it. The sound quality is amazing and the packaging is flawless.

While browsing through Zulu Records late last year I came across a series of records put out by Soundway Records. Focusing on sharing indigenous music from around world, the people at Soundway are doing amazing things. From their website:

Soundway Records is dedicated to unveiling forgotten chapters from some of the world’s richest musical cultures. From the Highlife, disco and rock sounds of 70s Nigeria to the golden age of Panamanian music, Benin’s Afro-Latin grooves, Colombia’s Champeta and all other forms of Tropical and Afro sounds imaginable. Soundway’s mission is to present the very best in obscure a-sides, b-sides and album cuts that have remained unavailable… until now.

But what really caught my eye that day at Zulu was one of the albums in the series called Panama! Latin, Calypso and Funk on the Isthmus 1965-75. My dad was born and raised in Panama so I thought he might enjoy a CD of music from his homeland (especially considering he’s heading down there for a visit next month). Upon further exploration I found there are actually three albums in the Panama! series (see here and here)…so two were purchased, wrapped, and opened on Christmas Day.

Dad seems to really be enjoying the albums but what I wasn’t expecting was how much I was going to enjoy the music (though I did love that “huge” Tropicalia compilation a few years back); but here I am imploring you to check out some music from a country whose music scene is totally ignored.

Due to Panama’s huge role in world shipping (it has a canal you may have heard of), the music has influences from all over. Obviously funk, calypso, and jazz feature prominently, but there are also some really pop elements and even some rock tones to some of the songs. After listening to two of the albums in the series I’m pretty shocked at the depth of great music that emerged in the 60s and 70s from a relatively small nation. The albums are accompanied by in-depth liner notes and annotations about the original releases of each song. In every respect, Soundway has done an amazing job with the Panama! series.

The following samples are all from the most recent release in the series, Panama! 3: Calypso Panameño, Guajira Jazz & Cumbia Típica on the Isthmus 1960–75.

Download (just short clips):
Lord Panama and The Stickers – Fire Down Below
Soul Apollo with Fredrick Clarke – Chombo Pa’ La Tienda
Ralph Weeks With The Telecasters – Gua Jazz
Los Mozambiques – Llegamos Ya

Great, great stuff.

Four years ago tomorrow I first posted about Massive Attack’s upcoming fifth album. Four years ago. At that point the record was supposed to be coming out in February 2007. That didn’t happen. So that month I wrote about the album again this time saying it was looking like 2008 was more likely as a release date. Towards the end of 2008 I once again wrote about this elusive forthcoming record which had still yet to see the light of day. At that point, based on interviews with 3D and Daddy G, I posited that a 2009 release seemed incredibly likely.

It is now 2010. The record is still not out. But there is an incredibly bright light at the end of the tunnel: barring the apocalypse, Massive Attack will release their fifth record on February 9, seven years to the week after their previous (slightly disappointing) record, 100th Window. It is called Heligoland (which is a small group of German islands) and features contributions from Horace Andy (as always), Martina Topley-Bird, Guy Garvey (from Elbow), Tunde Adebimpe (TV on the Radio), Hope Sandoval, and Damon Albarn (among others).

Tracklisting:
Pray for Rain
Babel
Splitting The Atom
Girl I Love You
Psyche
Flat of the Blade
Paradise Circus
Rush Minute
Saturday Come Slow
Atlas Air

Back in 2008 when the band were touring they were playing a bunch of amazing new songs, some of which do appear on Heligoland, albeit with new titles:

Girl I Love You (was 16 Seeter)
Flat of the Blade (was Bulletproof Love)
Paradise Circus (was Harpsichord)
Atlas Air (was Marrakech or Marakesh)

Unfortunately, my favourite song from the 2008 bunch was All I Want which does not appear to be on the record at all. So I guess we’ll have to survive with the much bootlegged live version.

Download:
Massive Attack – All I Want (live in St. Petersburg)

If you’re not at work and over 18 you might want to check out the “video” for Paradise Circus.

OK then.

2009 was another great year in gigs for me. From a crazy January that was highlighted by an insane Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds show at the ATP Festival through to finally getting to see the Manics again, 2009 was a fantastic year. Thinking back on some of these shows brings back some pretty amazing memories. Links will take you to the original review of each show. Have a happy new year!

Underworld @ Bondi Beach
Underworld blow my mind on New Year’s Eve.

Fleet Foxes @ Metro Theatre
Somehow managed to actually live up to the live hype. Those harmonies!

Spiritualized @ Metro Theatre
One of my favourite bands in fine form.

ATP Festival @ Cockatoo Island
The most enjoyable experience you can have at a festival. Plus it featured…

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds @ ATP Festival
At the time I said this: “The entire show was one of the finest live performances I have ever witnessed.” And I stand by that, nearly one year later.

TV on the Radio @ Metro Theatre
Energy energy energy.

Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova @ Sydney Opera House
I wasn’t expecting much…and got pretty surprised by the Swell Season.

Ryan Adams & The Cardinals @ Enmore Theatre
My final Cardinals show and Ryan busted out all the “hits.” RIP Spacewolf.

And that was just January.

Primal Scream @ Forum
FINALLY.

Gareth Liddiard @ Vanguard
Acoustic Drones. It’s gigs like this that I am going to miss now that I’ve returned to Canada.

Black Mountain @ Annandale Hotel
A little bit of Vancouver in Sydney.

The Drones @ Metro Theatre
It can’t be stressed enough how amazing The Drones are live.

Deerhunter @ Manning Bar and the Annandale Hotel
Hypnotic.

Young & Restless, The Seabellies @ Spectrum
Turns out it was the last Sydney show for Young & Restless. Their live energy will be missed.

Dappled Cities @ Metro Theatre
A glorious, hometown triumph.

Handsome Furs @ Oxford Art Factory
My last gig in Sydney was certainly a memorable one.

Manic Street Preachers @ Commodore Ballroom
I never thought I’d see them live again so this was pretty damn special. Hell, we left Sydney a couple weeks early just to make this gig.

The Horrors @ Venue
Seeing one of my favourite albums of the year played live was kinda nice.

Grizzly Bear @ Vogue Theatre
The Griz!

U2 @ BC Place Stadium
It was big but it worked.

Japandroids @ Biltmore Cabaret
In which the Japandroids cap off a huge year with a raucous homecoming.

Mew @ Venue
Finally seeing Mew live was a great way to end my concert calendar this year.

Hopefully 2010 brings some amazing shows. But I must say not having a jam-packed Sydney January is a bit odd.