Kristen Roos, Tess Parks, Rick White & The Sadies, and Pnoom
Kristen Roos - Universal Synthesizer Interface Vol. III
As I continue to learn more about different genres and expand my musical tastes, I’m continually bombarded with experimental electronic music. I’m always trying to understand its appeal and how it gets produced. Most times, I’m in the dark but sometimes, like in the case of Vancouver’s Kristen Roos, I’m completely gobsmacked by what I’m hearing. On the third instalment of his Universal Synthesizer Interface series, he uses a largely forgotten program developed by Joel Chadabe in 1987 called “UpBeat: The Intelligent Rhythm Sequencer” to craft his wild tapestries of electronic sounds. This album manages to pull at natural human emotions like anxiety and paranoia with very unnatural sounds. It’s a testament to Roos ability as a sound designer that these blips and bloops can tug at one's humanity in such a robotic way. It’s a mesmerizing release that has me going back to hear volumes I & II.
Tess Parks - Pomegranate
Like many others, I learnt about Tess Parks with her 2022 album, And Those Who Were Seen Dancing. Her latest record grows from that release in leaps and bounds. While And Those Who Were Seen Dancing was lovely, at times it felt like it was fighting with itself and would veer off course song to song. Pomegranate, on the other hand, is extremely focused and purposeful. Produced by multi-instrumentalist and collaborator Ruari Meehan, the two worked very closely to craft this modern psychedelic listening experience. The album oozes confidence and beauty with a vast array of different instruments utilized to craft the psych-soaked, dream-pop instrumentation which lends itself expertly to Parks sultry, smoky vocals. While And Those Who Were Seen Dancing may have been Park's arrival party, Pomegranate is the timeless classic she’ll be remembered for.
Rick White & The Sadies - Live At The Great Hall
In the winter of 2006, The Sadies played a live show at Lee’s Palace that has gone down as one of the best all-time Canadian live albums. It is the stuff of Canadian music lore. In the fall of 2024, they got together with their (equally legendary) longtime friend Rick White to play their collaborative album in full as well as a ton of tracks from The Unintended. The show was an emotional goodbye to Dallas Good and a triumphant return to the stage for Rick White. Like many other music fans in Canada and abroad, I wish I was there. The emotion comes through the speakers, the performance is top notch and the show will become the stuff of legend, just like the 2006 live recording from The Sadies. I’m so grateful they recorded it and pressed it to vinyl. You can’t fake a performance this emotional for the people involved and it means a lot to Canadian music fans that they did it.
Pnoom - ENERGY
Montreal’s Pnoom have been tearing up their hometown for a couple years now. They charged out from the pandemic with a clear focus on who they are as a band, honing their chemistry and their purpose. The result is the emergence of a new noise-rock band in Canada that will eventually be getting mentioned in the same breath as Tunic or METZ. Their debut album arrived at the end of 2024 and it’s nothing short of brilliant. Confident and cool, the band uses dissonance to their advantage. The noise they craft can widen your eyes and get your juices flowing like on “Borchardt of Canada” or it can breathe slowly and morph into something more ethereal like on “Lock!”. Whichever way they choose to use their sonic assault, the tracks that make up ENERGY are balanced and cohesive and make this record Pnoom’s coming out party.
- Jeff MacCallum