10. Gigi - Miantenant (Tomlab)

Another fantastic pop album appearing seemingly out of nowhere, Gigi is the work of No Kids member and songwriter Nick Krgovich and fellow Vancouver-ite Colin Stewart, an allstar (well allstar in an indiepop kind of way) cast joins for guest vocals and suceed masterfully, despite the many voices, this still stands up as an album in its own right, rather than sounding like a compilation.

The tracks featuring Chorus stand out, sounding like a 60's girl group, full of feel good multi vocal harmonies, footstomps and handclaps. Zac Pennington of Parenthetical Girls does a lovely job of a boy feeling all to sorry for himself on the lavish Dreams of Romance. Rose Melberg sounds amazing as ever on another highlight, again wrapped up like a sixties hit never made. On One Woman Show Jooey Cook of the Pomegranetes sounds slightly out of tune and untrained in the brilliant and loving kind of way that Kimya Dawson does, a fantastic track with a great Aisler's Set-esque chorus.

This is just the tip of the iceburg, i've not even mentioned guest appearances by Owen Pallet, Dear Nora, Karl Blau and Mirah. A triumph in the art of perfect pop and the ability to recreate that sixties sound.

Find more artists like Gigi at Myspace Music

Find more artists like Gigi at Myspace Music

Spoiler : What Boomkat Said:

Gigi is the handiwork of No Kids member and songwriter Nick Krgovich and fellow Vancouver-ite Colin Stewart, a producer and engineer who has previously worked on albums by Black Mountain, Destroyer and Cave Singers. When Canadians start singing songs with titles like 'No, My Heart Will Go On', it's usually time to duck for cover, but this opening piece actually recalls the traditionalist '60s American pop revisions of Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward's She & Him output - a far more palatable spewing of sentimentality than the ship-sinking ballad it threatened to be. Not dissimiarly, some of the tracks on Maintenant bring to mind Stuart Murdoch's God Help The Girl project, channelling '60s girl group sounds on 'I'm Not Coming Out Tonight' (featuring Sydney Vermont and Marissa Johnson) and 'Alone At The Pier' (with Rose Melberg). There's a wealth of outside personnel brought in for this album, with the biggest names including Owen Pallett (the artist formerly known as Final Fantasy), Zac Pennington (of Parenthetical Girls) and Mirah (the K Records solo artist and affiliate of Mount Eerie/The Microphones' Phil Elverum). Pallett's 'I'll Quit' exemplifies the sort of elegant big-band dynamics Maintenant can achieve, calling upon widescreen, loungey brass and luscious female backing vocals.

Gigi - Maintenant (Tomlab, 2010)

Another fantastic pop album appearing seemingly out of nowhere, Gigi is the work of No Kids member and songwriter Nick Krgovich and fellow Vancouver-ite Colin Stewart, an allstar (well allstar in an indiepop kind of way) cast joins for guest vocals and suceed masterfully, despite the many voices, this still stands up as an album in its own right, rather than sounding like a compilation.

The tracks featuring Chorus stand out, sounding like a 60's girl group, full of feel good multi vocal harmonies, footstomps and handclaps. Zac Pennington of Parenthetical Girls does a lovely job of a boy feeling all to sorry for himself on the lavish Dreams of Romance. Rose Melberg sounds amazing as ever on another highlight, again wrapped up like a sixties hit never made. On One Woman Show Jooey Cook of the Pomegranetes sounds slightly out of tune and untrained in the brilliant and loving kind of way that Kimya Dawson does, a fantastic track with a great Aisler's Set-esque chorus.


This is just the tip of the iceburg, i've not even mentioned guest appearances by Owen Pallet, Dear Nora, Karl Blau and Mirah. A triumph in the art of perfect pop and the ability to recreate that sixties sound.

Gigi - Alone at the Pier (Feat Rose Melberg) mp3
Source: Rawkblog

Gigi - Strolling Past The Old Graveyard (Feat Karl Blau) mp3
Source: fensepost

Spoiler : What Boomkat Said:

Gigi is the handiwork of No Kids member and songwriter Nick Krgovich and fellow Vancouver-ite Colin Stewart, a producer and engineer who has previously worked on albums by Black Mountain, Destroyer and Cave Singers. When Canadians start singing songs with titles like 'No, My Heart Will Go On', it's usually time to duck for cover, but this opening piece actually recalls the traditionalist '60s American pop revisions of Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward's She & Him output - a far more palatable spewing of sentimentality than the ship-sinking ballad it threatened to be. Not dissimiarly, some of the tracks on Maintenant bring to mind Stuart Murdoch's God Help The Girl project, channelling '60s girl group sounds on 'I'm Not Coming Out Tonight' (featuring Sydney Vermont and Marissa Johnson) and 'Alone At The Pier' (with Rose Melberg). There's a wealth of outside personnel brought in for this album, with the biggest names including Owen Pallett (the artist formerly known as Final Fantasy), Zac Pennington (of Parenthetical Girls) and Mirah (the K Records solo artist and affiliate of Mount Eerie/The Microphones' Phil Elverum). Pallett's 'I'll Quit' exemplifies the sort of elegant big-band dynamics Maintenant can achieve, calling upon widescreen, loungey brass and luscious female backing vocals.

Read full review of Maintenant - GIGI on Boomkat.com ©

The Okmoniks - Party Fever!!!

A delightful helping of 60's style garage pop, like the second Miss Mary album was meant to sound like, everything you wished from the A-Lines, Comet Gain at their roughest and shiniest simultaneously, The Agenda or The Four Corners if they had singers as good as their music and maybe, just maybe what you may have wanted the third Aislers Set album to sound like, with a splash of Yeah Yeah Yeahs thrown in for good measure. None stop, garage pop, instantly loveable and catchy as can be. I can't recommend this highly enough.

The Okmoniks - Rustle Up Some Action mp3

Lacrosse - This New Year Will Be For You and Me Reviewed

Lacrosse - This New Year Will Be For You and Me (Tapete)


I have a thing for Deers, well not a thing, just that I think in animated form they have a real elegance and pull, my favourite t-shirt being the deer covered Bat for Lashes tshirt, my favourite character in Willy Fog, Brigadier Corn. As such it’s no real surprise how easily i was led to the excellent front cover of the new album from Lacrosse,

I can't really argue with the Last.Fm description as follows:

"...above all, Lacrosse is five boys and one girl making fantastic pop music. From a basement in Stockholm, Lacrosse brings you love and happiness in songs so catchy that you can't help singing along! With a lot of energy, two intense lead vocalists, incredibly sweet guitar melodies and blazing drum beats, Lacrosse is the musical equivalent of endless summer nights when the world is young and beautiful and everything seems possible."


Lovely and instantly loveable, this pales last month’s Tullycraft love affair into insignificance, I know I fall in love with a new band on a weekly basis, it was Lavender Diamond prior to Tullycraft, the Aislers Set and the Blow before that but here we have something truly special, this is the album Architecture in Helsinki have always threatened to make, this is how good In Case We Die could have been had each and every song been as good as It's 5! and Frenchy I'm Faking. Canadian summers, roller skates and good times abound, I’ve had this album on constant repeat since I got it and can't see that changing any time soon, a potential late entry for album of the year I propose, certainly more fun than the pundits choice of Burial, a discovery and a half.

Website
MySpace


Lacrosse - This New Year Will Be For You And Me Play MP3
Lacrosse - Who Will Bring Us Together MP3
Lacrosse - You Can't Say No Forever MP3
Lacrosse - Sunshiner MP3


Sources:
Carl Sandburg Visits Me In A Dream Blog
Fingertips Blog
Lets Pretend we're Bunny Rabbits Blog

Tullycraft - Every Scene Needs A Center Reviewed

Tullycraft - Every Scene Needs A Center (MagikMarker)

I've fallen further and further away from the world of indie pop, however after recently acquiring the Aislers Set The Last Match in digital format for the first time my thirst has been somewhat renewed. And it would seem that this happened at just the right time, coinciding nicely with the release of the new Tullycraft album, a band I had heard lots of but never really heard anything by and oh how I wish I’d made the effort with them earlier. From the opening seconds it’s clear that this band are even more likeable than Vince Noir, the kind of music it would be seemingly impossible not to like. The Punks are Writing Love Songs will have you singing along to its o-weee-o's before you've even reached the second chorus. Twee as can be and proud of it, pretty much every song grabs you and pulls you from your seat, Georgette Plays a Goth, If You Take Away the Make-Up (Then the Vampires They Will Die) and A Cursed Miss Maybellene, with its first album Looper-esque keys, naive and lovely, being my favourites. Songs like Dracula Screams of Tiger Style (Parts 1&2) clocking in at 7:25 shows another side to Tullycraft proving they are not just one trick ponies, though to be fair it would bother me one bit if all they did was churn out pop song after pop song.

Website

MySpace

Tullycraft - The Punks Are Writing Love Songs MP3

Tullycraft - Georgette Plays a Goth Video

Tullycraft - Wild Bikini MP3

You Must Think By Now That I'm Obsessed With You - The Aislers Set Reviewed

It only seems like yesterday when i found myself slowly picking up my own musical identity, straying away from what amazingly when i was at school where thought of as unknown, weird bands, bands like Kenickie, Hefner, Sparklehorse and even to some extent The Smashing Pumpkins. Distributors such as Norman Records and Gayle Brogans Boa Melody Bar opened me up to a whole new world of underground music, the latter especially, it was here i believe that i heard of the excellent and now quite possibly my favourite band the Aislers Set a band so wonderful its hard to put into words how they make me feel. Fuzzy guitars, fairground keys, festive twinkles, handclaps and ba-ba-bas to die for. Songs that make you want to unashamedly dance in that way that long fringed indie pop boys do, songs to sing your heart out to, songs to drive to and songs you will never tire of.

Lately I’ve been going through a bit of a revival, particularly enjoying what i had felt was a disappointing third album, How I Learned to Write Backwards, a more sombre affair than the classic and possibly along with Amy Linton’s former bands, Henry's Dress sole album Bust ‘Em Green, favourite album in my collection, The Last Match, two albums that are currently racing up my Last FM charts. I hadn't really appreciated what a great album it was, how different it was and that really i shouldn't have been expecting another Last Match, instead a more sombre affair, a tired album, one full of melancholy, the downer than almost always any prolonged period of happiness. This is the Aislers Set come down album. Unfinished Paintings is barely there, all drowned in reverb and delicate strokes of guitar, sparingly picked, not too dissimilar to the route Dear Nora took following her early upbeat EPs. Was Either Easier likewise is bare in sound compared to The Last Matches garage band racket, the vocals sublime, the bass taking the lead for the first time and doing a fine job off it, complimenting the horns quite beautifully.
Catherine Says, Action Attraction Reaction, Languor in the Balcony and Mission Bells are more classic girl group yet again minimal in depth, but deep in reverb. These are lovely songs that given chance will become something special to you, only not in the same way that The Way to Market Station, Been Hiding, Balloon Song, The Red Door and We Give Up Did. This is the sound of the Aislers Set after they've been in love, after they've had their hearts broken, an all the more cynical Aislers but an utterly lovable Aislers all the same.

I often wish that the Aislers Set would grace us with another album and yet at the same time the three that they've given us are a little more than special. I'd hate them to come up with something half hearted, go fall in love!

MySpace

Website

The Aislers Set - The Walk (Peel Session)
The Aislers Set - Hey Lover
The Aislers Set - Long Division (Peel Session)