Shotgun Jimmie/Holy Void
Shotgun Jimmie
Transistor Sister 2 // You’ve Changed
After eight years, Shotgun Jimmie’s Polaris Prize nominated album Transistor Sister is now joined by a second volume. Transistor Sister 2 was recorded by José Contreras at The Chat Chateaux in Toronto and officially released on August 2nd by You’ve Changed Records. The follow up album features collaborations and performances by Ryan Peters (Ladyhawk), Jay Baird (Do Make Say Think) and Chad VanGaalen. An all-star cast of Canadian indie-rockers delivering a cheery dose of Canadiana that’s fresh and a little reminiscent.
Shotgun Jimmie wields his positive attitude and care free spirit on Vol. 2, thematically building on the foundations laid musically and lyrically by the first Transistor Sister album. The record begins with a blast of energy, a driving rhythmic key on the piano persuades the drums along at a high pace while the words “blues riffs sink ships” set a fun and clever tone. From there on the urge to sing along just keeps on coming as the infectious poppy rock songs take effect, acting like a medicine that one would be prescribed for the purpose of lifting their soul. Transistor Sister 2 won’t just inspire movement and brighten your day, it will make you feel “cool all the time”.
- Jeshaiah David
Holy Void
Naught // Transistor 66
Saturday, July 27th, 2019, 8:24 pm, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada- I’m folding boxes in my backyard and putting them into the recycling bin with my fiancé. We bought a couple of new appliances today, and these boxes simply must be recycled.
For the last 30 minutes there’s been a droning feedback sound coming from the garage next door. It’s starting to grate on us, and I stand and proclaim, “What the fuck is going on in there?”
“Careful, Phillip,” she says, as I approach the garage door. I chuckle dismissively at her words of caution. I grew up around Grant Park. I’ll be fine.
I knock on the door, but no-one answers. A little louder. Still nothing, and the feedback sounds grow louder. On the fourth knock, as I’m practically pounding on the door, it opens a crack, and four sets of face-painted moon-eyes peer out at me. One of them is wearing cats-eye contact lenses. It gives me a shiver, but I steel my nerves and say, “Listen, pals, it’s time to cut out the imaginati….” I don’t get the words out before four sets of hands reach out and pull me into the garage, and the door slams behind me.
I wake up, and I’m being thrust to and fro in a shopping cart pushed by by four fragmented psych-disciples in face paint, chanting Clockwork Orange-inspired mantras. Propulsive drums hammer over the wheels, slinky, ripply bass grooves permeate under dual-guitar intricacies. The cart hits a crack and I am hurled into the air, basically kissing my new khaki shorts goodbye. Before I hit the ground unconscious again, I am inundated with the words “I Will Never Be Again.”
I am startled awake once more to an ominous bass groove, preparing the ground for dark psych-surf guitar lines and more mantras, signalling the commencement of the sacrifice. “Oh, my son, you’re covered in blood,” I hear. A red dye is being dribbled onto my face, and trickles onto my lips, leaving a bitter flavour in my mouth. “Taste like cranniburries, donnit?” the tall gangly one says, and takes a big slug from a king can of Molson.
My shoulders are being pressed down. One of them pulls out a bag of powder. Placing a little mound on the palm of his hand, he lowers a pair of lipstick-rouged lips and delicately blows the powder into my nose.
Dizzying fuzz guitars lay the bed for vague symbols to further erode my perspective. Elements of mid-90’s post-grunge drug-laced nihilism. I’m hypnotized by the lines “Bring You Down.” I find myself singing it with gradually more and more intensity, head nodding side to side, eyes closed.
I get a temporary reprieve from the hammering on “Infinity Drive”, which feels like a breath of cool air. But the coolness soon becomes a nagging chill and I feel my body numbing into a dystopian rhythm once again. As the song builds to a dizzying crescendo, I find myself laughing uncontrollably, screaming “Hello, so what, let’s go to an infinity drive”.
I find myself upright, and am now resurfaced and renewed as a disciple of the order of the Holy Void, applying paint to my own face, biting the head off of a rubber chicken and swaying my hips, dancing to the album's most enchanting groover, “Naught”.
I can hear the pleas of my fiancé from the other side of the garage door. But they seem so distant.
“Brotherhood” takes ahold of me with its Gregorian dissonance and odd melodic structure and I take my sandals off and place my feet on the cool floor of the garage. The ritual has been completed. Danny chugs a glass of tap water to honour it.
I’m being elevated. held aloft, dragged along the underside of the roof rafters. “Wretched Child” they repeat over and over, and heave me in the air. I’m wailing with delight, covered in cobwebs. I never want to be let go.
I wake up beside my recycling bin. My fiancé is wailing my name, slapping me in the face. “Wake up Phillip! Wake up! Wake up!!” I pretend to not hear her for a few more moments. I can still taste the cranniburries on my lips.
- JD Ormond
