Bill Jr. Jr., Elan Noon, and Nick Schofield
Bill Jr. Jr.
Homebody // Self-Released
Homebody is a project about transitions, bouncing between Vancouver, Montreal, Athens GA, staying in Banff, and meeting people on the road and playing music with them. Singer-Songwriter Russell Gendron, as Bill Jr. Jr., sings about home and his travels simultaneously, transcribing the warm glow that travelling gives to memories of home and the awe of passing through so many lives and scenes on the road. Teaming up with a plethora of musicians and friends, Bill Jr. Jr. creates with Homebody a massive sound, filled to the brim with shining and twinkling guitar, violin, synth and drums. The instrumentation is evocative of a massive festival stage as it soars under and around Gendron’s intensely wistful songwriting, taking the time for instrumental breaks and pauses to underline the impact of every phrase and melody. A Folk album through and through, Bill Jr. Jr. pulls influences from Country and Indie to create a sound that is homegrown and genuine.
The third album released under the moniker Bill Jr. Jr., Homebody is a mature and thoughtful project. A single theme and musical sensibility ties the project together without being repetitive. The shortest song is still over four minutes and the longest is just over seven, and each song stands on its own outside of the project, with the band taking enough time on each track to develop the feelings and instrumentation without relying on the greater project. While Bill Jr. Jr. definitely has at its root a folk and country sensibility, there are clear influences from the more mainstream/rock where guitar riffs, minor keys, and bored angst evoke acts like Modest Mouse or Courtney Barnett, such as on “Blue” and “Dear Neighbour”. At other times, Homebody presents an easy, jaunty folkiness that might remind the listener of Tokyo Police Club or even The Lumineers, like on “The Waves” and “Renaissance Man”.
With Homebody, Bill Jr. Jr. presents a full, fleshed out project that succeeds in communicating what it sets out to. The video for “Dear Neighbour”, one of the singles for the project, is a 360 video filmed inside a cramped van with the band simply performing the song on their instruments. This video, like the project, is stripped down when it wants to be. Homebody covers all the ground it needs to and speaks with a developed and thoughtful voice on everything that it wants to. Homebody is a rosy-eyed ode to the road, home, and all the people stuck between them, laid out competently and lovingly by the people that Gendron is writing about and for.
- Devon Acuña
Elan Noon
Colour Story // Self-Released
During the process of recording songs and capturing sounds for an album, I’ve heard artists compare some tracks or projects to a sneeze - sort of just all coming out at once. For Elan Noon’s lates release, Colour Story, the case is quite the opposite. Elan Noon, who’s real name is Keenan Mittag-Degala, took time over three years to capture this record in the basement of their home in Victoria. With David Parry alongside for the production of the record, and both artists touring as part of Loving, time was hard to come by. That being said, something special can happen when an artist has time to sit with songs, allowing life experience to ultimately seep into each track, influencing the sound of the final product. This album is such a beautifully arranged collection of inspiration and ideas from the outside world, and the deliverance by Elan Noon is soft, vibrant and eclectic.
Colour Story comes across as just that - a path that, as a listener, we follow through in many different shades. Elan Noon explains that the name itself came from a friend referring to the pallet of their outfit, something that we change and alter almost everyday depending on our moods. From track one, ‘Modern Blues’ leads us in with somber and soft vocals, gentle acoustic guitar and swelling clarinet. It’s a beautifully placed, cosy introduction to the record that allows your mind to drift a little and relax completely. Alternatively, Elan Noon sneaks jaunty songs like track four - titled ‘Sights’ - into this collection, and brilliantly so. The song starts with a bouncing baseline that gives me serious Johnny Cash vibes, which is then accompanied by a beachy, echoed guitar riff and muted strumming which acts as the percussive end of the track. It’s precocious, interesting and so tasty. Track nine titled ‘Wait’, is the kind of song that makes me want to stop and ask my friends if they’ve listened to this release. Easily my favourite track on the record, it’s exquisitely somber and dreamy. With soft vocals, swelling synth sounds and emotionally flooded lyricism, this song feels like an anthem for anyone who has felt let down by themselves or circumstances presented to them.
The thoughtfulness of the songwriting accompanied by the top-notch production truly makes Colour Story a special album that will continuously find itself creeping back into your headphones. Give this one a listen on a rainy day and cosy up to the tender, warm sounds of Elan Noon.
- LG
Nick Schofield
Glass Gallery // Backward Music
Glass Gallery, the newest release by Montreal-based composer Nick Schofield, is an instrumental album that takes the listener through a slideshow of places and memories with a gentle hand, invoking a feeling of both nostalgia and wonder.
Released under the label Backward Music, this album fits perfectly in their roster of the ambient and the experimental, with the album composed entirely on a vintage Prophet-600 synthesizer.
This gives the album a consistent warm and textured sound, likely due to the unique utilization of an almost 40 year old instrument.
Glass Gallery is inspired by the light and space of the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, a building which is quite literally a gallery made of glass. This inspiration is expressed through each song differing little in structure from the other tracks on the album, but instead through the change in tone. Every song, while confined to the limits of the Prophet-600, stays fresh and interesting through the thirty five minute run time.
From the first track of the album, “Central Atrium”, we are given a preview of what’s to come. A warm, gentle, and inviting slow tone fades in, with simple riffs that gain and lose control of each other as the song progresses, foreshadowing the haunting feeling that follows the album to its end.
Each song is a journey into an auditory tableau, from the mystical, bubbly sound of “Water Court”, feeling like an underwater journey through a sun kissed submerged city, to the woodworked futurism of “Getty Garden”, creating a song that feels both electronic and natural simultaneously.
My favourite piece is “Travertine Museum”, which appears halfway through the album. It’s a piece that invokes a feeling of awe and power, like seeing a city miniaturized from a mountain top, or viewing remnants of the past in a museum. The low tones create a riff that carries the song along, and I must say it really tickled my listening buds. That is, the taste buds in my ear.
On the final track, “Key of Klee”, the story goes full circle, returning back to the inviting ambience as it carefully takes itself apart into silence. It’s an embrace to the listener, letting them know that the story is over and now it’s time to go. It feels like saying goodbye to an old friend.
With themes of nostalgia and loss, Glass Gallery is an album that deserves to be listened to in a single sitting, and several times. By the end you’ll feel as if you’d taken a trip down memory lane and been told politely, yet firmly, that you can’t come back. However, Glass Gallery shows that despite how old we may feel, there still exists inside each of us the wonder we held in our youth.
- Brandon Kruze
