Dana Sipos, Possum, and Janette King
Dana Sipos
The Astral Plane // Roaring Girl Records
With all the pain that comes from, you know, being alive, a lot of us try our best to avoid suffering through either hedonist habits or pure ignorance. It takes a certain tuning in one’s soul to look inward and discover the true scope of our impact on others through the weight we carry on our shoulders, and doubly so, finding a way to express these revelations. Dana Sipos dwells into these themes with grace and compassion through her newest LP, the masterfully crafted The Astral Plane.
The album opens with a piano and guitar working in unison to create an ambient curtain opening before fully presenting the first track, “Light In Moon On”, which establishes the albums contemporary folk sound and philosophical lyricism. Accompanied by the haunting finger picking of Nick Zubeck on guitar, the sparing but effective percussion from Blake Howard, the beautiful keyboard from Thomas Hammerton, and the full sound of Mark McIntyre’s bass, the album presents a haunting sound delivered with competence and complexity.
The album’s lyrics explore the past of Sipos’ family, with her grandparents being survivors of the Holocaust who later fled Hungary during the Communist Revolution. They arrived in Canada with no money and no way of communicating with the locals. Despite the adversity facing them, they managed to thrive and create a life and family for themselves. However, this early trauma took a toll on their family later in life, creating emotional fallout that affects Sipos and her family to this day.
The passing down of trauma is inevitable and The Astral Plane explores this through songs about different moments in time. For example, the albums seventh track, “Greenbelt”, searches through the memory of Sipos’ childhood growing up on a family farm. On the other hand are songs like “Hoodoo”, which divulge into the impact we’re making on our Earth and the world we’re leaving for our descendants.
These thoughts of family trauma, individual trauma that will inevitably manifest, and the impact we have on the future of others, they aren’t a problem with the world, but a part of it. The Astral Plane displays this idea and invites us, the listeners, to explore our past and meditate on the quiet pain we endure on a daily basis through the accumulation of all previous experience, as it’s the only way we can find solace in suffering.
- Brandon Kruze
Possum
Lunar Gardens // idée fixe
Torontonian psychonautic quintet Possum returns after their spellbinding debut with Lunar Gardens, a vibrant trip through space and time that only takes the smallest cues from its predecessor, Space Grade Assembly. Rather than a straight forward, guitar-fueled, psychedelic experience, Possum instead went in search of fractal forms and came out with an LSD-fueled trip through the cosmos so deep that it would make the 13th Floor Elevators jealous.
Opening with “Clarified Budder”, we’re given just a glimpse of Space Grade Assembly as we’re thrust onward. All the psych rock staples are there: precision, chaos, guitars fuzzier than the expired sour cream in the back of your fridge, time changes just where they should be but not where you expect them. But “Clarified Budder” is just the glimmer of our past in the rear-view mirror; from this intro, it soon becomes clear that Possum is taking us on a journey far deeper into the aether than ever before. In 2019 we were launched through an orbit of psych rock bliss, but now we are moving beyond the orbit and into the uncharted abyss: human consciousness.
What follows is a blend of sounds and influences that is familiar and fresh. They’ve somehow achieved some of the finest 70s dad-rock tones around with a blend of sounds you’ve never quite heard before, it has the cadence of the dad-rock you’ve come to adore, but with a contemporary approach. I could mansplain rock n’ roll history as I fruitlessly pontificate on their influences, but Lunar Gardens can hardly be pinned to speculation of what they may or may not have been going for. It’s clear that intuition and improvisation flew the spaceship through Lunar Gardens. Besides, I don’t care how we got here, I’m just glad to have been on the ride.
Vocals come in the form of mesmeric incantations, often repeated hypnotically as they offer prompts to carry with you as you move forward. “Can these prisms modulate space outside of time?” they probe as the band carries onward with precision and liberty. As the journey unfolds, we are guided through a slurry of moods and tones; sometimes we are comforted with stalwart grooves, but at other times we are left searching for our footing, just to be scooped up in the psychedelic splendor as guitars splash and shroud. Don’t fear, if you’re one to dread the trajectory of the trip, be comforted knowing that the title track serves as a soft landing to come-down to after it all, like a leaf falling to the ground on a windless day.
In the end I was left feeling as though I was launched into the cosmic soup just to be stirred, slurped, and spit out on the other side of a funky, jazzy, psychedelic dreamscape garnished with kraut. To ponder what is around the next corner is a futile act, it’s best to just let go and let it take you where it will. What’s an LSD trip without an open mind? A bad trip. Open your mind and trust Possum to do their thing, you’ll be just fine. See you on the other side.
- Clay Geddert
Janette King
What We Lost // Hot Tramp Records
Janette King creatively blends R&B, pop, house, and the nostalgia of the early 2000s in her album titled What We Lost. Reflecting on her self-love and the love given by and to those around her, King radiates confidence and a steady and clear idea of who she is and what she is worth. Although a fusion of genres, the message is crystal clear: you are worthy and beautiful and full of love - whether you have been treated accordingly or not. In her single “You Don’t Love Me” she begins the song with a powerful statement, “Love is an incredible thing, and we don’t know love like we should. We always talk about unconditional love; unconditional love – we don’t even know it. Because if a person stops stimulating us, we stop loving them.” And this could not be more true. In 2021, dating is almost unheard of and the “talking stage” of relationships is all that we really know. We view love as something constantly exciting, volatile, and an act that makes your heart race and your palms sweat; and although all of that is true, these are not the only defining features of love. King highlights the temporary state of this love-like lust in her lyrics that float along the rhythm like ships on a wave, taking the listener calmly through the treacherous waters of a broken heart.
Loss, sadness, and mental health are topics prevalent in King’s work as she moves through her own experiences whilst simultaneously giving advice to others going through similar things. Pain is not an isolated experience, it can feel isolating; however, it is a shared fact of life. Losing things along our path is inevitable, and along with acknowledging this fact, “King’s songs seek to tap into the frightening intersection where searing pain and sadness can produce soaring new heights for art”. There are opportunities to grow and learn, there is a chance of healing and improvement; there is so much room for love – that real love that we haven’t yet known. The R&B vibes that King gives off in her single make the message accessible and easy to consume; the chorus, a repetition of “you don’t love me no more” creates a sticky, gorgeous serenade that gets trapped in your mind and will have you humming or singing for the rest of the day (depending on your location!).
Janette King, currently based in Montreal, reaches out to the part of us that yearns for the simple, confident words of a beautiful, independent woman. One who is working through the pain and is coming up on the crest of something beautiful and bigger. From start to finish, King will have you head bopping along to the easy beats and electro madness. Reaching into the pot and painting with multiple brushes allows each song to exist in and of itself, while intertwining nicely with the song before. All of this is to say that you should definitely check her out!
- Krystle McGrath
