THE TREE RING / Live at Luce Loft with Camarada from Destin Daniel Cretton on Vimeo.

Easily my favourite San Diego band, the Tree Ring‘s shows are always intensely intimate and communal, it’s definitely those experiences that I remember watching them that make me most nostalgic for San Diego. Through their music, I can always look back on it fondly. This video of them performing at Luce Loft is a great representation of that vibe. Check it out and look out for a new record from them coming soon! Their album release is on October 27th, with The Shivers opening. Sounds like a good excuse for a quick trip to my home away from home?

Victoria, BC artist Aidan Knight is set to release his sophomore record Small Reveal via Outside Music on Oct 23rd. His first single, A Mirror is a sign of good things to come, dreamy and lush, the orchestration builds and swells, yet his voice remains perfectly clear and composed. He sings, “it keeps me awake, knowing you’ll love me someday”. This is going to be one of those Fall weather albums for me, I think I need this on vinyl. Listen below. Beautiful, right?

Aiden Knight – A Mirror

I’ve been pretty obsessed with Melody’s Echo Chamber lately – her Tame Impala connection was reason enough for me to take notice, and this latest video just solidified it. Check out her rad underwater video for I Follow You and catch her at The Phoenix with The Raveonettes on Oct. 2nd!

Made of Imagination with The Sheepdogs from Free Agency on Vimeo.

Our latest episode of MTV’s Made of Imagination is up! We filmed The Sheepdogs as they re-imagined their single, “The Way It Is” with Afro Cuban musicians.

Read my behind the scenes here.

Made of Imagination with Rich Aucoin

So I was in Montreal this passed week getting my French on but I wanted to share a little project that I’ve been working on with my friend Jeff from Booooooom. A couple of months ago he invited me to take part in a project for MTV and Sony Xperia called “Made of Imagination” a web series where we’d invite artists to use their imagination to come up with handmade instruments to re-intepret their songs. The first episode was with Rich Aucoin where we filmed him experimenting with sounds in a studio then followed him around Hillside Music Festival the next day. It was fun! So for the next few weeks I’ll be blogging for MTV here, so be sure to check it out.

Also you can submit your own imaginative instruments and we’ll feature it over at MTV. Go to Booooooom to get all of the instructions on how to do it. I’m pumped to reveal the other artists involved as they come. Check out our episode with Rich Aucoin above.

I love this record. I like this remix.

Amongster (Exitmusic Remix) by Mom + Pop

I was late for my blog’s birthday by two days and that’s indicative of where my head’s been at the last few months. It led me to a truth I wouldn’t have accepted so easily just two years ago: life goes on. I had this perpetual fear that I had to keep up the momentum of blogging about music in order to maintain the energy, the momentum I had with it. I had to keep going, when I was uninspired, elated, restless – it was only important that I kept going. While three years is barely enough time to get nostalgic, it feels like a lifetime to me. I was so young, just three summers ago. In that time, I must’ve moved a thousand times, or at least that’s what it feels like to my bones. All of those life experiences, and this beautiful outlet allowed me to share it all with you. I felt as though I began blogging in something of a heyday for music bloggers – there weren’t a ton of us, and there were still some originals kicking around. Everything felt novel, sharing tips with strangers who became trusted friends, experimenting with new sounds, new voices for the blog, new layouts, new ways of sharing. The reluctant introduction of Twitter, Facebook, beginning to think I could start a brand – while at the same time, feeling a little disgusted by that word. But there were moments of purity, when this exchange felt so satisfying, like I might’ve done you a service by sharing my greatest love. And you know what the craziest trip of all is? I found my greatest love through this blog. A best friend that completely redefined the word friend for me. And he was a friend among many many others. I was championed by so many people. Why am I rambling? Is this an elegy? No, FWBA is not ending. This is more of a needed reflection.

Since I got a new job in February I couldn’t have anticipated what a new challenge it would be and how much of my mental energy and physical self it would require. I truly love it, but it kept me away from this space. I don’t have the time to engage like I used to and boy do I know it. I feel the sting of absense from it and some days, when it feels like a burden above all else – that’s when I get the most sad. This space used to serve as such a safe place for me, a place for solace and earnest exchange. Then, as things do, it became something I would feel obligated to do. That’s why I haven’t been forcing it, If I want to post, I’ll post. Otherwise, you won’t hear from me – besides my monthly mixes where I generally spill my guts and share songs I like with a growing list of strangers who sometimes write back.

On to Patti. I just finished her book, Just Kids, given to me by my friend, Michael, who works with her occasionally on her books. This didn’t carry much weight with me as I knew her as just a name to know. Then I read her book and I left the last few pages nearly in tears, which I kept in only because I was sitting at the window seat of a plane, sniffling into my sweater. I thought it was fitting that I should read her book around this strangely transitional time in my life – my life away from music – and into the unknown of whatever else might inspire me. Playing? Who knows. This book might be old news by now but there was something about her relationship with Robert Mappelthorpe that touched me profoundly, their infinite and mutual playfulness, their creativity that literally saved them from despair, illness and the pangs of growing up. Whatever riches they might’ve acquired – in art and in the influential people that they met, they owed it to one another. There were other things that struck me: fearlessness. A kind of courageousness to pursue art of all forms: poetry, painting, photography, music. Nothing was off limits. The question wasn’t whether they were good enough for it, but how often they tried. This was a huge takeaway for me, personally, because my own personal art has been so undefined – as I’ve always struggled to see myself as an artist, yet so loyally championed the works of others. I’m an appreciator, and a curator – but to me, that feels like a privilege rather than a practice. This book made me realize that the beauty is in the trying. It’s in the process and the exchange with other people.

So, onto the fourth year – with only the promise to try more often, bravely explore life as an artist myself, while continuing to appreciate those who inspire me to learn more, love more and do great things – to musicians, who sit with me in my living room every evening as I type away silently trying to shake off the anxiety of the day. To my best friend, who will continue to challenge me, gently inviting me from the sidelines as a fervent appreciator to a player, an artist, even. FWBA might be sparse in the seasons to come, but it will always be honest and it will always be loving.

- Nada

Patti Smith – Gloria 

How did this happen? Girl-fronted music from Canada is usually on Nada’s prime hit list, but somehow I’ve beat her to this post! Anywhos, last week Purity Ring dropped their much-much-much-anticipated deput Shrines LP. At the tender ages of 21 and 24, this fresh duo formed out of Gobble Gobble early last year and have henceforth been meticulously crafting 11 songs and an unrivaled live show experience. For a debut album, their sound is already delightfully confident and cultivated. Shrines weaves seamlessly from track to track, bursting at the seams with swerving vocal samples layered over chopped up beats. There’s a discernible hip hop influence to Corin Roddick’s production that’s just too delightful when paired with Megan James’ georgously ethereal voice.

I’m anxious to see where this duo goes in the future, I hope they’ll stay with us for a while. Their new video (above) for Fineshrine is a dreamy narrative directed by Young Replicant, the production team that crafted the Baths music video.