A Look at the Polaris Long List: 40. Young Galaxy – Shapeshifting

Last album DONE! Can’t believe I made it all the way through after recklessly declaring I would embark on this foolhardy plan to do a post outlining my thoughts on all forty of the albums on the 2011 Polaris Long List that I had to listen to before voting on the Short List finalists.

I’m glad I : 1. listened to all the albums (something I don’t think all the jurors did before they voted but I won’t tell tales out of class)! and 2. decided to do this series after all though because it was something different (hey!) than the regular re-posting of video, vlogs, mp3’s, mixtapes and other sundry rubbish PR and marketing agencies inundate my inbox with every day. That sh-t gets tired (to me, at least) and there are plenty of other ‘aggregator’ blogs out there to satisfy that need if you so desire.

As for Montreal’s Young Galaxy, there wasn’t anything essentially wrong with their vaguely new wavey, 80’s-esque sound. In fact, I quite enjoyed it but their music wasn’t standout or better than a lot of other things on the list I thought deserved to be long listed. Here’s a couple joints from Shapeshifting so you can make up your own mind though:

Download Young Galaxy Cover Your Tracks [MP3]

Download Young Galaxy Peripheral Visionaries [MP3]

and after the jump, check out a handful of bonus remixes of ‘Cover Your Tracks’ by Teen Daze, Freedom of Death and CFCF and stay tuned for the Polaris contest if I can pull it together….

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A Look at the Polaris Long List: 39. Neil Young – Le Noise

Speaking of droney, who knew rock elder statesmen, legend and icon (yes, all three!), Neil Young would go there on his latest album, Le Noise?! From a creative and artistic point of view I give him full credit for still being willing and able to take these kind of creative chances this far into his long and storied career when many others would play it safe. Musically this was pretty on point but unfortunately, lyrically it often fell way short verging on atrocious at times.

A Look at the Polaris Long List: 38. Women – Public Strain

Women‘s Public Strain was giving me Jesus and Mary Chain vibes with it’s droney, Phil Spector-ish sound & 60’s Beach Boys on quaaludes (or something) harmonies. Was a little on the weird side but I could f-ck with it. Can you though??

Download Women Bullfight [MP3]

Download Women Venice Lockjaw [MP3]

Download Women Narrow With The Hall [MP3]

A Look at the Polaris Long List: 36. Timber Timbre – Creep On Creepin’ On

Download Timber Timbre Black Water [MP3]

Timber Timbre‘s Creep On Creepin’ On was definitely one of the better albums on the Polaris Long List. If the primary yardstick by which these album are measured for awarding the prize is their level creativity and originality, these guys should really be considered shoe-ins to be shortlisted tomorrow because they exhibit both in spades. By way of example, I can’t even give you the standard crit fallback prose of, “They sound like x or x mixed with y…” ‘cos to my ears they sounded kind of fresh and my best attempt at trying to do that just sounds crazy: a gang of syrup drinkers and smack-heads listen to Dr. Dre‘s 2001 album, get inspired and decide to make some of their own music. Yeah, exactly!

From track to track I couldn’t even guess what I was going to hear first time around when I played this and to my way of thinking, that’s a pretty good thing! Hit play on the track ‘Black Water’ then hit the jump for the title track and another track to see what I’m getting at. If you think I’m buggin’ though, feel free to just so say in the comments.

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A Look at the Polaris Long List: 35. Colin Stetson – New History Warfare Vol. 2: Judges

Colin Stetson‘s New History Warfare Vol. 2: Judges is exactly the kind of album the Polaris Music Prize was created for. Music that pushes creative and artistic boundaries without any regard for commercial concerns

For those not knowing (which, admittedly, included myself prior to joining the Polaris jury), Steson is a respected saxophonist known for recording and performing with Arcade Fire, Bon Iver and other luminaries in the new indie rock scene. For his own album, he decided to another route than the stadium indie anthems of his colleagues’ Grammy awarding winning album, The Suburbs. There is nary a conventional song on the album, much less anything that would pass for a hit record. If I had to reference it against other music, well that’s kind of f-cking difficult frankly but, mix Miles Davis‘ Bitches Brew, Radiohead‘s Kid A and some ole’ Phillip Glass sh-t together and maybe you’d be partway to approximating what Stetson has come up with here.

For those whose conception of what music is is shaped by radio and music videos, New History Warfare Vol. 2 is probably a difficult verging on impossible listen, microwave LCD blog rap this is most certainly not. But stick with it, the rewards are worth it, kind of like the All for Nothing book I’m reading right now by Rachel K. Ward. Not to digress and get all kinds of sexist here but speaking of that book, who knew such a fox could be so brain meltingly smart and cool at the same time??!