This newsletter is an extension of the 2022 Summer Album Guide, and will evolve to include writing about the community, the city and the world in areas other than hot vinyl and vital music. But for now consider it a gesture to continue the art of the album review, forever disappearing from our print newspapers. - Dave Bidini
Bruce Springsteen
Only the Strong Survive
One catalogues the inter-sections of Time and Bruce: living in Italy, pre-streaming, with one local record shop that sold mostly Timo Maas and Orbital dance discs-- it got worse from there-- and buying 2002’s “The Rising” out of a desperation for Rock Music, only to find it capably holding its place in our CD wallet like a six-month goal-line stand; getting snuck backstage into Massey Hall for the singer’s "Tom Joad" solo acoustic tour, and while climbing a series of old stairwells into the theatre, hearing a clip-clop of boots and, out of the corner of my eye, a blur of denim moving towards the stage door (the show was brilliant); the “Born to Run” album on cassette coming out of the old Crown Vic that our mechanic found for us for 500$, and finally listening-- really listening-- to what happens with the strings and descending chords in the amusement park breakdown; watching a VHS tape on Bookman’s couch of his famous Maple Leaf Gardens show filmed on shaking camcorder from way up in the greys; and going to Exhibition Stadium out of obligation to see the “Born in the USA” show, only to finally understand what you can do in a big venue provided you let spirit and fearless imagination guide you.
Stacked up against all of this, it’s often hard to listen objectively to whatever comes next, but we do because of everything that came before. The Springsteen fan, however, is taken off the hook with “Only the Strong Survive” because this is a record of covers, and since they’re mostly excellent Soul-era songs, it’s hard to conclude that he's lost his songwriting chops or ‘can’t bring it, anymore,’ since the songs are from a tradition in which he’s effortlessly traded for years. I could nitpick that the record is simply too long (it is) and that the album’s title seems to run against a lot of what he has evoked in his songwriting portraiture; people, mostly men, who don’t survive no matter how strong they are-- but this is outweighed by a few shimmering highlights, one of which is a version of “The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine,” the Bob Crewe/Bob Gaudio gem recorded by both the Walker Brothers and Frankie Valli (Crewe would go on to write “Lady Marmalade” while Gaudio would continue to play keyboards in the Four Seasons). To those for whom Springsteen’s delivery has always seemed a little too close to that of someone passing a gallstone, here he’s as smooth and mighty as any great torch singer, favouring long notes and a deep well of breath. There’s a lot that he gives, which means there’ll be more to give later.
Get it on his website HERE
Rauw Alejandro
Saturno
Mostly, I’m drawn to its universe of exhortations: keyboard-tripped yelps and shouting and boy-yeeps and machine-gun bits of girls laughing and crowd noise and women speaking half-phrases that spike the Latin electro-dance/reggaeton, which, if the music gives me high-blood pressure, also intrigues by the speed at which everything comes at you, sort of like getting stoned on a too-strong edible while racing through Wal Mart on a Saturday trying to find the interior of the Dufferin Mall. The closing track, “Lokera,” plays to a sneaky string pad over which samples dialogue in both disorienting and communicative ways, a reminder of how avant-garde so much commercial music has become. All hail Kraftwerk, Suicide, Wendy Carlos and John Cage. And DEVO. And Kendrick Lamar. Art is forever a siren calling to be fucked with.
Buy it HERE
Autopilot
Feverish Dreams
A three-piece from Saskatoon, so, obviously, a band after my heart. This is a first single from a new album (they’ve already made four) that possesses New Wave intensity with No Wave angularity and a let’s-get-there-quick brevity, featuring bass playing that sounds carved out with a pick, drums charging too intensely to find time for a tom roll, and single-note guitar lines struck using lots of long arm. Only the singing hides behind its bangs, afraid to distract from the whole in the same way Michael Stipe used Mike Mills as concealer in “Radio Free Europe.” The bass drum kicks the way your heart does after being chased by a mean stray dog. Woof.
Check it out on their website HERE
Kyp Harness
Poverty Line
When I first saw him play, and later, saw him around town, Kyp was all bone and jaw and dog’s-hind strumming hand, a folk-singing wraith whose musical constructions captivated audiences looking for an essence promised by that form: street-level eye line, voices of the unvoiced, and, at times, an adventure of romance in the thick shadows of the city. His new album--it sounds as big and warm as anything he’s previously released-- carries forward into an adult world all that Kyp Harness established lo those years ago: a gentle, if despairing, view of the world sung with a keening Dylan-from-Downsview lilt and a ton of over-arching heart that draws out the humanity in songs like “Poverty Line” and “It’s Raining Inside.” With Dale Morningstar (who also produced), Mary Margaret O Hara, Tania Gill and others.
Check it out on Bandcamp HERE
Thanks for reading the West End Phoenix Newsletter! To subscribe to the print version of our newspaper you can go HERE ! For newsletter readers, use code THANKS15 at checkout for 15% off a years subscription!