Arguably one of the best songwriters of the 21st Century looks back to the 20th for his new album Almost four years since Josh Tillman released his last studio album, God’s Favorite Customer, today his latest endeavour, Chloë and The Next 20th Century comes out via Sub Pop/Bella Union. While each album demonstrated growth and a departure from the last, Chloë embodies this in both a lyrical and instrumentation context. Back together with collaborator and co-producer Jonathan Wilson after the previous album hired Jonathan Rado to helm the ship, Chloë and The Next 20th Century began its writing phase in August…
Author: Aron Harris
The original tool watch was designed for one thing – survival. The very first watches purpose-built for divers date back to the 1800s when they would place pocket watches inside their diving helmets. Divers depended on watches to know the time spent underwater. It wasn’t until the 1920s when Rolex created their hermetically sealed Oyster watch case that a wristwatch could be worn underwater without being ruined. The features that stamped a watch as a dive watch, apart from waterproofing, were oversized hour markers and indices and an overall large case size to accommodate. Early versions of Panerai’s Radiomir dive…
A Supernova Drummer Who Never Took His Place For Granted. Many Canadians got their first glimpse of this stereotypically Southern Californian drummer behind the kit with Sass Jordan. At the age of 22, his kilowatt smile and blonde hair graced the throne behind the Quebec rock goddess as they toured Europe and North America. As Sass wound down her touring career, Hawkins won the seat in Alanis Morisette’s band and became known to millions. Playing with Alanis from 1995 to 1997, he tasted star-powered fame and toured the entire world. While he found his career and a place…
A green dial watch packed with green motivations. In my short time learning about watches and microbrands, one thing I’m seeing in many younger companies is their commitment to green practices and sustainability. Many take their packaging into consideration by only using FSC papers and eschewing plastics meant for the landfill. Many have partnerships with causes near and dear to their territory. For instance, seeing the correlation between a dive watch and the protection of our oceans doesn’t take a lot of imagination to figure out. But more than taking a stand for appearances, consideration for how companies, even a…
Just shy of the 2nd anniversary of the first COVID-19 lockdown, live music has returned to Toronto. Again. We have a brief respite last fall but shy of another variant, we may have some clear sailing for the foreseeable future. Few artists can provide a toe-dip back to warm water normalcy than the chill vibes provided by Simon Green, known by his stage name Bonobo. The musician, producer and DJ blends mellow electronic beats with jazz and world beat instrumentation. Green has attracted impressive collaborators in the past such as Erykah Badu and Rhye. The artist released his seventh studio…
Perhaps the most appealing aspect of watch collecting to me is how it helps push me back towards an analog world. I want to break the habit of checking my phone for the time and date. Once that nasty thing comes out of my pocket for a date check, probably half the time, I’m scrolling through Instagram or Twitter three seconds later. Retraining myself to look at my wrist for the same information requires a bit of reeducation. In this bygone analog era, when a phone was generally a part of a building and an app was what you served…
Lilienthal Berlin was one of a handful of brands that I discovered when I first started to look into watch microbrands. Aside from finding more affordable prices, I find microbrands appealing for a couple of reasons, from a style perspective. First, many bow to the long history of wristwatches and pay homage to a lineage of classic looks with vintage-styled collections. Others look to break the mould and start from scratch from a design standpoint. Lilienthal Berlin fall closer to the latter. Of their six standard styles, all fall into a loose classification as dress watches but swing sporty with…
As a kid of the 80s, I longed for a digital watch. When I was finally gifted one, like many others of that era, it was a Casio. I think it was an F-86. It had an LCD display, a plastic band and three buttons. My Casio also had a dim light that allowed me to just read the display in the dark. To anyone born after 1990, that sounds snoozingly pedestrian but back in 1980-something, it felt like I was handed a key to the future. Long before that supercomputer in your pocket could do everything from being your…
Montreal artist, Patrick Watson is often compared to an impressive group of modern musicians. However, calling him Canada’s Sufjan or a vocal Nils Frahm diminishes Watson’s uniqueness. They all may travel in similar artiste circles, jetting in to play shows in Monte Carlo, Beverly Hills, London, Paris, Rome, and Gstaad. Yet, trying to parse the Canadianess of an artist merely for comparison feels arbitrary and puffed up. Whether by design or happenstance, Watson stands alone despite writing similarly emotionally driven songs structured with pop frames papered by gritty or cloud-soft textures and idiosyncratic tones. That word soup sentence just proves…
Lemmon Stage, founded by Lemmon Entertainment, in partnership with the El Mocambo is supporting music industry recovery by providing an ongoing professional development platform for emerging artists. Lemmon Stage is the only year-long program at the El Mocambo, presenting live performance opportunities for new talent. Click here to find out about tonight’s show. Guelph, ON-born and Toronto-situated artist, NEFE exudes an old-soul calm that belies her age. It could be confidence or comfort but is likely based somewhere when asked about a lack of the splash on social media. Precipitated by an unfortunate Instagram hack, NEFE had to reconsider not…
Allen Stone’s unassuming appearance belies the voice that comes out of his mouth. Tall, bespectacled and with long curly hair and blue eyes, this Washington State soul singer purrs pure honey. Allen hit the road on a short fall tour as a part of his greater US tour starting in January. Unfortunately, a chest cold forced the cancellation of two shows but you can catch him in Washington, NYC, Detroit, Chicago and Minneapolis. Toronto was lucky to be the first hosts for Stone. He played The Phoenix Concert Theatre on Dec. 2 before heading southeast. Accompanying himself on guitar and…
After postponements for obvious reasons, the Last Domino? tour finally arrived on November 25th for two shows in Toronto at Scotiabank Arena. A delight of production and sound, Genesis moved through many of their hits and deeper cuts from their storied catalogue of music. No longer able to drum, Phil Collins took his seat centre stage while son Nic sat behind him, behind the drums. Stalwart bandmates, Tony Banks and Mike Rutherford were joined by longtime sideman, Daryl Stuermer and a pair of backup vocalists as they moved through hits such as Turn It On Again, Mama, Land of Confusion,…
Lemmon Stage, founded by Lemmon Entertainment, in partnership with the El Mocambo is supporting music industry recovery by providing an ongoing professional development platform for emerging artists. Lemmon Stage is the only year-long program at the El Mocambo, presenting live performance opportunities for new talent. Unlike your standard artist website link to an ‘about me’ or ‘bio’ page, Toronto-based singer/songwriter Marina Lin took the big steps to outline her personal journey as an artist and a person. Not only does this visual self-exploration serve as an introduction to Marina, but it also tells the story of how this young musician…
Despite shows in Toronto being booked, then postponed or cancelled, the Jungle show that was scheduled to occur at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre was moved to the Cityview Drive-In. Setting this apart from other drive-in shows, this one was a general admission concert. Outdoor shows pack a seeming safety to the live music experience and stick with the COVID rules, so moving forward, will we see more and more attempts to put shows on under the sky and stars? Jungle is a UK production duo manned by Josh Lloyd-Watson and Tom McFarland. Since 2013, the two have pumped out feel-good…