Having received bouquets for their earlier low-fi recordings, with their new aptly named album, Missiles, The Dears’ are now positioned as bonafide leaders of the Canadian indie rock renaissance.
Air / Mike Mills
I’ve been working from my home ’studio’ and have a few tracks that I play in it because I am very familiar with how they sound. Mike Mills, aside from being a well-composed track, sounds really good. When the strings come in towards the end, I am wishing that I had written it.
Black Diamond Bay / Calm Awaits
Apart from being close friends of mine, this track utterly destroyed me when I first heard it. It’s the title track from their first full length album. Krief’s voice is so vulnerable and delicate before the band comes in and shreds the whole thing to bits.
Pony Up / Sounds Like My Wedding Night
Also friends, this was the last track recorded for their upcoming Stay Gold album, which I helped record and mix. I like the track very much and because I know it so well. I also use this as a reference in my studio. At the very end, you can hear pieces of the tambourine falling to the floor. Some bands would kill for perfect moments like that on a record.
Emily Haines / The Bank
I really liked her solo record so I picked up the EP with this track on it. It’s got some kind of brilliant, jazzy, ‘what’s the password’ vibe that I can relate to. In fact, despite having different backgrounds, I feel like a lot of her work is so familiar to me and so I follow pretty much everything she and Metric put out.
Radiohead / Sail to the Moon
The last few Radiohead records are sonic achievements. I hate the fact that Nigel Godrich and I are roughly the same age. His work is so bloody refined it makes me sick. I would love to just sit and talk with him, even for fifteen minutes. Never mind the idea of actually working with him on a Dears record.
Green Day / Know Your Enemy
I heard this track once, flicking the dial on the radio. These guys do one thing but they do it so well. I’m not generally a fan of this band, but this track is pretty well executed, particularly the little muted guitar bits in the chorus between the lines, ‘Do you know your enemy/(click,click)/ do you know your enemy’. The most understated hook I have ever heard.
Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou / Gnon A Gnon Wa
My friend Benvie and I have been threatening a ’side project’ for almost a decade. The last time we talked about it, I said we should get down on some Afro stuff, so he sent me this MP3. It’s so wild, yet completely composed. It sounds like the way music plays in my head and yet I can’t possibly imagine how to actually make it sound like that. But I bet they were sweating.
Mahalia Jackson / The Last Mile of The Way
This track reminds me why I loathe indie-rock: a voice that makes you want to die and go to heaven, accompanied by an organ. That’s it. No brainy, privileged bullshit. No haircuts, no white belts. Just two minutes and 30 seconds of pure, simple devastation.
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