The soft-spoken, good-humored voice on the phone line clashed with what I had been listening to only moments before: Heavy drum beats, rolling bass, guitar riffs, and resonant Inuit throat singing. All of these feature on Nicolas Pirti-Duplessis otherwise known as Arctistic’s new album, Anirniq. Slightly over 40 minutes long,[Read More…]
Tag: music
Pop Dialectic: To Ed Sheeran, or not to Ed Sheeran?
In defence of Ed Sheeran – Sarah Farnand When I was an angsty, emotional teenager, I regularly listened to Ed Sheeran’s music. My entire family found his music to be heartwarming and relatable. I won’t lie, when my grandma passed away, I may or may not have listened to “Visiting[Read More…]
Don’t buy into the myth of selling out
The accusation of “selling out” cuts deep within independent music. “Indie” fans often pride themselves on the genre’s self-positioning against the mainstream music industry’s commercialism. Selling out is hence defined by an artist’s relationship to the profit motive. Artists perceived to court sales by pursuing a more popular sound, heavily[Read More…]
‘Five Easy Hot Dogs’: Mac DeMarco’s listless instrumental road trip
Mac DeMarco was trying to break out of an artistic rut, a process that led to the conception of his latest project, Five Easy Hot Dogs. The album, released on Jan. 20, follows DeMarco’s road trip after a Bay Area show in mid-January of last year. He began driving north[Read More…]
What’s wrong with world music?
On what grounds do we describe music that breaks with Western traditions? Does the simple label “world music” suffice? Unsurprisingly, this term was not popularized by so-called world musicians. Rather, like much of the language we use to describe music, it was the creation of profit-minded record label executives. In[Read More…]
Miss Americana is back, and so is her pop persona
It’s 11:59 on a Thursday night. My friend and I wait with bated breath in Milton B, hurriedly refreshing Spotify. We’re not waiting for the café’s mediocre WiFi to load—we are waiting to listen to Midnights, Taylor Swift’s latest album. I knew all too well that the impending release would[Read More…]
What we liked this fall reading break
As the second official Fall Reading Week comes to a close and McGill students are thrust back into the throes of midterm season, downtime can feel like a fleeting dream. For students who have time to read non-academic books or for those looking for a new study soundtrack, here are[Read More…]
Gerts Café reopens for its second year of business, hopes to make live music a weekly feature
Gerts Café opened for its second year of business on Sept. 20 after being closed since May. The café, the daytime counterpart of Gerts Campus Bar, is located in the basement of the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) University Centre at 3480 McTavish Street. Ben Hack, BA ’21 and[Read More…]
Artist Profile: Still Insane is still rocking
Of the many cultural currents that underscored the late 90s and early 2000s, none have defined generations more than skater culture. Music genres such as skate punk charted worldwide, skater clothing brands like Vans dominated teenage aesthetics, and television programs such as Jackass epitomized the “skater boy” as a staple[Read More…]
Artist Spotlight: Lucas Fournier
Montreal’s status as a must-stop city for popular artists and bands is partially due to its vibrant independent music scene, which thrives amidst a culture of diverse genres and styles. Singer-songwriter Lucas Fournier, U2 Arts, was attracted to the city for similar reasons and chose to come to McGill in[Read More…]
