CD Review

Title: Sounds from the Treeline

Artist: Lakefield

Label: Independent

Released: July 4, 2010

Genre: Pop

Band Members: Steven Luscher (guitar/vocals), Kate Rossiter (keys/vocals), Kyle Sulyma (bass), Paul Teehan (drums), Bryan Chiu (guitar/vocals)

Reviewed by: Tessa Perkins

Formed in 2008, indie band Lakefield is based in Vancouver, but made up of members from Edmonton and Toronto. They combine their love of bands like Death Cab for Cutie and Stars to create peaceful songs about the borderline between city and wilderness and the simultaneous desire for solitude and togetherness. Add a comment

CD Review

Title: Truth According to Shaz Oye

Artist:  Shaz Oye

Label: Radical Faeries Records

Released: 2008

Reviewed by: Christine Bode

The truth is that I’ve been meaning to review this very special CD for five months, but somehow couldn’t find the time.  Then my brother-in-law’s father died and on the morning of his wake I suffered a massive muscle spasm attack in my lumbar spine.  Although I was able to make a 15 minute appearance at the wake while on 1500 mg of muscle relaxant, I was completely confined to my bed on the morning of his funeral, in excruciating pain, and unable to sit, stand or walk for longer than two minutes.  So, I finally put on my headphones to really listen to Truth According to Shaz Oye. Add a comment

CD Review

Artist: Charlotte Cornfield

Album: Two Horses (LP)

Release Date: October 25^th, 2011

Reviewed By Alex Hutt

Read PressPlus1's Interview With Charlotte

The Montreal singer-songwriter Charlotte Cornfield creates music that seems pretty innocuous at first, but it certainly grows on you. On first listen, Two Horses came off as being a little one-note, with each song blending into each other. The second listen brought out Cornfield’s strength, as her lyricism and sense of storytelling is adamantly strong. True, there could have been more variety in the melodies and rhythms of the tracks, but the listener will first be drawn in by the vivid tales that each song is telling. Moreover, most of the songs seem to be telling more than one story at once. Add a comment

CD Review

Artist: Tinariwen

Album: Tassili

Genre: Blues/World

Label: Anti-

Reviewed by Richard Lam

“What have you got to say, my friends / About this painful time we’re living through?”

To call Tinariwen politically-charged is an understatement. How else can you take a band that opens an album with the accusatory lyric, “We live in ignorance and it holds all the power”?

Originally formed in a Libyan refugee camp, the band members have each grown up in a world of uprisings, military conflicts and a nomadic life-in-exile. Recording music whenever they could, this makeshift Tuareg band started freely distributing their music on cassette tapes even before they had a name, and gradually gained a sort of hushed following throughout the Sahara. Add a comment