By Brandon Lai (Residence Advisor-Kwakiutl House)
Aidan Knight
Aidan Knight, is the 25 year old songwriter and namesake of the Victoria-based band unveiled their second album Small Reveal in 2013. The roots of Small Reveal began in early 2012, in a similar rustic surrounding to that of their critically acclaimed debut album “Versicolour”. Armed with hundreds of pounds of recording equipment; Olivier Clements, Julia Wakal, David Barry, Colin Nealis and Knight set up in a gorgeous forest location with a cast iron stove and nearby swimming hole. Small Reveal presents the themes of inward thought and creativity, escapism, longing for success, and belonging. The result is an exciting yet dreamy, lushly-arranged record that swells and ebbs around the captivating focal point of Aidan’s voice. “The first time I was able to listen to the songs roughly put together…discovering what we had all made together. We had created something personal but omniscient, something ragged but polished, something that was reflective of what it means to spend a year crafting something that isn’t revealed until the weeks. Unhurried. This is an album of music about creating music, the escapism in it and the uncomfortably honesty that hopefully shows itself.”
– Squamish Music Festival
Essential Song: Knitting Something Nice For You
The Zolas*
After debuting with Tic Toc Tic in 2009, The Zolas scaled the precipice of cult status across Canada, thanks to a loyal fanbase carried over from Zach Gray (vocals, guitar) and Tom Dobrzanski’s (piano) earlier years as Lotus Child. With Ancient Mars, their second album, released in 2012, The Zolas continued their legacy of postmodern pop. Armed with poetic lyrics, Ancient Mars traded in the cabaret glitz of Tic Toc Tic for reverbed pianos and hard, minimalist beats. Dobrzanski is the band’s on-board producer, having worked with names in indie-rock royalty like Said the Whale and We Are The City, but for Ancient Mars production duties were handed over to Chuck Brody (Phantogram, Wu-Tang), much like how 2009’s Tic Toc Tic was produced by Howard Redekopp (Mother Mother, The New Pornographers).
– Squamish Music Festival
Hannah Epperson*
Hannah Epperson is a notable musician and composer skilled at working with many layers of composition at the same time. She offers a stream of creativity that is inevitably related to various styles, genres and scenes, yet few of these descriptions will remain suitable as her music continues its evolution. This is due to her raw and unfettered talent and a lack of creative censorship. Hannah’s material that follows its own trend, introducing intricate arrangements on her own and through collaborations that are refreshing, captivating and original. With loop pedal, fiddle and voice, sonic weaver Hannah Epperson creates moving musical landscapes. As a stirring solo performer and talented collaborative artist, she has joined forces with a versatile cast of some of Western Canada’s favourites in the indie and folk scenes, including The Zolas, Aidan Knight, Said the Whale, Morlove, Miss Emily Brown, electro-pop sensations Top Less Gay Love Tekno Party, Dominique Fricot, Shane Koyczan and Ajay Bhattacharyya (Data Romance).
– Squamish Music Festival
Dan Mangan*
While growing up in Vancouver, songwriter Dan Mangan immersed himself in his parents’ record collection, paying special attention to albums by Nick Drake and the Beatles. Folk and pop thus became two of his biggest influences, and Mangan combined both genres while writing his own songs as a teenager. At 20 years old, he made his solo debut by releasing an acoustic EP, with the full-length Postcards and Daydreaming following two years later. Postcards and Daydreaming was later released in America, leading Mangan to increase his touring commitments and widen his fan base. In 2009, he returned with a second album, Nice, Nice, Very Nice, which landed on the Polaris Music Prize shortlist. Mangan followed up two years later with Oh, Fortune, showing the troubadour’s matured songwriting and arrangements, produced by Colin Stewart (Black Mountain, Cave Singers).
We Are The City
For the members of We Are The City, the years since 2009’s In a Quiet World have been filled with intense change, both personal and musical. They’ve undergone lineup alterations, relocated from Kelowna to Victoria to Vancouver, reached their 20s, built up a fan base across the country and painstakingly honed their sound. All of this experience, both good and bad, went into making their sophomore album, Violent.
High school friends Cayne McKenzie (vocals/keyboards) Andrew Huculiak (drums) and David Menzel (guitar) began plotting this album almost as soon as the first one was done. Their future looked bright, as they won $150,000 in January of 2010 by placing first in 102.7 The Peak’s prestigious PEAK Performance Project contest.
We Are the City’s restless sense of artistry has led them through years of self-discovery as they have continued to strive for the next creative peak. Now that they’ve finally arrived with Violent and its accompanying film, there’s no question that the journey has been worthwhile.
– Squamish Music Festival
Grimes
There is a powerful harmony in Grimes. It is a project which is both musical and visual, embodying the arts of 2D, performance, dance, video and sound. Claire Boucher weaves these together to a strong rhythmic effect, “the marriage between the voice of a human and the heartbeat of a machine” [Bullett Magazine]. Boucher, born in Vancouver, Canada, came to Montreal in 2006. Her experience as a performer is deeply embedded in the illegal DIY loft culture of Montreal, where Grimes was one of the prominent figures in the scene surrounding Lab Synthèse – a 4600sq ft re-appropriated textile factory. She developed in a scene where punk ethos and pop music collide, resulting in a distinct sense of community, religiosity and psychedelic revelry. Visions arises as Boucher’s fourth release in less than two years. Geidi Primes (2010), initially released as a limited 30 cassette run and free download, then followed by Halfaxa (2010) – arguably one of the first witch-house or lo-fi R&B releases. On Darkbloom (2011), Grimes begins taking her first steps as a producer, bringing together the experimentation behind her early work and a cutting edge pop aesthetic. Each album tackles a different set of influences and styles. Her newest album, Visions, incorporates influences as wide as Enya, TLC and Aphex Twin, drawing from genres like New Jack Swing, IDM, New Age, K-pop, Industrial and glitch. This approach has marked Grimes as a curator of culture, and allowed the project to remain flexible and evolving. A phantasmic state for the deep listener, sourcing the long forgotten spells running alongside humans for centuries and forcing them through a hyper-futuristic filter. Compositional and vocal delivery are coloured with an emotional trauma. Despite a generally upbeat demeanour, an urgency permeates the music. Calling us between our history and the future it uses the pleasure of minimal rhythms and dance to entice, but beyond its rich, software-sculpted cohesiveness, and vocal energy, runs a very real and odd world. She describes her work as “the only means through which I can be fully expressive. It is both an ethereal escape from, and a violent embrace of my experience. The creative process is a quest for the ultimate sensual, mystical and cathartic experience and the vehicle for my psychic purging. Visions was conceived in a period of self-imposed cloistering during which time I did not see day-light. ”
– Pemberton Music Festival
*UBC Alumni
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