(Make Me a) TRISTE© Mixtape Episode 62: Crystal Eyes

Crystal Eyes (©Walter E. Neuman)

CRYSTAL EYES are an Indie dream rock band (with hints of psych, shoegaze, 60’s pop and 90’s grunge) led by vocalist/guitarist Erin Jenkins. The band features warm effect-drenched guitar and synth, at times layered or alternately stripped down. Their early recordings are defined by live off the floor performances and the analogue recording techniques of producer/musician Chris Dadge (Chad van Gaalen, Alvvays, Lab Coast).

Drawing on a vast array of musical influences, landscapes and collaborations, Crystal Eyes have thrived in a diverse and supportive cross-Canadian music scene, honing their live show through multiple tours and as consistent hometown favourites. Their debut ep, in 2015, was called No Man Is An Island, followed a couple of years later by their first full lenght The Female Imagination. In 2019, they released Radical Softness, a split single with Edmonton’s Marlaena Moore, and traveled to Montreal’s Breakglass Studios to record their second full-length album, produced by Andrew Woods (The Operators) and mixed by Mark Lawson (The Arcade Fire). The new album, The Sweetness Restored will be out on Bobo Integral Record on April 22nd, 2022.

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(Make Me a) TRISTE© Mixtape Episode 61: Fortunato Durutti Marinetti

Fortunato Durutti Marinetti (©Julian Yi-Zhong Hou)

Born in Turin and based in Toronto, Fortunato Durutti Marinetti (Dan Colussi’s new moniker after Pinc Lincolns or The Shilohs) has been playing in bands of varying degrees of obscurity for the last twenty years, frequently touring North America in his Volvo station wagon and quietly self-releasing albums to an oblivious and oversaturated marketplace. Memory’s Fool is his second release under this name (following 2020’s Desire) and his first time working with proper label support. Drawing inspiration from the restless, explorative spirit of 1970s songwriters like Lou Reed, Robert Wyatt and Joni Mitchell, Marinetti chose to first wrote all the lyrics before assembling a hybrid pickup band of jazz, folk and rock musicians to render the songs of Memory’s Fool into a form he calls “poetic jazz rock”. And indeed, Memory’s Fool is poetic jazz rock of the highest order.

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(Make Me a) TRISTE© Mixtape Episode 60: Under The Bridge (part 2)

Under the Bridge (Skep Wax, 2022)

Check here for part one

Under The Bridge is something more than a “compilation album”. It is more a reunion of fourteen bands who used to be on Sarah Records (The Orchids, The Wake, Even As We Speak, Secret Shine, Boyracer, St. Christopher) or whose memebers where in Sarah Records band (Jetstream Pony and The Luxembourg SignalThe Catenary Wires, Tufthunter, Soundwire, Leaf Mosaic, Sepiasound, Useless Users).
Under The Bridge will be released as a CD album, digital download and limited edition vinyl LP. CDs and LPs include a 16-page colour booklet. It will be distributed to stores by Cargo (and in the US, Redeye).

There will be two all-dayer events in 2022, featuring several of the bands on the album, in Bristol (The Thunderbolt) and in London (The Amersham Arms) on 23rd and 24th April respectively.

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(Make Me a) TRISTE© Mixtape Episode 59: Under The Bridge (part 1)

Under the Bridge (Skep Wax, 2022)

Bristol’s Sarah Records was a defiantly independent record label. Feted by many – if hated by some – it has been increasingly recognised as a seminal label which, during its short lifetime in the 1990s, created a whole scene around itself. While the label has long since closed its doors, and eschews re-releases, the bands on Sarah – or at least their members – have kept on creating perfect pop music. Under The Bridge is an extraordinary reunion, showcasing new material by fourteen of them. Many are British, but others hail from as far afield as Sydney, Victoria, California and Arizona. There are some names you’ll recognise: The Orchids, The Wake, Even As We Speak, Secret Shine, Boyracer, St. Christopher. In many cases, their line-ups are relatively unchanged. Then, there are newer groups, where different line-ups have evolved: Jetstream Pony and The Luxembourg Signal (both ex-Aberdeen), The Catenary Wires and Tufthunter (both ex-Heavenly), Soundwire (ex-The Sweetest Ache), Leaf Mosaic (ex-Sugargliders), Sepiasound (ex-Blueboy) and Useless Users (ex-Action Painting/Secret Shine).

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(Make Me a) TRISTE© Mixtape Episode 58: Violent Scenes

Violent Scenes (© Antonio Stea)

Violent Scenes describes itself: “VS is the New Greek Theater. Mindful of Euripides and Godard ’s lesson, it despises the TV theatrical shows and declares that Tragedy is not violent. Violent Scenes is an attempt at being human”.
The band (Giorgio Cuscito: voice, lyrics, electric bass; Gianfranco Maselli: electric guitar, electric bass; Gianvito Novielli: electric guitar, electronics; Antonio Iacovazzi: drums, electronics) lays on a deep long lasting friendship between the members who are based in Apulia, Southern Italy. In five years they staged several works: an album, an EP, the theatrical show Abandons with the apulian company Teatro delle Rane, the psych reading of Dialogues with Leucò by Cesare Pavese, the live painting Sushumna with the sicilian visual artist Silvia Ruggeri, a few sound performances of Godard, Lynch’s and anime films and more than one hundred concerts, opening for Uzeda, Mokadelic, Aki Onda, Control Unit and many others. In 2019 Grim July, the first music video from Stimmung, directed by Antonio Stea, wins the Cineconcerto Music Film Festival in Montecarotto (AN, Italy). The second music video, Nope Face, again directed by Antonio Stea, won a special mention for best experimental film at the Tokyo International Short Film Festival in 2020 and the first prize for best music video at Paris Film Art in 2021.

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