Q&A | ChinaShop

Music Young Galaxy: Northern Stars Make Music To Shapeshift To

February 16, 2011 - 7:59 am

This is not a post about Canada, though if you removed Canada from this story there wouldn’t be much of a story to tell. First off, Young Galaxy are a Canadian band. They are currently based on Montreal, but relocated there from Vancouver, which is one of the coolest places on the planet, by the way. Their latest album, Shapeshifting, is being released on a Toronto’s Paper Bag Records. (It’s really good. You can download the first single, “We Have Everything,” right here.) They’ve also had the distinct pleasure of opening for Arcade Fire, who are also a Canadian band. The press release for Shapeshifting name-drops New Order and Eurythmics (not Canadian) as bands to compare the album’s sound to, which is actually pretty spot on, and as you’ll see from this interview, vocalist/guitarist Stephen Ramsay is a pretty lucid fellow with a lot of spot on things to say about music-making.

[UPDATE]: Download the just-released Cover Your Tracks EP here.

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Featured Music Midnight Juggernauts release album, fold lots of paper

by Rich Thomas

November 18, 2010 - 11:16 am

Not quite sure what they’re putting in the water over there, but Australia seems to have become a distribution hub for the kind of shoegaze dance pop that invariably puts you in a good mood every time you listen to it. What started in the ’80s with groups like Severed Heads continues today with groups like Cut Copy, The Presets and Melbourne’s very own DIY kings Midnight Juggernauts, whose latest full-length, The Crystal Axis, is in heavy rotation over here in the ChinaShop offices. Currently on tour–check the bottom of this post for dates near you–the three scruffy gents with a penchant for vintage synths and paper-folding (check the video after the jump) took some time out from being stranded in Miami to answer some questions about the new record.

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Music Holy Sons’ Emil Amos shares his Survivalist Tales

by Rich Thomas

November 11, 2010 - 11:37 am

Since 2007, Emil Amos has had a hand in 15 records released across six different bands and eight labels. (There may be more, I don’t know.) Prolific doesn’t even begin to describe his game, and when you take into account the sonic and thematic diversity between his three main groups—Grails, OM and Holy Sons—you begin to see that each outlet reveals a very different part of Amos’ creative subconsciousness. Though he’s most often credited as a drummer, Amos’ abilities extend far beyond percussion, and he’s become a master of the kind of low-fi sturm und drang that would make Tom Waits jealous. We chatted with Amos about his latest album as Holy Sons, Survivalist Tales!, and how it lines up with the rest of his recent work.

Holy Sons – “Slow Days”

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Gallery Music Vanaprasta’s CMJ Photo Diary

by Rich Thomas

November 4, 2010 - 10:08 am

A month-long residency at the Echo and a headlining slot at the Key Club during the Sunset Strip Musical Festival confirmed for the LA masses what us at ChinaShop have known for quite some time. Vanaprasta—the sometimes proggy, sometimes psychedelic, always rocking band with the name that’s really hard to type out—has officially arrived, and with a full-length debut already recorded and due for release sometime in 2011, they’re poised to break out big time. The boys were kind enough to snap some pics of their recent sojourn to New York for CMJ, while Cameron Dmytryk (guitars) and Taylor Brown (bass) sorted us out with an interview and an MP3 of “Minnesota,” a track off their album.

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