The CanCon Catalogue

Band Name: The Racoons
From: Victoria, British Columbia
Members:
Matty Lyall- Vocals, Guitar
Jeff Mitchelmore- Drums
Murray Mckenzie- Synthesizer, Guitar
Alex Bodman- Bass
Other Discs: None, although they do used to have three other songs on their MySpace and are working on a full-length.
Sounds Like: Synth-driven garage rock delivered with precision. Equally suited for the dance floor and the mosh pit.
Is that how you spell "raccoon"? No.
Does this affect the music? No, I don't think so.


It would be easy to pigeonhole the Racoons as an 80s-nostalgia group. After all, their name recalls animated Canadian cult classic the Raccoons , (although it's just as likely a reference to Victoria's animal mascot), their album cover/t-shirt is clearly a throwback to the graphic tees of twenty-odd years ago, and their music is liberal with the synthesizers, with an open nod to the Cars and the Cure. But like any good throwback (think TV on the Radio or Bloc Party), the Racoons take the dark undercurrents of the 80s pop-dance movement and apply it to the modern world. In many ways, this is appropriate given the similar themes running through the two times-- economic turmoil, technology recreating our relationships into an increasingly fractured social landscape, and a nagging sense of impending doom.

 The sense of consistency in their music could well be due to the fact that, according to an interview with Briding the Atlantic, the band gives itself very clear limits as to what sort of sound they're going to project. Album opener "Rise and Fall" establishes the musical mood immediately with a driving synthesizer line being joined by chiming, clean high notes, minimalist bass, and understated, nearly-machine-like percussion. The lyrics may or may not acknowledge the sense of history repeating itself and ongoing doom that I alluded to earlier with it's message of "It's all a rise and fall" and references to "dead waste putting holes in the ozone."

Vocalist Matt Lydall has the perfect voice for delivering this sort of message, projecting the cold intonations of Robert Smith of the Cure one moment and the authoratative urgency of the Kaiser Chiefs' Ricky Wilson the next, with just the right amount of Spencer Krug and Dan Boekner (Wolf Parade) thrown in there to make it sound more unhinged than either of those other two bands ever manage.

As Lydell says, the comparisons to Wolf Parade are "inevitable", and warranted, in track two "No, It Meant Nothing." Horns complement this song well as it shifts from an almost light-hearted opening riff to  marching-band style percussion to swing, though perhaps a doom-laden Said the Whale might be a more apt descriptor. As in the live show, this is a highlight among the EPs eight songs, as are "Be My Television" with its dancefloor-ready drums, uplifting trombones, and understated chorus, "Room to Operate," which sounds like a love song played through a Nintendo Entertainment System before turning into an all-out breakdown, and "Tangiers" which could well be the next Kaiser Chiefs single if they were still putting out stuff as consistent as their first album.

Of course, after all of those we're only left with three tracks, each of which are quality excursions in themselves. "Over Our Shoulders" is radio-ready despite showcasing Lyall at his yelp-iest, and the introspective untitled track at the end is a nice, quiet way to end things off. But before we get there, we're given "Islomania," a slow-building track which demonstrates the quality arrangements this group is capable of. According to Lyall, the title is a reference to the fact that "Victoria is a funny city in that sense though, because no one really ever gives it credit for Frog Eyes, Immaculate Machine, Wolf Parade, Sunset Rubdown, etc.... there's a rule that as soon as you start selling out you've gotta move to Montreal and erase your Island alter-ego... it's this basically irrelevant little island that we all have this funny little love-hate relationship with. We want to be left alone, but we're also really scared that we're missing out."

Based on the strength of this EP, and with a fair amount of buzz being generated, I think it's safe to say that the Racoons will be next on that list of Island bands to jump onto the national scene. Whether or not they'll relocate to Montreal remains to be seen.

Rise and Fall


No, It Meant Nothing


Be My Television


Sites: myspace, facebook, radio3, livevictoria profile

As promised, here is my review of the excellent Mother Mother show at Sugar Nightclub this past Saturday night.

First off, let me give you my impressions of Sugar. Having been to enough concerts with drunken/hopped up idiots, I appreciate their high level of security-- everyone was scrutinized, and any possible problem-causing material taken away. However, nothing can protect you from the decor.

I'm all for dives, but generally dives involve concrete or wood. Not carpet. Sugar is completely unique to my experiences for being a bar with carpet. From the 80s, too, by the look of it.

Having been to so many shows recently that were in a theatre setting, it was somewhat disorienting to find myself in a bar, without assigned, or, well, almost any seating, save a few chairs, a couple of booths, and a questionable looking couch. But after grabbing a couple of drinks, we soon carved  out a little corner for ourselves to listen to the music.                                        


The first act was one Laura Smith, who I know nothing about. Her music seemed to be in the vein

of the indie-chanteuse that's so popular nowadays and that you can find in almost any town. She performed ably and the crowd was appreciative, although she definitely seemed better suited to a coffee shop than a dance floor and pool table venue.

 






Next up were the Racoons [sic], whom I'm gathering are turning into something of hometown heroes around here. I'd listened to a couple of their songs prior to the show and found myself shrugging, but that changed once I saw them going live. I'm rarely converted to a completely unknown band solely on their live performance, but in this case I was. They occupy a sonic density somewhere between Bloc Party, Tokyo Police Club, and Wolf Parade, with lead singer Matthew Lyal recalling some combination of the latter's Spencer Krug and the Kaiser Chief's Ricky Wilson. I'm not going to talk too much about them here since I grabbed a CD and plan on doing a full review, but suffice it to say they're likely going places.




The Racoons hyped the crowd up sufficiently for Mother Mother to take the stage for a room of
happy people. With their band's name hanging behind them they opened with a high-energy rendition of "Hayloft" from their newest release, O My Heart. New singer/keyboardist Jasmin Parker fit in seamlessly, with her vocals melding in perfect sync with the brother-sister combo of Ryan and Molly Guldemond. Despite the darker post-punk tendencies of the music, these two clearly come from a country/folk background based on their vocal harmonies and Ryan's guitar-picking style and tendency to keep said guitar above his waist, not to mention his Chris Isaak-style coifs. While the enthusiasm of the female singers was infectious, it is Ryan who occupies centre stage, and for good reason. He is an entertainer, playling like a man possessed-- at times, he acted as if his finger-picking hand was getting away from him and there was nothing he could do to control the results.

What would have been an enjoyable show became a great one when drummer Ali Sidait and bassist Jeremy Page started the instantly-recognizable rhythmic pulse of "Body of Years." They wisely played up the introduction, slowly building the parts with Ryan semi-improvising the opening riff. This is the song that very-rightly won the CBC Radio 3 Bucky Award for "Best Vocals" and my fear going in was that the band wouldn't be able to replicate it's sonic range in a live setting. Well, they can and they did, to great effect. After the jam session on the end of the song, which works far better live than on record, they wisely kicked immediately into the next song so as not to lose any momentum. Other bands take note: this is the mark of a professional-- switching gear is cool once in a while, but if you want to keep the crowd going, you use the gear you're holding while the audience is hyped.

While this one-two punch was easily the pinnacle of the night, the denouement didn't lack for excitement. While Mother Mother's two existing records, Touch Up and O My Heart, each have unique sonic qualities, they are similar enough that songs from each record can be blended together without coming off schizophrenic. They also threw in a new song, the name of which I didn't catch, into the mix, and this one seemed to be delving further into the 60s-girl-group harmonies the band has flirted with on occasion. Other highlights included "O My Heart," the haunting "Ghosting" (which garnered a huge reaction from the crowd with it's somehow-snarky line "You don't need no treats, you don't need no tricks, and you don't need me," and the encore-opener "Dirty Town," which, with its shifting styles and time signatures, really let the band show what sets them apart from anyone else.

This was Mother Mother's last date before heading to the United States to open a series of shows for the Sam Roberts Band. It's really too bad that they'll have to condense their show into an opening act, because these guys deserve to be headliners worldwide, and if they perform as well as they did last week for the rest of their tour, they soon will be.

Mother Mother: official site, Myspace, tour dates
The Racoons: myspace
Laura Smith: myspace