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At the crux of Toronto Heatwave 2013, we're in Diana's rehearsal space, which is a garage, and consequently a god damn sauna.

But Diana's music is cool in every sense of the word, and in that very first moment they begin to play "Foreign Installations," our discomfort and exasperation evaporate. Suddenly we're awash in an alien, ambient soundscape. Saxophone begins squealing, coaxing the band into a crescendo - a monsoon of noise that eventually breaks. In an instance the clouds part, and a confident, enduring pop song blossoms.

Two days later, the heat wave breaks. Torrential downpour, and then lovely, non-sweltering sunshine.

CAMERA BY MACK CALISTAN, LUCAS SAMUELS, DANIEL BUSHEIKIN
EDITED, MIXED BY DANIEL BUSHEIKIN

Season 2 of Noisemakers is presented by Deezer, an online music streaming service with a vast and comprehensive library of over 25 million songs. You can even use it for free -- or get a Premium monthly subscription for ad-free service and enhanced sound quality. Upgrade to Premium+ for mobile streaming and the ability to sync songs to your phone for offline listening.

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Tonstartssbandht is lots of things. Eclectic, erratic, unpredictable, unapologetically aimless, psychedelic bluegrass improv krautrock, esoteric cassette hymns, avant-garde slacker experiments, Florida via Montreal via New York via outer space via a toddler's imagination. Or simply, the past six decades of western music boiled in a stew, and the unsung best band in the universe of contemporary indie music.

On a more practical plane, Tonstartssbandht is brothers Andy and Edwin White, and the music they make together. And, as even a brief tour of their five-year-spanning discography will reveal, said music varies vastly in form, fidelity, length, and accessibility. Few bands have so much commercial, critical, and artistic potential, but successes of that nature stem from the eyes and minds of other people, and Andy and Edwin are - at least for now - happy just being Edwin and Andy, cool bros who are probably brilliant, jamming out weird rock in our kitchen.

CAMERA BY DANIEL BUSHEIKIN, COLIN MEDLEY, SAMANTHA EDWARDS
DIRECTED, EDITED, MIXED BY DANIEL BUSHEIKIN

Season 2 of Noisemakers is presented by Deezer is an online music streaming service with a vast and comprehensive library of over 25 million songs. You can even use it for free -- or get a Premium monthly subscription for ad-free service and enhanced sound quality. Upgrade to Premium+ for mobile streaming and the ability to sync songs to your phone for offline listening.

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....
The nucleus of Vinyl Williams' mind-swallowing psychedelia is Lionel Williams, a young and clear-headed L.A. based artist who loves spontaneity and irrationality. And probably drugs, at least a little bit. His debut full-length Lemniscate is a heady, lucid opiate of the tallest order; an acid-soaked sugarcube gently dissolving on your tongue, awarding your curiosity with surrealism.

Still, trip-appropriate art is not necessarily trip-induced art, and when we had Lionel and co. over to perform "Shield Zavior," he did forgo the pre-performance apple bong rips (what a SQUARE!). To compensate, we spoonfed this footage some psilocybin, and found ourselves with an intimate guided trip through the music's architecture. At any moment, it feels like the walls might melt away and reveal all the planes Williams' music feels like anthems for: the unfathomable, the transcendent.
CAMERA BY DANIEL BUSHEIKIN AND GRADY MITCHELL
EDITED, AND MIXED BY DANIEL BUSHEIKIN

Season 2 of Noisemakers is presented by Deezer is an online music streaming service with a vast and comprehensive library of over 25 million songs. You can even use it for free -- or get a Premium monthly subscription for ad-free service and enhanced sound quality. Upgrade to Premium+ for mobile streaming and the ability to sync songs to your phone for offline listening.

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Of all the unexpected events that led up to Rachel Zeffira's still new and highly promising music career, the most significant one is also very, very shitty. She was deported from the United Kingdom only hours before a performance that would secure her enrolment in a prestigious London university. But in the wake of her dashed plans and resulting bureaucratic nightmare, she developed as a songwriter, soaking technical mastery in dreamlike soundscapes, and emerging with a debut record of aching and spectral humanity, called The Deserters.

We brought Rachel to the now newly-opened gallery 2186dundas while it was in the midst of being restored from a condemnable one-room apartment by curator and visual artist Andrew Williamson. We convinced Andrew to let us inside the work-in-progress, and to shoot this live rendition of Deserters track "Silver City Days." It's a commanding performance, highlighted by the contrast between the disheveled setting and her beautifully ornate music.

DIRECTED AND EDITED BY DANIEL BUSHEIKIN
CAMERA BY ANDREW WILLIAMSON AND GRADY MITCHELL
AUDIO BY DANIEL BUSHEIKIN

Season 2 of Noisemakers is presented by Deezer is an online music streaming service with a vast and comprehensive library of over 25 million songs. You can even use it for free -- or get a Premium monthly subscription for ad-free service and enhanced sound quality. Upgrade to Premium+ for mobile streaming and the ability to sync songs to your phone for offline listening.

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To perform "Ode to Subterrania," a song about the claustrophobic restlessness of living in a basement from their newest album, Gravez, Hooded Fang invited us into their actual Toronto basement.

Not long ago that would have entailed stepping over trumpets and squeezing by glockenspiels, but they've recently pared down from a nebulous 8-piece indie rock collective to a tight, galvanized quartet.

Playing against a Disney blanket backdrop beneath a canopy of Christmas lights, Hooded Fang cruise through the bouncy garage-pop nugget with the locked-in groove of longtime friends who also happen to be bandmates. It's no wonder they started their own label, Daps Records, to showcase their talented comrades in Canadian music.

DIRECTED AND EDITED BY DANIEL BUSHEIKIN
CAMERA BY MACK CALLISTAN, SAMUEL LEHNER, AND DANIEL BUSHEIKIN
AUDIO BY ARIEL YANG AND DANIEL BUSHEIKIN

Season 2 of Noisemakers is presented by Deezer is an online music streaming service with a vast and comprehensive library of over 25 million songs. You can even use it for free -- or get a Premium monthly subscription for ad-free service and enhanced sound quality. Upgrade to Premium+ for mobile streaming and the ability to sync songs to your phone for offline listening.

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Dusted is a relatively new project, but its two members are long established in Canada's music scene: Brian Borcherdt is probably best known from his knob-twiddling experimental electro group Holy Fuck; Leon Taheny is an MVP studio wizard for the likes of Owen Pallett and Austra and a key member of Toronto shoegazers Rituals.

In Dusted, Taheny channels that magic into drums and keyboards (which he plays simultaneously, somehow), fortifying Borcherdt's enduring melodies and guitar-amped vocals.

We recently captured an unusual and intimate Dusted gig at a Toronto library. Watch them violate every "Quiet Please" sign that's ever been laminated with this performance of "Property Lines" from their 2012 debut Total Dust.

DIRECTED BY JORDAN DARVILLE
EDITED BY DANIEL BUSHEIKIN
CAMERA BY MACK CALLISTAN, SAMUEL LEHNER, AND JORDAN DARVILLE
AUDIO BY ARIEL YANG AND DANIEL BUSHEIKIN

Season 2 of Noisemakers is presented by Deezer is an online music streaming service with a vast and comprehensive library of over 25 million songs. You can even use it for free -- or get a Premium monthly subscription for ad-free service and enhanced sound quality. Upgrade to Premium+ for mobile streaming and the ability to sync songs to your phone for offline listening.

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Hollerado recently released their new record White Paint, which means that they're forced to do infinite interviews about boring things like "artistic process" and "inspiration." So we figured we'd just let Menno and Nick draw a picture and hang out on camera. Pulling questions from a glass jar barely large enough to accommodate Menno's unreasonably large knuckles, the bandmates and longtime best friends talk about good dates, bad drugs, and more.

Hollerado interview 2013

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CHART TV » FEATURES » FIRSTS
[chart tv] FIRSTS: Passion Pit's Michael Angelakos
Mar 04, 2013
by Dan Busheikin
Passion Pit
0 Comment

Passion Pit's rise to indie pop stardom was as unexpected as it was inevitable. The band's humble beginning as frontman Michael Angelakos' laptop project is now just a footnote in their underdog story. The success of their 2012 record Gossamer is the most climactic chapter thus far, and a headline performance at Madison Square Gardens its crowning moment.

Michael was kind enough to sit down and tell us about some of his first musical experiences, giving us a glimpse of some of the earliest moments that shaped his career.

Passion Pit (Michael Angelakos) interview 2013

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Since labelmates/best buds Doldrums and Blue Hawaii released their new records - Lesser Evil and Untogether, respectively - within a few weeks of each other, it seemed only fitting that we get them together in one room to discuss important issues like N64 games and fan clubs. Even better, we didn't have to pay for some dumb host to ask the questions.

Doldrums interview Blue Hawaii 2013

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Aron Sanchez has been building instruments since he was a kid. While his most outlandish creations have been for the Blue Man Group, his musical collaboration with Arone Dyer revolves around two homemade guitar variations: the Buke and the Gass. We had them tell us about their namesake instruments, and how they affect their artistic process.

Buke and Gase interview 2013

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More than ten years after the release of his first full-length Exit, k-os is still dedicated to dissolving the boundaries that enclose hip-hop. But while he's been known to effortlessly blend rap music with rock, pop, and folk tropes, his latest album BLack on BLonde takes decidedly different approach. For the first time, k-os is splitting himself in half, and he told us why.

K-os interview 2013

Ira Wolf Tuton of Yeasayer tells us who wore it better.
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Yeasayer interview 2013

Scott Hutchison of Frightened Rabbit gives some expert advice.
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Life's complicated and full of tough questions. We seek answers from people we respect, so who better to turn to than your favourite artists?

We got Scott Hutchison from Frightened Rabbit to field three weighty quandaries that were sent to us by very real and definitely not made up people, and he did the best he could to set them on the right course.

Frightened Rabbit (Scott Hutchison) interview 2013

Conversations is a comedy interview series where we better get to know our favourite indie and alternative artists. This week: Dan Deacon.
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Dan Deacon interview 2013

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The Dirty Nil's jagged, no-bullshit garage rock sounds like Blue Album Weezer crushed to death underneath a blown Marshall stack: melodic, memorable, and very, very, very loud. We invited the trio over for Pizza Pops and Steam Whistle -- more than enough to coerce them in to a blaring performance of "Little Metal Baby Fist."

The Dirty Nil live performance and interview 2013

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Beyond being the friendliest band in Toronto probably ever, The Elwins are talented as hell. So it's not so surprising that when we told them to "cover a holiday song but, you know, make it sexy" they blew us away with this indie-poppification of Mariah Carey's best Christmas tune. Consider this excellent performance their Christmas gift to Chart Attack, and we're re-gifting it to you even though we love it so.

The Elwins live performance and interview 2012

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Toronto electro rock outfit BABE performs "Classic Gramophones (In Dreams)" from their self-titled album.

Babe live performance 2012

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As Digits, producer Alt Altman accomplishes the sizeable task of creating melodic, brooding eighties synth-pop without camp or irony, each song crafted with tactful melody and restrained instrumentation. We caught him performing an earlier song, "Rachel Marie," at Steam Whistle's 24th Unsigned concert showcase, and spoke to him about his craft.

Digits live performance and interview 2012

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With his new album 2, Mac DeMarco successfully strikes a balance between keenly focused songwriting and tongue-in-cheek bluster. Just take "Ode To Viceroy," a sweet love ballad dedicated to his chosen brand of cigarettes, which merges effortless lo-fi flair with the cheeky charisma of a grungy Saturday morning cartoon character. Mac performed the song with his band in Chart Attack's living room - it might be the last time he performs in a venue this small.

Mac DeMarco live performance and interview 2012

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DD/MM/YYYY were one of Canada's finest experimental acts, so it's little wonder that Absolutely Free, the band that formed from that project's demise, continues on its tradition of mesmerizing electronic anthems. The band invited us into their practice space (located in a nearly impenetrable underground tunnel maze) for a performance of "UFO," a buzzing carnival whirligig that sounds like bits of more genres than we have space to name.

Absolutely Free live performance and interview

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Sloan's 1994 album Twice Removed nearly broke them up. In a valiant effort to transcend the popular grunge sound of the day, the band created a collection of songs that were at once vulnerable, nuanced, and delicate. Their label, Geffen, wasn't terribly pleased with the result, and offered little promotional support, making their U.S. tour incredibly trying. But what emerged was a treasured hallmark of Sloan's indie rock legacy, and a record our readers voted "Best Canadian Album of All Time" twice.

Nearly twenty years later, the band -- still intact, of course -- have independently put together a comprehensive reissue of Twice Removed complete with b-sides, demos, and an exhaustive oral history. Sloan allowed our cameras in to their recording space to capture a performance of album cut "Worried Now," and spoke to us about the record.

DIRECTED BY ADRIAN VIENI CAMERA BY ADRIAN VIENI AND DANIEL BUSHEIKIN

Sloan live performance and interview 2012

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On the first day of touring his new and third solo record, Shut Down The Streets, A.C. Newman (of New Pornographers fame) is a perfect target for our edgy new prank show, 4K'D. Our ruthless host David makes sure Newman gets TOTALLY OWNED on hidden camera!

A.C. Newman interview 2012

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In September 2012, Ben Folds Five released The Sound Of The Life Of The Mind, their first album together in over a decade. In 2014, the band became instrumental in rebuilding our crumbled post-apocalyptic society. Our host David asks Ben and Robert about the future, and finally gets their official statement on our future supreme autocrat, the Holocron Law Giver.

Ben Folds Five interview 2012

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Before a recent Toronto performance, indie pop power couple Matt & Kim sat down to chat with our friend David. Naturally, topics of conversation ranged from the origin of man to the gradual elongation of the female pudenda.

Matt and Kim interview 2012

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Indian Handcrafts perform "Truck Mouth" and "Starcraft" live at Steam Whistle's UNSIGNED #23

Indian Handcrafts live performance 2012

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Toronto's Young Mother performs "A Lighter Affair" at Steam Whistle's UNSIGNED #23

Young Mother live performance 2012

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Introspection is a scary thing. But it's also an inherently beautiful process, and one that's very familiar to The Antlers. Initially the solo project of Pete Silberman, the now-collaborative outfit have come to fully realize their lush indie rock in all its soul-penetrating glory. Playing to an empty hall before a recent Toronto gig, we caught a performance of "Drift Dive" from the band's gorgeous 2012 EP Undersea.

The Antlers live performance and interview 2012

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With frank lyrics, sparse instrumentation and a heartbreaking voice, Mike Hadreas' soft songs of sadness come from a deeply felt place. Put Your Back N 2 It, Hadreas' latest effort as Perfume Genius, expands upon his striking debut Learning with devastating, but hopeful songs of love and shame. Open not only in his music, Mike Hadreas spoke candidly to CHARTattack about his life before Perfume Genius, discussing his past addictions and the arduous process of getting better. Here's some of that conversation.

Perfume Genius (Mike Hadreas) interview 2012

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Alex Schaaf of Yellow Ostrich comes clean about his former Dave Matthews Band addiction, but it's clear the road to recovery is a long and bumpy path. We wish you well, Alex.

Yellow Ostrich interview 2012

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Canadian indie rock is no longer the joyful, cello-wielding friend she once was. A decade of orchestral niceness has given birth to its own antithesis: the dirty, disorienting and self-described "industrial surf-gaze" outfit Odonis Odonis, a postergroup for this new front of Canadian indie rock in all it's noisy glory. We caught the group performing a speedy version of "Handle Bars" from their 2011 shoegaze-steeped album Hollandaze at Steam Whistle's Unsigned #23, and spoke to the band about their modest aspirations.

Odonis Odonis live performance and interview 2012