Artist of the Week - Archives

May 2004

Saturday May 29, 2004

A feature on New Brunswick performer and songwriter R. A. Lautenschlager. R. A. Lautenschlager is a man who divides his time between two passions… His day job is Executive Director of the Atlantic Canada Conservation Data Center based at Mount Allison University in Sackville New Brunswick… An academic and scholarly pursuit having to do with the health and welfare of this planet and the species that inhabit it … But behind that facade lurks his other passion… for over 40 years R. A. Lautenschlager has been a songwriter and performer.

Saturday May 22, 2004

a feature on the Halifax based retro-pop group The Heavy Blinkers and their new recording The Night And I Are Still So Young. Long considered one of the best pop bands in Canada, the Heavy Blinkers have reached a new maturity with this stunningly orchestrated pop masterpiece. Two years in the making, "The Night And I Are Still So Young" consolidates the nocturnal orchestrations of the Flaming Lips and Mercury Rev and grafts them onto material akin to 70's era Beach Boys, Harry Nilsson or Randy Newman. This album finds the five Blinkers collaborating with over 25 auxilliary players to help create a symphonic tapestry that is as rich and dense as you're likely to hear this year.

Saturday May 15, 2004

a feature on Two Hours Traffic and their debut release The April Storm. Hailing from Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Two Hours Traffic are exploding onto the Maritime music scene with their debut EP The April Storm. It has been nearly three years since founding members Alec O'Hanley and Liam Corcoran first got together as an acoustic duo in high school and began playing shows around the city. Andrew MacDonald and Derek Ellis were eventually added to round out the group and since then the band has spent much of their time perfecting their sound. After a residency at Myron's in Charlottetown over the summer, these four nineteen year-olds headed into the studio to record their first batch of songs to be released. The product of all their hard work is an irresistible indie-pop sound that draws heavily on their Radiohead, Beck, and Hayden influences.

Saturday May 8, 2004

a feature on Old Man Luedecke and his first release Mole In The Ground. A banjo songster like Old Man Luedecke is a rare type of musician. A songwriting one of such hopeful goodness rarer still. In the tradition of solo banjo men and women of days gone by like Dock Boggs, Bascom Lunsford, and Odell Thompson, Old Man Luedecke sings his songs accompanied only by his loving five string, foots stomps and the occasional yodel. His songs are catchy melodi-gems blending old-time sensibilities with an unusual vision and poetic sense. His music belies someone more than slightly ill at ease with modern life. This is the bizzare type of music Dock Boggs might have made had he studied poetry.

Saturday May 1, 2004

A feature on Antigonish fiddler and pianist Troy MacGillivray and his new recording Boomerang. Troy MacGillivray is a multitalented musician who was born into a rich musical tradition. For generations, the MacGillivrays on his father's side and the MacDonalds on his mother's side have been proprietors of the Gaelic tradition in Antigonish, Nova Scotia.