Summer is finally back, and along with it is a new issue of Exclaim! that's loaded with interviews, reviews, features and more from some of our favourite artists. In this month's edition, we've also got our annual Summer Music Festival Guide, which will help prepare you for a busy summer of open fields crammed with music lovers and all of your favourite musicians.
On the cover this month is beloved Canadian folk-pop singer Feist, who tells us about the process behind making Pleasure, her first new album in six years. In our story, the singer discusses why she takes extended breaks between albums, reuniting with Broken Social Scene and why you won't find details about her personal life in her lyrics.
Our June Issue's Timeline maps out the history of post-hardcore vets At The Drive-In, whose experimentation and boundary-pushing in their genre is detailed in the lengthy feature. From their formation in the early '90s, to their ever-expanding list of interrelated projects, including the much-beloved Mars Volta, we unravel all of the events that caused their initial break-up and what led to their comeback album, In•ter A•li•a, released earlier this year.
This month's Questionnaire features Bleachers' Jack Antonoff discussing some of his career highs and lows, including discovering Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, trying acid for the first (and last) time and the "devastating" moment he lost his punk cred.
Exclusive to the June Issue is our annual, comprehensive Summer Music Festival Guide, which features listings for all of the summer gatherings happening in Canada over the sunny next few months. This year, as usual, we're giving you all of the details on ticket prices, headliners, supporting acts and, of course, when all of the festivals are happening. Whether it's your first time at a festival or you're a seasoned veteran, our guide will surely help you plan where you want to be.
In other interviews, we talked to dark-pop artist Mike Hadreas, better known as Perfume Genius, about shifting from disturbing lyrical subjects to uplifting celebrations of love on his new album, No Shape. Branching out to big and grand pop tunes wasn't a savvy business move or creative itch he needed to scratch, though — as the singer explains, "I just decided to make an album that was so good and big that people didn't have a choice to like it."
We also spoke with Liz Powell of Canadian indie-rock outfit Land of Talk about taking time off from being a musician, and the sporadic partnerships that shaped new album Life After Youth, while grindcore breakouts Full of Hell discussed how previous collaborations with experimental noise musicians the Body and Merzbow shaped their new record, Trumpeting Ecstasy.
In our Music School feature, Bonnie 'Prince' Billy talked his new collection of reworked Merle Haggard songs, Best Troubador, and his issues with music streaming services: "I think we need to do a better job of tending to the music that's here for us now, particularly since the powers that be are being so disrespectful and irresponsible when it comes to taking care of our music."
There are more interviews with Girlpool, Do Make Say Think, She-Devils and others here at Exclaim.ca, but to catch up on all of our latest stories you're going to want a physical copy of the magazine. Be sure to grab one the next time you're at a record store, heading to a coffee shop, hitting up a concert or passing one of our many street boxes around your town.
On the cover this month is beloved Canadian folk-pop singer Feist, who tells us about the process behind making Pleasure, her first new album in six years. In our story, the singer discusses why she takes extended breaks between albums, reuniting with Broken Social Scene and why you won't find details about her personal life in her lyrics.
Our June Issue's Timeline maps out the history of post-hardcore vets At The Drive-In, whose experimentation and boundary-pushing in their genre is detailed in the lengthy feature. From their formation in the early '90s, to their ever-expanding list of interrelated projects, including the much-beloved Mars Volta, we unravel all of the events that caused their initial break-up and what led to their comeback album, In•ter A•li•a, released earlier this year.
This month's Questionnaire features Bleachers' Jack Antonoff discussing some of his career highs and lows, including discovering Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, trying acid for the first (and last) time and the "devastating" moment he lost his punk cred.
Exclusive to the June Issue is our annual, comprehensive Summer Music Festival Guide, which features listings for all of the summer gatherings happening in Canada over the sunny next few months. This year, as usual, we're giving you all of the details on ticket prices, headliners, supporting acts and, of course, when all of the festivals are happening. Whether it's your first time at a festival or you're a seasoned veteran, our guide will surely help you plan where you want to be.
In other interviews, we talked to dark-pop artist Mike Hadreas, better known as Perfume Genius, about shifting from disturbing lyrical subjects to uplifting celebrations of love on his new album, No Shape. Branching out to big and grand pop tunes wasn't a savvy business move or creative itch he needed to scratch, though — as the singer explains, "I just decided to make an album that was so good and big that people didn't have a choice to like it."
We also spoke with Liz Powell of Canadian indie-rock outfit Land of Talk about taking time off from being a musician, and the sporadic partnerships that shaped new album Life After Youth, while grindcore breakouts Full of Hell discussed how previous collaborations with experimental noise musicians the Body and Merzbow shaped their new record, Trumpeting Ecstasy.
In our Music School feature, Bonnie 'Prince' Billy talked his new collection of reworked Merle Haggard songs, Best Troubador, and his issues with music streaming services: "I think we need to do a better job of tending to the music that's here for us now, particularly since the powers that be are being so disrespectful and irresponsible when it comes to taking care of our music."
There are more interviews with Girlpool, Do Make Say Think, She-Devils and others here at Exclaim.ca, but to catch up on all of our latest stories you're going to want a physical copy of the magazine. Be sure to grab one the next time you're at a record store, heading to a coffee shop, hitting up a concert or passing one of our many street boxes around your town.
