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01. MP3: Toro Y Moi – Talamak from Well Tusked (2009)

02. MP3: Toro Y Moi – Human Nature (Michael Jackson cover) from CHUM ONAH: BxF celebrates the music of M. Jackson

03. MP3: Jemina Pearl – I Hate People featuring Iggy Pop from Break It Up (2009)

All photos: Greg Szeto | Full set

Toro Y Moi comes off initially like a variant of the whole indie dance shtick: solo artist pumping out insistent beats, synths and laptop samples while dancing around stage, the music is as fierce as any of his peers and leaves no 4/4 stone unturned. But there’s a twist.  What elevates him above the chaff and detritus is both the subtlety and execution; the fact that he actually sings the featherweight and often soulful vocals and plays the synth lines to his own music makes all the difference.  As a result, Chaz Bundick is downright intimate with his music: the payoff is much bigger, the riffs more electric, and everything overflows with funky heart and dance-worthy soul.  Foot-tapping pop couched in lo-fi swirls often sampled on the fly, his set was a good benchmark for meaningful indie pop. Read the rest…

In light of Islands‘ upcoming show at the G-Spot on November 2, I had the pleasure of extracting some information from indie music’s resident pro-circuit pop troubadour Nick Thorburn–known fondly as Nick Diamonds from acts such as The Unicorns, Islands, and Human Highway, among others.

Incidentally, Anti- Records recently released Vapours–yet another bigwig electro-pop record, sporting some of Islands’ best tracks to date. It’s definitely worth picking up, if only to see what else these guys could possibly have left hidden up their sleeves. I hear they host a killer show too, so you might as well venture over to the G-Spot while you’re at it–if you can find it–to see what else they’ve got to say.

Here goes:

Aural States- First off, an abridged history of Islands?

Nick Diamonds- The Unicorns broke up, and Jaime and I decided to keep playing music together. So we made Islands, and we made a record [Return to the Sea], and Jaime left shortly after the record came out–I kept calling us a band, and we toured that a bunch. And now we’ve made this new record [Vapours], and Jaime came back, and we had a new lineup, and that’s it in a nutshell.

Read the rest…