Emay: The Wavelength Interview
February 19, 2017Purveyor of: Lyrically focused, socially charged hip-hop founded on uncompromising beats that sound like they’ve been echoing through an abandoned factory for 1,000 years. File next to: Nas, Above Top Secret, Brendan Philip Playing: WL17 Night 3, Sunday, Feb. 19 @ The Garrison. Emay is a Hamilton-based hip-hop artist, who has garnered lots of buzz for his recently released music video,
FET.NAT: The Wavelength Interview
February 17, 2017Purveyors of: Theatrical, shambling, percussive post-punk. File next to: James Chance & the Contortions, NoMeansNo, The Ex, Last Ex Playing: WL17 Night 2, Saturday Feb. 18 @ The Garrison. Get tickets here! FET.NAT is the most energetic and original post-punk group playing today. With virtuosic saxophone, a frontman that engages, entertains, and confounds, and halting drums and guitar
Strands: The Wavelength Interview
February 16, 2017Purveyors of: Lo-fi looping melodies making love with floating heads on fire. File next to: Weaves, tUnE-yArDs, white overalls being engulfed in flames. Playing: WL17 All-Ages Matinee, Saturday Feb. 18 @ The Monarch Tavern. Get tickets here! Strands are an eclectic, wild mix of projected flames, puppetry, looped distorted songs, and white overalls. Powered by Jasmyn Burke (Weaves) and visua
Helena Deland: The Wavelength Interview
February 16, 2017Purveyors of: Rhythmic exchanges and tonal changes. File next to: Angel Olsen, Daughter, Alela Diane. Playing: WL17 Night 2, Saturday Feb. 18th @ The Garrison. Get tickets here! Initially a solo act, Helena Deland is now a four-piece outfit from Montréal. Together with Mathieu Bérubé, Francis Ledoux, and Alexandre Larin, Helena Deland creates a dynamic between rhythm and vocals that
Chandra: The Wavelength Interview
February 14, 2017Purveyor of: Post-punk dance-rock for the ages, and all ages File next to: B-52s, Bush Tetras, Basquiat, Bile Sister Playing: Wavelength Music Festival 17 – Night 1, Friday Feb. 17 @ The Garrison. Get festival passes here! The post-punk era of New York in the early ‘80s is often thought of as a hedonistic time and place. But the NYC of James Chance and Lydia Lunch, ESG and Liquid Liquid
Purveyor of: Silken electronic curves and swirls, gilded with pulsing beats. File next to: Petra Glynt, Grimes, Braids Playing: WL17 Night 3, Sunday Feb. 19 @ The Garrison. Get tickets here! Rebecca Fin Simonetti is a multidisciplinary creator now residing in New York, with roots in the Toronto arts community. Her musical endeavour FIN is a halting and haunted electronic manifestation, wi
WLMRT: The Wavelength Interview
February 13, 2017Purveyors of: Slack n’ suave dirt punk. File next to: Hag Face, Prom Nite, The Slits Playing: WL17 All-Ages Matinee, Saturday Feb. 18 @ The Monarch Tavern. Get tickets here! WLMRT bring a gutsy, guttural and just-shy-of-bratty style of punk. Fitting right in with the new Toronto hardcore underground, they bring a frenetic tension built for small dirty rooms and beer-soaked pits. Adam Bradl
Kat Estacio: The Wavelength Interview
February 15, 2017Purveyor of: Hypnotic gong flow. File next to: Pantayo, Hiroshi Yoshimura, Jon Hassell Playing: WL17 Drone Brunch, Sunday Feb. 19 @ The Gladstone Hotel Melody Bar. Free and all-ages! Bringing the racked-gong traditions of Filipino kulintang to T.O. in the 21st century, Pantayo is mixing modern beats and synths with ancient sounds. One of the collective’s founders, Kat Estacio, is now stepping
Purveyors of: A smooth blend of traditional Filipino/Cebuano music, catchy melodies, and hard-hitting rap with a dash of Kulintang File next to: M.I.A, Santigold, Missy Elliot, Datu, Phèdre, Pantayo Playing: Wavelength Music Festival 17 – Night 3, Sunday Feb. 19th @ The Garrison. Get tickets here! Han Han is a Filipinx-Canadian rapper taking Toronto and the world by storm. Being new to Can
Phèdre: The WL17 Interview Purveyors of: Electronic pop decadence File next to: Hooded Fang, Björk, Death Grips Playing: Wavelength Music Festival 17 – Night 3, Sunday Feb. 19th @ The Garrison. Get tickets here! Phèdre are a staple in Toronto’s electronic music scene. Composed of April Aliermo & Daniel Lee of Hooded Fang, Phèdre have traveled all over the world, bringing th
Purveyors of: Music for all the other rejects. File next to: Elevator, Sleep, Six Organs of Admittance Playing: WL17 Night 2, Saturday Feb. 18 @ The Garrison. Get tickets here! WHOOP-Szo are the archetypal, unsung workhorses of the Canadian DIY music scene. Happily and nobly making art on the margins, playing any show in any town, this London-via-Guelph crew blasts out teeth-rattling sto
Purveyors of: Whisper-crooned daydream tunes. File next to: M83, My Bloody Valentine, Tennis Playing: WL17 Night 3, Sunday Feb. 19 @ The Garrison. Get tickets here! Hush Pup is a dream-synth pop duo made up of Ida Maidstone and Steve Scott. Based out of both Toronto and Victoria, BC, the pair offers an unburdened sound that is impossible to not find relaxing. Wavelength’s Devin Calow
Fake Palms: The Wavelength Interview
February 8, 2017Purveyors of: Entrancing pop-rock noise and its ensuing hypnosis. File next to: Fucked Up, Preoccupations, Solids … and Elvis? Playing: WL17 Night 2, Saturday Feb. 18 @ The Garrison. Get tickets here! Fake Palms is an underground Toronto “supergroup” that is steadily clawing their way to the surface of attention. Made up of Michael Le Riche, Simone Tisshaw-Baril (Slim Twig, US Gir
Purveyors of: Shoegaze, Post-Shoegaze, Noise-gaze, Post-Noise, Post-Everything File next to: Sonic Youth, Massive Attack, Blur, Beliefs, Rolemodel Playing: Class of 2017, Saturday January 21 @ The Silver Dollar Room. Get Tickets! Yi, featuring Jesse Crowe of Beliefs and Jordan Allen of Rolemodel, is a brand new project under renowned Toronto indie label Hand Drawn Dracula. Having secretly jam
Xiu Xiu: The Wavelength Interview
June 28, 2016Purveyors of: Unrelenting pop from the void. File next to: Coil, Scott Walker, Jenny Hval, Grouper, Dominick Fernow Playing: Red Bull Sound Select showcase @ The Garrison, Thursday June 30. RSVP here for entry! Xiu Xiu have been in the business of deconstructing and transforming pop structures and beyond for over a decade and a half now. No stranger to experimentation, frontman Jamie Stewa
Völur: The Wavelength Interview
June 11, 2016Purveyors of: Stonefaced doom folk. Sounds like: The endtimes, in stereo! File next to: GY!BE, Mournful Congregation, Buried At Sea Playing: WL 702, Sunday June 12 @ Monarch Tavern. Get tickets here! Völur, made up of Lucas Gadke (Blood Ceremony), Laura C. Bates (Del Bel, Fresh Snow, Trent Severn) and James Payment (Do Make Say Think) sit atop the sure-to-be-growing list of Toronto-based, n
Echo Beach: The Wavelength Interview
June 9, 2016Purveyor of: Ever-evolving tides of drifting, divine gloom. File next to: Brigitte Bardon’t, Grouper, Moss Harvest Playing: WL 702, Sunday June 12 @ Monarch Tavern. Get tickets here! Echo Beach is the work of Montreal-via-Vancouver interdisciplinary artist Julie Matson. Through her gloomy, weighty drones, Matson channels an atmosphere that is deeply introspective, yet tectonically grounded
Thor & Friends: The Wavelength Interview
June 7, 2016Purveyors of: Minimalist percussive ecstasy. File next to: The Necks, Andrea Belfi, Ben Frost, Germaine Liu, Terry Riley Playing: WL 702, Sunday June 12 @ Monarch Tavern. Get tickets here! Thor Harris is a man who truly lives up to his name — when he’s not building houses or fixing plumbing systems in his hometown of Austin, Texas, he’s recording and performing with the likes of Ben Fr
Language Arts: The Wavelength Interview
May 19, 2016Purveyors of: Artful indie pop that goes down like sugar. File next to: The Bird and the Bee, The Most Serene Republic Playing: Manifesto x Wavelength, this Friday (May 20) at the Garrison. Get tickets here! Toronto-via-Halifax three-piece Language Arts are champions of an intricate flavour of indie pop that is at once isolated and lush, playful and introspective, complex and catchy. Their la
Pavilion: The Wavelength Interview
May 19, 2016Purveyors of: Post-punk goes to drama class. File next to: Wire, Stone Roses, Chameleons UK Playing: Manifesto x Wavelength, this Friday (May 20) at the Garrison. Get tickets here! Pavilion have been together less than 18 months but have already been through a name change — abandoning their original moniker of Mercury Girls — and developed a substantial buzz in the Toronto scene for their