But it feels like ALA.NI has arrived from another era. It’s as if she spent most of her life hanging out with Ella Fitzgerald and Cole Porter. YOU & I is the sort of record that people don’t make anymore: the songs don’t cradle themselves within theatrics, and share more in common with lullabies than anything we might consider jazz or pop today.

But there’s a sense of innocence throughout the record that it feels like we’ve lost. That innocence, which I feel we traded in for sophistication, is what makes ALA.NI so memorable. Her subtle choral effects have something in common with Feist, but it doesn’t feel likely she’s ever listened to Feist.

“Ol Fashioned Kiss” is exactly the sort of song that a person steeped in the Jazz Age would write, and it’s beautiful. It’s beautiful largely because it’s about a kiss: there isn’t any innuendo here. It’s not a slutty song about somebody’s birthday.

It would be easy to mistake this innocence for naïveté, but tracks like “Darkness at Noon” (which has a stupendous chorus) suggest that ALA.NI isn’t foreign to emotional trauma. It’s just that she chooses to frame the experience of life through lenses that are different from how we’re used to hearing it.

YOU & I is over almost as quickly as it begins. Many tracks are under three minutes long, and some are under two. When the album is over, you’re left with the rare sensation that it just wasn’t long enough. ALA.NI might be emulating a style we’ve long forgotten, but for many of us, hearing it again is an emotionally powerful sensation. It’s such a rarity to hear music that, at its most basic level, still packs an incredible emotional punch.

I immediately hit Play again, and put the record on repeat. I suspect that you’ll do the same.

The post ALA.NI: YOU & I appeared first on Unsung Sundays.

Well, it turns out the answer is Shad, the Canadian rapper and winner of Juno and Polaris awards.

I was as surprised as you to find out that Shad had a singing voice. Your Boy Tony Braxton is an attempt to mime the soft-rock of the late ’80s and early ‘90s, so it’s not pop punk like Relient K, but the mood feels so similar. Adult Contempt is funny and goofy, with an air of romance often mingled throughout.

Relieved from the pressures of being an award-winning rapper, it sounds like Shad is starting to have fun just hanging out and playing his guitar. “Kick” is a great track that’s catchy, approachable, and not entirely outside the realm of the Dave Matthews Band. But unlike Dave Matthews, I don’t hate it. Actually, I really like it.

It might be that it sounds like Shad just desperately needs to have fun. The record is hard to describe beyond “fun,” because describing how a rapper sounds singing over Michael Jackson-inspired soft-rock tunes is obviously a difficult task. But “fun” is the best word I’ve got at my disposal.

I prefer the tracks that are a combination of sappy, sweet, and funny: “Fall (Girl)” is catchy. “The Man?” feels like the sort of thing that soft-rock pop-punk bands would jump on. “Heluva Guy” is one of the best tracks I’ve heard all summer. It deserves to be listened to while driving down the back roads with the window rolled down.

If anything, the title of Adult Contempt betrays what the record is actually about. You get the sense that the purpose of Your Boy Tony Braxton is to be as ridiculous as possible. Even when it feels like Shad (or Tony Braxton, to be more specific, I guess) is at his most sincere on the record, it feels as if he’s overdoing it in a clear effort to give the finger to adult life.

To me, it sounds like Adult Contempt is the record you make when you have nothing but contempt for the expectations surrounding you as, well, an adult. And viewed through that lens, the album is a remarkable success, and a complete surprise.

The post Your Boy Tony Braxton: Adult Contempt appeared first on Unsung Sundays.

“Undine” is a terrific way to jump into this record. At once, the track is reminiscent of all your favourite dream pop bands. (I’m strongly reminded of Beach House’s classic tracks.) But there’s something different about Fear of Men’s style. It feels as if the songs are all going somewhere. They have a sense of motion that the genre normally fails to grasp.

If the album has any issue, it’s the one that plagues dream pop most: many of the tracks sound the same. “Island,” which is the track right after “Undine,” sounds remarkably similar in tone despite being a clearly different track. In other words, it would be impossible to mistake the two as the same track, but it would be easy to confuse which is which.

Despite the genre’s limitations, Fear of Men are mining the genre for all its worth. And they’ve gotten good at it. What makes Fall Forever so good is that they’ve done exactly what dream pop’s name suggests: they’ve made pop music that’s so dreamy, you’ll swear you’ve fallen asleep.

What’s interesting about Fear of Men is that they don’t want to put the listener to sleep, though. Many dream pop bands are more than willing to sacrifice the listener for their art. With Fear of Men, the drum work is their saving grace. He’s unlike most other drummers in the genre, constantly moving — and moving quickly.

For me, Fall Forever is reminiscent of my two favourite dream pop records: The Local Natives’ Hummingbird and Beach House’s Bloom. I can’t give it a better accolade than that: it pushes the dream pop genre into another level by almost taking it into the indie rock vein, drifting away from dream pop. “Until You” and “Trauma” are great examples of this, where the band almost leaves dream pop entirely as a genre and becomes something else.

The easiest way to talk about Fear of Men is to send people to their album art. Each album cover for their records has a clear style, and they have a lot of similarities. Like their album art, the band has a clear sound and style. And they get more refined with each record.

Fear of Men has quietly become one of the best dream pop bands while all the mainstream publications got busy writing about Beach House’s Depression Cherry. If you’re a fan of the genre, I think you’re going to love the direction Fear of Men is going in.

The post Fear of Men: Fall Forever appeared first on Unsung Sundays.

Hearing the admission was unsettling for those of us who kept up with the show (or the criminal case), but hearing it on a pop record feels all the more disturbing.

That’s not to say that Shura’s music is disturbing. Most of it feels like it straddles the line between modern pop and throwback electronica-influenced work. Take “Nothing’s Real,” which is the first “real” track on the record after the introduction. With a bass line that feels like it’s walking, the chorus feels influenced by the 1980s — Jackson in particular. But the chorus, and Shura’s vocal approach, is thoroughly locked into the 21st century. The bass line is overwhelmed by synth, and Shura’s vocal work builds into an emphatic, almost shouted final line.

Her vocal performance betrays the fact, though, that this album would have fit right in amongst the women making music in the ’80s. Even tracks like Touch fit right in to that decade. The album imbibes vibes from that era without ever sounding anything less than modern and twenty-first century, which is a feat in and of itself, but perhaps more impressive is Shura.

For a debut album, Shura sounds remarkably self-assured — even if she doesn’t trust herself or her emotions anymore, as the title of the record (and the content of the songs) suggests. For her, the record is her way of announcing liberation from her emotions during a particularly difficult time in the hospital. She’s a free woman, one bound to struggle with the difficulties of liberation — as she openly does throughout the record — but one who’s striving to become fully self-aware. “2Shy” is the embodiment of the entire record, the moment where it comes together thematically.

Within that framework, Nothing’s Real is the definition of what a good debut should be: Shura is sure of what she is, but grappling with the details. As her skills become more honed, I look forward to even more records in the future.

The post Shura: Nothing’s Real appeared first on Unsung Sundays.

The band’s got exactly the right vibes for Unsung. They’re hip with a fantastic sound, and when the opportunity came up, we couldn’t wait to share this moment with them. Particularly love the singer, and that awesome solo towards the end. Pure fun. Give the video a whirl, like the band on Facebook, and keep an eye out here for coverage down the road.

The post Video Premiere: Snack Cat’s “Fade” appeared first on Unsung Sundays.

But Cleary still has a tell: he’ll turn to the audience with a look on his face that falls somewhere between a nudge and a wink, and he’ll say something cutesy to drive up audience applause. This is your moment of involvement. And it’ll often happen halfway through a song, when every stops and later picks back up in grand fashion.

These live moments are what makes jazz performances great. There’s an energy to them that simply can’t be captured on a record. It’s one of the reasons the best way to experience jazz is to see a live show, and it’s undoubtedly the reason there are still a lot of jazz bars left over from the genre’s heyday.

Some of that riotous crowd-pleasing is present on Mo Hippa, the live album that Jon Cleary put out with The Absolute Monster Gentlemen, his backing band. You can hear it on crowd-pleasers like “When U Get Back,” which is a stunner of a track — particularly with its chorus and harmonies.

The track is a great demonstration of everything else that Jon Cleary and his band have to offer to: most of the track is an incredible, jubilant piano solo that lights up the room. The crowd loves it. It’s in exact time with the band.

The hardest thing about jazz is the timing. The solos require an incredible amount of precision, regardless of the instrument you’re playing — and everybody in Jon Cleary’s band is monstrously talented (pardon the pun). But what makes the band so impressive is how tight they are. Jazz is often polyrhythmic, working in non-traditional time signatures. (That’s also the reason jazz is often so dance-able.) Those time signatures make playing tightly very difficult, but Jon Cleary & The Absolute Monster Gentlemen are impeccable.

I say all that so you can really appreciate what’s happening here, particularly on Booker T inspired tracks like “Mo Hippa,” the finale. Everybody on stage here plays incredible, and if it weren’t for Jon Cleary’s immense voice, they would completely overpower him. (I couldn’t find a version of this track on Youtube, but it’s a can’t-miss track. Here’s a performance from 2008.)

Some tracks in jazz rely on a more traditional blues-like structure, creating an atmosphere of melancholy. “Port Street Blues” are a perfect example of the mopey New Orleans vibe i’m talking about: it takes expert musicians to be able to play through a track like this, shimmying between different time signatures and tempos with ease. It’s also a fantastic track.

For most people, though, I suspect that Jon Cleary’s going to be at his best when the band is at their most energetic. For those people, “Cheatin’ On You” might be one of the standouts on the record. This is one heck of a track. “People Say” is also going to be a standout, particularly after the drums get involved.

If there’s anything I can say about Mo Hippa (Live) that I haven’t said yet, it’s simply this: I think the album is one of the clearest representations of New Orleans jazz that we as a music community are blessed to have. For fans of New Orleans jazz, it’s a must-listen. For people wondering why some of us love the genre so much, this is an approachable and fun way to find out.

The post Jon Cleary & The Absolute Monster Gentlemen: Mo Hippa (Live) appeared first on Unsung Sundays.

Almost every person who is involved in this website, including its most vocal supporters, are people who love indie music. We’re band members (or some of us used to be). Some of us own music labels. Some of us are producers. Many of us are independent artists. Indie artists are the bleeding heart of Unsung Sundays. They’re our community. Without them, the site wouldn’t exist.

It’s my pleasure to announce that Unsung is going to be focusing on indie artists in new ways. Alongside the existing album reviews, features, interviews, and lists, we’re going to be investing heavily in new artists and trying to give the cream of the crop raised visibility in the industry.

We’re already starting this with Issue 136, which includes a music video premiere for New York City indie band Snack Cat. (It’s a great video, by the way — you should check it out.) We’re thrilled Snack Cat is partnering with us for this, and I hope we have the chance to cover them in the future.

We’ll likely roll out other features and articles over the coming months that are geared exclusively towards lesser-known artists. This is a passion project for us, and we want to do what we can to help.

What does this mean for you? Well, nothing is changing. If anything, Unsung is going to continue growing and expanding, but not at the expense of our existing content.

It does mean, though, that we’re eager to hear music from indie bands all over the world. If you know somebody with a recent record release or a video that you’d like to see represented in an indie magazine, or if you’re involved in a music marketing firm or at a record label and want to chat about how we can help, we’d love it if you emailed us. Thanks in advance.

The post Opening Doors for Indie Artists appeared first on Unsung Sundays.