Sixteen tracks from one of my top three Guelph collectives. This is the rundown: Slow Hand Motem do loping lethargic rap like a southern Ontario Basehead, all neurotic and square. Tell the Divers do instrumental noodling. Griffin & the True Believers do a poppy porch singalong that I wish was on my porch (or maybe it’s in the kitchen, anyhoo I love this band and their perfect, lighthearted doot-doos). Tin do more instrumental stuff that’s less hardcore and both more experimental and melodic. Spy Machine Sixteen do pop punk teen-energy music with new wave keyboards and rahrah choruses (the kind of thing I was too disaffected as a teenager to enjoy, but now, in need of affirmation, I crave). Eureka! the Opera do an instrumental I can’t remember. Habitat do a non-ironic synthy thing with an actual song. Elbow Beach Surf Club do the spaghetti western thing alright (but I think their full length CD is better). Muffled Suitcase do an unrefined instrumental jam that is chopless (which is fine if there’s a song to redeem it, but that’s not the case here). Tamsen & Elliott do the two person rockabilly thing like Deja Voodoo never happened. Chirs Yang tries to do a wacky piano ballad, but you’re only as good as your last non-sequitur. Squirral do a folky thing. Ryan Stanley does a rootsy rock thing. Households do post-hardcore that’s very familiar, but I’m too tired to get the reference (maybe the Weakerthans?). S.K. Lien does burbly noise that goes disco. And then Richard Laviolette does bellowing folk. (Terence Dick)
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