João Leão, Lammping, Cold Camp, and DOUR
João Leão - Celestial
There’s a group of artists based in Toronto called the Cajú Collective who explore the world of Neo-Tropicalia through a Jazz Fusion lens. João Leão is part of that collective and on Celestial he continues deep exploration of his Brazilian heritage. The album is a complete triumph from start to finish as he employs a massive list of collaborators to effortlessly shine a light on Bossa Nova music by flickering in touches of Neo-Soul, R&B, Psych, and Folk. It’s a special record with all the right vibes for the long awaited Spring thaw.
Lammping - RISKY
The Toronto duo of singer/songwriter Mikhail Galkin and drummer Jay Anderson continue to transform and morph Lammping which initially began as a psychedelic rock project. Now, as they release their second in a series of four albums, it’s clear that they’ve honed their craft to be more of a production duo. Their latest release in this collaborative series sees the duo bringing in Drew Smith (Dr. Ew, The Bicycles) and Chris Cummings (Marker Starling) as their collaborators to further explore different realms of psychedelia. RISKY takes vocal jazz elements, boom-bap drums, rich synth textures and pours them into an easy-breezy psychedelic yacht rock record. It’s really cool.
Cold Camp - Winter Dreamz
Canadian hip-hop? What’s more Canadian than a blizzard? Dark days? Six months of winter? Enter the hip-hop collective Cold Camp with their sophomore album Winter Dreamz. As I write this, Edmonton is bundling back up for three more days of snow in what has been an unrelenting winter and Cold Camp’s crunchy boom-bap beats are echoing out like boots crunching over snow. The Dirty Sample’s production is second to none as he delivers icy cold beats for Bully Bravo and Chaka Boy to spit frosty rhymes with grimy cadence indicative of the Canadian psyche as spring teases us but is firmly smacked back down by the cruel heart of winter.
DOUR - AGORA
The new (and fittingly named) Vancouver band DOUR are here to maximize your anxiety regarding the current zeitgeist which sees modern life barrelling at break-neck speeds towards greed-fuelled catastrophe. Ominous ambience is found throughout their debut album, AGORA. That dark and brooding tone to the release is the backdrop for rugged post-punk that is grimy and unpretentious. There's elements of darkwave found throughout as well but in genreal, AGORA is a post-punk record that leans heavily into the dark, brooding side of the genre. I guarantee you’ll feel awful about the world around you when the album finishes but that’s the point. Take that shitty feeling and turn it into something productive.
