We closed our 2020 year-end round up with a “See you at a show in the future. Fingers crossed.” And while 2021 wasn’t exactly a good time for everyone, we are, slowly, starting to see each other again in dark, basement bars and in the padded seats of ornate theatres, celebrating music in person once again.
2021 began with The Weather Station’s new album, Ignorance, which found itself not only shortlisted for the Polaris Music Prize, but also garnered an appearance on NPR’s Tiny Desk series, and accolades from press across the country. The Polaris long-list also included celebrated albums from Allison Russell (Outside Child) and Bernice (Eau de bonjorno). Recently, Allison’s Russell’s Outside Child was also nominated for 3 awards at the 2022 GRAMMY’s as was Steven Wilson’s The Future Bites.
Both The Weather Station and Allison Russell were invited to join Tom Power on CBC’s q along with Vancouver comedian Seán Devlin (叶 世民) with his album Animals, Airports., the first comedy release on Arts & Crafts.
LISTEN TO KILLBEAT MUSIC’S SINGLES OF 2021 PLAYLIST
CBC Music kept the airwaves vibrating with tracks from Charlotte Day Wilson’s Alpha, Kiwi Jr.’s Cooler Returns, Ariel Posen’s Headways, and the debut single from Charlie Houston, “Calls”, all ending up in the Top 20.
Charlotte Day Wilson and Kiwi Jr. both ended up with #1 records on Canadian College campuses for a few weeks this year along with Andy Shauf’s Wilds, Ada Lea’s one hand on the steering wheel the other sewing a garden, and Chad Van Gaalen’s World’s Most Stressed Out Gardener (which wins the most aptly titled lock down record title in our list).
This year also saw the re-emergence of Whoop-SZO as Status / Non-Status, with their EP 1, 2, 3, 4, 500 Years; watched Yves Jarvis unite with Romy Lightman (Tasseomancy) to form Lightman Jarvis Ecstatic Band and release their debut album Banned; and got to listen in as Helena Deland and Ouri combined their divergent songwriting styles into Hildegard and shared their self-titled debut album. All of those records ended up this year in the Top 10 on Earshot’s National Charts, as did Aasiva’s Niriunniq, Homeshake’s Under The Weather, Cots’ Disturbing Body, and Charles Spearin’s My City Of Starlings.
The Earshot Hip-Hop charts saw Top 10 placements from two Peanuts and Corn Records releases this year : Bazooka Joe 204’s Prairie Nilsson, detailing a life well-wasted in Winnipeg’s drinking holes and dark alleys, and bigmcenroe’s trip down memory lane - the Brandon LP.
Ouri’s solo record Frame Of A Fauna also topped Earshot’s Electronic Top 10 list together with Absolutely Free’s most recent LP, Aftertouch, who’s single “How To Paint Clouds” also wound up on CBC Radio 3’s Top 10. Previously in the year, the R3 Top 10 also included Touching’s “Tony Called The Muscle”, Astral Swans’ “Flood”, Debra-Jean Creelman’s “Muse Needs A Wife”, and Jason Collett’s collaboration with Andy Shauf, “Crab Walking Home In The Rain”.
You may have also caught Jason’s single on SiriusXM’s North Americana channel as featured on their Sunday Service program along with tracks from Charlotte Cornfield’s newly released record Highs In The Minuses and Megan Nash’s Soft Focus Futures. On North Americana you would also hear the musical stylings of Toronto’s Alyson McNamara and her track “Shutting Down” (from Let Me Sleep), a song which Odario also added to his playlist at CBC Afterdark. That playlist also includes entries from Dana Sipos’ album The Astral Plane, Silver Pools Chroma, and Jasper Sloan Yip’s double EP, Strange Calm / Blushing Autumn.
And should you forget to turn off the radio / phone after dark, you’d encounter tracks from Julie Stone’s Sixty Summers and Treephones’ Pink Objects on CBC Overnight. Now, should you have left the stream of music on until Sunday’s cornerstone, The Strombo Show, you would have also caught the premiere of new music from Nick Ferrio’s Television Of Roses and Joseph Shabason’s The Fellowship. And you’d hear new music for the first time in 10 years from Strippers Union, the duo of The Tragically Hip’s Rob Baker and The Odds’ Craig Northey.
LISTEN TO KILLBEAT MUSIC’S SINGLES OF 2021 PLAYLIST
2021 marked 20 years since the release of Gord Downie’s astonishing solo record, Coke Machine Glow. Arts and Crafts released a special expanded reissue that posthumously revisits the songs and poetry of this prolific period of Downie’s career entitled Coke Machine Glow : The Songwriter’s Cabal.
It’s coming to the end of 2021 and while we don’t have to cross our fingers as tightly as last year, it sure is nice to see you all again, even if somehow some of the venues still smell like lukewarm beer and frozen burritos through a mask. Oh and hey, buy a record or two while you’re there.