Browse by Label: CONSTELLATION (CANADA)

Artist:	FLY PAN AM
Title:	Sedatif en Frequences et Sillons
Label:	CONSTELLATION (CANADA)
Format:	CD
Price:	$9.50
Catalog #:	CST 011CD

"Fly Pan Am return with a 3 song EP of fractured, tape infested motorik rock experiments sure to please fans and detractors alike, sharpening the ears of the former while the latter sharpen their knives. Sedatif en Frequences et Sillons, which roughly translates as 'grooved frequency sedative', is an intransigent slab of self-referential auto-criticism by our favorite young conceptualists. Love 'em or hate 'em, Fly Pan Am stick to their agenda of acutely self-conscious musical manipulations, examining their own materials and assumptions to yield new compositions of uncompromising formalism. Side 1 ('De Cercle en Cercle...') is a medley or sorts, consisting of phrases and fragments reconfigured and replayed from last year's debut 3 sided LP. Side 2 features 'Efferant/Afferant', a new piece of somnambulist clockwork repetition, with the band laying down a strict, static groove while various tape manipulations penetrate the mix to create polyrhythms, dissonances and additional textures."

Artist:	GODSPEED YOU! BLACK EMPEROR
Title:	Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven
Label:	CONSTELLATION (CANADA)
Format:	2LP
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	CST 012LP

"Five expansive compositions are framed by various field recordings, tape manipulations & ensemble pieces in a return to the sonic collage techniques that structured f#a#, their 1997 debut. Four seamless sides of vinyl unfold a world of aching, agonizing sadness & beauty, with musical quotes ranging from heartland Americana to Metteleuropa Folkways, all distilled through the unique sonic filters of Godspeed's orchestral rock instrumentation. Harrowing guitars, plaintive strings, pulsing basses and explosive drums combine with glockenspiels, horns, and tape drones to form an overwhelming palette of sounds, always driven by fierce melodic momentum and tremendous attention to dynamics and detail. Double vinyl, packaged in a chipboard gatefold jacket."

Artist:	SPARO, FRANKIE
Title:	My Red Scare
Label:	CONSTELLATION (CANADA)
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	CST 013CD

"The thrilling and mysterious debut by Frankie Sparo is a dark & deconstructed affair, featuring lots of angular guitar, skittish electronics, and a throaty voice offering up the finest lyrical turns of phrase we've heard in a long while. My Red Scare is redolent with film noir atmosphere; vaguely sinister & paranoid at times, smoky & languid at others, the whole record exudes oblique intimacy and the unique sensibility of a true auteur. With arrangement help from various musicians within the Constellation circle, the pieces range from spare acoustic guitar accompaniment to electric guitar & beatbox collisions and full-on orchestrations for strings."

Artist:	1-SPEED BIKE
Title:	Droopy Butt Begone
Label:	CONSTELLATION (CANADA)
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	CST 014CD

"1-Speed Bike is the techno alter-ego of Aidan Girt, drummer for the Montreal based bands Exhaust and Godspeed You Black Emperor. From its humble beginnings on a first-generation 8-bit Akai sampler, 1-Speed Bike has progressed towards new and improved resolution on this debut full length, while maintaining a decidedly punk irreverence and ramshackle aesthetic. First heard on the 3 remixes interspersed throughout the self-titled Exhaust record, 1-Speed Bike beat manipulations are characterized by live drum phrases that pulse and breathe with organic dynamism, chopped and looped to form the backbone for melodic passages that range from the irreverent to the sublime."

Artist:	RE
Title:	Mnant
Label:	CONSTELLATION (CANADA)
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.50
Catalog #:	CST 015CD

"Mnant features densely layered songs formed by overlapping loops and filter treatments as well as spare compositions using only one or two fragments, similarly overlapped and filtered. Re: relies heavily on the 'cut & paste' technique popularized by microcomputers, though some pieces were executed largely in real time, just as in real life. All pieces, with a couple of obvious exceptions, are comprised (to some degree) of fragments performed in real time, out in the open air, with resonant devices, amplifiers, microphones, etc. Various filters were also often applied in real time, with hands on knobs tuning & calibrating & whatnot. In other cases, with reference to all of the above, the computer did the work & time was suspended. At one stage or another, all sounds were binarised & dealt with as such. Mnant is definitely the deepest that Constellation has yet plunged into the depths of machine-created music. The half of Constellation who is not part of Re: and who retains some objectivity re: re:) believes this foray to be as masterful and nuanced as anything we've released to date."

Artist:	HANGEDUP
Title:
Label:	CONSTELLATION (CANADA)
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	CST 016CD

"Hangedup is a Montreal-based duo featuring Gen Hiestek (Pest 5000, Sackville) on viola and Eric Craven (Shortwave, Sackville) on drums and percussion. Imagine Tony Conrad minimalism wedded to the rhythmic thrust of bands like Dog Faced Hermans and The Ex. A middle-European sensibility prevails in the stripped-down melodicism of the string playing, reminiscent of similarly folk-inspired modern music by the likes of Eva Bittova. Pieces range from borderline musique concrete experimentation to 80's new wave pop extrapolations, bound by a minimalist agenda throughout. Cameo appearances by electric bass and overdubbed effects provide some additional textures."

Artist:	SPARO, FRANKIE
Title:	Arena Hostile
Label:	CONSTELLATION (CANADA)
Format:	CD
Price:	$7.00
Catalog #:	CST 017CD

"In January 2001, Frankie Sparo toured Europe with A Silver Mt. Zion. Musicians from the latter group worked on new arrangements of songs from Mr. Sparo's debut record (My Red Scare), adding strings, organ & electronics to Frankie's guitar & beatbox compositions, some of the results were captured in a live to 2-track recording at VPRO radio in Amsterdam midway through the tour. The four songs on this new EP are all first takes from this radio session, beautifully recorded by the wonderful folks at VPRO."

Artist:	A SILVER MT. ZION
Title:	Born Into Trouble As The Sparks Fly Upward
Label:	CONSTELLATION (CANADA)
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	CST 018CD

"This second album finds the band expanded to a six-member core, with a similarly expanded name. The addition of cello, second violin & second guitar has allowed Mt. Zion to develop richer, denser arrangements while preserving live ensemble playing. The opening pieces pick up where the debut left off, with found-sound loops & treatments introducing repeated melodic themes that move slowly through various counter-melodies -- the greater breadth of instrumentation brings greater subtlety, complexity & harmonic range to bear on these neo classical dirges."

Artist:	FLY PAN AM
Title:	Ceux Qui Inventent N'ont Jamais Vacu (?)
Label:	CONSTELLATION (CANADA)
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	CST 019CD

"Fly Pan Am sharpen their sonic and conceptual knives to shiny surgical points on this second full-length, having gradually moved from long, reverb-drenched repetition to concise, bone-dry repetition in their live shows over the past couple of years, these new songs are marked by a full embrace of stuttering, fucked-up, funk. The result is a tightly-wound record that frequently seems to pop its own springs. The group is serious about their Krautrock, but about a great many other things as well, whether New York circ. 1980, Afro-beat, or musique concrete."

Artist:	DO MAKE SAY THINK
Title:	& Yet & Yet
Label:	CONSTELLATION (CANADA)
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	CST 020CD

"The third full-length by Do Make Say Think marks another quantum leap towards sonic and compositional mastery by this Toronto-based instrumental rock band. Their space- and drone-rock foundations continue to serve as the launching pad for experImentation with jazz-inflected motifs, but with & Yet & Yet, the group's pop sensibility is also on fine display. Melodic themes laid out by guitars and horns wind along a burbling brook of fat analog synths and phased percussion, tiny subtle details are worked into the mix on every track, and the whole record just pulses with warmth and soul."

Artist:	EXHAUST
Title:	Enregistreur
Label:	CONSTELLATION (CANADA)
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	CST 021CD

"Exhaust is a bass, drum & tape trio that crashed through various small montreal venues in a series of semi-controlled explosions during the mid-90s. All the original elements -- ultra-low-end bass moan, loping breakbeat trapkit, live reel-to-reel tape scratch -- remain at the core of this new studio work. The band is more head-trip than body blow nowadays, and has constructed a brilliant downtempo album of concrete/punk experimentation that gestures towards various currents in contemporary electronic music as well. Features Aidan from Godspeed You Black Emperor."

Artist:	HANGEDUP
Title:	Kicker In Tow
Label:	CONSTELLATION (CANADA)
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	CST 022CD

"Hangedup explodes on this follow-up to last year's critically-acclaimed debut (cst016). With Kicker in Tow, they prove themselves one of the most powerful, hypnotic and relentless duos currently mining the subterrain of avant rock. Gen Heistek's amplified viola is a propulsive blend of drones & doublestops, while Eric Craven's drumming spurts & hisses like an ornate, early-industrial steam engine. Both players also bring some brilliant free & improvisational explorations to the table, always with a raw, restless punk rock heart. These are work songs, fight songs, songs brimming with life & shot through with melodic influences drawn from folk traditions."

Artist:	SPARO, FRANKIE
Title:	Welcome Crummy Mystics
Label:	CONSTELLATION (CANADA)
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	CST 023CD

"Sparo's debut record, My Red Scare (CST013), was comprised mostly of songs played solo, unadorned; wrought only from guitar, voice and beatbox. The two years since have seen forays into broader instrumentation and collaborations with additional players. This diversity of strategies and materials is held together by more than Sparo's voice. Amidst a minefield of influences, there is a sensibility at work that prevails in every song -- and over the entire record. There's a beguiling mood enveloping a very fine and complex collection of poetic music. We can't think of humbler or higher praise. For fans of language, Sparo's lyrics can certainly be counted on for top-notch reflection and erudition."

Artist:	DO MAKE SAY THINK
Title:	Winter Hymn Country Hymn Secret Hymn
Label:	CONSTELLATION (CANADA)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	CST 025CD

"Do Make Say Think have fashioned a fourth full-length album of tremendous beauty and depth, more loosely woven than previous records and played with a dark, wistful restraint throughout. The songs on Winter Hymn... are eerie and iridescent, composed and captured with mesmerising attention to detail, all guided by the band's most intricate and intimate guitar passages to date. Many of the songs feature a newfound non-linearity in compositional structure that once again raises the DMST bar for imbuing instrumental rock with heartrending -- yes, even hymnal -- narrative ideas. More than any previous effort by the band, this is an album that yearns to be listened to as a whole, or at least in the triptychs defined by the 3-sided vinyl edition. SIDE A is driven by introspective guitar work, full of delicate transitions and devastatingly soulful punctuations. These first three tracks rank among the finest and most finessed music Do Make Say Think has yet set to tape -- impressionistic and fragmented, while remaining coherent and perfectly controlled. SIDE B relies more heavily on horns and a recurring jazz groove in the rhythm section, while SIDE C brings on the rock & pop denoument, beginning with an explosive track that devolves into cut-up and eventually gives way to the celebratory album finale (complete with submerged chorale)."

Artist:	POLMO POLPO
Title:	Like Hearts Swelling
Label:	CONSTELLATION (CANADA)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	CST 026CD

"Polmo Polpo is the main project of Toronto based musician Sandro Perri. As this new album demonstrates, his ear for long-burn drones and submerged rhythms overlaid with instrumental sources (slide guitar, strings, accordion) is impeccable. Building on foundations of multi-layered full spectrum drones and loops, the music of Polmo Polpo is distinguished by slide guitar motifs that are more naive pop pastoral than spaghetti western. The opening track, 'Romeo Heart,' builds inexorably from silence to jet-engine pink noise squall, coaxed along by descending bass and guitar lines. This is an excellent introduction to a record that gains in emotional resonance and structural complexity with every song. Polmo Polpo has crafted a subtle, enveloping, kaleidoscopic instrumental pop record -- brimming and bursting..."

Artist:	SILVER MT. ZION MEMORIAL ORCHESTRA & TRA-LA-LA BAND WITH CHOIR, THE
Title:	This Is Our Punk-Rock, Thee Rusted Satellites...
Label:	CONSTELLATION (CANADA)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	CST 027CD

...Gather + Sing,. "This third full-length recording by Mt. Zion finds the band continuing to work as a six-piece, with various guests on drums and a couple dozen folks on choral duty. The result is four long pieces, each in two or more sections, all featuring group and/or lead vocals. Efrim's increased vocal presence is the most obvious evolution from past efforts, yielding the most direct articulation of themes and emotions that have run throughout his work with Mt. Zion and godspeed you! black emperor. Long instrumental passages remain, however, marked by the most deliberate, complex and precise compositions the band has set to tape thus far. Dense layers of strings collide, blend and differentiate against a backdrop of ragged repeating guitar figures and noise treatments."

Artist:	BLACK OX ORKESTAR
Title:	Ver Tanzt?
Label:	CONSTELLATION (CANADA)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	CST 029CD

"Black Ox Orkestar is a Montreal based quartet that formed in 1999 to play European Jewish folk music. Filtering traditional klezmer tunes through a sensibility shaped by indie rock and free jazz, Black Ox infuses these pieces with a highly original approach to arrangement, freely borrowing from Turkish, Balkan and Greek folk idioms along the way. The band strikes a perfect balance between faithfulness to sources and extrapolation from contemporary influences, offering a challenge (both musically and lyrically) to modern Jewish political orthodoxies along the way. Evenly split between instrumentals and vocal tunes, this debut album is a hypnotic blend of pieces pulled from various Eastern European songbooks as well as several original compositions. Lyrics are in Yiddish and speak forcefully about the bloody history and intractable contradictions of Jewish diaspora and return. The record is of appeal to anyone who appreciates melancholy, minor key melodics and folk music unburdened by antiseptic production and/or cheap sentimentality."

Artist:	FLY PAN AM
Title:	N'Ecoutez Pas
Label:	CONSTELLATION (CANADA)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	CST 031CD

"Le Fly Pan Am is one of the founding bands on the Constellation roster, and perhaps the most confounding group on the label. N'Ecoutez Pas contains the band's most intense sounds yet; while each side of the record is anchored by a long, non linear piece juxtaposing the band against tape and electronic treatments, a number of other tracks are the closest the group has come to traditional rock/pop structures, with 'chorus' breaks, melodic 'hooks' and vocals. Of course, being Fly Pan Am, all of this is duly bracketed -- there is nothing traditional about the results and the various elements are pushed forward or pulled back in anything but conventional ways. These are careening, carnivalesque tunes that somehow wed the browns and pinks of FSA-style guitar washes with y�y� pop, Boredoms noise incantations and hardcore punk."

Artist:	RE
Title:	Alms
Label:	CONSTELLATION (CANADA)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	CST 032CD

"The second full length from this genre defying duo is a somber and richly detailed work that invokes a dystopic environment where the 'natural' and 'organic' are inseparable from electricities, radioactivities and the detritus of military-industrial technologies and materials. Through micro recordings of metallic objects and resonances, field recordings, and raw filter bank improvisations, Aden Evens and Ian Ilavsky (Hangedup, CST honcho) construct a sonic landscape of polluted signal sources, weaving tentative, fading signs of humanism into the mix by way of piano, organ and drums. The result is a tense, highly dynamic narrative of full spectrum compositions that strive to celebrate, critique and eulogize freedom in a barbarically overdetermined world. Alms is an invocation of and lament for the wreckage left in the wake of 'growth' and 'stability' (our local system of audio paths and patches reflecting the garble and garbage of the global): A confession of computer indulgence and easy access to technology and creative play: A tiny sonic treatise on the poverty of our times and how we shield ourselves from it with various modes of, more or less, sublimated imposition."

Artist:	THEE SILVER MT. ZION MEMORIAL ORCHESTRA
Title:	Horses in the Sky
Label:	CONSTELLATION (CANADA)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	CST 033CD

"'This is our torched estates' = 6 busted 'waltzes' for world wars 4 thru 6, or the sound of our nervous unit collapsing across sing-song eruptions of anxious light and clumsy heat, 'mystery & wonder, messy hearts made of thunder,' tape reordered at thee mighty hotel2tango for all the gentle dreamers to cradle or discard...the politics of it is just love thy neighbour mostly, or heartbroken temper tantrums for grumpy refusers, or saucy anthems for all the stubborn dumbass resistance cadres maybe...(first song's about war and drug addiction, fourth song's about kanada, and the rest of it is all love songs trulytrulytruly...) the indignant critics amongst us should note that as usual there's more questions than answers here, more complaints than solutions, and at times the group singing is a little out of tune; the name of the record is Horses in the Sky, and we thank you all for still listening...". 5th release by multifaceted Montreal ensemble. 3rd release in their large band (Tra La La Band) guise.

Artist:	HANGEDUP
Title:	Clatter For Control
Label:	CONSTELLATION (CANADA)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	CST 034CD

"This is the third full length by the viola and drums duo of Montr�al's Hangedup, who've been mesmerising audiences, while pushing the boundaries of what a bow and a pair of drumsticks can conjure, since 1999. Gen's bi−amplified viola rig, linked to a live audio looper, creates an astounding vortex of jigs, reels & air raid drones, pummelled along by some of the heaviest polyrhythmic skinbeating we've ever heard. An unbelievably beautfbeautifult that finds the band utterly on fire, swooping & slamming around with varying degrees of controlled chaos. Both noisier & more melodic than anything they've yet put to tape, Hangedup raise their compositional & improvisational bars on Clatter For Control."

Artist:	VAJAGIC, ELIZABETH ANKA
Title:	Nostalgia / Pain EP
Label:	CONSTELLATION (CANADA)
Format:	CD
Price:	$12.50
Catalog #:	CST 035CD

"Elizabeth Anka Vajagic follows up last year's debut full length with two longform incantations channeled through the full range of her blistering, astoundingly intimate voice. As the title suggests, Vajagic cuts deep into a couple of timeless themes, with both title pieces featuring extended instrumental and noise passages, revealing the searching ears of her improv-steeped band. These are chilling vocal lamentations framed by sometimes ghostly, sometimes galloping sonic textures from musicians who've played in Molasses, Shalabi Effect and Voivod, among other bands. From quivering falsetto to guttural glissando, Vajagic's voice gets a complete workout on these long, immersive songs."

Artist:	HRSTA
Title:	Stem Stem In Electro
Label:	CONSTELLATION (CANADA)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	CST 036CD

"Hrsta (her-shta) is the latest addition to the Constellation roster and Stem Stem In Electro is the band's second record, following a critically-acclaimed debut album release on Montreal's Fancy Recordings in 2001. The band's ring leader is guitarist and singer Mike Moya, who was a founding member of Godspeed You! Black Emperor back in 1995 and played on that band's first two records. Stem Stem In Electro is a gorgeous collection of songs painted in psych-rock tones and timbres, minor key progressions, and unsettling invocations of haunted transcendentalism. The opening track, with its trance-like group chorus of 'we climb to the light,' is akin to a cultish hymn, with Maya's guitar howls and washes underscoring the disquieting downwards chord structure. This sets the stage for 'Blood On The Sun,' a chilling ballad delivered in Maya's otherworldly voice, like a sedated Daniel Johnson or Wayne Coyne. The trip continues with a delicate instrumental and the tremulous swing of 'Folkways Orange,' which would not be out of place on a more sparkly orchestrated Devendra Banhart record."

Artist:	GLISSANDRO 70
Title:	Glissandro 70
Label:	CONSTELLATION (CANADA)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	CST 037CD

"Beginning in summer 2003 as a one-off commission for audio weblog Muted Tones (from which opening track 'Something' is excerpted and re-edited), Glissandro 70 is the result of two years of intermittent collaboration between Toronto's Sandro Perri (Polmo Polpo, Continuous Dick) and Craig Dunsmuir (Guitarkestra). Produced by Perri with Dunsmuir and written by Dunsmuir with Perri, this five-song full-length circles at the intersection of pop song and extended dub, cribbed lyric and wordless chant, odd meter and straight beat. Playful nods to dance music's misfit past both direct (the use of chanted quotes from Model 500 and Talking Heads) and secondhand ('Analogue Shantytown's debt to Arthur Russell and Walter Gibbons) are kept in check by Dunsmuir and Perri's respective rhythmic and timbral acuities, ensuring that this is no mere exercise in exorcism."

Artist:	BLACK OX ORKESTAR
Title:	Nisht Azoy
Label:	CONSTELLATION (CANADA)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	CST 038CD

"Picks up where 2004's Ver Tanzt left off -- more percussion, a harsher sound, songs of love and war that stretch out into extended sonic and lyrical explorations. We continue to raid Balkan, Central Asian, Arabic, Czech and other sources to give teeth to old Jewish songs, as well as composing new pieces, both hard-hitting and tender. We also explore the larger ensemble, gathering together everyone we know with a string or wind instrument to raise the folk ballad 'Tsvey Taybelakh' (Two Doves) up to the sky. On 'Golem,' a Black Ox original, we resurrect the medieval legend of an automaton fashioned out of clay whose single-minded mission to defend his community spirals into violence. In these days of separation walls and robotic drones, the Golem issues a stark warning from the past. Nisht Azoy is the melancholy and uncompromising sound of our mongrel music splitting at the seams, the boat creaking as we drag our friends on board for a trip to who knows where."

Artist:	PERRI, SANDRO
Title:	Plays Polmo Polpo
Label:	CONSTELLATION (CANADA)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	CST 042CD

"Sandro Perri, aka Polmo Polpo, has been performing under his own name, in Toronto and the surrounding region, for the past couple of years. These performances have ranged from solo voice and acoustic guitar, to duo shows with Eric Chenaux, and more recently with 4-6 piece bands. Perri has been recording the results in various locations and with various configurations of players, since 2004. In 2005, he self-released a first batch of songs on CD-R, featuring re-interpretations of material from his Polmo Polpo album Like Hearts Swelling. We fell in love with it, and a fifth track has been added for the Constellation release. A must for Polmo Polpo fans and a sweet collection of songs in its own right, Sandro Perri Plays Polmo Polpo is another window in Toronto's improv and avant songwriter culture, alongside the Eric Chenaux album released concurrently."

Artist:	CHENAUX, ERIC
Title:	Dull Lights
Label:	CONSTELLATION (CANADA)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	CST 043CD

"Dull Lights is an album of long winding melodies and subtle shifts and turns. Fraser's drums play around the beat, or paint beneath it, while Arnold and Chenaux pluck buzzing lines from guitar and banjo. Imagine an intersection of Richard Youngs and Red Red Meat, or a lumberjack Devendra Banhart whose reference point is more The Grifters than glam. Eric Chenaux has composed a delicate, intricate, inspired cycle of pared-down tunes using a highly original palette of guitar-based sounds and strategies. We're thrilled to present Eric's unique voice (and voicings) with this release."

Artist:	LULLABYE ARKESTRA
Title:	Ampgrave
Label:	CONSTELLATION (CANADA)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	CST 044CD

"Lullabye Arkestra is a bass and drum duo that have been playing and self-releasing glorious slabs of distorto-soul for several years. Formed in Toronto by Justin (drums) and Katia (bass), the Ark has played shows throughout eastern Canada as a duo and as a large band, adding horns, voices and organ. Their slow, swampy, overdriven cover of 'Summertime' was an early signature tune, along with a clutch of original raveups ranging from one-minute combustions of riffage and hollering to longer, fuzzed-out R&B numbers, often marked by those sincere but sassy boy/girl call-and-response vocals that make everyone's day. Ampgrave is a hell of a good time, full of testifying and tenderness, seesawing between massed instruments and the raw minimalism of the core rhythm section. Justin rounds up fellow Do Make Say Think players Ohad, Brian and Jason on horns and hollering, along with Shelton Deverel on organ and Julie Penner on violin. An additional 10-voice 'Chorus Oblivia' of exuberant caterwaul also rallies to the cause."

Artist:	LULLABYE ARKESTRA
Title:	Ampgrave
Label:	CONSTELLATION (CANADA)
Format:	LP
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	CST 044LP

LP version. 2006 release that seems to mysteriously exist on vinyl today.
"Lullabye Arkestra is a bass and drum duo that have been playing and self-releasing glorious slabs of distorto-soul for several years. Ampgrave is a hell of a good time, full of testifying and tenderness, seesawing between massed instruments and the raw minimalism of the core rhythm section. Justin rounds up fellow Do Make Say Think players Ohad, Brian and Jason on horns and hollering, along with Shelton Deverel on organ and Julie Penner on violin."

Artist:	DO MAKE SAY THINK
Title:	You, You're A History In Rust
Label:	CONSTELLATION (CANADA)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	CST 045CD

"Since Constellation issued their self-released debut record in 1998, Do Make Say Think have made one critically acclaimed album after another. They are one of the most consistently inventive instrumental rock bands of the past past decade, and one of the most realized. DMST members themselves have recorded, mixed, and mastered all the band's work, thus developing a highly original and finely detailed approach to audio production. You, You're A History In Rust is the fifth record by Do Make Say Think and a brilliant extension of the band's sonic narrative. Constellation is thrilled to release this fifth album by one of their most creative, thoughtful, challenging and accessible groups."

Artist:	CHESTNUTT, VIC
Title:	North Star Deserter
Label:	CONSTELLATION (CANADA)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	CST 046CD

"We have been massive Vic Chesnutt fans for many years. Prior to starting Constellation together in 1997, among the first records we bonded over was Is The Actor Happy, a slab of vinyl played so often (and so often late at night) that its grooves are well chewed. Our friend, Brooklyn-based filmmaker Jem Cohen (Benjamin Smoke, Instrument, Chain), has known Vic for many years. When Jem proposed that Vic make his next album at the Hotel2Tango studio in Montreal, with various Constellation musicians (along with a couple of American friends) as players for the session, we were thrilled. When we heard the results, we were floored. When offered the opportunity to release the record, we were honored. Vic Chesnutt is one of the finest songsmiths we know. His words knock us out, his voice is like no other, and the two combined can deliver lyrical phrases that echo in your brain for weeks, months, years... that you find yourself adding to your quotidian vocabulary of sardonic asides, devastating metaphors, witty rhymes... words that are never clever for their own sake, but smart and substantive as all hell. The songs on North Star Deserter are some of the most bracing and intense we've ever heard from him: macabre and fearless, playful and funny, at times deeply personal and at others, incongruously hopeful."

Artist:	PERRI, SANDRO
Title:	Tiny Mirrors
Label:	CONSTELLATION (CANADA)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	CST 047CD

"This is the first full-length recording by Sandro Perri under his own name, following an EP on Constellation in 2006. Working with some of Toronto's finest avant and improv players, Sandro has fully re-invented himself as a singer, lyricist and guitar player, and Tiny Mirrors is the culmination of this transformation -- a highly personal collection of songs, shaped by an utterly original approach to composition, performance and melodic and vocal phrasing. Tiny Mirrors incorporates elements and sensibilities -- albeit in subtle hues -- as diverse as Vanguard-era Skip James (and his weary falsetto), post-tropicalia Caetano Veloso (the compositional twists), and the '60s-era axis of hybrid songwriters like Tim Buckley, Tim Hardin, Harry Nilsson and Fred Neil (whose 'Everybody's Talkin' is covered here, re-cast as a rumination on the 'epidemic' of second-hand experience). Overall, Perri strikes the perfect balance of sophisticated writing (melodically and as a lyricist) and, with the help of his band, deceptively effortless, relaxed, unconstrained performance. These songs abound in subtle texture and flourish, and the burbling swirl of instrumental work is a through-line to his earlier recordings as Polmo Polpo, where a similarly simmering brew of interweaving melodies yielded such an original and seductive take on 'electronic' music. Perri brings the same originality, warmth, energy and intelligence to his eponymous singer/songwriter work; Tiny Mirrors pulses and froths and lounges and glides with inimitable ingenuity, genuineness, substance and style."

Artist:	PERRI, SANDRO
Title:	Tiny Mirrors
Label:	CONSTELLATION (CANADA)
Format:	LP
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	CST 047LP

LP version, 2007 release. "Working with some of Toronto's finest avant and improv players, Sandro has fully re-invented himself as a singer, lyricist and guitar player, and Tiny Mirrors is the culmination of this transformation -- a highly personal collection of songs, shaped by an utterly original approach to composition, performance and melodic and vocal phrasing. Tiny Mirrors incorporates elements and sensibilities -- albeit in subtle hues -- as diverse as Vanguard-era Skip James (and his weary falsetto), post-tropicalia Caetano Veloso (the compositional twists), and the '60s-era axis of hybrid songwriters like Tim Buckley, Tim Hardin, Harry Nilsson and Fred Neil."

Artist:	HRSTA
Title:	Ghosts Will Come and Kiss Our Eyes
Label:	CONSTELLATION (CANADA)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	CST 048CD

"Hrsta (her-shta) is the brainchild of founding Godspeed You! Black Emperor guitarist Mike Moya, who is joined on this third album (the band's second on Constellation) by Brooke Crouser (Jackie-O Motherfucker) on organs, guitars and various effects. Brooke has emerged as the core second member of the band, joining Mike on live dates since 2006, and contributing to composition and arrangement on this new record. The ever-faithful rhythm section of bassist Harris Newman and drummer Eric Craven provide additional backbone on select songs. Ghosts Will Come And Kiss Our Eyes is a collection of gently foreboding psych-folk, anchored as always by Mike's unique guitar sound and otherworldly, cracked vocals (think a sedated Daniel Johnson or Wayne Coyne). With Hammond and pump organs now featured prominently in the mix, much of the new material here sits on a thick, saturated foundation of shifting tones, drones and sustained chordings. Alternating between vocal tunes and instrumentals, the album creaks and cascades through hazed visions of cataclysm and calm, worry and wonder."

Artist:	FEU THERESE
Title:	Ca Va Cogner
Label:	CONSTELLATION (CANADA)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	CST 049CD

"Feu Th�r�se caught spark from the embers of Fly Pan Am's break-up in 2005, when FPA guitarist Jonathan Parant joined forces with longtime collaborators Alex St-Onge (bass, electronics) and Stephen de Oliveira (synths, voice) to form the new group. Painter turned drummer Luc Paradis completed the new line-up. Their debut self-titled album, released on Constellation in spring 2006, expanded on FPA's sonic agenda, while relying more on instrumental juxtapositions - rather than electronic interventions or intentional sabotage at the mixing desk - to hijack the music. The Feu Th�r�se mandate of knitting critical and non-conformist elements right into their song structures, instead of having these 'collide' with the music as if from outside, has reached a new level of bizarre sublimation on their new record."

Artist:	EVANGELISTA
Title:	Hello, Voyager
Label:	CONSTELLATION (CANADA)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	CST 050CD

We can call this a debut record of sorts, as it is the first album to be released under Carla Bozulich's new band moniker, Evangelista. Bozulich's first record for Constellation, issued in 2006, was released under her own name, and bore the album title Evangelista. That album title has now migrated to become the band name. So... this is the new album, titled Hello, Voyager, by the newly-named band Evangelista, featuring Carla Bozulich. You follow? No worries, there will not be a quiz. The Evangelista band continues to comprise Bozulich and Tara Barnes as its nucleus, and continues to build on its relationship with Montr�al (where the last album was also made). Hello, Voyager was recorded in Montr�al at the Hotel2Tango by Efrim Menuck in late summer 2007, with an even larger cast of Montr�al musicians joining Carla, Tara and Shahzad Ismaily this time around, to work up a more stylistically diverse batch of songs. Raw, beautifully ravaged, semi-improvised soundscapes still underpin Carla's incantatory sung and spoken lyrics on the album's opening and closing tracks, but much of the rest of the record is more overtly composed. Blistering nuggets like the snarling 'Smooth Jazz' and the desperate 'Truth Is Dark Like Outer Space' are the most rocking tunes Carla has put to tape since the demise of The Geraldine Fibbers, while 'The Blue Room' (one of Carla's finest songs, and one she has been carrying around for many years) is finally captured in a stunning studio arrangement that includes organ, violin, cello and contrebasse. 'Lucky Lucky Luck' is a playful, sassy, fractured take on the misfit narrative and 'Paper Kitten Claw' is its methodical, reflective, poetic foil. Carla's voice perfectly sets and channels the prevailing mood on each song, and is strong as ever. The new album includes contributions from over a dozen Montr�al players, including most of Thee Silver Mt. Zion (chiefly on string arrangements), as well as Nadia Moss (organ) and a corps of local drummers who bang out the thunderous rhythm track on 'Smooth Jazz' and drive the epic sprawl of the album's closing title track."

Artist:	THEE SILVER MT. ZION MEMORIAL ORCHESTRA & TRA-LA-LA BAND
Title:	13 Blues For Thirteen Moons
Label:	CONSTELLATION (CANADA)
Format:	CD
Price:	$16.00
Catalog #:	CST 051CD

"Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band have been making a big raw angry tender racket since the 2005 release of their last album, Horses In The Sky. With a focus on live performance and special projects over the past three years, the group proper has logged well over 100 shows in Europe and North America, in between sessions that yielded Thee Silver Mountain Reveries EP and Thee Silver Mountain Elegies Play War Radio tour (featuring four members of Mt. Zion and both members of label mates Hangedup), as well as collaborations with Carla Bozulich, Vic Chesnutt and Patti Smith in the studio and in concert. The music of the full band (two guitars, two violins, cello, contrebasse and drums) has grown louder, looser, full of spittle and tears. On 13 Blues For Thirteen Moons, riffs are the backbone more than ever. Anchored by new drummer Eric Craven (ex-Hangedup), the band works its slow build and burn with newfound patience, sinuousness and ferocity. Whether methodically framing walls of sound over the four-on-the floor punk dirge of '1,000,000 Died To Make This Sound' or exploding in sheets of free noise and melody on 'Black Waters Blowed,' the band has never rocked harder and has never sounded more determined, desperate and driven. A stuttered blues riff is the foundation for the album's title track, making its appearance after a blisteringly minimalist intro. 'Engine Broke Blues' features a gorgeous set of chords that build inexorably from multiple guitar, string and organ lines. Fans of the group will be familiar with much of this material from the band's live shows over the past couple of years. The recording, undertaken at the newly renovated Hotel2Tango facility in Montr�al and co-engineered by Howard Bilerman and Radwan Moumneh (who is also the band's live sound person), ups the ante considerably, with crackling guitar crescendos setting the pace for dive-bombing swirls of strings, while Efrim's voice rasps and wails words of worry, hope and fury throughout. The band's hallmark group vocal passages are positively spine-tingling."

Artist:	CHENAUX, ERIC
Title:	Sloppy Ground
Label:	CONSTELLATION (CANADA)
Format:	CD
Price:	$16.00
Catalog #:	CST 052CD

"Sloppy Ground is Eric Chenaux's strongest, most accessible and most dynamic work in years. We have long been champions of the man's inimitable talents -- as a songwriter, arranger and mind-bending guitarist -- and this new album should make these talents clear to the nominally attentive listener. This is a collection of beautifully fried love songs, highly original in compositional approach and instrumental texture, utterly compelling in lyrical content and delivery. As Chenaux says, 'the lyrics are more concerned with what love does rather than what it means... the time moving through these tunes is not one of the beginning of love or the end or heartbreak of love (though I love that stuff too) but more often in the middle (the working middle, the in between).' Chenaux has rallied some of Toronto's finest 'out' players for Sloppy Ground, including Nick Fraser on drums, Ryan Driver on amplified melodica and synths, David Prentice on violin, Doug Tielli on 5-string banjo, Martin Arnold on electric tenor banjo, and Aimee Dawn Robinson on electric echo harp. Chenaux's own guitar work has never been more thrillingly deployed in the context of (relatively) conventional songcraft."

Artist:	CLUES
Title:	Clues
Label:	CONSTELLATION (CANADA)
Format:	CD
Price:	$16.00
Catalog #:	CST 057CD

"This is the wondrous debut record from Clues. Co-founders Alden Penner and Brendan Reed have been quietly nurturing this project in Montreal since the demise of their respective bands, Unicorns and Les Angles Morts. As a member of the short-lived Unicorns, Penner's songwriting prowess was unveiled in a bright burst of mysterious and kaleidoscopic energy, in the form of a single full-length album (released in 2003) and countless live shows, both of which rallied passionate responses from audiences and critics alike. Penner's voice, guitar and unique lyrical vision now guide Clues, with humble authority, originality and intent. Wedded to Reed's own superlative compositional and arranging acumen (and awesome drumming, among other instrumental skills) and abetted by multi-instrumentalists Ben Borden (Les Automates de Maxime de la Rochefoucauld), Lisa Gamble (Gambletron, Evangelista, Hrsta) and Nick Scribner (Chaotic Insurrection Ensemble), the band delivered sporadic and fantastic local performances through 2008. They then entered the Hotel2Tango studio to lay down eleven songs in a feverish session during a Montr�al winter deep freeze. The resulting album radiates a very special warmth and urgency, full of secrets, smiles, snarls and sing-a-longs. This debut record yields one undeniable tune after another. It is one of those albums that coheres effortlessly in spite of the restless energy and distinct identity of each song -- nothing ever really sounds or stays the same, but neither are there any forced spastics or facile schizophrenics. Forged from postpunk, nowave and psych influences, Clues compose a rare breed of complex pop anthems that consistently inscribe their own perfect limits, without overreaching and without pandering. The overriding aesthetic avoids ornate decadence and stringent economy in equal measure. An authentic, unfussy and stirringly epic little sonic world unfolds: idiosyncratic and enigmatic, but exuberantly infectious and approachable."

Artist:	ELFIN SADDLE
Title:	Ringing For The Begin Again
Label:	CONSTELLATION (CANADA)
Format:	CD
Price:	$16.00
Catalog #:	CST 059CD

"Elfin Saddle is the musical project co-founded by Jordan McKenzie and Emi Honda. Partners in life and in art, Jordan and Emi have been building a wonderful body of visual, installation and video art that combines organic living materials with found and scavenged objects to create enchanted environments of growth, slow transformation and gradual decay. Miniature examples of this work can be seen on the album cover art for this, their second record, and first for Constellation. Elfin Saddle's music is gently mystical, calmly wide-eyed, and consistently guided by crystalline melodies deployed over the group's building blocks of accordion and junkyard percussion. Jordan and Emi trade off on these instruments and on vocal duties, with Jordan singing in English and Emi in Japanese. Supplemented by acoustic guitar, ukulele, banjo, xylophone and bells, the result is a truly unique hybrid folk music, woven from simple, insistent instrumental elements and vocal rounds. The addition of Nathan Gage (Shapes And Sizes) on double bass and tuba creates a new anchor for these magical tunes. Ringing For The Begin Again is a highly organic song cycle; the music sounds as if it had been dug up from dark, rich earth. Out of the opening drone and rustling ambient percussion of 'The Bringer,' Jordan evokes golem-like images in a series of descending vocal melodies, gradually joined by Emi's vocal counterpoint and a slowly evolving brew of instrumental layers, like a clay sculpture taking shape and hardening in dappled sunlight. 'Running Sheep' is one of several fables sung by Emi in Japanese and demonstrates the band's sharper, more staccato melodic sensibility. Third track 'Hammer Song' is a brilliant little ode to deconstruction and dismantling, an anthemic tune about the tension between restraint and resolve. Emi's ukulele and vocal lines on 'Sakura' are perhaps most overtly evocative of her home country of Japan; as the song is overtaken by a clockwork of chiming acoustic guitar figures and chugging chords, and segues into the instrumental 'Muskeg Parade,' we're in the throes of a sort of east-meets-west miniature musicbox marching band."

Artist:	VA
Title:	Song of the Silent Land
Label:	CONSTELLATION (CANADA)
Format:	CD
Price:	$12.00
Catalog #:	CST COMP2

"The first compilation from Constellation to feature unreleased and rare tracks from the label roster. The disque includes contributions from every Constellation band, ranging from recent recordings and remixes to early material that predates the label's existence. It also marks a return to earlier Constellation packaging, with textured cardstock and metallic foil printing in two different color combinations." Artists: Re:, Sackville, Frankie Sparo, Sofa, Exhaust, Hangedup, 1 Speed Bike, Silver Mt. Zion, Godspeed! You Black Emperor, Fly Pan Am, Do Make Say Think, Polmo Polpo Black Ox Orkestar, Elizabeth Anka Vajagic

Previous Page Index of Labels Next Page