Seed
Some Party is a newsletter sharing the latest in independent Canadian rock'n'roll, curated by Adam White. Each edition explores punk, garage, psych, and otherwise uncategorizable indie rock, drawing lines from proto to post and taking some weird diversions along the way.
Julianna RiolinoEcho in the Dust
Watch "On A Bluebird's Wing" on YouTube - Preview and purchase at Bandcamp
Welland alt-country artist Julianna Riolino returns this fall with Echo in the Dust, her first solo full-length since 2022's All Blue and the first since she parted ways with The Outfit. Arriving October 24 on her own MoonWhistle Records, the 11-song set promises a newfound confidence, honed from years on the road and showcasing Riolino's careful evolution into a headlining act.
You can hear two previews of the record online now, the triumphant "On a Bluebird's Wing" and the arrestingly beautiful, slow-burning "Seed." Riolino calls the former "a cyclical celebration of inner and outer growth." It arrives alongside a video from Blake Hannahson. "Seed" builds from a 60s girl-group homage into an unexpectedly noisy and triumphant rallying cry, described by the artist as an "unfurling of spiritual awakening, like a bud taking to its soil and beginning to grow on its own."
On the record, Riolino revealed:
"What I'm talking about on Echo In The Dust are universally felt: you can have a romantic relationship, friendship, or professional relationship and start to identify as you grow and learn the toxic parts that can exist in all of those. You think, 'why do I feel bad? Why is this happening again?' But I'm allowing this to happen because I haven't told myself I deserve better. This record helped me learn to accept and love myself. To put myself first and stand on my own two feet."
While she'll perhaps never shed vocal comparisons to Dolly Parton or Linda Ronstadt, Riolino cites a wild range of influences on the record, spanning from Roy Orbison to stoner metal heroes Om. She states:
"It's kind of punk, it's rock n' roll, it's still kind of country. It's more rocking than All Blue. It's an amalgamation of everything going on in my mind."
Riolino recorded at Toronto's Gold Standard Recorders with producer Aaron Goldstein. She anchors the studio band on vocals and guitar, joined by her husband Matthew "Roddy" Kuester on bass and guitar, Goldstein on his trademark pedal steel, Peter Landi (Drew Thomson, Single Mothers) on drums, and Thomas Hammerton on piano and synth. Guest players on the album include guitarist Justis Krar, mandolin player Nichol Robertson, guitarist Sean Thompson, Patrick Smith on saxophone, and Tom Moffett on trumpet. METZ noisemaker Alex Edkins plays guitar on several tracks, with his Weird Nightmare solo guise listed as a featured artist on the track "Full Moon."
I don't want to dwell too much on Julianna's time with Daniel Romano's Outfit, as this new material represents such a distinct, high watermark that any such footnote feels like an anchor — but it's with that band that she emerged as often the most magnetic performer on a stage crowded with strong personalities. Her last records with the Welland crew were 2021's Cobra Poems and 2022's La Luna, both on You've Changed Records.
Carson McHonePentimento
Watch "Winter Breaking" on YouTube - Preview and purchase at Bandcamp
On a related note, Welland-based, Texas-born singer-songwriter Carson McHone also has a new LP on the way. The 13-song Pentimento is notably the artist's first solo record since relocating to Canada; it arrives September 12 through Merge Records. You can preview the album now with three pre-release singles: "Downhill," "Idiom," and the album opener "Winter Breaking."
While she wrote in the Texas desert, McHone recorded on the east coast of Canada with a host of familiar names, including Constantines' Steven Lambke, Colleen Coco Collins (Penny & The Pits, ex-Construction & Destruction), Peterborough enigma/accordionist Michael Cloud Duguay, violinist Raha Javanfar, and her partner Daniel Romano. The Outfit's in-house engineer, Kenneth Roy Meehan, recorded the album to 8-track cassette over a single week last winter.
The community McHone adopted on Northern shores plays a significant role on the album, both sonically and conceptually. In a press release, McHone revealed:
"This project continues to be, really, a community effort. What began as a methodical structuring of personal artifacts kept speaking of collaboration, which allowed me to open up the process to others and bring it to life. Making the initial recording brought together a group of six musicians, but the project has expanded to include a web of many artists and disciplines. If my last album, Still Life, represents a static moment, a pause before a pivot, Pentimento is the natural next step. It's full of movement—through time and space, through many forms... It's a project that engages with shadow, with impulse, with paradox, and with play. I hope the record illustrates the process of integrating these things, of acknowledging the complexity of being/becoming."
The album's runtime incorporates readings from poets Margaret Bentley, André Benitez-James Farnes, and Layla Benitez-James. Additionally, the young son of Benitez-James appears in the video for the song "Downhill," shot in Barcelona and directed by McHone. You can find it on YouTube now alongside a clip spotlighting the pastoral folk of "Idiom."
Pentimento follows McHone's 2022 record Still Life and a collection of follow-up EPs, including the Outfit-backed Camera Varda Variations and the covers set ODES. With The Outfit, McHone most recently appeared on the Live in Oslo recordings, issued on LP this July and featuring that band's current four-piece lineup.
McHone plans to celebrate the album's release in Niagara with a listening party and multi-disciplinary performance at St. Catharines' In the Soil Arts Festival on September 12. A month-long Texas residency follows in October, honouring the album in both her past and present homes.
The Planet SmashersOn The Dancefloor
Watch "Meet me on the Dancefloor" on YouTube - Preview and purchase at Bandcamp
I'm just old enough (or I'd like to think, just young enough) that The Planet Smashers were a keystone band in my evolution as a music consumer. I was a high schooler during the summer of ska, but more than just having the right timing, I completely bought in. I identified as a ska kid long before I navigated the cultural complexities of punk and indie rock; it's likely the first genre badge I adopted. It's also not lost on me that the obscure-yet-national focus of the first All Skanadian Club comp closely reflects on my eventual MO as a writer, this newsletter included. Yet for all my nostalgic affection, I'll admit I lost the plot on the Smashers' output after 2005's Unstoppable (right around the time when post-university adulthood kicked in, unsurprisingly).
That I relegated the Smashers to some youthful phase is my failing. Catching up, recent records like 2019's Too Much Information are hardly frivolous and very much the work of a veteran band with a solid grasp on the mature avenues their genre allows ("Light In Your Smile," etc). While certainly playful and often tongue-in-cheek, it's unfair to pin the adolescent extremes of "Super Orgy Porno Party" on their current output. From our first few samples, it sounds like the bar remains high on the band's 10th studio album, On the Dancefloor. Lead single "Meet Me on the Dancefloor" feels iconic and sounds like a mission statement, a reassurance of their careful stewardship of the 2 Tone sound. There's nothing particularly jokey about it (nor does it force any overt political statement), but as an expression of unencumbered body-moving joy, it certainly hits the mark. I can't explain how, but The Planet Smashers' horn section after all these years remains utterly distinctive, like a familiar voice unto itself.
The 13-track LP arrives August 22 through Stomp Records and boasts some serious ska royalty as guests. The album reunites the Montreal band with toaster Neville Staple of The Specials (and his wife/co-performer Sugary Staple). They further showcase vocals and percussion from Charley 'Aitch' Bembridge, founding drummer of The Selecter. The band tapped local legend Sara Johnston of Bran Van 3000 for backing vocals on the song "Falling." The Smashers lineup this time out features Matt Collyer, Patrizio McLelland, Andy McAdam, Alexandre Fecteau, Patrick Taylor, and Scott Russell. They recorded at Montreal's Le Stuzzio with producer Rod Shearer.
In a press release, ever amiable frontman Matt Collyer brims with positivity:
"On the Dancefloor was the funnest of our 10 albums to record. I can't wait to play these songs live! The process was rad from start to finish. All of my bandmates got their hands in there. Plus we had the pleasure of teaming up with ska legends and longtime friends. Fun times!"
Videos for both the title track and groovy "Things You Do" are available on YouTube.
Jimmy VapidThe Donnas
Preview and purchase at Bandcamp
Sometimes projects seem to come entirely out of left field, but that's part of the charm with Jimmy Vapid's new LP. Like a lot of us, Jimmy, frontman of veteran Burlington punk act The Vapids, has a strong affection for 90s pop-punk, particularly that in the Lookout! Records orbit. His new record, The Donnas, takes that to an extreme, delivering a lovingly crafted track-by-track recreation of the Palo Alto quartet's 1997 self-titled debut.
Why make such an effort? Who exactly is the audience for this? Jimmy doesn't care, so who am I to question what folks do with their time? The tribute's a blast, and given that Jimmy's made a career delivering hooky garage punk in a similar vein, he's well-suited to tackle The Donnas' material with lo-fi zeal. It's a faithful take, albeit generswapped here and there, right down to the cover art.
The Donnas isn't the first time Jimmy's scratched this particular itch. Back in 2002, The Vapids issued a complete remake of the first Teenage Head record. So one-off cover songs notwithstanding, Jimmy's got a track record of honouring the classics with more than just lip service. This album, recorded in March, features Jimmy on guitar and vocals backed by Judy Dagmar on bass and Al McCartney on drums and guitar (his usual solo studio band).
The new outing follows up on The Vapids's 2022 record Revenge Therapy and Jimmy's pandemic-era solo effort K I L L M A T I C. The LP surfaced alongside a slew of early Vapids material from The Donnas' heyday, now available on Bandcamp for the first time. These include 1995's Five Minute Major, 1997's Drink Beer, and the Wanna Fuck Around compilation from 97/98. Jimmy notes that those recordings were a completely different band than the post-millennium Vapids, so check your priors.
AuditingModern Tension
Preview and purchase at Bandcamp
It's been a minute since we've heard from the high-strung London synth-punk Mononegatives. I'm not sure of their status, but two-thirds of the group recently resurfaced as Auditing - a new project that's running with the sound and visual aesthetic of its predecessor. The new act issued the six-song Modern Tension EP in March, their first as a full band. If you're into the Monos angular retrofuture sound, this is a must-hear.
Auditing's timeline isn't quite that linear, as the project first surfaced online in 2023 as David Cereghini's solo venture, running concurrently with Mononegatives' recent efforts. This evolution of the band, assembled last summer, finds Cereghini behind the drum kit, joined by guitarist Aaron Wallis (who played bass in Mononegatives), bassist Nigel, and vocalist/synth-player Gabe Nestor. Nestor and Wallis have a history together in the London punk act Susans (in which Nestor, notably, shreds on lead ukulele). They recorded with their frequent studio collaborator Preston Lobzun.
The group paints their politics with a sci-fi brush on their album-opening "Time Eroded Vault Door," setting a distinct sci-fi tone. They explain:
"It deals with the concept of weaponizing time travel to help circumvent the security apparatus surrounding capital. Somehow this scientific improbability is a more realistic way of sharing the wealth than whatever is happening in our current reality... Safe cracking with physics."
Auditing first surfaced in early 2023 on the lathe-cut First Time 7", with David playing all roles. As for Mononegatives, they last issued the Crossing Visual Field LP in 2024 through No Front Teeth and Dowd Records.
Broken YolksThe View of the Bystander
Preview and purchase at Bandcamp
Edmonton skate punk trio Broken Yolks have a new full-length out with Red Deer's High End Denim Records. The View of the Bystander arrived earlier this month, a 15-song effort of 90s-inspired rippers that "dives headfirst into themes of disconnection, frustration, and the strange tension between action and apathy."
The band previewed the record with the self-aware single "Plaids, Hats, or Tats." On the track, which turns a sardonic mirror on the band's audience, drummer Matt Bordato revealed:
"This song is more or less a tongue-in-cheek poke at the conforming non-conformity of fashion in the scene in our city. Have you ever noticed most local shows are just dudes in plaid, wearing hats, and sporting tats? For a genre built on non-conformity, we all certainly seem to have found the uniform. We thought it would be funny to write a song about that. To be clear though, we are just as guilty - we do it too!"
The album's second single, "Misery," takes an introspective turn, burnished by a soaring vocal hook in the chorus. The label describes the track as identifying "a toxic comfort in revisiting emotional suffering, almost like welcoming back an old friend."
Broken Yolks features guitarist Blake Basaraba, bassist David Lukic, and drummer Matt Bordato, with vocal duties traded between the trio. They recorded with Real Sickies' Rob Lawless at Lawless Recordings. Loser Points' Shawn Taggart mixed at Hog Audio, with Old Wives' Cody Blakely mastering at Halfstack. The new album is Broken Yolks' first new collection since their 2019 EP Tone Deaf.
CurbsideA Lifetime to Outgrow
Preview and purchase at Bandcamp
Kitchener, Ontario skate punk veterans Curbside are back with their first album in over a decade. A Lifetime to Outgrow is out now through Thousand Islands Records. It's the quartet's first new material since their 2016 EP Decades, and like the band's past work, carries the torch of 90s EpiFat heroes like No Use For a Name and Strung Out (a tie underlined by the fact that the album's cover features art from Strung Out vocalist Jason Cruz).
In a press release, Curbside vocalist/guitarist Pat Dietrich commented on the album's themes and the gap since their first record, stating:
"This album is the culmination of everything we've lived since the last record. It's about growing up, facing uncomfortable truths, and still finding a reason to keep pushing forward."
The group's current lineup features Dietrich alongside drummer Kyle Dolson, and guitarists Craig Retzler and Joel C. Pat took the reins to record and produce the new record, with John Harcus mixing and mastering.
Members of Curbside have been active in recent years, performing with Frank Dux and the recently revived Handheld. The new release arrives alongside a vinyl reissue of the band's 2012 debut The Sound I Know, both through Thousand Islands.
Cosmic ClubCosmic Club 2
Preview and purchase at Bandcamp
We often hear Chance Hutchison at extremes, either blowing out speakers as the vocalist of Montreal's livewire PRIORS or strumming stylish post-punk alongside wife Jackie Blenkarn in Private Lives. While the artist certainly doesn't shy from intensity on his new Cosmic Club tunes, there's a reflective aspect to Hutchison's solo material that he doesn't often have the vehicle to explore. The two-track Cosmic Club 2 arrived mid-summer, delivering a pair of emotionally raw tracks that tackle "the often-unspoken realities of growing up in poverty and surviving cycles of abuse."
Hutchison recorded the new tracks at home in Châteauguay, Quebec (a refuge he describes as a "hard-won peace" in the release notes). These songs follow Cosmic Club's 2024 recordings Don't Dream at Night. With the quartet Private Lives, Chance last played on Salt of the Earth, issued in March through Cincinnati's Feel It Records. PRIORS were in the studio earlier this summer working on the follow-up to their 2023 Mothland album Daffodil.
