5 things to know about Pugs & Crows
Genre-mixing instrumental wizards add vocalist to the mix on new album UNCLE!
Vancouver’s Juno and WCMA award-winning quintet Pugs & Crows are noted for their adventurous instrumental music. The fusion of genres that guitarists Cole Schmidt and Tony Wilson, violinist Meredith Bates, pianist Catherine Toren, bassist Russell Sholberg and drummer Ben Brown craft has produced three exceptional recordings and all the members are active in other acclaimed musical projects.
So it isn’t surprising that they are shaking things up on the new album UNCLE! by adding vocalist Marin Patenaude.
While Patenaude, Debra Jean-Creelman and other singers have appeared with the band for feature songs, this is the first full vocal album and positions Pugs & Crows squarely into the art/pop genre.
Here are five things to know about the album:
1 MARIN PATENAUDE
The younger sister of Juno Award-winning folkie Pharis, she trained at the Royal Conservatory of Music and also Capilano University’s jazz program, where many of the Pugs & Crows members attended. Her debut recording, The Follow Through, featured Cole Schmidt on guitar as well as a number of other local jazz/ improv scene regulars, but the music was far more country/ folk than the driving, almost classic progressive rock that is heard on UNCLE!
2 NOT MY CIRCUS NOT MY MONKEYS
Opening the album with this nearly nine minute-long track clearly stakes out the territory that this album is chasing. With an insistent shuffling beat, the song wouldn’t sound out of place on any number of avant-punk groups such as Pram, Helium, Laika or even drum and bass crew Lamb. The backgrounds are incredibly fluid, with wild guitar interplay and the vocal is quite dramatic.
3 POSTCARDS FROM HOSPITAL BEDS
Pugs & Crows first single? The rock backbeat and straight-ahead structure of the song, up to and including the instrumental break midway, all stick in your head with hum-along quality. This is unlike anything the band has every recorded.
4 BACKGROUND VOCAL
Of all the weapons in Pugs & Crows sonic arsenal, vocals weren’t one that came to mind. But the harmonies all over this album prove that this group cannot only telepathically follow one another with solos and improvisation, they can hit the sweet notes behind Patenaude time and time again.
5 PHONOMETROGRAPH
UNCLE! is the second album by Pugs & Crows and seventh album overall to come out on this local label run by pianist/composer/producer Chris Gestrin. The production levels on all of the releases is never anything but spectacular and this really brings out the nuances in such moments as the quirky waltz in the closing moments of In the Dollhouse or resonating jazzy One For Big Light (Outro) which closes the album.
ALSO OUT THIS WEEK BIG HEART MACHINE: BIG HEART MACHINE (OUTSIDE IN MUSIC)
The big band is key to jazz music, but it’s also an unwieldy creature, hard to maintain and record. All of which makes this album from the 19-piece group lead by New York City saxophonist, composer, and band leader Brian Krock stand out all the more. Produced by Darcy James Argue, whose Secret Society is one of the most acclaimed large ensembles working today, this eight track album is certain to appeal far outside the normal realms of jazz heads. Like so many younger players, Krock’s tastes were shaped by not just the classics, but extreme metal acts like Meshuggah, progressive rock and more. Only two minutes into the opening track Don’t Analyze, there is a synthesizer solo that wouldn’t sound out of place on a classic Emerson, Lake & Palmer album. Steep Ravine plays mindwarp on your ears with its skittish beats and stereo effects, while Mighty Purty just grooves on in like Ellington getting his Mancini on.
BLOOD ORANGE: NEGRO SWAN (DOMINO)
Devonte Hynes says his new album is an exploration of his own and many other types of black depression. So why is the resulting music so soul-raising? From the opening tune Orlando, with its full-on vintage soul groove, through Hope (featuring Puff Daddy and Tei Shi), with its razor sharp distorted rim shot beat, the music on the 16 tune album is some of the coolest neo-soul/R&B around. Weird, but a lot of this sounds like P.M. Dawn hanging out with Soul II Soul. Totally works.
Performing at the Westward Music Festival, Sept. 13 — 16, various venues.
KLAUS: KLAUS (SIMONE RECORDS)
Here’s a group you’ll be hearing a lot more about. Montreal’s Klaus features members of two Polaris Prize-winning groups — François Lafontaine (Karkwa), Joe Grass (Patrick Watson) and drummer Samuel Joly — showcasing their adoration for Bowie’s Berlin period and the whole Krautrock and Afrobeat scenes happening at the same time. Atmospheric arrangements, atonal waveforms, orchestral grooves and trippy echoing vocals come right up against driving Can-esque grooves (Fever) or full-on rock (Le Réve) and it all works.
RICHARD HALLEY 3: THE LITERATURE (PINE EAGLE RECORDS)
Saxophonist Halley has released a staggering 21 albums as bandleader. That alone gives the man cred, but it’s always about the music and he’s hitting it hard on this 12 track trio date backed by Vancouver bassist Clyde Reed and drummer Carson Halley. With a big, honkin’ tone that fans of Sonny Rollins will appreciate, tunes such as Monk’s Misterioso get the kind of workout that respects the legacy without being scared to take it that extra bit further. The combination of hard and soft — check out the lovely blues High Powered Mama — make this an album you can play for a wide audience