PONDERCAST EPISODE 36 : FROM NOISE TO SILENCE

LISTEN AND SHARE EPISODE 36 : FROM NOISE TO SILENCE

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On Pondercast Episode 36, Laurie Brown explores how to talk about what silence does for us in a sound-based medium?
 We start with the opposite: noise!


This episode moves from noise to silence and from past to present. When did noise become such an issue in our cities? Let’s start there.

LISTEN AND SHARE EPISODE 36 : FROM NOISE TO SILENCE

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Recently, Killbeat Music partnered with the team at Pondercast to bring you Ponderbeat, a series of special episodes featuring selections curated by Brown from some of Killbeat’s latest releases. The third episode of Ponderbeat is live now, featuring music from Broken Social Scene, Foxwarren, Daniel Romano, Charlotte Cornfield, and more.

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PUP RELEASES NEW ALBUM, MORBID STUFF

STREAM / BUY MORBID STUFF HERE

WATCH PUP PERFORM CBC FIRST PLAY LIVE TONIGHT AT 8PM ET / 5PM PT VIA
CBC MUSIC’S FACEBOOK PAGE HERE

MORBID STUFF TOURPOCALYPSE ON NOW

“their strongest album to date…PUP refuse to be pigeonholed by the pop punk label often stuck to them, whether by fully embracing pop melodies…channeling campfire sing-alongs…or going heavier and sludgier than ever before…” - Exclaim! 9/10

“While Toronto’s major international breakout acts of this decade have mostly made pop, hip-hop and R&B. PUP are a rare exception – a band racking up award nominations, streaming and chart numbers, YouTube views and worldwide fans, and doing it by making scrappy punk-influenced guitar rock.” -- NOW Toronto

"Morbid Stuff [is] another collection of explosively catchy anthem/tantrums...[PUP] still sound about as vibrant and youthful as a rock band can. It’s invigorating. It’s harrowing. It rules. Fuck with it." - Stereogum

"If you're gonna start a record, you might as well do it right. I just cannot get enough of this record. I think it's one of my favorite records of the year. Easily...musically it's explosive. It is huge." - NPR Music's New Music Friday Podcast

Photo Credit: Vanessa Heins // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES

Toronto, Ontario’s very own punk powerhouse -- PUP -- release their already critically acclaimed new record Morbid Stuff today on Little Dipper / Universal Music Canada. Produced, recorded and mixed by Dave Schiffman (Weezer, Cass McCombs, The Mars Volta), Morbid Stuff is everything that PUP fans have grown to love about them, but dialed up to 11. The band’s impressive trajectory following their beloved first two records has seen them make their recent late night television debut on Late Night with Seth Meyers, sell-out the majority of their upcoming tour dates months in advance, and the band are just getting started with today’s release of Morbid Stuff.

STREAM / BUY MORBID STUFF HERE

Earlier this week, the band performed on CBC q and tonight PUP will perform a CBC First Play Live starting at 8 pm ET / 5 pm PT. Tune in to watch the band play some new tracks off of Morbid Stuff as well as some old fan favourites HERE.

PUP continues on a North America, UK, and Europe tour in support of Morbid Stuff this week. All Canadian dates sold out, as are New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Pittsburgh, Portland, Minneapolis, Washington DC, Brussels, Paris, Berlin, Hamburg, Amsterdam, Cologne and all of the U.K. The band also announced a hometown show in Toronto at Echo Beach on July 21st, with support from Twin Peaks and Charly Bliss. See below to find a show near you, and grab your tickets HERE as these are selling fast.

WATCH AND SHARE “KIDS” HERE

WATCH AND SHARE “FREE AT LAST” HERE

Formed in Toronto five years ago, PUP -- comprised of Stefan Babcock, Nestor Chumak, Zack Mykula, and Steve Sladowski -- quickly became favorites of the punk scene with their first two, critically-beloved albums, winning accolades everywhere from the New York Times to Pitchfork, from NPR and Rolling Stone, and more. Now, with Morbid Stuff, PUP have grown up and doubled down on everything that made you love their first two records. It’s gang’s-all-here vocals, guitarmonies, and lyrics about death. Lots of them. Fitting to their ethos, their new album takes the dichotomy of fun and emotional wreckage in their songs and teeters between gleeful chaos and bleak oblivion while wielding some of the best choruses the band has ever written. It’s the most insightful, sweetest, funniest, sickest, angriest, saddest and most inescapably desperate collection of songs they’ve recorded to date.  If their self-titled record was the fuse and The Dream Is Over was the bomb going off, Morbid Stuff is your family sifting through the rubble, only to find you giggling while you bleed to death.

MORE PRAISE FOR MORBID STUFF

"These guys are heroes." - NPR Music's Robin Hilton

"'Morbid Stuff' is the angriest PUP has ever sounded. But it’s not a cry for help. It’s a cry of freedom, the sound of a band realizing that anger is liberating..." - Pitchfork (7.9)

"Along with the band’s songwriting, Babcock’s point of view has sharpened further and grown even more candid, grappling with his own depression and repurposing the band’s most crippling doubts into addictive hooks." - Vulture

"With 'Morbid Stuff,' the Toronto band made the best album of their career." - Noisey

"PUP’s third album Morbid Stuff is by far their best yet, and already one of the best punk albums of the year." - Brooklyn Vegan

"The beauty of PUP is that the band writes confident, catchy punk songs that are fueled, almost exclusively, by anxiety and indecision. On ['Morbid Stuff'], PUP offers up a new batch of songs that all play like stadium-punk anthems, but Stefan Babcock is still singing about every stupid thing he’s  ever said or done. " - The  A.V. Club

"['Morbid Stuff' is] the year’s catchiest, darkest, and overall best punk album" - Uproxx

"A refreshing, sarcastic antidote to fighting misery with the usual greetings card-meets-motivational poster sentiment, ‘Morbid Stuff’ secures PUP’s position at the top of the present-day punk rock pile." - NME (4/5)

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MORBID STUFF TRACKLIST
01 Morbid Stuff
02 Kids
03 Free At Last
04 See You At Your Funeral
05 Scorpion Hill
06 Closure
07 Bloody Mary, Kate and Ashley
08 Sibling Rivalry
09 Full Blown Meltdown
10 Bare Hands
11 City

MORBID STUFF TOURPOCAPLYPSE
4/8/19 Kingston, UK @ The Fighting Cocks !  **SOLD OUT**
4/9/19 - Bristol, UK @ The Fleece % ! **SOLD OUT**
4/10/19 - London, UK @ The Garage % ! **SOLD OUT**
4/11/19 - Leeds, UK @ Brudenell Social Club % ! **SOLD OUT**
4/12/19 - Glasgow, UK @ Cathouse % ! **SOLD OUT**
4/14/19 - Paris, FR @ La Boule Noire ! **SOLD OUT**
4/15/19 - Dunkirk, FR @ Les 4Ecluses !
4/16/19 - Brussels, BE @ AB Club ! **SOLD OUT**
4/18/19 - Berlin, DE @ Cassiopeia ! **SOLD OUT**
4/19/19 - Hamburg, DE @ Hafenklang ! **SOLD OUT**
4/20/19 - Cologne, DE @ MTC Club ! **SOLD OUT**
4/21/19 - Amsterdam, NE @ Upstairs @ Paradiso ! **SOLD OUT**
4/25/19 - Boston, MA @ Royale # ^ **SOLD OUT**
4/26/19 - Brooklyn, NY @ Brooklyn Steel # ^  **SOLD OUT**
4/29/19 - Philadelphia, PA @ Union Transfer # ^ **SOLD OUT**
4/30/19 - Pittsburgh, PA @ REX Theater $ ^ **SOLD OUT**
5/1/19 - Cleveland, OH @ Beachland Ballroom $ ^
5/3/19 - Pontiac, MI @ Crofoot Ballroom $ ^
5/4/19 - Chicago, IL @ Metro $ ^ **SOLD OUT**
5/5/19 - Minneapolis, MN @ Fine Line Music Cafe $ ^ **SOLD OUT**
5/6/19 - Lawrence, KS @ Granada Theater $
5/8/19 - Dallas, TX @ Trees $ ^
5/9/19 - Austin, TX @ The Mohawk $ ^
5/10/19 - Houston, TX @ Rockefeller's $ ^
5/11/19 - New Orleans, LA @ One Eyed Jacks $ ^
5/13/19 - Atlanta, GA @ Terminal West $ ^ **SOLD OUT**
5/14/19 - Carrboro, NC @ Cat's Cradle $ ^
5/15/19 - Asheville, NC @ The Grey Eagle $ ^
5/17/19 - Washington, DC @ The Black Cat $ ^ **SOLD OUT**
5/18/19 - Boston, MA @ Royale $ ^ **SOLD OUT**
5/19/19 - Sainte-Therese, QC @ Santa Teresa Festival
5/21/19 - Cleveland, OH @ Beachland Ballroom $ ^
5/22/19 - Cincinnati, OH @ Bogarts $ ^
5/23/19 - Chicago, IL @ Metro $ ^ **SOLD OUT**
6/7/19 - Toronto, ON @ Danforth Music Hall #  **SOLD OUT**
6/8/19 - Toronto, ON @ Danforth Music Hall #  **SOLD OUT**
6/19/19 - San Diego, CA @ The Irenic + ^
6/20/19 - Los Angeles, CA @ Teragram Ballroom + ^ **SOLD OUT**
6/21/19 - Los Angeles, CA @ Teragram Ballroom + ^ **SOLD OUT**
6/22/19 - San Francisco, CA @ The Fillmore + ^ **SOLD OUT**
6/24/19 - Portland, OR @ Wonder Ballroom + ^ **SOLD OUT**
6/25/19 - Seattle, WA @ The Showbox + ^
6/27/19 - Boise, ID @ The Olympic + ^
6/28/19 - Salt Lake City, UT @ In The Venue + ^
6/29/19 - Englewood, CO @ Gothic Theatre + ^
7/1/19 - Santa Fe, NM @ Meow Wolf + ^
7/2/19 - Phoenix, AZ @ Crescent Ballroom + ^
7/3/19 - Santa Ana, CA @ The Observatory + ^
7/6/19 Ottawa, ON @ RBC Bluesfest
7/21/19 - Toronto, ON @ RBC Echo Beach ~
8/9/19 - Tolmin, SI @ Punk Rock Holiday
8/14/19 - Bellaria-Igea Marina, IT @ Bay Fest
8/16/19 - 8/18/19 - Grosspösna, DE @ Highfield Festival
8/17/19 - Hasselt, BE @ Pukkelpop
8/20/19 - Bristol, UK @ Rough Trade Bristol
8/21/19 - Nottingham, UK @ Rough Trade Nottingham
8/23/19 - Reading, UK @ Reading Festival
8/24/19 - Leeds, UK @ Leeds Festival

# - with support from Diet Cig
^ - with support from Ratboys
! - with support from Milk Teeth
% - with support from Gender Roles
$ - with support from Casper Skulls
+ - with support from Beach Bunny
~ - with support from Twin Peaks & Charly Bliss
& - with support from BRASS
= - with support from Pkew Pkew Pkew
? - with support from The Drew Thomson Foundation

PUP ONLINE
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LEAF RAPIDS SHARE NEW VIDEO FOR “VIRGINIA” FROM UPCOMING LP

WATCH AND SHARE “VIRGINIA” HERE

CITIZEN ALIEN OUT MAY 3 VIA COAX RECORDS

PRE-ORDER CITIZEN ALIEN HERE

TOUR DATES BEGIN MAY 2

“If the rest of Citizen Alien, is half this good, expect another JUNO nod and maybe another win for these two.” Roots Music Canada (on “Dear Sister”)

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Today, Winnipeg duo Leaf Rapids are sharing the video for “Virginia” from their upcoming album, Citizen Alien. "This song is inspired by mothers,” Keri Latimer tells Exclaim!. “Struggling to hang on and let go at the same time. Trying to teach our children to be strong, while dealing with our own weaknesses. Trying to encourage independence while clutching onto them for dear life. It's also about recycling paper bags."

On the album, Exclaim! says : “There are moments of dark history, but ultimately the record aims to celebrate the hope and wisdom of their ancestors.” “Virginia” will be available to stream on all platforms this Friday while Citizen Alien is due out May 3 via Coax Records.

WATCH AND SHARE “VIRGINIA” HERE

Music by: Leaf Rapids - leafrapids.org Song written by: Keri Latimer Edited by: Devin Latimer (from public domain video clips from 'Molly Grows Up' by Photo & Sound Productions for Medical Arts Productions, downloaded from archive.org) Label: Coax Records - coaxrecords.com Publicity: Killlbeat Music - killbeatmusic.com Lyrics: She packs my

Citizen Alien started the way all good things do, with a story, one that emerged from the time-shrouded attics of Keri Latimer’s family history. A tale of the great-grandmother she knew only as tiny and soft-spoken, a gentle soul who only spoke Japanese. Who would have guessed that once, in her youth, that same little old woman stabbed a man with a pair of barbershop shears? That tale became the torch to light a new journey. As the years turned, Keri plunged into the depths of her family’s ancestral memories, resurfacing with stories like jewels that had been tucked away and forgotten. These she polished and kept safe, waiting until it was time to hold their colours up to the light once more.

Now, all of those stories come together on Citizen Alien. The project is a labour of love for Keri and her husband, Devin Latimer. Through their own family’s stories they created a new world from the old, delving into the intimate truths told by voices from decades long gone.

Each of the Citizen Alien’s 10 songs spins out a thread, binding history and identity to time and place. Threads that crossed oceans, stretched from Kyoto to Iceland’s wind-whipped northern coast, tangled in the heart of the Canadian prairie. Stories of lives that crept forward in boats across the water, lunches packed in liquor-store bags and battered suitcases bursting at their seams.

There is an openness on this record. There is space. It spans out like the vastness between stars. The liquid silver of Keri’s voice spills over a brushed snare, a Theremin trill, an acoustic guitar; all are given room to speak fully. Maybe it’s partly that they recorded Keri’s vocals first, an approach she’d never tried before, either as Leaf Rapids or her previous incarnation as part of JUNO Award winning alt-country quartet Nathan.

Whatever its genesis, Citizen Alien’s soundscape is intoxicating. Co-produced with acclaimed Winnipeg multi-instrumentalist and composer Rusty Matyas (Imaginary Cities, The Sheepdogs), the record saunters from the summery strums of the opener, “Dear Sister”, to the wintery harmonies of “Caragana Switch” with Alexa Dirks (Begonia) and Grant Davidson (Slow Leaves). Whimsical melodies strike a stark contrast with unsettling imagery, all of it playing out in the mind like an old sepia-toned movie. For Keri, who also scores for film, that flickering cinematic quality is intentional: it crystallizes the convergence of her composing life, her folk-life, and the life of her family.

WATCH AND SHARE “DEAR SISTER” HERE

But this is not only a personal record. Every family has stories of people who crossed oceans, who survived, who struggled and tried. People who knew injustice. And though some of those stories now fade into the haze of time, the truth of them remains vivid. Consider the album’s title track, declaration of love between ancestors divided by the travesty of Canada’s Second World War-era Japanese internment camps; if the same thing happened today, Keri points out, she and Devin would be split up, their children taken away.

Today, that kind of horror still threatens. Hate still festers, and power still tries to push human lives into the divide. But there is hope. Because, as Citizen Alien shows, we are all the dream of a future our forebears once had. Every day, we carry that dream forward in the stories we are heir to and the wisdom they hold, and every day, we have a chance to let those tales shine.

PRE-ORDER CITIZEN ALIEN HERE

LEAF RAPIDS ON TOUR

May 2 - Winnipeg, MB - West End Cultural Centre (Album Launch)
May 24 - Haps, NL - Huistheater De Steenakker %
May 25 - Stuttgart, DE - Laboratorium e.V. %
May 27 - Ingolstadt, DE - Neue Welt %
May 30 - Zwickau, DE - St. Barbara %
May 31 - Kyffhäuser, DE - Panorama Museum %
Jun 1 - Elmshorn, DE - Church Elmshorn %
Jun 2 - Son, NL - Conferentiecentrum la Sonnerie %
Jun 3 - Steendam, NL - Peter n Leni Podium %
Jun 4 - Den Bosch, NL - Blue Room Sessions %
Jun 5 - Geldrop, NL - Roots in’t Groen %
Jun 7 - Marburg, DE - Q
Jun 8 - Solingen, DE - Da Capo
Jun 20 - Vancouver, BC - Lions Bay (House Concert)
Jun 21-23 - Mayne Island, BC - Campbell Bay Folk Festival
Jul 24-28 - Mission, BC - Mission Folk Festival
Aug 9-11 - Ear Falls, ON - Trout Forest Music Festival
Aug 16-18 - Nestor Falls, ON - Moose N’ Fiddle Festival

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CITIZEN ALIEN TRACKLIST
Dear Sister
There They Go
Caragan Switch
Citizen Alien
Virginia
Barbershop Shears
Husavik
Helen’s Waltz
Parliament Gardens
Twenty Storeys High

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