January 22, 2015 - Rocking and making gaming references

This Jumbalaya is one of those rocking ones I often find myself getting into. It starts off with some nice dark folky tune from Dan Mangan & Blacksmiths, carrying over to some nice hard rock by TVOTR, I am Machi, and Sleater-Kinney, and finishing with some experimental punk from the Calgarian If I Look Strong, You Look Strong.

And yes, I do make gaming references towards the end. Back when I was in uni I often listened to music from games from the Super Nintendo era all the way up to present-day PC games. In fact, some of the bands I've actually discovered from playing the Sims series, including Violent Soho (who is on the playlist), Matt and Kim (who are not), and Manchester Orchestra (who used to be)! :P

Songs played (* denotes Canadian content):

• Dan Mangan & Blacksmiths* - Mouthpiece
• High Ends* - Capuccino
• Indigo Joseph* - Pills
• MALK* - Each Other
• Kele - Closer
• TV on the Radio - Lazerray
• I am Machi* - All Consuming Liar
• Sleater-Kinney - No Cities to Love
• Violent Soho - Covered in Chrome
• Matt & Kim - Get It (non-playlist)
• If I Look Strong, You Look Strong* - 3/4 A // 3/4 G // 4/4 Fast // A 7/8 // A Long Weekend

Video podcast:

January 15, 2015 - The more chill stuff

Another week for a Jumbalaya! This time around there's a lot more mellow stuff on my Jumbalaya, in addition to the usual louder stuff like Violent Soho, My Sister Ocean, and I am Machi.

I mention briefly a common theme that Hey Rosetta!, the Rural Alberta Advantage, and Death Cab for Cutie are following: mending things with gold. I also mention a CBC music article that talks about it which goes more in-depth on the theme: http://music.cbc.ca/#!/blogs/2015/1/Death-Cab-for-Cutie-to-Rural-Alberta-Advantage-mending-with-gold

That is actually inspired by a fairly ancient Japanese practice of kintsugi/kintsukuroi where broken pottery is repaired using lacquer resin with powdered gold, and treats the breakage as part of a history of the object. I actually never heard of the practice before last year though, in spite of the fact that I'm from Japan myself! :P There's a Wikipedia article on it if you're interested: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kintsugi

The rest don't really follow much of a theme. It's a lot more electronica and folk, and some rock towards the end.

Songs played (* for the Canadians):

• Hey Rosetta!* - Kintsukuroi
• The Rural Alberta Advantage* - 45/33
• Violent Soho - OK Cathedral
• Argo* - Une Petite Certitude
• Snowday* - A Lone Stone
• TV on the Radio - Right Now
• Flight Facilities feat. Christine Hoberg - Clair de Lune
• AM Static* - Broken Toys
• Vance Joy - Wasted Time
• Snowday* - All in Due Time
• My Sister Ocean* (non-playlist) - Memory
• I am Machi* - Seige

URLs to podcast:
http://cjsf.ca/vanilla_archives/2015_January_15_20_00.mp3
http://cjsf.ca/vanilla_archives/2015_January_15_20_30.mp3

Video podcast:

January 8 2015 - lame on-air jokes, autotuned dogs, creative station IDs and all around awesome music

Sorry for the delay in posts. I'm currently mixing the audio for this week's show. I'll put up the video/audio clip up soon as possible! In the meantime, I've linked you the URLs to the podcast.

(Edit: it's up now! Scroll to the bottom of the post.)

On occasion I include some non-playlist artists who I think would be a great addition to the CJSF playlist. This week I included James Thomas, a singer-songwriter from Vancouver who released his album, Before the Light, on Christmas Day of 2014. If you like mellow singer-songwriter stuff or folk music you'll enjoy this album. He describes his music as 'a blend of Nick Drake, Jeff Buckley, and Paul Simon' on his Bandcamp page.

http://myjamesthomas.bandcamp.com/

I actually used to help out with Ryan Fletcher's live folk music show, Melodies in Mind, and James Thomas performed on I believe what was my second show (not first as I said in the podcast)! That was back in January 2014. I would love to hear him live again on Melodies in Mind in the future...I still listen to the show every Tuesday night that I'm free.

Most of the other tracks on this playlist, though, are more on the louder side. They do end up representing the sounds of a typical Eriko Jumbalaya, full of hard and slightly more experimental rock acts as well as some electronic music.

Songs played (* denotes Canadian content):

• Benjamin Booker - Have You Seen My Son?
• TV on the Radio - Happy Idiot
• Sama Dams - Dirty Work
• Blood & Glass* - Bad Dreams
• Snowday* - The Seventh String
• James Thomas* - Hollow Moon (non-playlist)
• The Rural Alberta Advantage* - Runners in the Night
• Fantasma - Eye of the Sun
• Tricky feat. Nneka - Keep Me in Your Shake
• Elissa Barclay* - Radiosea
• Dagrs* - The Way Out
• Kolony* - Escape

URLs to podcast:
http://cjsf.ca/vanilla_archives/2015_January_08_20_00.mp3
http://cjsf.ca/vanilla_archives/2015_January_08_20_30.mp3

Video podcast:

January 1 2015 - A star-studded, semi-improvised Jumbalaya

Happy new year!! I've kicked off the year with a Jumbalaya set featuring contributions from quite well-known artists such as P!nk and City and Colour (forming a duo known as You+Me), Leonard Cohen, and even Miley Cyrus. Emerging artists such as Hozier, Elliphant, and Mø all appear here as well...and the Elliphant & Mø track was produced by an emerging producer, Joel Little (Lorde's producer)!

Since the CD player was broken I had to improvise quite a bit, alternating between the digitized playlist and the CD tracks. Luckily earlier that day I had listened to quite a bit of the digitized tracks and discovered some awesome artists, including TV on the Radio, an alternative rock artist whom I've showcased towards the end of this show episode. I think I'll play another song by them next week.

(Edit (June 5 2015): TV on the Radio has been around a very long while, and the members have collaborated with some big names such as Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Tinariwen, and Kelis. How I only heard about them when 2015 began...guess that comes from not being raised in North America. :P )

Also, correction: the featured artist on Fantasma's song "Shesha Span", Ross MacDonald, is from the Rudimentals, not 'Rudiments'. The Rudimentals are a Cape Town-based band...I at least got that right. :P Fantasma however is based somewhere in Limpopo, the northernmost province in South Africa (according to their SoundCloud page). Also according to their Facebook page they're a five-piece, not quartet (as I might have mentioned on the podcast).

Songs played (Canadians in *):

• You+Me* - Love Gone Wrong
• Fantasma feat. Ross MacDonald - Shesha Span (Hell Yeah)
• Hozier - Jackie and Wilson
• Snowday* - Walk Along These Rocks With Me
• Leonard Cohen* - Slow
• MALK* - Satellites
• Lisa LeBlanc* - The Waiting List
• Machinedrum - 2 B Luvd
• Elliphant feat. Mø - One More
• Fayne* - Believers
• Fayne* - Isonic Flight
• Bart* - Multiply
• The Flaming Lips feat. Miley Cyrus & New Fumes - A Day in the Life (Beatles cover)
• TV on the Radio - Trouble

URLs to podcast:
http://cjsf.ca/vanilla_archives/2015_January_01_20_00.mp3
http://cjsf.ca/vanilla_archives/2015_January_01_20_30.mp3 

Video podcast:

Change in audio format

So I ran out of space on my SoundCloud so I won't be able to share the audio using the same format I did for the past three shows...boo. It's also a bit pricey to upgrade my account and I'm not sure if I can afford it at this time. I'll figure something out!

In the meantime, I'll just share the URLs to the recorded show segments off CJSF's website. I'll also try uploading it in video format on this Blogger page!

Favourite releases of 2014

2014 was an interesting year music-wise. Here are the 10 albums I enjoyed playing on air (and listening to in my own time) that have been released this year:

Alt-J - This is All Yours

Imogen Heap - Sparks

Royal Blood - Royal Blood

Death From Above 1979 - The Physical World

The New Pornographers - Brill Bruisers

Mø - No Mythologies to Follow

SBTRKT - Wonder Where We Land

Yelle - Complètement Fou

BadBadNotGood - III

Single Mothers - Negative Qualities

My favourite album that got added to the CJSF playlist this year is more of a major label re-release. The original version was released way back in 2011; we got the Epic re-release this March, only I didn't know about it until June! The album is, of course, Lunatic by KONGOS.

Local (Vancouverite) favourites who have also released great albums aside from the New Pornographers include T. Nile (electro-folk), Dino DiNicolo (bassist and vocal percussionist), and Jpnsgrls (rock). I'm also starting to get into Waingro and Dagrs, both hard rockers, as well as Dead Soft (grungey rock).

Also, releases from 2013 I enjoyed that got added this year:

My Sister Ocean - Colab EP

Shugo Tokumaru - In Focus?

Viking Fell - Pembina EP

We also just got some awesome new releases, some of which I'll be showcasing on Thursday! Till then...enjoy the rest of 2014!

December 11 2014 - Rock Show Jumbalaya

Part 2 of themed Jumbalaya. This time it's very rock-oriented, with more of a punk and grunge flavour. This is also my first publicly shared Jumbalaya where I use all three available audio formats: CD, vinyl, and digitized audio! Go me. :P

The sound might be mixed weirdly, especially for the digitized tracks (Astoria's song and Bob Mould's song). Also Thurston Moore's from the *band* Sonic Youth, not the 'album' as I said in this segment...sorry about that.
I also edited out the technical glitches as much as I can in this segment. The unedited audio contains track skips and vinyl playing at the wrong RPM (I'm still learning). :|

Next Jumbalaya will no longer be themed. Instead, I'm hoping to have a very diverse mix of genres. I'll be back on air on January 1! Happy happy holidays and may you have a wonderful rest of 2014 :D

Songs played (Canadians in *):

• Dead Soft* - Tell Me Why
• Crystal Swells* - Beach Bear
• Crystal Swells* - The Bear Scare
• Dagrs* - Nothing Wrong
• Waingro* - Ride
• Single Mothers* - Money
• Astoria* - Dead & Down
• USA out of Vietnam* - Archangel
• Port Juvee* - Just the Thing
• Death From Above 1979* - Virgins
• Royal Blood - Come on Over
• Iceage - How Many
• Bob Mould - The War
• Thurston Moore - Detonation
• Benjamin Booker - Wicked Waters