nxne09, the end

Here’s a little write-up of my NXNE experience:

This year’s festival was probably one of the most (if not THE most) lively music events I have experienced in Toronto... congrats to the folks who put the festival together! The sheets were buzzing with remarkable music each night and I saw countless enthusiastic/cheerful music lovers wandering from venue to venue till late at night/early morning.

Highlights from NXNE/bands I would see over and over again:

Patrick Wolf
Absolutely spectacular! Quite a few of you knew of my dislike/disappointment of the new record prior to this concert. I have listened to The Bachelor no less than 10 times since then!

The Daredevil Christopher Wright
Hands down my favourite discovery in this year’s festival.
Get their debut full-length, In Deference to a Broken Back here... or if you are in the Toronto area, it is available exclusively at Criminal Records.

Crystal Antlers
High energy and very entertaining, more reasons to love Tentacles!

Japanther
Another high energy band—good old punk music!

DD/MM/YYYY
This band was a surprise; I didn’t think they would be this amazing live! Their music makes more sense in concert form, but I still love Black Square!

Ghost Bees
What an astonishing set at Bread and Circus Saturday night! Not only are the two sisters extremely talented musicians, they are frakking hilarious as well!

nxne09, day 4 | pt iii

Ghost Bees—June 20, 2009 @ Bread and Circus
Oh, what an incredible ending to the night/festival... Ghost Bees were absolutely wonderful!

Ghost Bees: Erl King (Live @ Bread and Circus, June 20, 2009)

ghost bees: tasseomancy ep

A friend from school told me about Ghost Bees a couple of months ago. After hearing some lovely songs on their MySpace, I decided to check out Tasseomancy EP. Ghost Bees consist of twin sisters Romy and Sari Lightman from Halifax, Nova Scotia. Their EP features hauntingly gorgeous folk melodies, fantastical fairy-tale like lyrics, and Joanna Newsom like vocals. I think I fell in love with Tasseomancy EP because of the third track, "Erl King"... a sort of cover of one of my favourite classical songs: Franz Schubert’s "Der Erlkönig". The weird thing is that I compared that song to Ghost Bees’ labelmate, Fall Horsie last October (not knowing that Ghost Bees covered it). Anyway, Ghost Bees are definitely one of the brightest up and coming Canadian acts and I can’t wait to hear more music from them!

Vampires Of The West Coast
Erl King [wicked-cool song]
***all files expire in 7 days or until bandwidth reaches its limit

visit Ghost Bees' MySpace here
buy Tasseomancy EP here