Jeremy is gone again - this time for a very, very special reason that you can learn about by clicking "play." Greg is holding down the fort with a wide range of song selections, including electro, folk, blue grass, shoegaze, and rock. This weekend there's something for every musical taste. Don't you just love Montreal? Sure, it could be a little less rainy, but what does it matter when you're inside taking in some tunes? Life is good, y'all, life is good.



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Things are a little different this week. Jeremy is busy moving into a new apartment and our usual recording equipment is packed away in boxes. Greg is taking the mic (the small, low quality one built into his laptop) to deliver the goods. If you can excuse the audio quality and lack of a co-host, then dig into this heaping serving of eleven tunes by eleven killer bands playing around town. Enjoy whatever shows you see, and by golly, enjoy the sunshine too.



Podcast | Get the podcast here.
iTunes | Add the Weekend Playlist Podcast to iTunes.
RSS | Add the Weekend Playlist Podcast feed to your RSS Reader.
Search | Search the audio on Podzinger.

There are few things more gratifying for a music lover than watching a new band progress over time. This has especially been the case with Ismism - a group that has become more impressive each time I've checked in on them over the past couple years. Ismism was originally one guy named Matthew Daher, a drum performance major at McGill, who used it as a monicker for his lush ambient jazz experiments. For live performances, he added guitar, synth, bass, and vibraphone, and bam! - he had one of Montreal's best new instrumental outfits. After playing around Montreal for a while (and appearing on our podcast thrice), the band have finally completed an EP, which they will release at O Patro Vys on Saturday. I've been listening to it all week, and I gotta say, Ismism is worth your time and money. Their songs combine melodic and ambient qualities in a way that recalls KC Accidental (the late-90s band that became Broken Social Scene), Medeski Martin & Wood, and Bell Orchestre.

Below I chat with Matthew Daher about the EP, with detours into his favorite new music, accessibility in song writing, and his experience in McGill's music department.

The more year-end lists I read, the more assured I become of two things: 1. all of them are highly subjective whether it's Pitchfork or Rolling Stone or some nerd with a blog; and 2. there's nothing wrong with that. I enjoy the endlessly wide range of opinions and let other people fight over the details. Does Animal Collective really deserve this love-in it's experiencing with nearly every major music publication? I would say not, but I also don't care because I don't see lists as a competitive sport. For me it's all about reflecting on the year in music and learning about bands I missed or overlooked the first time around. Besides, Hospice by The Antlers was obviously the best album of 2009, so why bother debating it? (Sorry, I won't do that again.)

I can't pretend I saw enough shows to speak comprehensively about the Montreal scene in 2009. I realized a few days ago that I even missed virtually every big name that came through town - just off the top of my head, Phoenix, TV on the Radio, Animal Collective, Dirty Projectors, Fever Ray, Fleet Foxes, Sufjan Stevens, Jesus Lizard, Mastodon, St. Vincent, Sunset Rubdown... Really, I don't know what happened on that front. On the other hand, this was a great year for lower key shows in smaller venues, with up and coming bands (many of them local) that I hadn't heard of this time last year. Below I share my favorite moments from an exciting and unpredictable twelve months of music. I encourage readers to comment with their own concert experiences and fill me in on anything I missed.

Outside of Midnight Poutine, Greg Bouchard runs a blog called Bands I Used to Like, an exploration of his old record collection and 90s music culture in general. Tonight The Cranberries bring their reunion tour to Theatre Olympia, offering a rare cross-posting opportunity.

Between writing about music for Midnight Poutine and helping out Jeremy with the Weekend Playlist, I spend a couple hours each week combing through concert listings, checking out bands I don't recognize and checking off bands I like and want to see. Imagine the WTF?!? moment I had when I saw The Cranberies listed on Stillepost, just sitting there between weekly club nights and the normal crop of Montreal indie shows. The Cranberries? Like the Irish band from the mid-90s that wrote "Zombie" and "Linger" and probably some other songs too? Further internet investigation revealed that yes, The Cranberries embarked on a reunion tour earlier this month, playing together for the first time since their breakup (which apparently happened) in 2003. Hearing this took me back the the early 90s - a simpler time, when flannel of a looser variety abounded.

But as it turns out, that distinction goes to waking up and finding out the American health care reform bill has actually passed. Maybe it's because I've been away from home for so long, but I didn't realize the whole fiasco had moved along that far. Crazy!

And very nearly as crazy will be Dan Auerbach's performance at Le National tonight. (How's that for a transition?) The Black Keys singer/guitarist will be playing material from his solo album, "Keep it Hid," which sounds more or less like The Black Keys. He would lose originality points if not for the fact that The Black Keys write such damn good blues rock - an unfortunate rarity in indie rock circles. One important difference here is that Auerbach will have a larger backing band that can put together a wall of sound and jam it out in ways that The Black Keys can't do as a duo. When I came across this video a few months ago (below the jump), I knew I had to see him come thorough Montreal.