Featured topics
Indie showcase
Wavelength takes a bow
A Sunday-night ritual that fundamentally changed Toronto’s music scene
Concert
For Mariah Carey, the angel is in the details
Singer’s expertly produced ballads and hip-hop pseudo-soul have the gravity of butterflies
Discs of the week
Love songs for ghosts
A starkly realistic account of the gaps between what we want and what we can get
Essential tracks
Odessa, Caribou, from Swim (forthcoming on Merge Records; streaming at caribou.fm/swim_download)
Music Review
Lightfoot & Downie: Mysteries and muses
Songwriters can never be thanked enough. Understanding what they do isn’t so important. Just be amazed – they deserve it.
Mapping her musical landscape
On her first solo album, Elisapie Isaac taps her past to craft songs of broken love, Inuit dislocation and long winters in the Canadian North
Disc of the Week
Lil Wayne's crossover attempt: gross and hideous to the senses
A foray into new territory goes terribly wrong
Also in the weekly disc package
In Concert
The bloom is off this Rose
No riots, no pasta mishaps, and a simmering feud with his former guitarist, but at least his voice gets better with time
Music
Was it live, or was it Memorex Madonna?
Fellow artists vouch for Madge at Haiti benefit, but sound engineers aren’t so sure
A soaring Firebird, sharp edges and all
Stravinsky’s famed ballet makes great listening thanks to Nagano and the OSM’s excellent solo performers
Eight hours, 60 musicians = a sonic genome
Don’t expect a standard concert experience from Anthony Braxton’s Sonic Genome Project .
Sweet, tough and a good storyteller
The Cricket’s Orchestra is a classy debut from Meahgan Smith, a huge new talent
We're here for Mozart, but isn't that Paul Gross onstage?
It may, at first glance, be jarring to see actor Paul Gross on the podium, and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra promising to go "beyond the score." Traditionally, the symphony is about musicians and the score is pretty well what it's got on offer.
Warren Clements: DVDs
Charlie, Linus and Lucy aim for the high C's
Its child singers can be a bit shrill, but this DVD of the popular musical, You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown, is not without its charms
Whistle-like melodies and horses' hooves
Mongolian musicians begin tour of Western Canada next week, hit Toronto on Wednesday.
Norah Jones joins Lilith Fair lineup
Lilith 2010, the updated Lilith Fair tour, has added some artists to its lineup and more stops, including Edmonton. Among the additions announced to the all-female festival yesterday: Loretta Lynn, Norah Jones, Heart and Beth Orton. Lilith 2010 will also feature Sheryl Crow, Mary J. Blige, and Sarah McLachlan, the all-female festival's founder. Other Canadian cities on the tour include Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary and Montreal. Staff
JAZZ
Over the past 35 years, John Abercrombie has gained a reputation as a jazz modernist because of the way he rethinks traditional forms. Whether it's the organ trio, which he remade to spacey perfection with the 1974 album Timeless, or the straight-ahead quartet, which he re-imagined as a swinging chamber group on 2004's Class Trip , Abercrombie has a way of making the familiar seem fresh.
Rush, Charlebois to enter Hall of Fame
Legendary rock trio Rush, Quebec singer Robert Charlebois and Dolores Claman's iconic The Hockey Theme are among this year's inductees to the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame.
Essential tracks
WTF? OK Go, from Of the Blue Colour of the Sky (Capitol/EMI, streaming at youtube.com/watch) Why aren't more love songs written in 5/4? That off-kilter meter seems just right for the weird appearance the world can have when you're trying to figure out that fatal new attraction, as the buzzy, addictive track from OK Go's new album shows.