Here We Go Magic - the internet and poster art.

In its strange way the internet has revived band art - and never more so than that for gig posters. Even in the heyday of bill-sticking you would have been unlikely to find this pair, although they are for gigs by the same band less taking place less than a week apart, side by side.

On the subject of Here We Go Magic please consider the band and the album 'A Different Ship', released by independent label Secretly Canadian, to be in the category of new music that has captured my attention of late and in this case mainly due to the ministrations of Amazing Radio.

Silence Is Wild

You could well be forgiven for thinking that I had somehow lost my obsession with music from Canada, which featured so prominently in 2007. That is, however, far from the truth even if that about which I have written has largely had its focus elsewhere and I can't really see myself losing touch with Canadian music as it has had, directly or otherwise, so much influence on that which I have discovered and come to like over the last five years.

Silence Is Wild - Frida Hyvönen (SC184, 2008)

Not yet released in the UK, but released by label 'Secretly Canadian' last Tuesday is SC184, Silence Is Wild, the second album by Frida Hyvönen and the less sparsely arranged follow-up to her 2006 début, the little-lauded but still rather splendid and piano-led, Until Death Comes. Recorded in Stockholm earlier in 2008 it is from an artist for whom the label name is particularly apt. It was released as SC184 (and also on vinyl) on November, 4 and I have it on order so I'll soon be able to comment with more authority.

Another recent sophomore album, Some Are Lakes, comes from the very genuinely Canadian band Land Of Talk. I, unlike some considerable minority, liked their last offering 'Applause, Cheer, Boo, Hiss' and this one, I think, is even better.

I already have this, on vinyl indeed (Saddle Creek Records - lbj126), and I'll add some detail on what I think of individual tracks when I've listened to it a few more times.