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You can’t catch a bus in Vancouver without tripping over a struggling indie musician trying to figure out how to turn the pain in their soul into 10,000 Spotify streams and a record deal…or even just a level of familiarity that means the Green Auto regulars are excited to see their name on the bill. We all start somewhere.
So, we’re collecting jams from local artists both small and not-so-small and giving them a spin each month. Maybe you’ll find your new favourite bop.
SINGLES
Doom Loops — “Pink”
Go to enough gigs in Vancouver you’ll inevitably run into Doom Loops. Despite the band’s dour name, “Pink” is a peppy little slice of indie rock. The jangly guitars are polished and perky, which contrasts with singers Natalia Beltran and Iva Jankovic’s more raw delivery. Lyrically, the song deals with getting into your first queer relationship, and it’s full of toe-tapping moments and feel-good sunshine vibes. Of particular note is what sounds like a melodica in the final chorus, adding some playful peeps into the euphoric ending.
Chase the Bear — “Isolation”
Living with mental illness can often feel like fighting a battle with your own brain. That’s the imagery that Chase the Bear pursues to its logical conclusion on “Isolation”, with the central conceit of a neurological war colouring all the lyrics. A disconcerting synth burbles through the track, providing a jarring counterpoint to the band’s slick, hair metal-esque rocking on guitars and bass. Recorded live off the floor, there’s a bit of grit and sweat seeping through the pores of “Isolation”. Whatever life throws at them, Chase the Bear soldiers on.
Brandon Wolfe Scott — “Back For Me”
The chief axe-man of Yukon Blonde is venturing out of the realm of indie rock on his new solo release, and wandering instead into the lush world of indie folk. With throwback single “Back For Me”, Scott spins an oddly optimistic look at heartbreak, taking all the growth and good times forward, and letting go of the worst parts. Some fun production decisions from longtime collaborators MOONRIIVR, like angelic backing vocals, electrified outro, and what sounds like hand-drummed percussion lines, add some sparkle to this sweet track.
Jasper Sloan Yip — “love&worry”
What are the two main emotions that consume new parents? Jasper Sloan Yip’s new single “love&worry” reflects on the upheaval of early parenthood, inspired by the landmark shift in his personal life since he last released music in 2021. The track, produced by John Raham (Frazey Ford, the New Pornographers) fuses jazzy piano with Yip’s gentle croon, balancing the chaos of the outside world with the overpowering love he feels for his family. It’s got a laidback, adult-alternative kind of vibe: grown-up soft rock for the coolest hipster coffeehouse.
The Living Orchestra — “Not Gonna Die Tonight”
If you look beyond the Brendon-Urie-as-the-only-member-of-Panic! at the Disco title, then the Living Orchestra’s latest single has a lot going for it. The beat is suitably funky, and the rich horns and energetic strings add plenty of verve to a track that, on close listen, is quite depressing. “This song is about climate fatigue and inaction,” says bandleader Mike Bell in a release—but feels like a cutting takedown of the leaders selling us out by increasing oil and gas production as the planet burns. The Orchestra’s full rock-opera album Last Generation dropped physically on May 17, but will be coming to streaming later in the year.
Olivia Penalva — “Code Blue”
Comparing musicians to others is trite; and yet, it’s easy to draw the lines from emotional pop singers like Taylor Swift and Maggie Rogers to B.C.’s rising pop star Olivia Penalva. “Code Blue” puts Penalva’s voice—both ethereal and pointed—to good use, as she tracks the way a relationship made her feel like she was losing herself. The strongest parts of the song are the simpler ones, where Penalva can wring the most emotion out of her story with just a guitar. Someone should have called “Code Blue” on those clashing bleary synths though; it’s never great when a pop song makes you check if your speakers are broken. They weigh the track down, while sweet piano or soaring violins playing those melodic counterpoints would have helped it sing.
ALBUMS
Jia — Technicolour
Jia is doing her best to prove there’s more to Burnaby than four villages and two lakes. On her woozy debut Technicolour, the Taiwanese Canadian singer navigates a country-tinged slice of slowcore dream pop, pulling from everything from Mazzy Star to the Beach Boys. It’s a sweeping, sun-dappled, desert-scorched record, full of held refrains that shimmer like heat hazes and elided lyrics that whisper at something too bright to see. “Hotel Swimming Pool” flows like tributaries cascading into a river, while “Poltergeist” swirls around with a more garage-rock vibe. As the album closer promises, it’s a “Perfect Day” to listen to the layered LP melt.
The Real McKenzies — On Yer Bike
The OG Celtic punks are back. With a title that serves as both the best way to spend a Vancouver summer and a lighthearted way to say “fuck off”, On Yer Bike brings Paul McKenzie and co. back for another round of bagpipe-infused mayhem. “Shackleton” puts huge singalong choruses alongside tartan-clad keening, and “The Mad Trapper of Rat River” tells an almost “Absolute Cannibal Shia LaBeouf”-style tale. The album as a whole hits a sweet spot between fresh and familiar, a serving of old-school bouncy punk with a distinctly Caledonian colour. Who needs the real McCoy when you could have the real McKenzies?
Matt Storm — System Breaks
System Breaks sounds like Matt Storm took every idea he’d ever had in a blender and whizzed them all up to see what happens. That also might not have been a million miles from what he actually did. On his sophomore album System Breaks, Storm gets deeply experimental, hopping between everything from groovy synths and gauzy vocal distortion to big guitar riffs and psychedelic ambience. But the magpie dilettantism is kind of the point: as he points out on “twentyfirst century serfdom”, “modern life is hard”. Big tech would love us to keep doing nothing but scrolling—so why not break out by doing everything?
Hillsboro — A Party in Your Name
With a blown-out cover photo that makes the band look like ghosts haunting a field, there’s a sort of prairie horror to Hillsboro’s A Party in Your Name. The shoeagaze EP kicks off with “HotGirlTM”, which stacks guitars and effects pedals and fuzzed-out waves of sound into a sonicscape that feels like a huge night sky—an overturned bowl that captures and reflects every other sound. Just when it feels like it’s getting to be too much to handle, it melts away into an intimate bridge. The rest of the record is no less full of parabolas. “acid horror” is an EDM-tinged experiment that sounds like old-school Enter Shikari, “ACAB” is an acoustic interlude that slowly glitches out, and the overall effect is a record full of the noisy wistfulness of living.
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