Orillia Opry - "Lucky Wind"

1. From what little of them I’ve heard, Orillia Opry is a pretty-voiced indie-folk quartet whose long songs are guided by simply strummed acoustic guitar, and complemented by the occasional well placed vocal harmony and solid bass and drums rhythm section. Which is all very well and good, and even your mom would like it, but: you know when you’re sitting at home in a terry cloth robe, watching CSI Miami and eating a fresh angel hair pasta with home-made pesto and you’re like “oh, this is good, man, I’m really enjoying this pasta and this sauce I made and I don’t even think this meal could have been better if it had been prepared by Emeril Lagasse himself,” and then some guy who you’ve never met comes along, and yeah, he’s impeccably dressed, and yeah, he looks a lot like Peter Lorre, and yeah, here he is, uninvited, in your living room with a brick of parmesan and a grater, and he just goes wild on your pasta? I mean, he shows no restraint? And then you just start screaming at him, like “Get out of here! Who are you?!” You know? But then he gets really, really scared because of how loud and aggressive you’re being and he runs away? And now you’re super hungry because of all the adrenaline that’s running through you because of Peter Lorre and probably too because it’s that episode of CSI Miami where Eric Roberts plays the psychopathic nemesis of David Caruso and then kills himself with a pb and j sandwich just so Caruso won’t get to him first, which is really intense, so you take a big bite of your pasta and it is just, wow, it is really a lot better than it was before? In fact, it’s fucking amazing? Do you know what I mean when I say that what was a quotidian snack has now become pure ambrosia?

2. The electric guitar, with its warm, rich tone, affected with tremolo and reverb, is approached in the Motown style of switching easily between a deep groove in the rhythm playing and soulful melodic blues in the lead.

3. Later, when you’re writing your SATs, you encounter the following question:

Your angel hair and pesto was to the parmesan as Orillia Opry is to

a) Prime numbers
b) The historical Jesus
c) That glorious electric guitar

And you think ‘Thank you, Peter Lorre - for the parmesan and the help on my SATs. You sir, blew through my life like a lucky wind.’ [Info]

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The Soft Disaster - "Nothing Returns"

What is it about Ottawa that breeds music like this? Probably the same thing that breeds perfect little mp3 bloggers (i.e. bureaucrats). The Ottawa indie-rock scene has quietly been developing its own sound for over a decade now, taking as its starting point the tight structures and crisply distorted intertwining guitars of the Wooden Stars. Here the Soft Disaster uses the Ottawa building blocks to make something delicately fuzzed out, with a cleverly drawn-out rising action, a moment’s climax (just enough for a few “ooh”s), and a brief, tender denouement. [Info]