In My Next Life, A Workhorse

One of the most interesting band's I've heard in the last little while, Montreal's The Luyas have a few upcoming dates including a couple in Toronto - January 11 at The Silver Dollar as part of Katie Stelmanis' CD release, then February 9 at The Music Gallery with Rick White. I explored some samples at their MySpace and downloaded a few mp3's, and it's really good stuff - the best description of the music I can come up with right now is Cat Power-ish vocals set atop atmospheric, sometimes baroque(courtesy of some thrilling french horn) indie-rock that occassionally veers into Sonic Youth dissonance. At their most accessible, like "In My Next Life, A Workhorse", they echo a quiet, desperation, as similarly beautiful as anything Julie Doiron has ever written. The band's first album "Faker Death" was released this year on Pome Records. (For availability info, check here.) [photo from CBC Radio 3]

Starting on January 17 in Guelph(@ Ebar) Jason Collett will be hitting the road for dates in Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Edmonton, British Columbia, then back to Ontario in April all in support of his new album "Here's To Being Here", set for release on February 5th. His Toronto date will be at Lee's Palace on March 6 as part of Canadian Music Week. Full dates here.

Audio: Check out a few mp3's from Jason's upcoming album here.

To pilfer Pitchfork a little: Stephen Malkmus and The Jicks have a new album("Real Emotional Trash", out on Matador on March 4) and tour(currently some US east coast dates in March and April but nothing for T.O. yet although some more live dates in April are promised), Beck's "Odelay" will be reissued in a deluxe 2-disc version on January 29 through Geffen featuring 19 tracks not available on the original version, and Neko Case has scheduled a few upcoming dates in January and February(nothing in Toronto again, but some of her upcoming dates are in upper New York State, so maybe she can throw a T.O. date on the sched.) More info here, here and here respectively.

A Kinks reunion could be in the making(a longshot, though) for later this year according to Aversion.