ALBUMS Red (Taylor’s Version) by Taylor Swift 2012 was a simpler time: As conspiracy-theorists announced the approach of the world’s end, Taylor Swift was easing into pop music with catchy breakup songs. Nine years later, she has re-recorded her chart-topping album Red, adding 10 new songs (from the vault) that[Read More…]
Album Reviews
‘Donda (Deluxe)’ is hardly an upgrade
Choosing to not leave his fans waiting, Kanye West released the deluxe version of his album Donda on Nov. 14, 11 weeks after the original, adding five new tracks. This release reinvigorated fans’ appetite for Ye, but only one memorable song serves to fill it; the new tracks leaving listeners[Read More…]
Snotty Nose Rez Kids’ ‘Life After’ explores the pandemic’s toll on mental health
Snotty Nose Rez Kids has never shied away from dealing with difficult subjects, and their fourth album Life After is no exception. Released on Oct. 22, the album explores themes of quarantine depression, addiction, and racism, mixed with a musical complexity that includes elements of punk, hardcore, and R&B. Young[Read More…]
Where do I begin?: Anthony Fantano and ‘The Needle Drop’
When Sacramento-based hip hop collective Death Grips released their debut studio album The Money Store in 2012, the culture of music consumption began to shift. The aggressive, experimental ethos of Death Grips’ LP was powerful enough to inspire change in tastes among fans and creators alike, but internet music enthusiast[Read More…]
Kacey Musgraves’ ‘star-crossed’ is a refreshing take on the breakup album
On Sept. 10, Grammy award-winning singer-songwriter Kacey Musgraves released her fifth studio album, star-crossed. Focussed on her divorce from Ruston Kelley—whose love story was detailed in her previous Grammy-winning album, Golden Hour (2018)—the album is a stunning project that navigates the non-linear healing process of grief. While Musgraves’ previous work[Read More…]
What we liked this summer
A return to schoolwork entails an adjustment to our levels of consumption. In the spirit of endings, new beginnings and transitions, the Tribune weighs in on their favourite pieces of content from this summer. There’s plenty of time left until midterms for a few binges. Book: The Authenticity Project Suzanna[Read More…]
Homeshake’s new album ‘Under the Weather’ is a musical rendering of distress and isolation
Homeshake, also known as Peter Sagar, is a Montreal-born and Toronto-based artist known for his mellow sound and poignant lyricism. Under the Weather, his fifth studio album, is a 12-track confession of depression and isolation. Although Sagar wrote the morose album in 2019 after mental health struggles secluded him from[Read More…]
Evolution and 9 Horses’ ‘Omegah’
The genre-bending music of New York City’s chamber jazz trio 9 Horses proves that just three instruments are capable of creating anything from prog rock to folk music, with sounds both melodic and jarring. At least, it does for composer and mandolin player Joseph Brent, violinist Sara Caswell, and bassist[Read More…]
Ofer Pelz’s ‘Trinité’ experiments with audible embodiments of visual perception
Composers have experimented with the art of musical composition for centuries, but rarely have they gone so far as to remove something so integral to music as melody itself. Ofer Pelz is a Montreal-based composer, pianist, and improviser who uses traditional classical music instrumentation to create unique, experimental sounds that[Read More…]
Isaiah Rashad’s ‘The House is Burning’ incompletely embodies its fiery namesake
More than half a decade has passed since Isaiah Rashad released his dense, jazzy sophomore album, The Sun’s Tirade. While hip-hop music trends come and pass quickly, the release of Rashad’s new album The House is Burning on July 30 proved that he remains in the unique conscious, melodic, lo-fi-style[Read More…]
