• I get it?!
• Shweet :)
• Wow, nice.
• Recycle the homeless ...
• Nice ...

• Awesome track
• I agree, this song rocks!
• Great industrial sound
• Word
• Folky goodness

In the vein of such artists as The Boards of Canada, Front Line Assembly, Front 242, and Brian Eno, Cold Warning brings a fresh and original style of electronic,experimental-ambient music to the scene.

In a few words the music could be described as the beautification of isolation and abstraction

Combining organic instrumentation with original field recordings, synths and rhythms, Cold Warning, aka Trevor Brawn brings together his experiences and emotions growing up in the eclectic, artistically and culturally diverse Canadian city of Halifax Nova Scotia during the 80's where he was heavily influenced by the music of Gary Numan, Simple Minds, Peter Gabriel and an exhaustive list of others.

Cold Warning brings a style of composition and focus that undeniably links him to his early influences while setting him apart at the same time. Continuous experimentation and manipulation of sound has seen his music appear in television programs such as the History Channel's "Beyond the Da Vinci Code", A & E's Biography, VH1 and many others.

The project “zoop” and the album “Music On Hold” is the result of a work two Moscow’s musicians – bassist, composer “zoop” and saxophonist Mikhail “Syntheticsax” Morozov. Launched as a studio venture in 2004, the duo has been recently expanded to the format of a live-performing band which tends to force locks of the Moscow most bourgeois and snobbish jazzy clubs in the nearest future.

•  A whole lot of Jazzy...

Trike is a duo, comprising of Stephen Taylor and Xania Keane. Stephen plays keyboard, digital guitar, trombone and sings. Xania plays fiddle, glockenspiel, keyboard, sings, dances (Irish/Quebecois style) and raps.

Trike's style is Synth-pop, New Wave, with various other elements. They are audience-interactive, teaching people dance moves they make up. Their songs are catchy pop songs, high energy and dancey. Onstage, there is a great deal of theatricality and performance.

Their influences are: Pulp, The Cure, Talking Heads, Devo, The Cars, Belle and Sebastian, old Public Enemy, Magnetic Fields and Joy Division.

There is a lot of humour in the music, and the songs are pretty bouncy/happy, although there are also a lot of bittersweet emotions in the lyrics.

Addicted to performing, Trike has played almost forty shows since the beginning of September in Vancouver and Victoria, BC, Canada.

Trike also won $20,000 on "The Gong Show" (a contest which was on radio and television) with their instructive-dance song, The Trikey, which enabled them to go on tour to Europe in the Spring of 2008.

Their album, "The New Album" was number six on the charts of Kootenay Coop radio for three months.

Spygirl plays lush, melodic, elegant, and dark pop/rock. If Spygirl were a martini, they’d be equal parts sonic assault, naked duets and lush harmonies with a dash of drum & bass, and garnished with a twist of Canadiana - shaken vigorously, of course. If Spygirl were an outfit, you’d look geek-slick, full in all the right places and your ass would look hot.

Spygirl recently completed their second full-length album, pieces of evidence, slated for national release March 2008.

Spygirl was overjoyed to work once again with favourite musical wizard Tom Rothrock, who mixed a few songs on their 2000 self-titled debut. This time he came on board as Producer in full. Mr. Rothrock (who has also created records with some of popular music’s great recent innovators such as Beck, Elliott Smith, Elbow, Sloan, Badly Drawn Boy and James Blunt) helped the band create a spontaneous, relaxed and raw recording, due in part to his laid back mix of confidence, spontaneity, knowledge and love of music, and in part to recording much of the album live off the floor. The result is a group of songs that belong together, sharing a landscape that is lush, melodic, elegant and dark.

This is the band’s 12th year. The Vancouver-based 6 piece group was born out of a musical bond between founders Koralee Tonack (lead vocals, guitar) and Jane Gowan (trumpet, keyboards). The two initially formed Time Waits - the acoustically charming mother of today’s luscious pop child. The group included Jon Roper (guitar), performing mostly original songs written by Gowan. Several recordings were released on cassette. Now those are hidden away in boxes...somewhere. Eventually James Ong (keyboards) and Eduardo Ottoni (drums) joined, and with a fuller sound developing, the band released their debut CD entitled This Thin Disguise.

A collective desire to streamline the sound resulted in a less acoustic, more pop/rock sound. The viola da gamba and accordion, previously played by Ong and Gowan respectively, were abandoned in favour of keyboards, fender rhodes and trumpet. By this time other band members had begun contributing to the songwriting, creating excitement and freshness. As the direction of the music changed, so did the name, and the band’s self-titled debut (informally known as The Yellow Album) was recorded just as the transformation to Spygirl took place. The disc was nominated for a West Coast Music Award and also gained much positive media attention.

In 2005 Al MacInnes (bass) joined the band to add substance to the style. Now with a full line-up to carry the tunes, Spygirl released a 5-song EP as a precursor to the full-length album in August, 2005. The songs on this disc are homages to the band’s constant quest for the perfect pop epic. All the tracks from this disc were re-recorded on pieces of evidence.

Spygirl has toured in Canada and the UK, and plans to be out on the road again in early 2008 to support the new album.

•  Powerful voice. Melancholic sounds.
•  Hauntingly powerful
•  honey and sugar

Aeroplanet is the Debut independant release from Australian artist Mildsparrow.

Mildsparrow is the moniker of Melbourne Singer/Songwriter Matt Davidson. Aeroplanet is a selection of tracks showing a diverse range of sonic occurences selected from then last 3 years of self recording and producing.

Never restrained by genre and always reflective of emotion, Mildsparrows music is a personal journey waiting to resonate with your own perception. From acoustic ballads through to glitchy explorations, Mildsparrow defines himself by allowing emotions and expressions to come forth in any style to colour the sonic canvas of the moment.

Plunkett: an English boy and an Italian girl.
Both Ian and Lara had a love for music from a very early age.
After studying music at Rome, writing and recording with the ambient project Ex Machina and alternative electro pop group Otero, Lara became a partner and A&R of the Dune Records, an independent italian label based in Florence.
Ian had always played in bands and after finally finding like minded musicians the electro pop/rock band ‘Pukromo' was born. In late 1999 Pukromo signed to Dune Records recording their debut album ‘Promise Me Kill Me' during 2000.
Life’s funny sometimes and although the label and band folded, Ian and Lara got together.
Frustrated by the mechanisms and ties of the music biz and tired of their ‘electronic’ past, they focused on their emotions, on themselves. Without any thought or the pressure of trying be anything other than that. Themselves.
In 2006 their debut album ’14 Days’ was released. An acoustic orientated, intimate album of alternative contemporary folk rock. The album received an unexpected critic and listener's acclaim through the internet leading them to being featured artists on some of the most important independent music sites throughout the world. Many of the songs have also since been used in two American independent films: Dave's Date (Forbidden Foot) by Natasha Guruleva (Accent Works) and A Hell Shared by Karl Rose (Current Production).
2008 sees the release of Plunkett’s second album ‘Folk Songs’. Contrasting its predecessor, although still remaining alternative contemporary folk rock, the sound and feeling of the album is much more direct with as much emphasis on the lyrics as on the music.

With a desire to only write songs and move people, Plunkett choose to remain independent artists and work outside of the mainstream music business.

Plunkett make Independent music for independent minds.

To know more about Plunkett and their upcoming releases visit their website www.plunkett-music.com.

•  Short and Sweet.
•  Simon and Garfunkle Like
• cool river

•  cool lo-fi dance track

What do you say about a band that says, straight-faced, that it's two principal influences are the Beatles and the Sex Pistols?

Try: "It's about fucking time"?

Let's face it - the Pistols, for all their yobbo nihilism, were a brilliant pop band and Never Mind the Bollocks is less an album than a hit singles collection. The Fabs, as dear dead George called them, were not only the last century's most respected, creative and successful songsmiths, they were god-damned ferocious, paint-peeling noise merchants when the mood struck them; don't believe me? The rehearsal versions of Helter Skelter make the Velvet's Sister Ray sound positively tame.

So the Philharmonic are not only canny enough to recognize these little-uttered facts but adept enough to carry off the not-inconsiderable trick of marrying legit musical chops and frankly brilliant songwriting to savage musicianship and pure-punk stage delivery. Everything the pop-punk hybrid from XTC and the Pixies on down to the least of what the genre aspires to, the Philharmonic are, and more than that, somewhat frighteningly, still well short of their potential.

If these people had been around back in '77 for the first wave of punk the Eagles and their wretched brethren would have been sent packing for good and the world would today be a better place for all of us.

About fucking time? Damn straight, and better now than never.

-- Buck Cherry
Vancouver, summer '05