Find out what's new and hot with our our bi-weekly local music roundup.

LIGHTS / SIBERIA ACOUSTIC / APRIL 30TH

Once someone tried to pass off my love of Light's "The Listening" as a guilty pleasure. In response, I punched them in the nose and started to run in a circle whooping my favourite mantra "No False Gods!" What I meant by that was if you have to justify liking something beyond the work itself, then you have weak character. By claiming that I felt "guilty" about something I took "pleasure," this individual implied that I needed the support of the external world (a false god) to enjoy something internally (within my heart). The phrase guily pleasure spits in the eye of my sense of personal freedom.

Anyway, "The Listening" is great and is always able to relax me. Her sophomore album Siberia didn't do much for me, but then again I only listened to it once while I was working on a line in a chicken processing factory (I lead a fasinationg life). BUT, after listening to "Cactus in the Valley" I have a feeling I'm really going to enjoy her acoustic version of Siberia (entitled Siberia Acoustic), which is available on the CBC or to buy via whichever the hell way people buy music these days.

If you want more of Lights you can see her live on May 10th at the Winter Garden Theater. Be sure to say hello to me, I'll be the one out front trying to bum a cigarette off of unimpressed women of all ages.

STILL LIFE STILL / BURIAL SUIT / APRIL 28TH
Dear Still Life Still,

Can you make a t-shirt that looks like what I am about to describe? Put Hawkeye and Trapper John from M*A*S*H flashing thug signs in front of a Still with the text "Still Life!' This would be on the front. On the back would be a picture of B.J. Honeycut winking then the text "Still." Thanks dudes, I'll take a bakers dozen!

ANIA SOUL/ OVER YOU / APRIL 15TH
How lucky is it that such a soulful singer has the last name SOUL! I find the idea of a higher power abhorrent, but but one can't deny the freakydeekyness of this. You can ask Ania if Soul is her real name during her headlingling show at the Mod Club for NXNE of June 15th.

4TH PYRAMID / STAY UP HIGH / APRIL 23RD
According to Masonic Lore the fourth pyramid is the spirutal temple that the third incarnation of Ramesses is said to inhabit during the second cycle of the fall. Essentially it's where the lizards are given their ashen human skin and trained in the auspicious conduct of the human race they are soon to overlord. Find out if this is true when 4th Pyramid play Wrongbar on May 2nd.

HUGS NOT DRUGS / RED RIDING HOOD / APRIL 20TH
My rule of thumb is that one should sparringly indulge in drugs that hinder your ability to read while "high on." Literacy has brought such joy to my life that willingly putting myself in a state where I can't enjoy a book or article offends my sense of personal freedom. Of course, it's very healthy for the odd mental excursion out of the land of textual interpretation if one does it in a safe and beneficial manner. Which isn't the case when it comes to this Hugs and Drugs video, a visually stirring narrative about the dangers of decadence for a young lady.

Photo of Lights by Jerry Vo in the blogTO Flickr pool