This friday we're at supermarket for ROLLIN & SCRATCHIN //

it's been way too long (facebook event is here) //

Doors are around 10 //

The most terrifyingly exhilarating music coming out of Toronto right now is courtesy of Metz. Their live show causes me to shreek and thrash and makes me lose my glasses, my voice and my footing.

Photo courtesy of Ivy's League Photos

Easily the loudest and most hard-hitting band in the country, Metz lay post-hardcore to waste in ways so compelling on 'disc' (only 7"s so far, but a CD is on the way) that it's difficult to believe they can exceed their recordings onstage. But this they do consistently. Their latest show, at The Shop beneath Parts and Labour, was the sweatiest mind-erase in the city's recent memory. Their sound is often traced to the Jesus Lizard and Tool, but with its percussive boom, doomey bass and abrasive vocals, Metz conjures fantasies of where Nirvana, left to louder and heavier devices, might have gone.

This is a brutal thing called "Negative Space", their new 7" out on We Are Busy Bodies.

This is a version of a new song called 'Open Hearts'.

Our friend Odessa's the originator and editor of Plaid Magazine, available on-line and out in print September 2010.

A resource for "style culture", Plaid exposes the reader to the latest talent in fashion, photography, music, art and design. What's great about this magazine is not only its presentation, lush with vivid photos and exciting new trends, but also the fact that it boasts a thorough selection of Toronto-based artists--for example.

In the lastest issue, Plaid interviews local Toronto dance misfit Opopo, who're threatening the city with "pummeling melodicism". We're up to the challenge, but only if we can do it in stilettos and eco-friendly accessories.

Here's one version of a song that's taken on a few forms. It's called 'Fear of the Heart'.

We recorded a version of Radiohead's 'Backdrifts'.

My buddy Tom goes by the name 'How To Dress Well' when he's making beautiful soulscapes that call to mind any number of electronic subgenres only to submit them all in uncompromising devotion to the human voice.

His singing is haunting and rousing and layered and it's getting him some deserved attention, with Twins having recently remixed his 'Ready For The World'.

He's also on Pitchfork's radar and will hopefully be coming to Toronto this summer. Check my boy out.

Joel from the untold city sent over some video from the last night at WRONGBAR (last half of the video):

If you have any photos or videos send them to us pls!

New show details coming soon.

Big thanks to those who packed wrongbar on thursday. If you have any pics etc then post them here.

This is a quick mix of tracks we can't stop listening to RIGHT NOW:

1. Everything is Sacred / Pin Me Down
2. Not In Love/ Crystal Castles
3. Tom Tom / The Hundred In The Hands
4. New Theory / Washed Out
5. I Was Thinking / Gauntlet Hair

If you want the mp3, it's right here (17.1MB, MP3).

We're doing a set at Wrongbar as part of the 'Robots /// Us' night April 22nd (facebook event is HERE).

Drink. Dance. Repeat.

Our man Ivan from the music blog muzika.hr posted a review of our album Selector (2009, Summer Lovers Unlimited). You can check it out HERE (and if you speak Croatian please translate and let me in)

'Selector' is going to be released digitally in a few weeks on iTunes, etc so heads up

Making art is about making decisions. You create things when you define what you're not doing.

This is a painting by Barnett Newman. I used to think this was pure bullshit, like the Andy Warhol soup cans. What a shortcut. Where's the blood sweat and tears, the tortured artist? But I get it now. They're about the conceptual and not the material. They're concerned with subject matter. It's not about the paint. That massive colour-field of deep black; and that line, that thin blood-red strip running down the middle, but not exactly in the middle, coz that would divide the canvas. Instead, as Newman says, it fills the space. It's all the painting needs. Just a little strip. If the canvas was an all-black monochrome, it would feel like the colour black to me. But the strip makes it about nothing. The black feels like a void of space. When I look at this painting it's like I'm taking a deep breath. Artists have been interpreting for eons. Newman did a 180. Pure modernism.

Here's a cover of Corona's "The Rhythm of the Night".

DOWNLOAD (7,6 MB) - M.P.3

More tracks from NRG:

Another track from NRG:

Here's a new song we wrote: