The Secret Three - Nothern & Industrial EP
(Hive-Fi)
P:ano - When It's Dark and It's Summer
(Zum)
Vancouver is a great city, it's Horseshoe Bay and more-liberal-than-average population making it seem like San Francisco if San Francisco was closer to skiing, at least judging from the few weeks I've been there. It should come as no surprise then, that there's a strong music scene happening in Vancouver. Ever since The New Pornographers started up, it's seemed like there's been a steady influx of Vancouver bands, covering a wide variety of styles.
P:ano is a duo comprised of Nick Krgovich and Larissa Loyva that create intimate bedroom pop songs, but then fill them out with the assistance of a healthy stable of backing musicians. Krgovich has the presence and personality to make these simple songs resonate, whispering heart-wrenching secrets one second but then giving a smile and reciting Jackson 5 lyrics the next. He even manages to pull off mocking the delivery of Stuart Murdoch of Belle and Sebastian on "Dinosaurs" while still creating a warm, delicate pop song. The bevy of backing musicians allows the duo to also vary the sound quite a bit. They can keep it simple like in "Billions and Billions" using a delicate, slow melody and male/female vocals to create Low-like etherealness (adding in a few studio tricks to make it fresh). Or they can employ a string section like in "All of November, Most of October" to expand their simple acoustic-guitar melody into gorgeous L'Altra-like orchestral pop. A strong debut, and fans of The Microphones should definitely look into it.
The Secret Three is an instrumental band that includes some of the backing musicians for P:ano and seems highly influenced by late 90s underground music. They manage to still create interesting music, though, partly because they take in the full scope of that time period instead of just creating anonymous post-rock. Their debut release, the Northern & Industrial EP, has seven songs, each taking a slightly different style. The EP opens with the downtempo "Coming Home," the strong, methodical pound of the drum and sparse instrumental reminding the listener of Codeine. "Ray's Place" doesn't sound slowcore at all; instead its singing saw and fluid Midwestern-style guitar playing directly bring to mind Calexico. "The Delegate"'s strong, fast bass playing sets it aside from the rest of the EP. A vibraphone part plays off the bass, and the two are really well mixed together—the song is a real head bobber that reminds the listener of artists like Pele. These songs are all just so well crafted; the only thing keeping me from fully enjoying them is that each song seems directly drawn from previous, recent artists.
Truthfully, I haven't been to Vancouver in a few years, but the heart and artistry on these two releases show it hasn't changed much since I was last there. These releases aren't the most memorable, but they're well done and enjoyable listens.
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