Cold signs

Since Saturday evening's snowfall, it's been impossible to ignore the sad fact that winter is here. Indeed, we're all heading down the "Winter Road," as Bill Callahan somberly put it in the show's opening song. But it wasn't all self-pitying ballads about the cold signs of our current climate. We heard a highlight from Julie Doiron's recent classic I Can Wonder What You Did With Your Day, some dreamy shoe-gaze from Philidelphia's A Sunny Day in Glasgow, and a lackadaisical jam from Kurt Vile latest, Walkin' on a Pretty Daze.

The show's centrepiece, however, was a pair of back-to-back tracks from Bruce Cockburn. After spinning his jazzy bummer "The Coldest Night of the Year," I had to let Bruce deliver a more traditional pick-me-up, this time from 1978's Further Adventures Of. I'm a real sucker for the jazz flute. From there, we headed to Montreal to hear from a 30-piece orchestra known as Land of Kush and to witness some fantastic noise work from Tim Hecker. Julia Holter's eerie track from Loud City Song allowed us to transition out of Hecker's ambient experiments into the hook-driven garage rock of Edmonton's Switches and Bass Drum of Death (with an expansive new track from Yamantaka // Sonic Titan thrown in for good measure).

Before I could continue, I was politely interrupted by Trevor, a recurring guest on the show, who had just returned from the Conservative Party convention in Calgary. Don't worry. He wasn't there celebrate our country's embarrassing status quo -- he was there as a reporter for one of CJSR's flagship news shows, Terra Informa.

We ended the hour somewhat bashfully, with a crowd-pleaser from the Arcade Fire, you know, because they're having such a rough go of it right now. And just in case you're not yet tired of hearing about them, you can follow this link to read my take on their new album.



"Winter Road" - Bill Callahan
"Heavy Snow" - Julie Doiron
"100/0 (Snow Days Forever)" - A Sunny Day in Glasgow
"Snow Flakes Are Dancing" - Kurt Vile
"The Coldest Night of the Year" - Bruce Cockburn
"Laughter" - Bruce Cockburn
"The Big Mango" - Land of Kush
"Amps, Drugs, Harmonium" - Tim Hecker
"This is a True Heart" - Julia Holter
"Roomate" - Switches
"Lamia" - Yamantaka // Sonic Titan
"Shattered Me" - Bass Drum of Death
"Here Comes the Night Time" - Arcade Fire