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2015 Performer – Alvvays

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Alvvays are two women, three men, a crate of C-86 tapes and a love of jingle-jangle. Molly Rankin and Kerri MacLellan grew up as next-door neighbours in Cape Breton, lifting fiddles and folk-songs. Heartbreaks of different shades soon entered their lives, as did the music of Teenage Fanclub and Belle & Sebastian. Similar noisy melancholy drifted over to Prince Edward Island, finding Alec O’Hanley, Brian Murphy and Philip MacIsaac. Convening in Toronto, the group have been making music since since dusk or maybe dawn, when stars were appearing or fading off. As a result, their debut self-titled album is both sun-splashed and twilit—nine songs concealing drunkenness, defeat and death in tungsten-tinted pop that glitters like sea glass. With needlepoint melody and verse, Rankin and O’Hanley’s songs were recorded at Chad VanGaalen’s Yoko Eno studio and mixed by Graham Walsh (Holy Fuck) and John Agnello (Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr., Kurt Vile). The resultant album is loud and clear and sure. Flood your ears. The self-titled record was released on July 22nd on Royal Mountain Records in Canada, Polyvinyl Records in the USA and Transgressive Records in Europe.  The Toronto quintet’s melancholy surf-pop has prompted high praise from major press outlets like Rolling Stone and NPR as well as tastemaker blogs like Pitchfork, Brooklyn Vegan and Stereogum.

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