Teens these Daze...

Kudos to the always-on-point Mike B. The man behind Planet Shhh, Better Swimmers and UMFM's Cross/Pollination is also the mastermind of the Pop! Et Cetera Festival which returns for another year, running Friday October 1st until Sunday October 10th. The line-up is pretty immense with solid local talent (including Boats, Not Animals, Vampires and Cyclist among others) and a roster of out-of-towners that run from the big (Jamie Lidell and Holy Fuck) to the up-and-coming (DVAS and Rae Spoon).

[Wow, that's a lot of hyperlinks].

Among the list of up-and-comers is Vancouver-based Teen Daze, who I was unfamiliar with until I started doing research to write up scripts for Pop! Et Cetera ads recently and took a listen to their blissful new record, Four More Years. While their Myspace page refers to the music they make as IDM / neo-soul, it's most assuredly part of the whole chillwave thing all the kids are loving these days (and even though I'm no longer a kid, I'm loving it too).

Clocking in at an all-too-brief 30 minutes, this album is like one of those designer drugs that deliver an ecstatic hit that leaves you wanting more. Opener "Shine On, You Crazy White Cap" (video below) sets the stage perfectly with a half-minute of gauzy, ethereal layers of keyboards/synths before the 4/4 drum pattern starts pushing the listener forward (seriously, listening to it for the first time that beat felt like when a friend would push with their hand in the middle of my back at a dance to force me toward the object of my affection). Just as the bliss is reaching a fever pitch, the drums drop out suddenly and the vocals float away. "Neon" proceeds at a breakneck pace and is over in two short minutes, after which it is followed by one of the most ecstatic tunes on Four More Years, "Around." If you're not dancing when this jam plays, you're hearing- or leg-impaired. It changes on a regular basis, but I think my favourite track is "Saviour" - a song that reminds me of the marriage of clinical precision and soulfulness that acts like Depeche Mode and Telefon Tel Aviv have achieved. Really, really great stuff.

If you live in Winnipeg, be sure to check out the Teen Daze performance as part of the Pop! Et Cetera festival on Wednesday October 6th at the LO Pub.

You can download a special Pop! Et Cetera mix including Teen Daze' "Our Parents" among many other choice nuggets at the festival's official site, and you can check out the video for "Shine On, You Crazy White Cap" below:


Be sure to check out the Teen Daze Myspace page and Tumblr.
And if you like what you hear, you can purchase the 12-inch here.

Thanks for reading, now start listening...