Arts

Having visited Vancouver many times throughout my life, I was intrigued by Nick Marino’s East Side Story: Growing Up at the PNE, a historical retelling of his childhood growing up as a cog in the PNE’s wooden wheels. What I wasn’t expecting was the emotional whiplash I experienced reading about the ups and downs of […]

This is the first novel I’ve read by Vancouver-based author Emily Pohl-Weary, but it definitely won’t be the last. Her other works, such as Ghost Sick: A Poetry of Witness and Better to Have Loved: The Life of Judith Merril, have both won awards and showcased Pohl-Weary’s diverse writing style. How to Be Found is […]

Hallie Spoor Heart Like Thunder (Independent) 3.5/5 Brooklyn-based Americana artist Hallie Spoor’s latest release, the Heart Like Thunder EP, provides an insightful lens into the folk genre. Spoor—who was raised in Colorado—shows the thematic context of folk’s rural roots through the connectivity of her storytelling. The EP offers a developing new voice to the folk […]

Erdoğan is a very unique graphic-novel biography written by Turkish journalist and author Can Dündar and drawn by Egyptian caricaturist Anwar. This idea of telling the story of Turkey’s “modern autocrat” Tayyip Erdoğan couldn’t be executed any better.  I was so excited when I found out about this book by my fellow countryman Dündar, but […]

GLDN First Blood (Deluxe Edition) (Independent) 2.5/5 Lukewarm off the presses! The deluxe reissue of Brooklyn-based industrial punk group GLDN’s First Blood EP is the musical definition of a mixed bag. Industrial punk can get a bad rep for maxing out intensity at all times, often to a song’s detriment. It’s a stereotype of the […]

Fur Trade Dark Celebration (Light Organ Records) 4/5 Victoria’s Steve Bays and Parker Bossley (both ex-Hot Hot Heat) are back with Fur Trades’ second album after a decade-long absence, and it’s a rockin’ good time. Dark Celebration is filled with 10 chaotic, funky, fun, feel-good tracks. It’s music you can blast in the car: turn […]