(For the 10th year in a row (but who’s counting?) we’re delighted to share a year-end music list from Canadian musician Seb Painchaud — whose band Tumbleweed Dealer finally came out with a new album this year! “Eclectic” has always been the first word that comes to mind in perusing Seb’s lists, and as you’ll discover, this year is no different. )

In this day and age, releasing music is like screaming into the abyss, except the echoes of your screams are interrupted by ICE advertisements. So, let’s give a nod to not only the following releases that grabbed my attention this year, but to every artist participating in the futile process of vomiting their art into this digital age. Continue reading »

(As we have for a long stretch of years, we again included in our 2023 Listmania series an eclectic year-end list of records selected by Seb Painchaud from the Montréal band Tumbleweed Dealer. You can see it here. But turns out the list was incomplete… and so it continues today with a dozen more recommendations.)

Here we are yet again. Some of these I missed, some of these I kept off the AOTY list for brevity, and honestly one of these I just kinda forgot to put on when I wrote up the list.

Let’s keep this short I’ve got a teams meeting in 8 minutes. Continue reading »

(Seb Painchaud, the main man behind the Montréal band Tumbleweed Dealer, has very expansive and eclectic musical tastes, which is one reason why for seven years in a row we’ve asked him to share a year-end list with us. This one, as usual, goes in all sorts of different directions. And if it hadn’t been for a malfunctioning NCS spam filter we would have shared it with you a lot sooner than now.)

Feels like these lists are getting closer and closer apart…

Around the beginning of October, I realized I had hundreds of 2022 releases I had not gotten around to listening to yet, and compiled a playlist. It was over 200 hours long. It was quite disheartening. I’ve listened to that playlist exclusively since, adding a bunch of releases every week to it, barely making a dent in it. As I write this at the beginning of December, it’s down to 110 hours. To be honest, my list has not changed much since I started that process. So here is a list that is “lived in” with no last-minute infatuations, no scouring of other people’s lists, just the albums I spent the last twelve months with.

Expect a “Shit I slept on” list a few months into 2023, but for now, this sums up my year… Continue reading »

photo by Catherine B Photografie

(Seb Painchaud, the main man behind the Montréal band Tumbleweed Dealer, has very expansive and eclectic musical tastes, which is one reason why for six years in a row we’ve asked him to share a year-end list with us. This one, as usual, goes in all sorts of different directions.)

So, 2021 huh? At least it wasn’t ‘2020 part 2, this time it’s personal’. The theme of the year has to be ‘cautious optimism’ as things slowly creep back to something we can consider adjacent enough to what we used to call normal for us to become complacent once again. Shows are slowly starting back-up, I can eat at my favorite Pho place again, looks like we might just be on the other end of this shitstorm and we may even get a few months before the next one starts (omicron, nuclear warfare, global warming, the fall of capitalism, murder hornets 2: The Return, all bets are open on what will hit next!)

All in all, a much better year than the previous one, musically and personally. I’m turning in my list earlier than usual this year, for once having a list of 20 potential albums that I all feel comfortable including. I will still be scouring everyone else’s list for a potential entry in a ‘Shit I Slept On’ compilation early next year, but until then, hope you discover something new in here! Continue reading »

(Seb Painchaud, the main man behind the Montréal band Tumbleweed Dealer, has very expansive and very eclectic musical tastes, and a way with words, and so for a fifth year in a row we asked him to share a year-end list with us. As in every other year, his list pulls us off our usual beaten paths by highlighting some favorite releases that are way outside the usual metal lists.)

Throughout this cursed year of plague and idiocy, I kept coming back to one cosmic realization whenever I mass-consumed new albums: ‘Music does not exist in a vacuum’

It took the literal descent into madness that was the last twelve months for me to finally admit this to myself. I had always liked to believe that music is some sort of absolute truth with an exact value that doesn’t fluctuate once you’ve discovered it. But as I used my search for new releases to either escape my reality, to try to understand it, or to seek some way to relate to it, I had to finally admit to myself that whatever music is put out there at any point in time it becomes intertwined with that period in human history. It’s judged against what has come before, it’s used in relation with what is happening right now, and it will impact what has yet to be written. Continue reading »