Thank You!

Soundscapes will be closing permanently on September 30th, 2021.

Open every day between Spetember 22nd-30th

We'd like to thank all of our loyal customers over the years, you have made it all worthwhile! The last 20 years have seen a golden age in access to the world's recorded music history both in physical media and online. We were happy to be a part of sharing our knowledge of some of that great music with you. We hope you enjoyed most of what we sold & recommended to you over the years and hope you will continue to seek out the music that matters.

In the meantime we'll be selling our remaining inventory, including thousands of play copies, many of which are rare and/or out-of-print, never to be seen again. Over the next few weeks the discounts will increase and the price of play copies will decrease. Here are the details:

New CDs, LPs, DVDs, Blu-ray, Books 60% off 15% off

Rare & out-of-print new CDs 60% off 50% off

Rare/Premium/Out-of-print play copies $4.99 $14.99

Other play copies $2.99 $8.99

Magazine back issues $1 $2/each or 10 for $5 $15

Adjusted Hours & Ticket Refunds

We will be resuming our closing sale beginning Friday, June 11. Our hours will be as follows:

Wednesday-Saturday 12pm-7pm
Sunday 11am-6pm

Open every day between September 22nd-30th

We will no longer be providing ticket refunds for tickets purchased from the shop, however, you will be able to obtain refunds directly from the promoters of the shows. Please refer to the top of your ticket to determine the promoter. Here is the contact info for the promoters:

Collective Concerts/Horseshoe Tavern Presents/Lee's Palace Presents: shows@collectiveconcerts.com
Embrace Presents: info@embracepresents.com
MRG Concerts: ticketing@themrggroup.com
Live Nation: infotoronto@livenation.com
Venus Fest: venusfesttoronto@gmail.com

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. Thank you for your understanding.

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Friday
Feb052010

RETRIBUTION GOSPEL CHOIR - 2

Alan Sparhawk has built a career on understatement. Over the course of nearly two decades, he and wife Mimi Parker have steered their band Low on the quiet road less traveled. While there have been some flirtations with high decibel levels—namely 2005's The Great Destroyer—few bands can claim to have consistently embodied the aesthetics of patience and calm as well as they have. But it hasn't all been sweetness and light. Such attention to small details has allowed Low to construct moments of mammoth tension and resonant foreboding out of the slightest of materials. These dark moments (as well as Sparhawk's dirty blues project The Black-Eyed Snakes, and interviews wherein he relates a frustration with his guitar tones on Low records) have always hinted at a fierce heart beating under their calm skin.

So seeing Alan Sparhawk lead an honest-to-goodness rock band—one where all bets are off and volume knobs are cranked—is a little like turning a reluctant vegetarian loose in a burger barn. Retribution Gospel Choir finds him relishing every grain and crackle of an exceptional guitar tone that would make Neil Young proud. Indeed, much of 2 is so indebted to a meat-and-potatoes rock template (the indie BTO anthem "Workin' Hard", the motorcycle bar band of "White Wolf") that it takes a while to notice how he, bassist Sam Garrington (also of Low) and drummer Eric Pollard reshuffle the deck. The secret to Low's success (aside from Parker and Sparhawk's crystalline harmonizing, of course) was how they used a minimal template and glacial crawl to mask what were often quite agreeable pop songs. RGC is a similar principle but in reverse—a fairly average rock template puts a comfortable face on what are some thorny, ornery tunes. Even a track as radio-ready as the triumphantly buoyant "Hide It Away" is accompanied by what sound like actual detonations deep in the mix—y'know, like, bombs going off. It's a trick used on a few other tracks, almost a subliminal reminder that these ain't your daddy's three-chord brew-hoisters.

But then again, they kind of are—unlike his day job, much of RGC could be played for a classic rock crowd without raising much of an eyebrow. This is thick, power-trio rock that's very smartly and passionately played, and which compliments—rather than confuses—Low’s catalogue. Songs like "Poor Man's Daughter" and the clearly named "Electric Guitar" are reckoning epics where Sparhawk's grumpy eloquence really gets to shine, as does the incredible communication these three musicians share. Of course, I am saying this on the back of having seen the trio recently play the Drake. It was an incredible show, reinforcing that this band isn't some winking lark for Sparhawk ("Hey guys, wouldn't it be funny if...?"). And while, the band is still shy of bringing the intensity of their live show to a record, 2 is an improvement in every way over what was a solid debut. They're for real, that's for sure. 

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