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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Last Month's Top Sellers

1. TAME IMPALA - The Slow Rush
2. SARAH HARMER - Are We Gone
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4. DESTROYER - Have We Met
5. DRIVE BY TRUCKERS - Unravelling

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Friday
Mar042011

THE DEARS - Degeneration Street

Even though they once enjoyed a solid spell as the next-big-things of Canadian indie rock, Montreal's The Dears have always been underdogs at heart. The band is keenly aware of this. After taking forever to tweak with what should've made their coronation, they released their second LP (2003’s No Cities Left) and found that much of the world had moved on without them, never giving them the same accolades enjoyed by similar then-up-and-comers Broken Social Scene and Stars. The title of their next record? Gang of Losers.

If the band was trying to move forward by having a good laugh at their own expense, real life decided there was a little more life in the joke yet. By the time of 2008’s quite underrated Missiles, a full-scale mutiny had taken place, temporarily leaving behind only husband-and-wife founders Murray Lightburn and Natalia Yanchuk to guide the ship. In some ways, this played right into the band’s hands. For a group so steeped in a Morrissey-style brand of self-pity and grandiose malaise, tragedies such as this could seem to have fallen like manna from heaven. But the total lack of cohesion within their ranks and a listening public that was continually drifting away from them had many feeling that this latest setback would be the one to break the band.

So it’s rather impressive just how inspired and uplifting a record Degeneration Street is. While hardly without its moments of introspection and even heavy-handed worry and woe, the record is full of tunes that are brisk and compelling. The Dears have never had a problem writing a catchy song and then playing it with complete abandon. This album is falling all over itself with examples of this: "Blood", "Thrones", "5 Chords" and "Yesteryear" all fit the bill. Similarly, the moments where things do get weepy ("Lamentation", "Galactic Tides") are bloody gorgeous and never overstay their welcome (even if the 11-minute closer off Missiles, "Saviour", is one of the best things the band has ever done, they wisely do not try to repeat that feat here). What the album lacks in signature tension-building jams and psychedelic washes of noise, it makes up for in what pound-for-pound has to be the best bunch of tunes they’ve ever put together on an LP.

It also brings the focus back squarely to the two assets that had people falling over themselves about The Dears initially. The first is shit-hot musicianship—even when they dip into a cliched blues-rock lick here or there, the band plays these tunes with euphoric vigour and an endless variety of feel. The second, of course, is Lightburn’s voice. The man is a frighteningly capable and committed singer. And if, as certain websites have been overly eager to point out, you think he’s guilty of bringing it too much, all the time, well, so be it. But for my dollar, you could gag the man and he’d still find a way to sing with more guts and heart than 95% of singers out there. That’s because both Lightburn and The Dears in general are indeed a street gang of losers, a rabid pack of underdogs chewing in every direction for the scraps from the world’s table. Are their enemies real or imagined? Are their plights really as horrible as perceived? Are they just a bunch of maudlin babies?

Really, who cares? This is passionate, human rock music. That’s worth something. It’s worth quite a lot, actually. 

Reader Comments (1)

Great writeup! I also agree that Missiles is underrated, it seemed that every review of Degeneration Street put in a dig at how poor the previous album was but I found it to be a beautifully emotional record.

March 5, 2011 | Unregistered CommenterTorontoVic

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