Projected Lights is a DVD of Toronto’s shadow play and projection performance scene featuring fourteen works from: Shary Boyle, the Singing Saw Shadow Show, Steph Comilang and Final Fantasy, Yuula Benivolski & Zeesy Powers, Jordan Somers feat. Sandro Perri, Exploding Motor Car and Winston Hacking, Jamie Shannon, Renee Lear and Peter Venuto.

Whether its with overhead projectors, hand manipulated film loops & video, mirror reflections or straight-up lights and shadows, the collection showcases works by artists pursuing a hands-on approach to the moving image.

The Legend is Bob Wiseman’s first live album and a raw document of his intimate one man show he’s taken on tour across the world, including a string of dates last year opening for Feist in Europe. Packaged in a handmade silk-screened sleeve by Punchclock Studio’s Michael Comeau, The Legend is a document of an actual, for-real, rambling man who’s as off kilter as Beefheart, but as searching as Al Green.

AVAILABLE ONLY THROUGH MAILORDER AND AT BOB’S SHOWS!

10 songs of piano and midi percolations from this former member of Galaxy and current member of the Bruce Peninsula. The drama of Kate Bush. The sturm und drang of Diamanda Galas. The poptones of Lena Lovich. A mystery that can be solved by your $10!

Nifty is Matt Smith (Les Mouches) and “A Sparrow! A Sparrow!” is a collection of 7 songs in as many different genres. “Two Figures” is reminiscent of a Tom Waitsian-sonic junkyard while many of the other tracks take off from pop starts into rhythm and drone rhumbas not unlike Arthur Russell or Cluster. You want this.

And what the Phonemes mean to do is possibly like this collection of small, textured,brittle and unforgettable performances… yet they’ve put off doing it! This CD of deceptively simple songs will have to do until they remember.

Club music for bathouse punks! Hymns to breakdance hunx, the cruel caprices of fame, and gay yuppies. Features a Roxy Music cover and a vocal turn from Boy George himself!

Available

Packaged in a full colour, oversized booklet, The Definitive Host collects most of Davis’ sound and music projects, including a remix of the internet hit 10 Banned Albums Burned Then Played. Also features two completely new works: Eula ( Sony’s End User License Agreement scored for choir) and 5 Box Sets Played On Fast Forward. A glitcher’s paradise.

The newest CD by The Blankket features four Bruce Springsteen songs about the deleterous effect of Capital on the human ability to dream, longing for escape etc. The Blankket is Steve K. Blocks R.C. founder, member of Ninja High School and the Barcelona Pavilion and ex-member of EVERY BAND EVER!

This is the first “official” Tradition CD, although CDrs, tapes and the like have been circulating for years now. Tradition is primarily the work of James Klassen, the conscience of Toronto and ex-Belleville.

We’ve never put out a record like this I don’t think, it is possibly the most earnest and direct release we’ve ever done. Also, possibly one of the prettiest.

So, just in case you’re wondering: months ago we got an email from Fucked Up saying that they wanted to do a record with Blocks and we thought they were totally joking, that they were baiting us or something and we’d arrange to have some sort of meeting and just get taunted the whole time with stuff like “Do you know what a breakdown is?” and “Seriously, when was the last time you Bro’d down?”.

But no, they meant it.

They even help us run merch tables and stuff: totally best.

Two of Toronto’s scariest and most intense live bands got together and made a split 45rpm 12″ record, that was then elaborately hand packaged and released in a very limited edition. This is it. We’ve been telling you about The Creeping Nobodies for years, we’ve even proudly released 2 of their full-length CDs. However, maybe Anagram are something new to you. Anagram are great.

Bob’s latest record has been a long time brewing, some part were recorded before Bob’s last recording “It’s True” (also on Blocks) was recorded. Featuring guests like James Anderson, Mary Margaret O’Hara, Sarah Harmer, Magali (Phonemes) Meagher, John Southworth, Don Kerr, Julie Penner and Chris Banks this record has a lush filled-out sound that some might have missed on Bob’s last and more intentionally sparse effort.

Bob is touring behind this release RIGHT NOW! ALL OVER THE COUNTRY! LEAVE YOUR HOMES!!!

The next in Owen Pallett’s continuing series of records made up of very very interesting lying. This one is a strange conflation of the everyday and the fantastic, where the failing marriages of real-estate salesmen are dealt with through extended Dungeons and Dragons (*2nd Ed. Rules) metaphors and other day-to-day things are rendered fantastic.

Fans of the Creeping Nobodies fantastic live show have had to wait years to have a recording that actually features all the band members they saw performing on record. The Creeping Nobodies have never been more intense, claustrophobic or challenging as they are here!

Fervent Dance-Rap/Positive Hardcore from Toronto’s #1 extreme house party band.
More fun than an actual barell of monkeys this is music designed to destroy epic shoegazing, corporate indie rock and other “total evils”. Will be guaranteed to not-appeal to fans of Atmosphere.

Utter swarming chaos from Eugene Slonimerov and his thug-gang of art nerds and tall gentlemen. At long last you can hear and experience the dizzying multi-drummer onslaught that made LiS a hit with audiences and an enemy of Sound guys everywhere.

From stem to stern this release is proof, not only that Eugene is sometimes very talented, but also that Jeff Mc Murrich is very patient and good at his job (recording engineer).

The latest EP from the band that was called “the best new band in Toronto” by Now Magazine in 2003. (more…)

Ring in the Spring with “The Lovely Music” of the S.S. Cardiacs. (more…)

This is the OWEN PALLETT IS A GENIUS release of 2005, topping his past achievements in Les Mouches (cf OWEN PALLETT IS A GENIUS release of 2004 “You’re Worth More To Me Than 1,000 Christians”) and setting a high standard for the upcoming OPIAG 2006 (Rumoured to involve Owen’s accension to heaven on the back of a centaur shortly after recording and mixing are completed). (more…)

Blocks normally takes pride in being a local, Toronto kind of thing. It worked for Dischord and who are we to argue if something works for Dischord? Well, there’s always an exception (even at Dischord) and here when a band like the Diskettes is actually something that exists in the world you really really have to take notice. Basically, the Diskettes are not just the best but also the most punk band in Canada. (more…)

The first CD release by Toronto’s favourite answer to Half-Japanese. Chris (19) and his brother Charlie (13, ex-12) unveil this amazing collection of home recordings and also give a glimpse into the world of wonder and magic that is the current, full-band, rock-power version of the Frank FB_A line-up with some video of live performance and a few new songs at the end. (more…)

Lenin i Shumov’s first CD-R

On Oct. 17, 2004 The Blocks Recording Club and Consumption records were given a room at The Gladstone Hotel in Toronto by CANZINE, a large and renowned ‘Zine Fair held annually by Broken Pencil Magazine. The decision was then made for a recording studio to be built in the room and for bands that were entirely new, so new that even the people in them had not yet met, to record one album an hour for the entire duration of the fair. Each recording was then mixed (by Leon Taheny) and released jointly by Consumption and Blocks with hand-made packaging and lots of love in less than an hour. (more…)

This is the long-awaited, finally available, all-hymns solo recording by Toronto’s (ex-Vancouver’s) most beloved drunk country and western/rock and roll musician. Contains several big hits: Didn’t It Rain?, Down By The Riverside, Just A Closer Walk With Thee.. and many others. Perfect for Sunday mornings.

Over two years in the making this is kind of like the Remebrance of Things Past of Toronto-based UK-influenced indie-punk. Ample doses of the Fall, the Birthday Party, Sonic Youth (UK), bound up and analyzed over a long period of time and finally put together, with a master’s touch, into a sprawling mega-record. (more…)

Deep Dark United come off as a cross between Xiu Xiu, Fine Young Cannibals at 16rpm, Frog Eyes and Charlie Haden’s Liberation Music Orchestra. Full-blown experimental soul-jazz collides with messy synthesizers and are subsequently chanelled through the Wah Pedal and surreal dirty-uncle sense of humour of band leader Alex Lukashevsy. (more…)

A co-release with Jennifer Lopez Knife records. This is Ninja High School’s incredible debut record. Featuring more positive hardcore disguised as ‘rap’ than anyone has ever shaken a stick at in their entire lives. Those awed by the live performances will be even further stunned by the intricate mixing and subtle production of this release.

OUT OF PRINT! The follow up to Hank’s magical and enlightening 2003 Mini-Album Ackrill/Venning ‘91 shows the collective coming up with some of the most incredible pop music ever, every single one of this cd’s 15 tracks is an out and out hit, from the tender ballads of “taffy solo” and “blonde wife and dead daughter” to dance-floor explosions like “god slick” and “stomp of sloth” Hank have pulled through with another winner with its tales of giants, rockstar marriage and ex-wrestlers injuring themselves in the Scottish Highlands wrapped up in incredible hand-made packaging from Paige Gratland.

Ackrill/Venning ‘91 is an audacious revelation of a debut LP demonstrating a profoundly passionate love of music from its creator. All the songs mine a rich vein of genres with no two sounding the same. The upfront jangle of Danes In Peril! sits proudly next to the harsh metallic racket of Harley Tat. And if He Forgot My Name is a dreamy spectral prayer from a fallen angel then Getting Fucked Over By Your Friends is the best ninety-second shoutalong about betrayal EVER that the Shangri-Las never got round to singing. The public attention this cd attracted to the Hank Collective, especially the above-mentioned dance-party hit “Danes In Peril”, has gone from mere praise to a mighty roar of approval and love. This isn’t really a Blocks release, what’s really happening here is that we’re distrbuting this cd for Weeping Truckers, the record lable that put it out way back when (last year).

The magical full-length release from the band that stands head and shoulders above all others! The greatest full-length record we could ever imagine! Featuring the song-craft of Owen Pallett, and the noise-craft of Matt Smith and Rob Gordon this release manages the task of being simultaneously sweet and abrasive, complex and innocent, violent and gentle. Brian Turner, the program director of WFMU called Les Mouches “really unusual and unlike most things I hear coming through here these days…Amazing!” Anyone with ears to hear would almost certainly agree.

This is the most recent of Mr. Wiseman’s solo records, his first since something like 1995. Mr. Wiseman has unceasingly pursued music through almost any and every shape it could possibly take, from Improv through to earnest folk music, passing through any number of musical groups from Slutarded to Blue Rodeo to The Hidden Cameras. This record features an almost schizophrenic oscillation between stripped-down folk music and budget casio and omnichord insanity, but anchoring everything is Bob’s solid ear for songwriting and compelling singing.

A persuasive document of the recent Toronto-based Positive Music Explosion. (more…)

This is the not only the rousing debut of Animalmonster, but also the record breaking longest record we’ve ever put out. A mind breaking 27 minutes of instrumental electronics that feels like YMO crossed with the Morr Music Catalogue multiplied by 200% energy. Probably the most untroubled and happy record we’ll ever put out. Guaranteed to put a giant smile on your face. Also, the first 100 copies feature incredible, totally excessive packaging. It’s not even sane, there’s hand-embroidery and glow-in-the-dark ink and stickers and sleeves and all this stuff. It is mind blowing!

This will be a five-song debut ep from Les Mouches, the Toronto super-group formed from members of the Jim Guthrie Band, Picastro, Royal City, Matt Schmidt, Double Happiness, From Fiction and The Hidden Cameras. Les Mouches are often called one of Toronto’s very best live bands, their completely hysterical, panic-stricken take on ‘folk music’ has both deafened, hurt and charmed audiences not only in their native Toronto but also as far afield as Guelph. Recorded by Jeff McMurich and available in early December we would like to announce that THIS IS A KEEPER!!! A WINNER!!! and also GREAT!!!

This is the debut release by the Blankket. 2 Songs, both covers, both about love on one business card sized cd. Contains Toronto Disco Smash-Hit “Hey Ya!” backed with “Love Goes To Building on Fire”. Packaged in a sewn air-mail envelope and strictly limited to an edition of 100 this little bastard would make a dashing addition to anyone’s holiday gift list.

The second release by the Toronto foursome that gets called “Nice” and “Quite good” by John Peel on a regular basis. This 8cm CD has 4 big hits from the Barcelona Pavilion’s furious live sets, all recorded in lightning speed at the notorious COLD FLOORS studio. Sung half in English and half in German these new recordings are violent and nuts, but still smell and acts like a pop music animal. The 7″ version of the same songs is out on Meccico records of London, England. The first print run, with its famed ’stupid’ package built from drafting vellum, is out of print!

The Phonemes are a small band focused on issues of vast historical guilt, language acquisition and various animals. Based around the songwriting of Magali, perhaps best known until now for being the ex-rhythm guitarist/drummer in the incredibly famous The Hidden Cameras, the band also contains Consumption Records head- honcho Matias and Liz of Jonasson. The Phonemes’ music is gentle and clever, their singing is great too.

Is an insanely limited pressing ‘tape’ piece by one of this planet’s most incredible DIY artist/musicians. Matias is also a shiatsu therapist in-training. Each tape comes in hand-made packaging. For more of Matias’ incredible work check out his record lable Consumption Records.
SOLD OUT!!!

The Barcelona Pavilion are a loud and spazzy house-party band spawned from the twin poles of intense frustration with the danceless-mono-gendered indie scene and intense academic thinking about modernism, social responsibility, cleanliness, epistemic boundedness and dancing. (more…)