There Can Be Only One

At 10pm last night, I was at my desk with sweat rolling off my brow (and arms and hands). It could have been because it was plus 30 here and muggy. I thought the thunder and lightning earlier in the evening would break the humidity, but they were too brief to provide real relief. Even the storm seemed scared away by the heat.

On the other hand, the perspiration could also have been because I had two hours left to submit my final Polaris prize ballot. At Midnight last night (Jun. 25), Polaris headquarters began compiling the votes one more time. The only difference this time is that the ballots could only include artists from the long list. The 10 artists that get the most votes are officially on the short list, which will be announced on July 7th.

After my fifth place pick from the first ballot didn't make it (Years - S/T), I re-evaluated who should get the last spot. Rather than just slide in my number 6 choice, I re-listened to all 40 discs as much as I could in the last 3 weeks.

And I'm glad I did. Some albums I had dismissed grew on me, others reminded me why I hadn't included them on my first ballot.

La Patère Rose was probably the biggest gainer, moving up several spots on my list with a genre-bending collection of tunes that might just rival Think About Life's Family for the album of the summer.

I also got re-acquainted with Tim Hecker's gorgeous soundscape, An Imaginary Country. It's an album unlike any other on the long list, a wash of synthesized feedback that's incredibly serene, once you let it soak in. But underneath the noise, the melodies in songs like "Borderlands" or "Currents of Electrostasy" are as pretty as anything you'd find on more traditional albums (i.e. ones with lyrics, voices, choruses etc.)

As time was running out though, three albums were fighting it out in my itunes. Rae Spoon's Superioryouareinferior
a tough and gritty set of songs that puts an alternative spin on growing up in the prairies, D-Sisive's moody hip hop smackdown Let The Children Die (if you didn't get enough ruminations on death from Chad Van Gaalen, this is the album for you), and Belle Orchestre's As Seen Through Windows.

When the clock struck, Belle Orchestre got the final nod. The album stomps in like an elephant with the lumbering "Stripes" (which is followed by the aptly named "Elephants"), and the range of moods it creates over the following fifty some minutes is remarkable. At times triumphant, at times haunting, Belle Orchestre even manages to pull off both at once (listen to creepy strings and happy horns intermingle at 4:18 of Elephants). Regardless of what mood they're playing with, they live up to their name.

So there you have it. My first Polaris adventure comes to a close. Now I can stop worrying about ranking and just get back to enjoying the music.

Coda: The storms continued throughout the night. It seemed fitting considering the sad news earlier in the evening that Michael Jackson, the king of pop and sheer weirdness, had passed. As one of my fellow midnight poutiners joked: "This is God crying for MJ".