Tag Archives: toronto

03.18.21
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Elina Filice – First World Problems

We’ve all been there; you’re watching a local band in a bar and thoroughly enjoying their original material when they say those dreaded words – “And now we’re going to do a cover version of one of our favourite songs“. Chances are that it’s a cover version of a song that you really like also. The band think they’re Rock Gods and begin to play completely overlooking the dynamics that made the song initially so great. You have to walk away as you feel the anger rising.

Ok – perhaps we’ve not all been there and maybe it’s just me? But I don’t deal with live covers well. And don’t even get me started on tribute bands. I realise that people gravitate towards familiarity when out and about (or at least did when they could go out). For me, originality is the key.

You won’t find many covers featured on Sonic Breakfast for this very reason. The exceptions to that unwritten rule are that the song is a cover of something so obscure that I’ve never heard the original – or that by covering a song, an artist has bought something new and unique to the table. In this cover of ‘First World Problems’, an unreleased track by Chance The Rapper, Elina Filice ticks both of those boxes.

Fans of Chancelor Johnathan Bennett have long yearned for him to officially release the track he performed live on a TV show. For some reason he never has. Elina has taken the song, rewritten the spoken word verses to make them much more personal to her and simply left the chorus in tact. It’s a complete renovation of an under the radar song. And it’s quite wonderful. 

“The song is a critical reflection on the last few years,“, says Elina. “From leaving the comfort and structure of university to figuring out what to do with my life, the struggles of being an artist, searching for meaning, and trying to understand the world around me.”

The artist from Canada enlists the help of Dublin-based singer/songwriter, Cat, to provide a haunting backing vocal. This is perhaps none too surprising given that Elina has previously spent much time in Dublin. “Yes I miss (pre-covid) Dublin terribly!“, she says in a short E-mail exchange. “It’s a great city with a vast music/arts scene, not to mention a cheap flight away from anywhere in Europe.”

You can’t say fairer than that. Elina Filice, alone in the studio, following dreams and thinking critically about the world recognises it’s a tough and sometimes lonely road. I hazard a guess that regular readers of Sonic Breakfast will be keen to follow. 

 

03.01.21
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Peace Without Victory – Young & Strange

“This is music for outsiders. This is not for people who have never had to think twice about their place in what’s going on around them. It’s music for the long, the lost, the dreamers and the screamers who know there’s something better out there and will never give in until they’ve found it.”

So say Peace Without Victory in the press release for their single ‘Young & Strange’. I’m drawn in and my interest is piqued. It was many years ago when I was growing up but I’m not surprised that many people labelled me ‘intense’ as a teenager. It’s a mark of where my head was at back then that I took such comment as a badge of honour when it was very much not likely to be coming from such a place. In truth, I revelled in my role as an outsider. 

Based just outside of Toronto, Damiano Battiston-Weston is the one-man-band behind Peace Without Victory. ‘Young & Strange’ and the songs from his recent EP, Islands, were all recorded during lockdown in complete isolation at his own studio. It’s perhaps no surprise that the theme of isolation runs rife throughout. This is about “the isolation we all feel during the current pandemic and the longing for a return to “normal life”, but at the same time an examination of what that normal life was really like. We were alone before? How do we rise from this? Who felt that same empathic isolation prior to the tragedies of 2020 and can we better understand those who were ALWAYS alone.”

In terms of sound, Damiano acknowledges that this is something of a departure for him. “It’s the first time I actually set out to make something that one could potentially dance to, or at least gyrate a bit!“, he says within our E-mail correspondence. Damiano doesn’t appear to be the type to get stuck in a genre-specific rut for long with his music though. His chameleon-like abilities are emphasised when he says that “recently I met a new singer who I really clicked with, and encouraged me to really go to extremes with both the rock and electronic portions of my music – lean into the stranger elements that are unique – and given my background in soundtrack composition start to incorporate more orchestral elements. The new album will be called “Season of the Senses”, and given that I am handing off almost 75% of vocal duties to her, it may even be a new entity entirely (incorporating the PWV songs).”

A social worker by day, Damiano is overjoyed that he’ll be getting his vaccine this week. It’s a step closer to his dream of “hugging everyone I love to within an inch of their lives and eating inside my favourite Ramen place 🙂 After that it’s a vacation – Italy and Japan! And then live shows, NON stop!“. He does note though that “Canada is… well, not where we should be. We are too small of a population base to have much buying power in terms of Vaccines, so we are behind in vaccination rates.”

I’m certainly not as young and probably not as strange as I was when growing up. But I can still use this Monday morning to reflect upon that with a fine track for company. Have a good start to your week.