The Toronto Japanese Film Festival (TJFF) is returning to the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre (JCCC) this summer with a stacked slate of 23 Japanese movies. All screenings will take place at the JCCC's Kobayashi Hall from June 6 to 20. Leading the way is the special screening of Studio Ghibli savant Hayao Miyazaki's latest effort The Boy and the Heron with commentary and presentations by the movie's composer Joe Hisaishi and animation director Takeshi Honda. The film won an Oscar for Best Animated Feature last month. TJFF will also screen Peter Michael Dowd's documentary Mr. Jimmy, which t ..read more

Vancouver DIY pop minimalist (and New Faves alum) Future Star has announced an album for her new label home of Mint Records. It's About Time! is out July 5. As a preview, Future Star has shared the new single "This Is the Part That's Too Hard to Explain." It's a characteristically twee and lovely pop ditty that bursts into some lively electronic beats. The album was produced by Andromeda Monk. According to an announcement, "The album is at times minimalistic in texture with upright piano and voice, and at times lushly arranged with additions of synthetic strings, flutes and drum machine. Bre ..read more

Boris have announced a North American tour on which they'll perform their 1998 album Amplifier Worship in its entirety. Featuring support from Starcrawler, the 31-date Amplifier Worship Service Tour will see Boris perform with two drummers and an extended backline. Regrettably, there are no Canadian stops on the run, but the full itinerary can be found below if you're looking to take a trip. Tickets for all shows go on sale April 26 at 10 a.m. local time, with further ticket details available via the band's official website. Boris last delivered a trio of albums in 2022, with W, Heavy Rocks ..read more

Ahead of some June tour dates behind their 2023 album I Held the Shape While I Could, Bodywash have shared a new remix from Khotin. The Edmonton-based electronic artist has reworked the Montreal-based duo's "Kind of Light," and you can hear it in the player below. As Bodywash explain, the collaboration came out of regularly playing Khotin's Exclaim! Staff Pick-certified album Release Spirit on tour in 2023 (in a Cadillac Escalade, perhaps). "Khotin's Release Spirit was in heavy rotation while we were on the road last year, soundtracking everything from the craggy cliffs of the Pacific Northw ..read more

The Victoria Ska & Reggae Festival is hitting the quarter-century mark this year, and organizers have announced a jam-packed lineup to celebrate.  Festivities will take place from June 19 to 23 at multiple venues in Victoria.  Led by Less Than Jake and Dead Prez, the fest will also feature Suicide Machines, the Slackers, Creepshow, Fort Knox Five, Mephiskapheles, Chris Murray and the New Victorians, Gondwana, Macka B and the Roots Ragga Band, the Planet Smashers, Mungo's Hi Fi and Marina P, Big Mountain, Antidoping and many more. Full festival passes and single-day tickets are ..read more

Texas post-rockers Explosions in the Sky introduced us to the End late last year, and now, they've decided to mark their first new album in seven years by playing another batch of shows in its honour. Bringing their show across Canada (and the Pacific Northwest), the band's the End Tour will rip across the continent over the span of 18 days in September. It starts in the east with a show in Montreal on the 12th, with subsequent dates in Toronto, Winnipeg, Saskatoon, Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver lined up throughout the month. The tour will close on the 30th in Seattle. Tickets go on sale t ..read more

"Am I the only one in the only world?" Annie Clark sang in a panic 10 years ago, her question dying with a muted thud against the desert air. "Rattlesnake" opened 2014's St. Vincent with a personal apocalypse, a piece of sun-baked mythology that found Clark suddenly and completely alone, danger behind her and nothing ahead. As St. Vincent, Clark has always kept one eye on the darkness at the end of humanity. Time and light exploded into oblivion on 2007's "The Apocalypse Song"; on Strange Mercy's "Northern Lights," she stood transfixed under the aurora, convinced the end had come; on Daddy's ..read more

What would you do if you met Joni Mitchell? Would you nerd out, or try to play it cool? In the case of Pearl Jam bassist Jeff Ament, he sat quietly next to her on a plane while secretly listening to 1971's Blue on his headphones. Appearing on the podcast Broken Record (along with PJ guitarist Stone Gossard), Ament recalled meeting Mitchell in the early '90s. "We did share an airplane ride with her in about '93 in Canada," he remembered. "And then when we got on the plane, I was sitting in the aisle seat and she was sitting in the aisle seat right across from me. This might come off as stalke ..read more

Las Vegas's Sphere certainly knows how to book bands with deeply dedicated fanbases, so it makes sense that they chose Phish to follow in U2's footsteps for a 4/20 residency. There's also no crowd better suited to trippy artistry on massive screens than jam band fans, who have a higher concentration of psilocybin in their bloodstreams than average, probably. Regardless of your vice of choice, footage from the shows does look pretty cool. One such person sharing their Phish experience is The Price Is Right host Drew Carey, who was moved to break his Twitter X hiatus to share how eager he is t ..read more

Arkells have revealed that they'll embark on a sprawling coast-to-coast tour of Canada this fall with star-studded support in tow.  The pop-rock outfit will kick off the trek on the East Coast with local heroes Joel Plaskett Emergency joining them in Halifax (October 18) and Moncton (October 19) before they move on to six dates in Ontario, Saskatchewan and Alberta with Poolside. After a brief hiatus, they'll continue to BC, starting with Kelowna (November 14) ahead of shows in Vancouver (November 15) and Victoria (November 16) supported by K.Flay. Finally, they'll round out the tour in ..read more