Fine Times
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada | INDIE
Music
Press
Fun and poppy, Fine Times somehow manages to be a sort of bricolage of decades without sounding overdone or confused. Candy-sweet elements of early ‘60s pop falls in line with synthesizer riffs reminiscent of the 1980s; sometimes with a surprising but fun inclusion of Beegees-style falsetto from Moldowan. - Vancouver Weekly
It’s the time of season where..I CAN’T ESCAPE THE DAMN CHRISTMAS MUSIC. At least Vancouver’s Fine Times does it right. Here’s an original track. Thank you for not covering something that has been covered 1000 times. It’s subtle Christmas at it’s finest. When you get tired of the holiday jingles, add this one to the playlist. - Ride the Tempo
From the “Our First Christmas” collection from Light Organ Records. This song is poignant. - Explore Music
Christmas is happening. No matter how much you fight it, deny it, or run away, it’s happening. Snow has only just barely begin to scrape the ground here in Winnipeg, and the rest of the country still remains largely untouched, but that hasn’t stopped shops from setting up seasonal displays or broadcasters from airing holiday jingles.
The good folks at Vancouver’s Light Organ Records understand this, and instead of running away, they’re full-on embracing it. They dropped their second holiday compilation yesterday, chalk full of choice numbers by artists on the Light Organ roster and friends of the label. Light Organ Records…With Bells On! highlights a host of Vancouver’s gems, from the sultry Adaline, to Mint Records alumni Vancougar, to lo-fi champs Dead Ghosts, easily making this one of the more interesting and dynamic groups of artists to come together to spread some holiday cheer.
Have listen to the record closer, “Subterranean Christmas Blues” by rising pop outfit Fine Times, which trades in the usual Christmas tropes of galloping rhythms and cyclical melodies for slinking bass and drums and sly call/response vocals. And if embracing the season becomes you, then you can grab Light Organ Records…With Bells On! via iTunes. - Soft Signal
Discography
Self-titled album (Light Organ Records)
Release date: TBA 2012
Photos
Bio
When vocalist Matthew Moldowan and bassist Jeffrey Josiah Powell let the name expire on their previous musical act, they walked away from an outfit that never got past the grand planning stage, despite a great record and the approval of the critics.
The two regrouped in 2010 with the idea to be as nimble as possible—and voila, by 2011, they were in the Warehouse studio working on the bed tracks for their debut album on Light Organ Records.
“We scrambled. It really happened all of sudden,” says Moldowan, explaining that producer Howard Redekopp opened a small window, and they jumped in. If it seemed a little reckless, the gamble paid off. He put his personal armory of vintage synths at their disposal, and Moldowan and Powell responded with the kind of inspired, swaggeringly confident pop that Redekopp feasts on. It was a perfect fit.
Trying to account for his own inability to avoid a deadly hook or three, Moldowan offers that “I have a short attention span so if a record doesn’t catch me in the first listen or two, I probably won’t put it back on the record player.” But he’s being a little disingenuous.
You don’t just conjure a heart-melting bridge like the one in “High Brow Low Times” out of a short attention span, and you don’t lay down a grand procession like “Lions”, or take a graceful left turn into afrobeat on “Super Controller” without precision feel for your craft.
And you don’t generally get to collaborate with Howard Redekopp, who is something of a legend round these parts thanks to his work with the New Pornographers, Mother, Mother and Tegan & Sara, among others.
Redekopp completes the Fine Times picture with a sound that’s becoming his signature; a crisp but extra-wide miracle that brings a ringing clarity, brightness and warmth to the record, even when a cloud of white noise engulfs the last minute of the slinky “High Brow Low Times”.
“There are sleigh bells and chimes and 18 tracks of guitars all doing different things, and you can’t really hear specific things, but you know what’s happening is musical…” says Moldowan about the track, although there’s nothing on this luscious, stately pop record that’s any less ear-bending.
From the snakey Elvis Costello power pop of “Television Tel Aviv” to “Hey Judas”, which sounds like Suede gone stadium sized, it’s pretty much an album of 10 singles, all hits. If there’s a lineage of sophisticated, lovingly crafted pop that stretches from Phil Spector, through to Jesus & the Mary Chain, OMD, and MGMT, then Fine Times is sitting somewhere near the end of it.
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