Milk & Bone at the Bootleg Theater by Steven Ward
Canadian indietronica band Milk & Bone returned to the Bootleg Theater on Tuesday night to play songs from their recent debut album Deception Bay. Comprised of the musical and singing talents of Laurence Lafond-Beaulne and Camille Poliquin, the duo offer a quietly affecting and rejuvenating texture to electropop in the form of their stunning harmonies. From behind the thick sheet of darkness that blanketed them, Lafond-Beaulne and Poliquin orchestrated all the subtle but vivifying emotions that spill from their songs with a loving grace. Ethereal croons mingled with jumpy beats and drum machine taps in the empty spaces between the duo and the crowd, their words crystalized rumination, cutting deep.
Milk & Bone at the Bootleg Theater by Steven Ward
Enrapturing with the crowd with ease, Milk & Bone have an obvious knack for the [video_lightbox_youtube video_id=4ODOOwkI-1A width=300 height=280 anchor=flirtations between mood and sound] that are so essential to the atmospheric nature of their music. Both Lafond-Beaulne and Poliquin singer/songwriting talents are indispensable to the project, which alongside their lucid harmonies and [video_lightbox_youtube video_id=76eQBbXUKqo width=300 height=280 anchor=soul-puncturing rhythms], add an overlay of organic texture that is so often missed by contemporaries in the genre. Their songs relish in the sparse and quiet places that exist between their melodies and words, but they also never neglect the importance of either. Songs like [video_lightbox_youtube video_id=NPYTWsCMTtA width=300 height=280 anchor=”Pressure”] and [video_lightbox_youtube video_id=MP0sLKCAo3o width=300 height=280 anchor=”Daydream”] range in the density of their lyricism, but both never emerge as trite or weak, instead, both are lush in their use of synth dreaminess and lyrical value.
Dizzy at the Bootleg Theater by Steven Ward
[video_lightbox_youtube video_id=7K6WKkUIJSw width=300 height=280 anchor=Dizzy]opened for Milk & Bone, offering their fleshed-out, suburbia-inspired ballad-rock tunes. Made-up of brothers Charlie, Alex and Mackenzie Spencer and their friend Katie Munshaw, Dizzy have all the makings of a band you’re going to be hearing a lot more about in the future. Rooted enough in the familiar to be recognizable, it’s what sets them apart that is so gleefully fun. Munshaw’s vocal duties see her embodying a wide-variety of roles, employing a passionate vulnerability amidst the band’s ambitious melodies which just as much mimic that sect of early indie-rock fascination with the atmosphere of sound. A cover of Arcade Fire’s “The Suburbs” also did not go unnoticed, breathing moody reimaginings of the song’s folk-rock medley into a deeper reflection of its underlying angst.
