News:: Apple Crisp deliver a stellar zine/comp

It would be easy to separate the fantastic collection of artists Apple Crisp consolidated into their quick hitting compilation, but it would take away from everything that makes Apple Crisp so great. The Kingston based crew puts out records (Apple Crisp Records), runs a terrific concert series (their upcoming festival has bands like Bruce Peninsula and Timbre Timber holding fort and playing free shows), makes videos and puts out a magazine. Basically, they bombard you with art, in whatever medium you chose to digest it.

Their latest endeavor, a compilation mini-mag and cd gives a nice glance into Kingston's music community as past and present residents offer up a song for the CD, but it's the way they package the songs in a tidy little zine roughly the size of your standard CD cover that shows their creativity. It's packed with articles, interviews, and photos about the Kingston scene and kind of whets your appetite for the music you are about to get into. I mean, who doesn't want to read about how Mathias Kom learned to love the ukulele -while they listen to some great music?

Being relatively unfamiliar with the K-town scene (other than the fact Gord Downie and Sarah Harmer once called it home) – I know there are a lot of prisons and they host an annual bocce tournament that jumped the shark once herohill stopped entering it – I was surprised by how many artists grabbed me on first listen. Nich Worby – of Entire Cities fame – offers up the crunchy Tiny Ghosts, and Magic Jordan delivers another brash electro/indie epic, but it was the new discoveries that really made this comp special.

Christina Foster explodes out of the speakers with the bar room, anger-filled folktale, Me and Latoya. Rueben deGroot - a Vancouver ex-pat not only has one of the best EP titles I’ve heard in forever (The Winter of our Discotheque), but a rootsy style that is sure to turn heads. But for me, the album standout came courtesy of The Getrudes. Turn Out the Lights is simply captivating. Somehow mixing tropical vibes with banjo, squeezebox, alt-country and indie pop, their 2008 release is now high on my "How did I miss this band?" list.