with Said The Whale
$18 (+ $1.50 tx & sc) - Buy your tickets for this event here
$24 at the door
Doors at 7pm for dinner, Show at 9pm

It’s not easy to label the kind of music Plants and Animals make, but it’s easy for it to feel instantly familiar. Maybe that’s because they record to tape, and their records sound like they could have been made in 1972. But for all their analog warmth, it’s also impossible to deny how raw and recent the songs sound, and harder still to find anything else that sounds quite the same.

Anyone who took their debut, "Parc Avenue", into their home and hearts probably already knows this. Since that album was released in early 2008 the band has played over 100 shows, circling the Western world more than once, including appearances at the Pitchfork Festival in Chicago, Primavera in Barcelona, Central Park Summer Stage with the National, and even one night in Columbus opening for Gnarls Barkley, after Danger Mouse discovered "Parc Avenue" and invited them out. But regardless of where it happened, anyone who has seen the three of them perform live knows that their big sound isn’t some kind of studio wizardry.

Plants and Animals are Warren C. Spicer, Matthew ‘the Woodman’ Woodley, and Nicolas Basque, the product of a musical three-way between two boyhood friends from Canada’s East Coast, and a French-Canadian. As their name suggests, the band has been a creature of evolution from the start. Its first incarnation was entirely instrumental, with loose song structures that built sound around themes and came out like epic folk music. By the time "Parc Avenue" was complete, Warren was singing and some of the songs were even under four minutes.

The only thing that has really remained constant from the beginning is the attention paid to detail in the recording process—whether it be editing tape with razor blades, or spending a whole day micing the drums.

Plants and Animals latest offering, "La La Land", is louder, and tougher, but also showcases them their smoothest and most cohesive to-date. Inspired by a rediscovery of electric guitars, amplification and fuzz pedals, it takes us up and away from "Parc Avenue’s" Montreal-in-the-summer vibe, and out into the rock n’ roll ether. The album was recorded at the band’s home-base studio in Montreal, The Treatment Room, and at Studio La Frette outside Paris, a brokedown old mansion filled with vintage gear and a killer board in the cellar instead of wine.

Though plenty of wine went into the album. As Warren puts it, “the Paris stuff is like a nice Bordeaux and the Montreal stuff is more like a baked potato. Sessions in Paris ended by 10pm, sessions in Montreal by 6am.” Rum and cokes inspired the initial Treatment Room sessions in late 2008. The album’s first track, 'Tom Cruz,' eventually came out of these late nights. As the Woodman tells it, “it was December, pre-Christmas, so we fuelled the session with rum and cokes. They made us feel like Tom Cruise. It gave us killer smiles and made our enemies wither.”

Ultimately it’s this sense of hilarious confidence that currently characterizes Plants and Animals, and also gives "La La Land" its cohesion. The Woodman’s drums sound bigger and groovier, Nic colours the album with extra guitars and keyboards like a mad painter, and Warren’s vocals have taken even more ambitious strides.

In many ways "La La Land" is just as eclectic as "Parc Avenue", from California coast vibes to Montreal winters and Spanish trains. But there’s something more mature holding it all together now. As they might say in the movies, "La La Land" isn’t a place—it’s a state of mind. Plants and Animals have never been a band with much interest in posturing or unnecessary theatrics, but on "La La Land" the curtain isn’t just pulled back, it’s gone entirely.

Said The Whale formed in 2007 as a collaboration between songwriters Ben Worcester and Tyler Bancroft. The pair’s debut "Taking Abalonia EP", featured sunny west coast indie pop, with breezy harmonies, shimmering guitars, and lyrical tributes to their home city of Vancouver. In 2008, the album was re-released as "Howe Sounds/Talking Abalonia", featuring seven additional tracks that stretched the band’s stylistic palate to include bubblegum folk ('The Light Is You'), thundering hard rock ('Last Tree Standing') and gentle ukulele ballads ('The Real of It'). After several personnel changes, the group settled upon a five-piece lineup that includes bassist Peter Carruthers, drummer Spencer Schoening, and keyboardist Jaycelyn Brown. The quintet embarked upon a rigorous touring schedule, crossing Canada numerous times and landing high profile gigs at V-Fest 2008 in Calgary and the nationally televised Canada Day celebration on Parliament Hill.

The group is now poised to take the next step with the release of its latest single, 'Camilo (The Magician).' With its gritty powerchords and sunny powerpop chorus, the single has already been dubbed the “song of the summer” by Grant Lawrence of CBC Radio 3. Produced by Howard Redekopp (Tegan and Sara, The New Pornographers, Mother Mother) and Tom Dobrzanski (Hey Ocean!, The Zolas), it is a staple of the group’s sophomore album, "Islands Disappear". Unlike the west coast focus of previous releases, the new album draws on the experience of driving across Canada, from the van breaking down in Manitoba ('Dear Elkhorn') to camping in Alberta ('Emerald Lake, AB').  With stylistic forays that include backwoods folk ('False Creek Change') and danceable ukulele/glockenspiel rave-ups ('Goodnight Moon'), it’s the sound of a band coming into its own, delivering on the promise of its early recordings.