Fresh Snow: I

If I was going to compile my atlas of super-music cities, Toronto would be on there. I’m not going to, but Berlin and Bristol would be circled as well. Oh and Austin, Detroit, San Francisco, Chicago and New York. Ok, there would be lots of places, but Toronto would definitely be on there – as this release from Fresh Snow proves.

The question of how a place becomes a musical ‘scene’ is something for a different voice, but you certainly can hear the other sounds of Toronto through the orchestral and cinematic flourishes that layer Fresh Snow’s tunes. Yet this is not some apocalyptic neo-liberal revanchist OST that other contemporary Torontonians might wish to score. In fact, on the end-credits rolling ‘Helix Pass’ there’s a real jet-age optimism, infused with a lounge-core shininess, fully amplified by echoes of Stereolab and ‘Theme from Casanova’ by The Divine Comedy.

Fresh Snow can also do scuzz with the best of them – the guitars and electronics on ‘French Horse Hall of Fame’ and ‘BMX Based Tactics’ veritably char (although on the latter these give way to yearning second half, which in turn is mirrored by the Mercury Rev stylings of ‘Los Vientos Del Tiempo’). Elsewhere the compass points to Düsseldorf with the incredible motorik wig-out of ‘Saturation Complete’ and then back to Toronto with the tension fuelled melancholy, and brilliantly entitled, ‘Your Thirst for Magic has been Quenched by Death!’

Sometimes a band comes along and takes what you know and love and infuses it with such warmth and passion that it’s irresistible. Fresh Snow are one of those bands. Buy it here.

‘Helix Pass’:

‘Saturation Complete’: