-Formation (June 1997 – October 1997)
Dead Season was one of the many bands formed by ex members of Two Line Filler. Two Line Filler, under the line up of Matt White on vocals, Colin Clark and Al Biddle on guitars, Mike Calder on bass and Jon Drew on drums, had just finished an incredibly successful mid-western/east coast United States tour with The Enkindels (the first Enkindel tour under the new name) in mid-June of 1997. Two Line Filler, then signed to New Red Archives, was considering signing with Arista Records, who had already offered them a deal. Additionally, they...
Cedargate Records was an independent record label from Southern California active in the late 90’s and early 00’s. The label has famously worked with Eighteen Visions, Wrench and The Angel Element and was operated by Zachary “Z1” Phelps (who played in Wrench, Eighteen Visions and more bands discussed bellow).
Cedargate Records’ complete discography is:
cg.1 Wrench “Torture of Restlessness and Vague Desire” CD, December 1998
cg.2 Eighteen Visions “Yesterday Is Time Killed” CD, March 1999
cg.3 The Angel Element “Letters in Dead...
Abridged Pause has been around since 2008. Initially it was started as a full record label, as Abridged Pause Recordings. In 2013, I merged my blog, which was created to write retrospectives of forgotten bands and record label interviews, onto the Abridged Pause website. In just this short year, the blog section outgrew the label in importance and in traffic. The record label’s importance also diminished when I decided that I would only release my own music through it. I felt that it was time to upgrade the Abridged Pause website to reflect the current priorities.
Thanks to the best...
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I had the great pleasure to interview James Marks regarding the record label that he operated during the mid to late 90’s, Utilitarian Records. Throughout the labels’ time, he got to work with many Michigan bands, including Small Brown Bike, Thoughts of Ionesco, Quixote, Lovesick, Cleons Down, Voglio Capirlo, This Robot Kills, Madison, Keleton DMD, Pressgang, The Middletown Project, The Little Rock Nine, M’Sagro Wen and Phillip Rizzi. James has also been the owner of multiple businesses and venues, including The Vegetarian Grocer, a vegan food store and music venue that...
Louis Mistreated was an incredibly melodic emo band from Mississauga, Ontario that somehow escaped the radar of mainstream popularity. But I really feel like they belong up there with Christie Front Drive, Sunny Day Real Estate, Texas Is the Reason and even their local competitor, Sinclaire. As it stands, not much of the memorabilia could be found for this band, apart from all the recordings (of which only the first demo’s artwork was found) and parts of the photoshoots. If anyone has their demos, flyers or anything else baring their name, please leave a comment and help us complete...
Intention Records was a really awesome independent record label from Florida that released some very well remembered records. Those bands include Morning Again, Culture, Reversal of Man, Holocron, Roosevelt and Afterall. The person to thank for documenting this piece of, mostly, Florida history and some of Canada’s, is Jonathan Phillips. All of Intention Records’ releases are long out of print and sold out, so no luck getting some left overs from Jon.
The label’s full discography is
Afterall demo tape (1995)
Roosevelt/Culture split 7″ (May 1995, repressed...
The Association of Welterweights Records was a short lived record label from Ojay, California that existed from 1998 to 2000. Throughout it’s existence it worked with A Sometimes Promise (members of Embassy, Ochre, Stratego, Manumission, Incurable Complaint and A Nation of Lepers), Eighteen Visions, Bleeding Through, Throwdown, Carry On, Adamantium, Death By Stereo and a ton more local California bands. Hopefully this short interview will help to document a label that worked with so many great bands and left behind a documentation of what California hardcore and emo was about in the...
The Separation Suicide formed in January of 2002 as a “best of” band from members of Avarice and Confine. Most members were living in the Hamilton/Oakville/Toronto area of Ontario and came together when Gordon Ball left The Fullblast in late 2001. Gordie recruited ex-Avarice members Simon Bruyn on vocals and John “Tiger Shark” Ouellette on second guitar. Already familiar with them from the Confine/Avarice split CD that was released by Redstar Records in 1998 and a tour the bands did together. Gordon had emailed a bunch of musicians during the Christmas vacation in...
To me, United Edge Records was one of the record labels that I could pickup anything from and know that it was going to be quality metalcore. Same thing for the post-hardcore fad during the mid-2000’s that was practically held up with Textbook Music in the forefront. It was always quality material. The person responsible for that was Andrea “Edge” Goonan. A native Canadian from Saskatchewan, she moved to Calgary, Alberta and then to New York City in 2002 , where she continued the record label operations there. Andrea has moved on to other things and I wanted to interview...
Before Kenobi started, Andrew Tweedy, Peter Read, Stephen Martin and Gunars Kazaks were in several teenager bands that made up the early years of the 90’s. Those included “Twerp”, “Mush” and “Joyjuice”, grunge influenced bands which featured cover songs like Nirvana’s “Breed”, Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” and Guns ‘N Roses’ “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door”. Joyjuice lasted roughly two and a half years, yielded a demo and played nearly twenty shows. But it was in the summer of 1994...
Ellington was one of the most talked about band during the early 2000’s but also one of the most unfortunate and forgotten. Luckily, just enough material was recovered to be able to document this band properly.
Ellington was formed in 2000 with Jeff Legris on bass, Dan Arcari on guitar and Anthony “Wolfman” Spagnolo on drums. The trio had met while attending Cardinal Newman Secondary School, the Catholic school in Stoney Creek, Ontario. After some rehearsals, Jeff asked his high school friend Matt Prisk to come check them out while they jammed at Tony’s house. While...
Editor’s Note: This interview was submitted by long-time fan, supporter and friend, Joanna Marinova in 2013. The answers were completed in February 2014 and is now published on the Abridged Pause Blog.
-Hello Alex! Let me introduce the readers in this interview as we will emphasize on the emotional part of Soufferance. I am very excited to recover my first memories about Soufferance since I was deeply plunged in the atmosphere of the first album which I’ve heard (it was “Travels Into Several Remote Nations of the Mind”). And want to mention that I found it totally by...
It’s almost halfway through February now and I’m just getting to the news update for 2014. Most labels hurried up and got their first label post in the first week on January, but here at Abridged Pause, I’ll take the blame for being late on it. First news, we have an updated icon/thumbnail logo, which you can see above. The original one was created way back in 2008 and was much smaller. With every website going for better, bigger pictures, it was time to get the distorted oldie out and a new more recent one it.
The 2014 plans for Abridged Pause Recordings are as follows:
to...
To the Lions was probably the epitome of Ontario’s 2000 chug-core revival. They were based in Burlington and featured some all-star cast. A while after Grade broke up, Matt Jones and Shawn Magill went to a Bane show on September 11, 2004 at The Kathedral in Toronto and were re-energized to get back into writing hardcore music. They both started jamming together that fall and Matt immediately contacted Ian “Sparkie” Clarke and asked him if he would be interested in being in this new band, as they had gone to the same high school and had similar influences. Sparkie had...
Trevor Dykstra (bassist) and Lee Shepard (guitarist) went to high school together and were always close friends. They started out a band together in 1995, each playing their instrument and signing dual vocals. They went to a lot of shows and that’s how they met their second guitarist, Aaron Scholl and their drummer, Mike Keire, at a New Day Rising show (before Trevor played in the band). However before Bree ever got started, Mike and Aaron had met playing baseball in high school, and Mike, Trevor and Adam Brodie were in a band called 3’s Company. By the time Trevor, Lee and Mike...
John Ouellette and Brendan Munn met in the summer of 1997 at an Ignorance Never Settles concert. After some talk, they decided to form a straight-edge band together and started jamming in the Munns’ basement in Hamilton, Ontario. They wrote a couple of songs with John on guitar and Brendan on drums, then John asked his high school friend and previous band-mate Simon Bruyn to come in on vocals. John came up with the band name, Believe the Lie. The compositions were fierce metallic hardcore in the veins of Confine and Ignorance Never Settles. They asked another mutual friend, Brandon...
Stephane Fania and Robert Kourie met each other in 1986 at CEGEP (College) St. Laurent in Montreal, Canada. Bob played guitar, Steph played keyboards. In the next year and a half they played in two bands together, one was a progressive metal band, the other an alternative rock female-fronted band. It was in the summer of 1987 that Steph starting playing bass and it is with this idea that they posted an add in The Gazette newspaper, looking for a drummer and signer. Stephane Bolduc (known as Steve Bolduc) came in on drums very quickly. After playing a small party show as a three piece that...
Funerary was a metalcore band from Hamilton, Ontario, active for a little under a year in 2000. In late 1999, Chris Logan quit SeventyEightDays. Prior to that, he had played in Chokehold, Burst of Silence, Prayer for a Fallen Angel, Crumble, Manhunt, Bottom Line, Short Fuse and God’s a Poseur. He was then operating the record label Goodfellow Records and working at Sonic Unyon. He had also previously operated two other record labels; Structure Records in the early 1990’s and Sunblister Records (and its fanzine) in the mid-1990’s. In early 2000, Chris started up a new...
Blundermen was a punk band from the Toronto region active in the early 1990’s. I touched up on them briefly when I did the Ragamuffin Soldier Records and Fans of Bad Production Records interviews, but it was time that this band get some proper documentation. Jon, Niall and Pat were amazing enough to help me put together this write up, so here it is!
Pat Laso, Pete Benda (the original guitarist who played their first few shows) and Jon Harvie met at an Ottawa ‘Anarchist Youth’ gathering/gig (Born Against is believed to have played). Through conversation, they figured out...
Abridged Pause Recordings is proud to finally release it’s eighth and ninth releases, Soufferance’s “Bonjour Tristesse” EP and “Adieu Tristesse” LP. Both releases have been four years in the making and finally see the official light of day on November 14th 2013. After going through many producers, art designers and even labels, this album/mini-album concept are finally available to the public. We found the most recent masters of all songs (as they had been played around and edited by various producers and labels over time) and put together sort of a...
“I spent some time dealing with depression in hospitals. It was surrealistic. A lot of people make these albums about mental illness or asylums. It seems to be a trend in dark ambient. But none of them have actually ever been in one or even know what it’s really like. Well I do. And this is MY way of telling it”, explains Alexandre Julien in description of the new Soufferance extended play “Bonjour Tristesse”. He continues “The song “Dementia Præcox” is split into two parts, with an interlude in the middle. I never went “completely...
“I was born when she kissed me, I died when she left me. And I lived a few months while she loved me”. This short but heartfelt phrase is the way Alexandre Julien chooses to describe this new Soufferance album, appropriately titled “Adieu Tristesse”. The title translates to “Goodbye Sorrow”, and is the second release in the “Sorrow”/”Tristesse” phase, which began in November 2009 when this album started being written and recorded. Four years in the making and after going through two unreliable producers, three art designers and...
This compilation could have been a landmark for Canadian hardcore, emo and metalcore of the 1990’s. “Could have been” because it was never released. The fact is no one really knows how close it came to coming out. Usually referred to as the “Benefit for the Buffalo Animal Defense League” but sometimes also as the “Canadian Animal Defense League Benefit”, as it was filled with bands from Canada (more specifically from Southern Ontario). But the proceeds were to go to the Buffalo, NY Animal Defense League, to help them with animal liberation. A true...
The last line-up of Burst of Silence featured Ryan Hollingworth on vocals, Chris Ansley on guitar, Jamie McGinnis on drums and Mike Presseiary on bass. That line-up changed name to Sinsick in late 1995. Jamie and Mike ended up leaving the band by lack of time to commit. Curtis Langridge was living with Ryan and Chris at the time and came (back) on drums, while Ryan’s old friend Dave White would become the bassist. They recorded their first demo in January 1996 at Mainway Studio in Burlington, the same studio that Burst of Silence had used 3 times.
They played their first show at...
This band was pretty obscure under the radar of Canadian metalcore, although their name and members would make you think otherwise. Some of the members have been in quite important bands and I think this one is no different. Fawad Fudd Bokhari (who had sang in Dirge and Day of Mourning) started jamming with Bob Kareer on guitar for a new tough-guy hardcore band, or “moshcore” as the tough guys used to call it, named “A Taste for Blood”, in the early spring of 2003. Influenced by bands like 100 Demons, Stigmata, Merauder, Cold As Life, Irate and All Out War. Fudd was...
In This Defiance, from London, Ontario, formed in March 2005 with Ken Montville on guitar, Matt Bouchard on drums and Ben Kaye (from Clear a Path) on bass. Later that month they were joined by Steve Parkhill on second guitar, who was at the time playing in Restless Are the Dead with Ken and Matt. When it came time to finding a vocalist, Ben suggested his friend Fudd Bokhari (who had fame in Dirge, Day of Mourning and A Taste for Blood), finalized the line-up in April. The band was a very vocal promoter of straight-edge beliefs and was always credited as xIn This Defiancex, or xITDx...
Jonah was one the cult hardcore bands from Quebec in the mid 90s. They certainly hold their place in the top most important Quebec bands and I’m happy to finally shed some light on this gem.
Jonah was formed in autumn of 1995 with Simon Valiquette on vocals, Olivier Maguire and Olivier Roberge on guitars, Carl Rousseau on bass and Hubert Pelletier on drums. All the guys were living in different part of the south shore, but they rehearsed in Saint-David in the same space as Drift. The name “Jonah” was taken from a character in Simon’s psychological studies book on split...
Jude the Obscure had a very comfortable place in the Ontario math-core/noisecore scene throughout its existence. I believe they were the first to be called “chaoticore”. Prior to the forming of this band, Grant Freifeld (“Fuzz” on bass), Jason Rice (“Jaundice” on drums) and Chuck Leach (“the Bank”/”Bankenstein” on guitar) played together in a slew of Grimsby, Ontario high school bands, often changing name every few months. When in 1998 they decided to go “heavier”, they asked a guy in their high school who was wearing a...
Acrid was a sludgy/doomy/grindy-metalcore band from Mississauga that was initiated by Neil Rodman on vocals, Jeff Almond on guitar and Dave Buschemeyer on drums. This was in November of 1995, right after Jeff Almond had quit Ignorance Never Settles (he was still playing bass in Montgomery 21). They didn’t have a bassist and Ryan Hunter (still in Ignorance Never Settles) was brought in. Dave was also from the same scene, having played in the pre-INS band Unheard and playing guitar in New Day Rising at the time. Neil Rodman was a friend of New Day Rising who rehearsed with them and...
Unheard was a Canadian metalcore band from Mississauga, Ontario, founded by Mike Charette and his friend Dave Buschemeyer, after Dave was kicked out of Sun Still Burns in September 1993. The duo recruited Ian Pryde on vocals and went in to record their first demo tape “Stillness” in February of 1994. They didn’t have a drummer so Adam Brylowski was brought in for the one-night recording session. By March, the band had recruited Matt Coles on drums and booked a show at the Opera House in Toronto. For this “one and only Unheard show”, Ryan Hunter was welcomed on...
-The Formation
Montgomery 21 was a Canadian brit-pop influenced emo band from Mississauga, Ontario, known for featuring (and mostly made up of) members of New Day Rising. Vocalist and guitarist Chris Gray formed the band in the fall of 1995, composing the core music and lyrics; with Jeff Almond on bass and Adam Brylowski (former drummer of Unheard and guitarist in New Day Rising) on drums. The band name was influenced by a book that Chris was reading about the civil rights movement, which included a location and a chapter. After playing their first three shows in late 1995, Jeff left to...
-Face Down (Spring 1993 – September 1993)
Face Down was a hardcore band from Oakville, Ontario. No doubt that you will recognize the names of many of these members, as they would go on to great fame with their later musical endeavors. Through going to hardcore shows in the Hamilton, Ontario and Buffalo, New York areas, Matt Jones met Dave Buschemeyer and Tim Dywelska, who were both jamming together in Mississauga. They connected through similar influences; Gorilla Biscuits, Turning Point, Outspoken and a lot of the new metalcore wave, Snapscase, Framework and Earth Crisis. Matt set up...
Gates of Dawn is one of the obscure bands from Ontario that just doesn’t seem to have reached anywhere to be remembered. I had to dig far to get info from this band out. This band was fronted by Nat Coté with Adam Bratt and Paul Charpentier on guitars, Alexandra Lamoureux on bass and Mike Maxymuik on drums. Each came from different parts of Ontario; Mike and Adam from Hamilton, Paul from Guelph, Nat from Brantford and Alex from Burlington. They all went to a French high school in Hamilton, so they all practiced at Mike’s house after school on Fridays. The band was around for a...
-Chapter 1: From “Boize” to “Emissary” (May 1993 – July 1993)
Emissary was a bluesy heavy metal band from Montreal, Canada. Founded in June of 1993, the band was a direct continuation of Boize, whose final line-up made the decision to change the band’s name. Stephane Fania, bassist, and Robert Kourie, guitarist, had been making music together since 1986 after meeting at College Saint-Laurent in the Ville Saint-Laurent region of Montreal. Some of their early bands together include Alter-Ego (previously known as Unmarked), a new wave project active from...
Jonathan Thomas is a bit of a forgotten gem in the history of Ontario emo hardcore. In late 1994 Kyle Bishop was singing in Grade but felt that it wasn’t enough, so he bought his first guitar and started writing a couple of songs. At the time he was living at the “Wheatfield House” (on Stratton Road in Burlington) with Matt Jones. Kyle had also been friends with Alexandra and Eric Lamoureux for a couple of years and always wanted to start a band with one of them on bass. So Kyle (guitar and vocals) and Eric (bass) joined up to start an emo band in the veins of Julia, Union...
-The Foundation (May 1989 – December 1989)
Boize (pronounced Boys) was a heavy metal band from Montreal, Quebec, Canada, founded by guitarist Robert Kourie (aka Floyd Harem), and bass guitarist and keyboardist Stephane Fania (aka Zany Shultz) in May of 1989. Fania and Kourie had been composing music together since 1986, after meeting at Saint-Lawrence College in the Town of Saint-Lawrence borough in Montreal. At the time, Fania lived with his parents in Saint-Leonard, an east-end district of Montreal, while Kourie lived, also with his parents, in Duvernay, a southern district of Laval (then...
This interview was conducted with Alexandre Julien for the Abridged Pause Blog on August 30th of 2013.
-Hello Alex. Thank you for taking the time to answer these few questions. First of all, what has been happening with Vision Éternel since you released “The Last Great Torch Song” last year?
Thanks for having me over! I’m always happy to do interviews. The current status of Vision Éternel is delicate. When I released “The Last Great Torch Song“, Vision Éternel’s fourth EP, in March of 2012, I speculated that it may be the last Vision Éternel album...
We just filmed a quick video to show you what the new Soufferance “Travels” boxset looks like. Yes there are pictures already but this is better! And besides what more can you ask for than the artist talking about his work, right? By-the-way, keep an eye out for a special cameo appearance towards the end! You can purchase the boxset on our Bandcamp page.
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Since this blog mainly concentrates on band and label posts, I found it hard to include various artists compilations. Here is where they will be posted. These will be compilations released by Canadian record labels or compilations that feature principally Canadian bands on them. Generally speaking, compilations here will be considered “a compilation representing something of Canada”.
This list is ever growing, so check back monthly! And if you have requests, please post them in the “reply” box below!
51-4-50: Montreal Hardcore Compilation (Die Hard Records...
Due to Bandcamp restrictions, you must visit our Bandcamp page to purchase the boxset.
When we found out from Soufferance that their fans had trouble getting their hands on their CDs, we set ourselves the goal to do something about it. The problem was not in production but in distribution. But we decided to look at it a little differently, maybe due to an avant-garde way that we have here at Abridged Pause. During the last 2 decades, when a record label signed a new band and wanted to distribute their back catalog, all they would do is re-issue them. We found that a little too simple and...
We are proud to officially announce our first real news of working with dark ambient project Soufferance. Soufferance has been making music since the summer of 2006 and has always been very impressive with each of their release. Not only has Soufferance’s music been intertwined with deep concepts but the artwork and packaging has always been impressive and on a professional scale. It is with this in mind that we are going to be working with Soufferance from now on.
To start off our collaboration, we are at the very moment putting together a boxset entitled “Travels”, to...
Soufferance is the artbient project founded by Alexandre Julien in September of 2006. Obsessed by the film noir genre and determined to self-deteriorate himself further with each new release by a concept analysed to perfection. The goal is to simply interpret a stretched-out life in an artistic manner and document the process. But Soufferance doesn’t make music to be categorized or easily appreciated by the average person. It’s nearly impossible to find any ambient projects that sound anything like this. On a first listen, one could assume it is a film soundtrack, which is in...
Oceanus is an absolutely mesmerizing post-black metal band from the UK. Alexander Fawcett has been a close collaborator of Abridged Pause Recordings and it is with pure delight that Oceanus will be featured on the “Diluvian Temperals” compilation follow-up being put together by Abridged Pause Recordings in 2013. Keep posted for more news soon.
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Firestorm was one of the early “all-star bands” that formed in Southern Ontario. Matt White (from Two Line Filler) used to go down to Hamilton during his summer vacations. In late 1992, he hooked up with Ryan Hollingworth, Christian McMaster and Sam Mamone from Burst of Silence and Josh Fletcher from Chokehold, into what would become Firestorm. No one remembers what they named themselves after, but at the time, Earth Crisis’s EP wasn’t out yet, they recorded it at the same time as this band was forming. Through out that summer they wrote some emotional hardcore that...
I would like to officially announce that a new various artists compilation is in the works at Abridged Pause Recordings! After the immense success of our last compilation, “Diluvian Temperals”, (which was also our very first release ), we decided that we should show off what this music scene is up to three years later. Some of the bands on this compilation will be familiar to you, either from “Diluvian Temperals” or from our roster of bands, some will be brand new to our label. But all have something moving to share and we want it to hit you at the gut level. We hope...
Černá is one of the most brilliant post-black metal acts out there at the moment. Abridged Pause Recordings is working on a follow-up compilation to “Diluvian Temperals” and Černá will be taking part of it. Keep checking back for more news.
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Brainscan started out in the summer of 2012 as an extension for Eliminator to pursue more politically touchy subjects. This change also welcomed a new sound, including shoegaze and dream pop. The term “dream thrash” was coined by Eliminator with their demo of the same name, which can be considered be a prequel to “Brainscan”. That same summer, Brainscan recorded their first EP, “Connor NOOOO!!!!”, featuring Eliminator’s Samus Paulicelli on drums. This was soon followed by their demo “You’re Part of it”, which introduced...
Citadel Swamp was an international atmospheric dark ambient project founded in October of 2010 by Canadian musician Alexandre Julien. At the time the project consisted of Alexandre Julien (who also played in Vision Éternel, Soufferance, Éphémère and Vision Lunar) on guitar and bass and Norwegian musician Bruno Duarte (who also performed as Immundus) on keyboard, effects, samples and noises.
Before Alexandre and Bruno had a chance to start working on the first Citadel Swamp song, a second keyboardist, effects, samples and noises musician was brought into the band in mid-January of 2011...
Wavre is the newest venture from Garry Brents, this time teaming up with Dominique Patton. The duo was immediately approached by Abridged Pause Recordings to release their first album, as well as feature them on the follow-up compilation to “Diluvian Temperals” that Abridged Pause is putting out in 2013. Keep posted for more news.
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