By Kyle Francis
Calgary’s music scene has always been under-appreciated. While Toronto and Montreal are known as hot beds for Canadian music, our isolated town has been tirelessly ploughing on, releasing good music whether anyone else heard it or not. CJSW’s compilation, 90.9 With a Bullet, seeks to reverse this trend while celebrating the station’s 20th anniversary.
The album consists of two CDS chronicling Calgary’s music scene throughout the station’s existence. The first disc doesn’t do much to refute Calgary’s reputation as a punk/garage rock city, offering only a few songs to deviate from this mold. Still, the disc excellently highlights the talent of local favourites like Big Band Theory, Pussymonster and the Ripchords.
On the second disc, the compilation really shines. Here the overlooked diversity of Calgary’s scene is magnified with glorious results. The disc jumps from style to style with glee, taking great delight in sandwiching the pounding intensity of Wagbeard between the synth-pop of Falconhawk and the jazzy stylings of Reverie Sound Revue
Though 90.9 With a Bullet does make some glaring omissions–Calgary’s metal, folk, country and hip-hop scenes are largely overlooked–it does a great job of showing our burgeoning little scene, now if only the rest of the world would notice.