Breeze – Only Up (2021) – LITTLE LOST CLASSICS

Josh Korody is a stamped figure of the Canadian indie scene, more specifically from Toronto. He has worked – as a producer, arranger, musician, lyricist and the like – with a host of local artists, from Fucked Up to high Tess Parks, and in addition to being one half of the noisy duo Beliefs and producing electronics under the alias Nailbilter, since 2012 the guy plays a project called Breeze.

Well, that project was born almost as an arm of Beliefs, based on the dreamy guitars of dream pop, but who knows why from the first records there in 2017 until Only upthe 2021 album that is out here now, the guy took a turn in his creations and so we arrive at an album that is, from beginning to end, the purest cream of Madchester version of the 1920s.

From “Come around” that opens the package to the title track that closes it, Only up seems to have come straight from the baggy laboratory that gave us Happy Mondays, Stone Roses, Charlatans, Inspiral Carpets and everyone else who, from the second half of the eighties onwards, infected the C-86 genetic heritage with the ‘fried melt’ of acid house fueled by good ecstasy pills.

The album was released by Hand Drawn Dracula (a small and interesting independent label from Toronto where albums by No Joy and Holy Fuck have already been released, among many others) and features a series of special guest appearances, from the aforementioned Tess Parks to members of Broken Social Scene and TOPS, all friends of Korody.

But these are technical details, and they definitely don’t make my mind like the harmonica of “Ecstasy on Keele street” and “Only up” or the runway pique of “Hard Boiled Wonderland” and the ‘Gang of Fourniana’ (hahahaha) “Our scene”.

Nothing here will change your life or the face of current music. But if you press play and turn up the volume, you’ll have fun for sure. Top up.