Marc Riley - 03/09/2009

Marc Riley plays some records while Ohbijou play live in the studio. Plus Rob Hughes drops in with the Parallel Universe. And let's not forget our brace of archive session tracks from Wreckless Eric, the Flaming Lips, the Drowning Craze and Girls at Our Best.Ohbijou, a band who write music that is bound to steal your heart and fill your head with the loveliest and most compelling songs. Born in the bedrooms of a family home in Ontario, Casey Mecija's gentle compositions, bound with youthful frailty and unnerving beauty, found their natural habitat in Toronto. Enlisting the help of her younger sister, Jenny, and friends Heather Kirby and Anissa Hart, Mecija's songs began to take flight. An encounter with James Bunton and Ryan Carley led to further collaboration and the conception of Ohbijou. Andrew Kinoshita soon added his talents to Ohbijou's orchestration. Furnished with mandolin, violin, piano, banjo, cello and an impressive array of other instruments, a seven piece orchestral pop force began to appear on stages around Toronto that quickly affected the landscape of independent music in the city.Mecija pens songs wrought with the romantic afflictions of big city life. She sutures the intimate details of her personal relations to the macrocosmic relations of her city. Dressed with intricate melodies and vocal harmonies arranged by her bandmates, the songs reveal a striking musicality and virtuosity. Ohbijou's music has a seductive beauty, their delicate songs framed by elegant orchestral arrangements. Their emotive music is simultaneously both sad and life-affirming.