This week’s (late) artist of the week is the Tokyo Police Club! I decided to go with a big name this week – can’t always be posting about relatively/extremely niche artists ALL the time.

Tokyo Police Club was formed in Newmarket, Ontario (The very northern reach of the Greater Toronto Metro Area, for those non-local) in 2005, and have been consistently well received and popular. They are described as a indie, alternative, and/or post-punk revival band – the genre can change quite a bit throughout the years, and even between songs on the same album. In terms of raw listen numbers, it would appear that their most popular songs are from around 2010, with Bambi, part of the 2010 Champ album, being their most listened song. Their second most popular song is Your English is Good from the 2008 Elephant Shell album.

Their music DEFINITELY sounds like late 2000s and 2010s indie music. So if you are a millenial and that is your jam, you’ll be eating good listening to this band. I personally dislike that kind of music, but I LOVED their song Tunnel Vision from their 2014 Forcefield album. That song is much more punk than their usual songs, so needless to say I got extreme genre whiplash listening to their other songs.

The band existed all the way from 2005 and only disbanded very recently in 2024 after doing 4 farewell shows in Toronto. They also dropped two final singles by the name of Just A Scratch and Catch Me If You Can in the same year.

Direct spotify link this time because I am on city wifi and they are nerds who have tapelink.io blocked. Again, if anyone has any nicer solutions for easily (and legally - I don’t want that heat) sharing music, I’m open to suggestions.

Apologies for being missing for a few weeks there. I’ve been focused at work (3 part times jobs, kill me) and practicing my French as well as trying to get back into recreationally reading history books again. Been reading lots about the voyages of Jacques Cartier and the Basque & Norman whalers who actually beat him to the punch in exploring (well, fishing the gulf at least) Quebec. Apparently there were even a half dozen or so attempted, albeit half heartedly, Spanish settlements in Quebec long before the French had any sizable presence! Some areas and towns in Newfoundland actually originate from Basque/Spanish names. Fascinating stuff.