Best Music You've Never Heard: paper and metal

Ottawa based paper & metal is largely comprised of singer/songwriter Liam Sanipe, now joined by this brother, Kiente. Last June I had the pleasure of being literally blown away by this immensely talented young musician.

Soft spoken and shy, Sanipe's performance on my radio show was one of his first ever in public. Later that evening, he was at Cafe Deckuf for what was a stellar show. paper and metal rarely perform in public; if you get a chance to see a show, grab it.

Sanipe's musical influences are wide. The paper and metal myspace page lists "the notwist, aphex twin, modeselektor, autreche, radiohead, sigur ros, apparat, john mark mcmillan, owen, david bazan, will stratton, akron/family, nick drake, great lake swimmers, 13 & god" as influences. An impressive list, yes, but hardly the way to describe this amazing music. The greatest part of Sanipe's sound is his incredible ability to blend acoustic and electronic music. No easy task for any musician, Sanipe has an innate talent of capturing the essence of both styles/elements of music but also creating a unique blend of the two. (The name 'paper & metal' is a metaphor for these elements.) Check out his E.P. "Battles and Storms" from last year to hear this great music.

Sanipe tells me that he and his brother have been writing songs and are working on a new full length paper and metal record. Liam has been writing a lot of acoustic music lately, and so the brothers should have plenty of material to choose from for a new record. You can check out a couple of samples of new tunes at the paper and metal myspace page.

Listen to paper & metal when you can, and watch this blog for updates.