Toronto and I have a real love/hate relationship. Having lived in or near this city almost my entire life, with my most recent years spent in Toronto’s east end, I can tell you first hand that she’s far from a perfect beast. Turns out neither am I, so we usually get along just fine.

This whole train of thought got started after a copy of This Beautiful City, the soundtrack to Ed Gass-Donnelly’s film of the same name, made its way to my stereo.  I haven’t seen the film, but a synopsis tells me it centres around a disparate set of characters based in Toronto’s Queen St. West.  As for the soundtrack, one look at the list of heavy-hitters involved had my mouth wattering.

Just feast your eyes on this assortment of contributors: Sunparlous Players, Shad, Andre Ethier, Bryan Webb (of the Constantines) and Dave Mackinnon (of the FemBots, who also produced most of the album) Buck 65, Sebastien Grainger & Jewish Legend, Emilie Mover and The Ghost Is Dancing.  Sweet peanuts that’s an awesome list!

With names like that involved I don’t need to tell you that it’s good (which it is). In fact, I’m tempted to run out and watch the film just to see the sort of backdrop these excellent songs are given. Of course, this isn’t a happy-go-lucky collection of odes to the greatness Hogtown. In fact, the overall tone of this soundtrack is one that lends itself to putting down the rose-coloured glasses and accepting the grit with the sunshine.

Toronto and I have had our share of successes and failures together and great music like this makes me want to keep on tumbling.

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Sunparlour Players - Bless This City

Grab a digital copy of the soundtrack here and look out for the DVD release of the film on Oct. 21.