If you’ve been following JOVM for the better part of the past year or so. you’ve likely noticed that I’ve mentioned on a number of occasions that I frequently receive emails from a variety of artists, labels, publicity firms, band managers and others across the world. And it makes my personal mission of presenting and covering music from all over the world possible. Late last year, you may have remembered me writing about TIO, a Toronto, ON-based electro pop act, whose first single “Lips Like Wine” was an atmospheric song that consisted of an usual pairing of ethereal and cascading synths with baritone vocals that pulled the song slowly back to earth to remind listeners that their material had a dark and brooding nature at its very heart. 

TIO’s latest single “Day Fort” continues the sound and aesthetic that first caught my attention – ominously swirling electronics, skittering percussion, bursts of angular guitar and cascading synths paired with ethereal falsetto vocals singing lyrics that seem to accurately describe an anxious, paranoid sense of menace. In some way, repeated listens suggest that the duo have been inspired by Nine Inch Nails and early Peter Gabriel, as it evokes the dark and dangerous recesses of the human psyche.