Tag: Paper Bag Records

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: sundayclub Shares Anthemic “Blue Wave”

Winnipeg-based indie duo sundayclub — Courtney and Nikki — have quickly cemented a sound and approach that blends hazy indie pop and dreamy textures with unfiltered storytelling. The result is material that’s much like blurry photograph, grainy yet glowing, fleeting yet full of feeling and life. 

The duo’s nine-song, self-titled, full-length debut is slated for a July 10, 2026 release through Paper Bag Records. Their debut is deeply informed by the stillness of rural Manitoba, where the duo started the band as a way of processing the very strange limbo of early adulthood — that feeling of being caught between who you once were and who you’re slowly becoming. Fittingly, the album is rooted in place: in a romanticized, re-examined Winnipeg with its hard edges softened in the way that memory often soften things. Thematically, the album touches upon growing up, growing apart and growing into your own skin. 

The album includes the previously released “Camera Shy,” and the album’s latest single “Blue Wave.” Built around a motorik pulse, fuzzy guitars and a euphoric, sing-along worthy hook and chorus, “Blue Wave” is an uptempo rousingly anthemic layered with three drum kits — and the product of over 170 vocal takes. Much like its predecessor, there’s a hauntingly bittersweet undertone to the song with the single leaning into the feeling of “pre-nostalgia,” which happens when you experience nostalgia in real time and began to feel as though you might miss the current moment before it’s passed. The song also references Courtney’s first car, a 2009 blue Pontiac Wave, lovingly named Trudy after its previous owner, and the memories Courtney and Nikki associated with the car — and with a specific period of their lives. So, in some way, the car was a bit of a time machine, and a way to explore the fuzzy and hazy spacers between the past and present.

“This song reminisces on the early days of a relationship in the midst of inner turmoil and uncertainty over what the future might hold,” Carmichael explains. “It’s about wanting to be a different, better, and more evolved version of yourself despite not being there yet, and seeking escapism in the past as a way to find solace. I felt impossibly restless at the time of writing the song and was just generally tired: tired of feeling like I wasn’t progressing, tired of being patient with the record we were making, tired of feeling vulnerable and overlooked. By looking back into the past, I could escape into a feeling of wistfulness to distract myself from how frustrated I was in the present.”

Directed by Qran Zhu, the accompanying video for “Blue Wave” was shot in Toronto and follows a young couple in love, who decided to steal two old bikes and go for a joyride. But what originally was young and mischievous whimsy turns into something much more dangerous and eventually tragic.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Winnipeg’s sundayclub Shares Wistful, Bittersweet “Camera Shy”

Winnipeg-based indie duo sundayclub — Courtney and Nikki — have quickly cemented a sound and approach that blends hazy indie pop and dreamy textures with unfiltered storytelling. The result is material that’s much like blurry photograph, grainy yet glowing, fleeting yet full of feeling and life.

The duo’s nine-song, self-titled, full-length debut is slated for a July 10, 2026 release through Paper Bag Records. Their debut is deeply informed by the stillness of rural Manitoba, where the duo started the band as a way of processing the very strange limbo of early adulthood — that feeling of being caught between who you once were and who you’re slowly becoming. Fittingly, the album is rooted in place: in a romanticized, re-examined Winnipeg with its hard edges softened in the way that memory often soften things. Thematically, the album touches upon growing up, growing apart and growing into your own skin.

The forthcoming album’s latest single “Camera Shy” is a superficially euphoric tune that actually expresses an underlying bittersweet ache, featuring Courtney’s wistful yet dreamy delivery ethereally floating over swirling shoegazer textures and atmospheric synths. The result is a song that’s simultaneously cinematic and deeply personal — with the song describing a hazy New Year’s Eve that starts off full of promise but somehow spirals out of control, and ends somewhere you and others never intended or even wanted. The song also orbits around a tension the band knows intimately: the compulsion to document and be documents versus the desire to simply disappear into a moment. There’s an acknowledgment that being seen, and being photographed, filmed, captured comes with the territory, even when you’re not quite feeling up to it.

The band add: “It’s about a good night gone very wrong — one of those back and forth, hazy NYE nights bound for absolute disaster. It references our obsession with the ‘moment’ and ever-present FOMO, but also introduces Court’s complicated feelings towards being photographed or ‘captured,’ as it’s referred to in the song. It can get really overwhelming and all-consuming when so much of your energy is put into your physical looks, especially when you just don’t feel like being in the spotlight.”

Directed by Qran Zhu, the accompanying video for “Camera Shy” captures a young couple in love, celebrating New Year’s Eve — with all the bright hopes and dreams of the upcoming year and future before the night spirals out of control with a drunken confrontation during a sundayclub show that leaves one of our protagonists by themselves just before midnight.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Living Hour Shares Fuzzy and Simmering “Wheel”

Acclaimed Winnipeg-based indie quintet Living Hour — Sam Sarty (vocals, multi-instrumentalist), Gil Carroll (guitar), Adam Soloway (guitar, vocals), Brett Ticzon (bass, keys) and Issac Tate (drums) — will be releasing their Melina Duterte, a.k.a. Jay Som-produced fourth album Internal Drone Infinity through Keeled Scales and Paper Bag Records on October 17, 2025. Initially known for their lush fusion of dream pop and shoegaze, the Canadian quintet have continually evolved throughout their history, gradually merging folk-inflected slowcore, fuzzy indie pop and hazy noise rock into a sound that’s expansive and emotionally piercing.

Internal Drone Infinity was recorded during the stark, isolating cold of a Manitoba/Winnipeg November. Duterte flew in the day after performing on Saturday Night Live with Boygenius, and the energy of that whirlwind transition seeped into record’s intimate yet vast emotional core.

Drawing from Yo La Tengo, Magnolia Electric Co., The Weakerthans, Feeble Little Horse, Yuck and DIIV, Internal Drone Infinity sees Living Hour reportedly crafting a striking sonic atmosphere, full of icy, melodic vocals, grainy textures, twangy warmth, screeching distortion and immersive percussion. Thematically, the album explores the cyclical process of observation, documentation and projection. While being a raw, commanding expansion of their long-held dreamy sound, the album’s material also gives voice to the quiet strength and simmering rage of the overlooked.

Before I forget, drums on two album tracks, “Wheel” and “Texting” were recorded by The Weakerthans’ Jason Tait at his Winnipeg home studio.

The forthcoming album’s first single “Wheel” is angsty and fuzzy, 120 Minutes MTV-era alternative rock-like track, which features arguably some of the biggest and catchiest hooks and choruses they’ve written or recorded paired with the band’s unerring knack for breezy melodies. But just underneath the surface, the song is a tale of simmering and uneasy rage about being taken advantage of — and unnecessarily being put in danger.

“The story of ‘Wheel’ begins with buying a car off Facebook Marketplace in BC,” the band’s Sam Sarty explains. “Turns out the car was junk, but I had no choice but to drive it home to Winnipeg. It took 3 days. I was driving through the mountains, and the headlights were so dim, and for a stretch there was nowhere to turn off. It felt like a weird, horrific video game–navigating the road and dodging danger and trying not to die. I also felt so deeply betrayed by all the men involved in the whole thing.  

“These men feel like a series of characters now. I felt so powerless in this weird system that prioritizes men and their opinions. In this song, I was able to imagine an alternate reality where I’m a vengeful spectator in these men’s lives. What if I had died on the road, and what if I came back and plagued them all with my powerful essence that they so easily dismissed, contorted and took advantage of in order to sell me a fucked up car?”

“I fantasized about how it would feel to ‘fall off the wheel’ and lean into this witchy, monstered realm of existence where men are de-centered. One where I would have no hesitation to put those men in the same danger they put me in.”

Filmed by Leigh Lugosi, the accompanying video for “Wheel” was shot on VHS and features the band performing the song in the studio, doing band hang out/photo shoot kind of stuff, as well as goofing off. And fittingly, it feels like it could have aired on 120 Minutes back in the day.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Live Footage: FRANKIIE Performs “Cruel”

Vancouver-based dream pop/psych pop outfit FRANKIIE — founding members Francesca Carbonneau (vocals, guitar) and Nashlyn Lloyd (vocals, synth, guitar), along with Trevor Stöddärt (drums) and Jody Glenham (bass) — can trace their origins back to 2013: The band’s first lineup, which featured Carbonneau and Lloyd with Samantha Lancaster and Zoe Fuhr, met and rehearsed for what was initially meant to be a one-off gig that December. But at tehe time, each of the band’s members felt such an instant and undeniable creative chemistry that they decided they needed to go at it full-time. Within a relatively short period of time, they wound up touring across much of North America, including opening for The Charlatans on the East Coast. 

The Canadian band’s Jason Corbett-produced full-length debut, 2019’s Forget Your Head featured “Compare,” a lush and shimmering track with the sort of anthemic hooks that reminded me of 80s New Wave and JOVM mainstays Wax Idols. 

Slated for a June 2, 2023 release through Paper Bag Records, the Vancouver-based outfit’s long awaited sophomore album, the Jason Corbett-produced Between Dreams reportedly weaves elements of reverb-soaked dream pop, vintage classic rock, bedroom psych and beachy shoegaze into a seamless soundscape meant to evoke a world in which dreams and reality are part of one continuum, where there are no borders, and magic abounds — seemingly everywhere. 

Between Dreams explores our lived experiences in a world constantly shifting and twisting abruptly around us. “What is the dream and what’s reality? What’s normal anymore and does it really matter because you’re just experiencing it all anyways,” the band’s Nashlyn Lloyd says in press notes. “I think that’s all we’re trying to do: just be in this experience and embrace it fully.”

Francesca Carbonneau explains that the boundary-free feeling emerged when the band started writing the album’s material during pandemic enforced lockdown and thereafter. “It was this weird ‘between dreams’ state because nothing was normal, or at least not how it was and we just had to carry on like everyone else,” Carbonneau says. Naturally, that influenced an overall attitude in which control and power were relinquished to some degree; whatever happened creatively would be explored. “These songs were following a sense of intuition, and not really trying to have them be anything but what instinctively came out. There was no attempt to stick to a certain genre, or take ourselves too seriously.”

Most of Between Dreams‘ material was written at the band’s dark, moldy jam space in East Vancouver, with extra pieces written at home or on writing retreats to rural British Columbia. Some of the album’s songs were written with a rotating cast of collaborators, including previous bassist Vickie Sieczka, new bassist Jody Glenham and drummer Trevor Stöddärt, while others were written with the help of a drum machine they nicknamed “Chad.” (“Chad’s so great, he always shows up on time,” Lloyd quips.) 

Eight of the album’s tracks were recorded with producer Jason Corbett at Jacknife Sound and two with Connor Head at Victoria, BC-based Catalogue Studio. As the band explains, the recording sessions were full of fresh energy and vision: Glenham and Stöddärt lent new angles to the album’s material, while the world’s standstill allowed the band the time to build out the album’s sonic world. (During part of the recording sessions, the band’s Lloyd had to figure out how to sing while nine months pregnant.)

Jeremy Wallace Maclean, best known for his experience composing for film and TV, mixed the album, giving the material a broad, cinematic scope. For Lloyd and Carbonneau, the record marks an attainment of a sound they’ve been chasing for years. Carbonneau quotes Miles Davis: “Man, sometimes it takes a long time to sound like yourself…and this is the closest we’ve gotten so far,” she adds with a laugh.

Earlier this year, I wrote about album opening track “Visions.” Rooted in old-school attention to craft, “Visions” sees the Vancouver-based outfit pairing a laid-back Laurel Canyon/Fleetwood Mac-like groove with a shimmering melody and Carbonneau and Lloyd’s soaring harmonies. The song — to me, at least — evokes a half-remembered, waking dream; the sort in which you have a lingering and unshakable sense of déja vu that you can’t put your finger on. 

“‘When dreams and memories entangle with our present moment, we can begin to question our entire reality. ‘Visions’ is about that feeling, about sensing something beyond what’s happening right in front of you…as if right below the surface, anything you’ve ever lost is there; waiting for you to reach out your hand and grab it back,” FRANKIIE’s Carbonneau explains. “Like déja vu, which is something I experience frequently, a single moment can feel surreal, strange and yet strikingly familiar all at once.“

“Cruel,” Between Dreams‘ third and latest single is a jangling and reverb-soaked, 70s AM rock-inspired anthem that sonically meshes Fleetwood Mac with elements of dream pop and jangle pop — and thematically nods at Carly Simon‘s “You’re So Vain.” Out of the album’s previously released singles “Cruel” features one of the most rousingly anthemic choruses the band has written to date. “In an age of celebrated self-absorption, we were inspired to write this song about a fictitious character that we sing back and forth with. It is essentially an amalgamation of all the narcissists we’ve ever met and in turn we want nothing to do with,” the band says.

The accompanying live footage, captures the band playing the song with a joyful abandon.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Vancouver’s FRANKIIE Shares Gorgeous “Visions”

Vancouver-based dream pop/psych pop outfit FRANKIIE — founding members Francesca Carbonneau (vocals, guitar) and Nashlyn Lloyd (vocals, synth, guitar), along with Trevor Stöddärt (drums) and Jody Glenham (bass) — can trace their origins back to 2013: The band’s first lineup, which featured Carbonneau and Lloyd with Samantha Lancaster and Zoe Fuhr, met and rehearsed for what was initially meant to be a one-off gig that December. But each of the band’s members at the time felt such an instant and undeniable creative chemistry that they decided they needed to go at it full-time. Within a relatively short period of time, they wound up touring across much of North America, including opening for The Charlatans on the East Coast.

The band’s Jason Corbett full-length debut, 2019’s Forget Your Head featured “Compare,” a lush and shimmering track with the sort of anthemic hooks that reminded me of 80s New Wave and JOVM mainstays Wax Idols.

Slated for a June 2, 2023 release through Paper Bag Records, the Vancouver-based outfit’s long awaited sophomore album, the Jason Corbett-produced Between Dreams reportedly weaves elements of reverb-soaked dream pop, vintage classic rock, bedroom psych and beachy shoegaze into a seamless soundscape meant to evoke a world in which dreams and reality are part of one continuum, where there are no borders, and magic abounds — seemingly everywhere.

Between Dreams explores our lived experiences in a world constantly shifting and twisting abruptly around us. “What is the dream and what’s reality? What’s normal anymore and does it really matter because you’re just experiencing it all anyways,” the band’s Nashlyn Lloyd says in press notes. “I think that’s all we’re trying to do: just be in this experience and embrace it fully.”

Francesca Carbonneau explains that the boundary-free feeling emerged when the band started writing thea album’s material during pandemic enforced lockdown and thereafter. “It was this weird ‘between dreams’ state because nothing was normal, or at least not how it was and we just had to carry on like everyone else,” Carbonneau says. Naturally, that influenced an overall attitude in which control and power were relinquished to some degree; whatever happened creatively would be explored. “These songs were following a sense of intuition, and not really trying to have them be anything but what instinctively came out. There was no attempt to stick to a certain genre, or take ourselves too seriously.”

Most of Between Dreams‘ material was written at the band’s dark, moldy jam space in East Vancouver, with extra pieces written at home or on writing retreats to the British Columbia’s rural areas. Some of the album’s songs were written with a rotation cast of collaborators, including previous bassist Vickie Sieczka, new bassist Jody Glenham and drummer Trevor Stöddärt, while others were written with the help of a drum machine they nicknamed “Chad.” (“Chad’s so great, he always shows up on time,” Lloyd quips.)

Eight of the album’s tracks were recorded with producer Jason Corbett at Jacknife Sound and two with Connor Head at Victoria, BC-based Catalogue Studio. As the band explains, the recording sessions were full of fresh energy and vision: Glenham and Stöddärt lent new angles to the album’s material, while the world’s standstill allowed the band the time to build out the album’s sonic world. (Lloyd had to figure out how sing while nine months pregnant.)

Jeremy Wallace Maclean, best known for his experience composing for film and TV, mixed the album, giving the material a broad, cinematic scope. For Lloyd and Carbonneau, the record marks an attainment of a sound they’ve been chasing for years. Carbonneau quotes Miles Davis: “Man, sometimes it takes a long time to sound like yourself…and this is the closest we’ve gotten so far,” she adds with a laugh.

Between Dreams‘ latest single, album opening track “Visions” is rooted in an old-school attention to craft: a laid-back Laurel Canyon/Fleetwood Mac-like groove is paired with a shimmering and breathtakingly gorgeous melody and Carbonneau and Lloyd’s soaring harmonies. The song — to me, at least — evokes a half-remembered, waking dream; the sort in which you have a lingering and unshakable sense of déja vu that you can’t put your finger on.

“‘When dreams and memories entangle with our present moment, we can begin to question our entire reality. ‘Visions’ is about that feeling, about sensing something beyond what’s happening right in front of you…as if right below the surface, anything you’ve ever lost is there; waiting for you to reach out your hand and grab it back,” FRANKIIE’s Carbonneau explains. “Like déja vu, which is something I experience frequently, a single moment can feel surreal, strange and yet strikingly familiar all at once.“

Directed by Brandon Fletcher, the accompanying video for “Visions” is fittingly a hazy and gorgeously shot, romantic dream: We see the band brooding and vamping in a suburban house at golden hour, lush superimpositions and more. The video manages to further emphasize the video’s dreamy air.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Princess Century Releases a Yearning and Cinematically Shot Visual for “Desperate Love”

Acclaimed Canadian-born DJ, producer and songwriter Maya Postepski may be best known for her feature-length film scores, global DJ gigs and her work collaborating with Austra, Peaches and JOVM mainstay TR/ST. Postepski is also the creative mastermind behind Princess Century, a recording project that thematically and sonically is committed to submersion rather than submission. 

s u r r e n d e r, Postepski’s long-anticipated sophomore Princess Century effort is slated for an October 1, 2021 release through Paper Bag Records. Reportedly, the album finds the acclaimed DJ, producer and songwriting breaking away from the purely instrumental sound and approach that initially won her international acclaim, by showcasing her own lyrics and vocal performances. The process, as Postepski readily admits has been at times nerve-wracking and uneasy: “It’s like opening up my diary and saying, ‘Have a look, there’s a lot of weird shit in there,’” she laughs. “I’ve always been hiding in the back behind a band or behind a singer,” she continues. “It’s my first step into a more vulnerable and exposed place, which I’m finally okay with for the first time in my adult life. I guess I stopped caring about being shy or being insecure, or hiding who I am. I don’t like to be in the limelight, but life is short and I guess I should share who I am eventually.”

The album’s material was written between Narva, an Eastern Estonia town, near the Russian border; a tent in the Moroccan portion of the Sahara Desert without internet; and Berlin, where she became a resident at Riverside Studios. Postepski recorded the album in her room at the studio while Brazilian artist Julia Borelli engineered the album in her own space at the studio. Inspired by Steve Reich, Róisín Murphy and Jorja Chalmer, the forthcoming 12-song album is centered around a minimalist aesthetic that emphasizes the use of repetition. “It’s sort of this minimalistic, pattern-based music,” Postepski says. “I play drums and synths, so those are my worlds. I’m obsessed with finding these beautiful landscapes with synthesizers and drum machines.”

Interestingly, s u r r e n d e r‘s title doesn’t refer to a white flag or throwing in a white towel but a surrendering of the self to everything around it. Fueled by the philosophy of “Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final,” the album’s 12 songs thematically sees Postepski guiding the listener to though a maze of pure, unbridled emotion: the end result is material that’s rich and visceral yet offers healing through dancing your pain away. 

Earlier this year, I wrote about album single “Still The Same,” a dance floor friendly track punctuated with a desperately unfulfilled and swooning yearning, evoked through pulsating synth arpeggios, skittering beats and Postepski’s ethereal vocals. The song’s narrator repeatedly tells its love object “You’re still the same/But I need you now/I need you more again . . .” “‘Still the Same’ embodies the mix of emotions that arise at the end of a relationship,” the acclaimed acclaimed Canadian DJ, producer and songwriter explains. “The longing and frustration, hopelessness and desire fused into a confusing cocktail. The inescapable need to feel held and seen by the one you were closest to, but can no longer reach, then pretending it’s all ok by going out on the town in a desperate attempt for connection.” 

s u r r e n d e r‘s latest single “Desperate Love” continues a run of dance floor friendly material featuring skittering beats, glistening synth arpeggios paired with Postepski’s achingly yearning vocal delivery and an enormous hook. But underneath the club friendly thump, the song is fueled by the bitter awareness that a relationship is on the brink — and that it may be too late.

Directed by Finnish director, Laura Hypponen, the recently released video for “Desperate Love” was filmed in a gorgeous and lushly cinematic black and white in Amsterdam and stars Sofia Hoflack as a lonely and heartbroken woman longing for connection, intimacy and erotic passion.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Princess Century (Maya Postepski) Releases a Swooning and Propulsive Banger

Maya Postepski is an acclaimed Canadian DJ, producer and songwriter, known for her feature-length film scores, global DJ gigs and her work collaborating with Austra, Peaches and JOVM mainstay TR/ST. Postepski is also a solo artist and creative mastermind behind Princess Century, a recording project that thematically and sonically is committed to submersion rather than submission.

anticipated sophomore album s u r r e n d e r reportedly finds the acclaimed Canadian DJ, producer and songwriter breaking away from the purely instrumental sound and approach that initially won her acclaim — by showcasing her own lyrics and vocal performances. The process, as Postepski readily admits has been at times nerve-wracking and uneasy: “It’s like opening up my diary and saying, ‘Have a look, there’s a lot of weird shit in there,’” she laughs. “I’ve always been hiding in the back behind a band or behind a singer,” she continues. “It’s my first step into a more vulnerable and exposed place, which I’m finally okay with for the first time in my adult life. I guess I stopped caring about being shy or being insecure, or hiding who I am. I don’t like to be in the limelight, but life is short and I guess I should share who I am eventually.”

The album’s material was written between Narva, an Eastern Estonia town, near the Russian border; a tent in the Moroccan portion of the Sahara Desert without internet; and Berlin, where she became a resident at Riverside Studios. Postepski recorded the album in her room at the studio while Brazilian artist Julia Borelli engineered the album in her own space at the studio. s u r r e n d e r’s title refers not to a white flag or a towel being thrown but a surrounding of the self to everything around it. Fueled by the philosophy of “Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final,” the album’s 12 songs thematically sees Postepski guiding the listener to though a maze of pure, unbridled emotion: the end result is material that’s rich and visceral yet offers healing through dancing your pain away.

Inspired by Steve Reich, Róisín Murphy and Jorja Chalmer, the forthcoming 12-song album is centered around a minimalist aesthetic that emphasizes the use of repetition. “It’s sort of this minimalistic, pattern-based music,” Postepski says. “I play drums and synths, so those are my worlds. I’m obsessed with finding these beautiful landscapes with synthesizers and drum machines.”

“Still The Same,” s u r r e n d e r’s latest single is a dance floor friendly track punctuated with a desperately unfulfilled and swooning yearning, evoked through pulsating synth arpeggios, skittering beats and Postepski’s ethereal vocals. The song’s narrator repeatedly tells its love object “You’re still the same/But I need you now/I need you more again . . .” “‘Still the Same’ embodies the mix of emotions that arise at the end of a relationship,” the acclaimed acclaimed Canadian DJ, producer and songwriter explains. “The longing and frustration, hopelessness and desire fused into a confusing cocktail. The inescapable need to feel held and seen by the one you were closest to, but can no longer reach, then pretending it’s all ok by going out on the town in a desperate attempt for connection.”

orgeously shot fever dream of longing, nostalgia, desire, loss and frustration between a couple on the brink of a heartbreaking split — but seen from the nagging perspective of hindsight.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: JOVM Mainstay Art d’Ecco Releases an Incisive and Withering Look at Online Dating

Art d’Ecco is an enigmatic British Columbia-based singer/songwriter and grizzled Vancouver music scene vet, who once played in a band with acclaimed producer and ACTORS frontman Jason Corbett. In 2018, he emerged as dark bobbed hair wearing, androgynous and charismatic glam rock with the release off his full-length debut Trespasser.

Since Trespasser, the British Columbia-based art rocker has been busy: he played a live session for Seattle’s KEXP and played more than 75 clubs and music festivals across North America. Continuing a busy period, d’Ecco opened for acclaimed British psych rock act Temples right before the pandemic struck. “Trespasser was the start of a two-year ride taking me to all sorts of places I’d never been to,” the acclaimed British Columbia-based singer/songwriter says in press notes. “Seeing how different cultures interact with entertainment was the genesis for In Standard Definition. A lot of this record was actually written on the road late at night in motel rooms – with the flickering light of a television in the background.”

Released yesterday through Paper Bag Records, the Colin Stewart-produced In Standard Definition was recorded on two-inch tape with a handpicked, rotating cast of musicians that featured jazz and blues-trained horn players, Victoria Symphony Orchestra string players, soul singers and his backing band on a 50 year old console at The Hive. Sonically, the album finds d’Ecco further establishing a sound that some critics have described as neo-glam. But interestingly, the album’s overall sound and aesthetic sees d’Ecco and his backing band pushing the sonic boundaries of glam rock as far as they can, as the material draws from a diverse and eclectic array of influences including 50s pop, psychedelia, , Velvet Underground-like art rock, Grimes-inspired electronics, Ziggy Stardust-era Bowie and Brian Eno among others. “I’m obsessed with tape, film, and sounds of yesteryear, so recording could only be analogue – in standard definition – the way entertainment was once created,” d’Ecco explains. “I wanted to go back in time, exist in a different era and breathe my creativity through it.”

Thematically, the album holds up a mirror to pop culture and explores our obsessions with entertainment and celebrity. “No matter where you live or what language you speak, there’s an entertainment god for you,” d’Ecco explains in press notes. “Whether on TV or writing the books you read, it’s an odd sense of purpose we allocate to these humans whose talent is in distracting us from the doldrums of daily life. We’re constantly searching for something… glued to our phones… consuming various forms of entertainment. We feel less close with each other, and closer to the strangers who make us feel good.”

In the buildup to the album’s release, I wrote about four of In Standard Definition’s previously released singles:

“TV God,” a synthesis of ’77 punk, Ziggie Stardust-era Bowie and Pleasure Principle-era Gary Numan, centered around anthemic hooks, twinkling piano stabs, punchily delivered lyrics, soulful backing vocals, propulsive bass lines, a scorching guitar solo and squiggling synths. 
“Head Rush” an infectious boogie that owes a sonic debt to Ziggy Stardust-era Bowie, complete with an enormous horn line and glistening synths. 
“I Am The Dance Floor,” a shimmering and strutting disco take on glam rock that may remind some of Bay City Rollers “Saturday Night,” Echoes-era The Rapture and In Ghost Colours-era Cut Copy. 
“Desires,” a jangling and densely layered glam anthem that sonically is a slick synthesis of Ziggy Stardust-era Bowie, Gary Numan and The Cars. “A tale born inside the dark underbelly of old Hollywood, then repackaged and reimagined as a rock and roll tragedy,” d’Ecco said of the song in press notes.. “’Desires’ is about the entertainer at the end of their career — soon to be phased out by the next wave of rising talent, and shifting audience tastes. For the old guard, this spectre of change is a constant existential threat that will challenge their ability to keep up with the times and to remain relevant in this brutal industry of show business.”

In Standard Definition’s fifth and latest single “Good Looks” is a shimmering and slickly produced synthesis of classic rock, New Wave and glam influences — i.e., think Queen, David Bowie, Gary Numan and The Cars — with the song being centered around an angular and propulsive bass line, four-on-the floor, crystalline synths arena rock friendly hooks and punchily delivered lyrics, But underneath the rousingly anthemic hooks, the song is a withering look at the artificiality and superficiality of online dating: The song specially points out that while we’re swiping left and right, we’re not actively taking part in the world.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Art d’Ecco Releases a Stylish and Noir-ish Visual for Anthemic “Desires”

The mysterious and enigmatic British Columbia-based singer/songwriter now known as Art d’Ecco is a grizzled Vancouver music scene vet, who once played in a band with acclaimed producer and ACTORS frontman Jason Corbett; but in 2018 he emerged as a dark bobbed hair wearing, androgynous and charismatic glam rocker with the release of that year’s critically applauded, full-length debut Trespasser. 

Since the release of Trespasser, the Canadian art rocker has played a live session for Seattle’s KEXP and played more than 75 clubs and music festivals across North America. Last spring, d’Ecco opened for acclaimed UK-based psych rock act Temples right before the pandemic struck. “Trespasser was the start of a two-year ride taking me to all sorts of places I’d never been to,” the acclaimed British Columbia-based singer/songwriter says in press notes. “Seeing how different cultures interact with entertainment was the genesis for In Standard Definition. A lot of this record was actually written on the road late at night in motel rooms – with the flickering light of a television in the background.”

Slated for an April 23, 2021 release through  Paper Bag Records, the Colin Stewart-produced In Standard Definition was recorded on two-inch tape with a handpicked, rotating cast of musicians that featured jazz and blues-trained horn players, Victoria Symphony Orchestra string players, soul singers and his backing band on a 50 year old console at The Hive. Sonically, the album will reportedly find the acclaimed Canadian art rocker further establishing a sound that some critics have described as neo-glam. But interestingly enough, the album’s overall sound and aesthetic pushes the boundaries of glam rock, as it draws draws from a diverse and eclectic array of influences including elements of 50s pop, psychedelia, Velvet Underground-like art rock, Grimes-inspired electronics, Ziggy Stardust-era Bowie and Brian Eno among others. “I’m obsessed with tape, film, and sounds of yesteryear, so recording could only be analogue – in standard definition – the way entertainment was once created,” d’Ecco explains. “I wanted to go back in time, exist in a different era and breathe my creativity through it.”

Thematically, the album holds up a mirror to pop culture and explores our obsessions with entertainment and celebrity. “No matter where you live or what language you speak, there’s an entertainment god for you,” d’Ecco explains in press notes. “Whether on TV or writing the books you read, it’s an odd sense of purpose we allocate to these humans whose talent is in distracting us from the doldrums of daily life. We’re constantly searching for something… glued to our phones… consuming various forms of entertainment. We feel less close with each other, and closer to the strangers who make us feel good.”

So far, throughout the year I’ve written about three of In Standard Definition‘s previously released singles: 

“TV God,” a synthesis of ’77 punk, Ziggie Stardust-era Bowie and Pleasure Principle-era Gary Numan, centered around anthemic hooks, twinkling piano stabs, punchily delivered lyrics, soulful backing vocals, propulsive bass lines, a scorching guitar solo and squiggling synths. 
“Head Rush” an infectious boogie that owes a sonic debt to Ziggy Stardust-era Bowie, complete with an enormous horn line and glistening synths. 
“I Am The Dance Floor,” a shimmering and strutting disco take on glam rock that may remind some of Bay City Rollers “Saturday Night,” Echoes-era The Rapture and In Ghost Colours-era Cut Copy. 

In Standard Definition’s latest single “Desires” is a jangling, densely layered, glam rock anthem centered around rousingly anthemic hooks, blasts of twinkling synth arpeggios, soulful horn blasts, an angular bass line, strummed rhythm guitar and shimmering guitar solos and punchily delivered vocals. Sonically, the song is a slick synthesis of Ziggy Stardust-era Bowie, Gary Numan and The Cars — all while being carefully crafted. “A tale born inside the dark underbelly of old Hollywood, then repackaged and reimagined as a rock and roll tragedy,” d’Ecco explains. “’Desires’ is about the entertainer at the end of their career — soon to be phased out by the next wave of rising talent, and shifting audience tastes. For the old guard, this spectre of change is a constant existential threat that will challenge their ability to keep up with the times and to remain relevant in this brutal industry of show business.”

Directed and edited by Brandon William Fletcher, the recently released video for “Desires” is a stylistically shot, noir-is black and white visual that features d’Ecco and his backing band performing the song — but underneath the stylish surface, there’s this sense of an artist fearful of being phased out by an indifferent and bored audience and industry. Certainly, as you get older in an industry that often values beauty and youth before wisdom and experience, those fears become increasingly real — and the desire to be relevant more desperate.