WATCH AND SHARE “BALLET IN A PHONE BOOTH” HERE
SATELLITE AND THE HARPOONIST - THE NEW SUPERGROUP FROM HARPOONIST AND THE AXE MURDERER’S SHAWN HALL, FEATURING MEMBERS OF THE DEEP DARK WOODS, THE BOOM BOOMS, AND KING MISSILE III
NEW EP COMING THIS SUMMER
“Ballet In A Phone Booth” Single Artwork // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES
As the great poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow once stated, “The best thing one can do when it’s raining is to let it rain.” And so, in January 2020, as the city’s longest spell of precipitation in over five decades threatened to wash Vancouver into the Pacific, four musicians from disparate sonic territories did just that. Not that they had a say in the matter, they let it rain while gathering at Afterlife Studios to conduct an experiment as radical and historic as the weather outside.
Shawn Hall of the acclaimed maverick blues duo The Harpoonist and The Axe Murderer was the progenitor, his notion being to assemble three talented friends with whom he had previously worked, yet that had never met each other. Then, during an intense three-day exploration of alchemic creative collaboration within a self-imposed pressure cooker environment, they would record a 6-song EP – all under the gaze of a film crew. So, as the rain smashed down on the City of Glass, Satellite and The Harpoonist was birthed, with every labour pain and its exhausting entry into the world captured on celluloid.
Joining singer/harmonicist Hall in this extraordinary project – his “people that want to play in the sandbox” – are Geoff Hillhorst (Hammond organ/piano/synthesizers) of award-winning alt-country-folk dreamers, The Deep Dark Woods; Theo Vincent (percussion/congas/vocals) from Vancouver’s funk-soul powerhouse The Boom Booms, and on drums and Pencilina, Brooklyn’s Bradford Reed, of out-there art-rockers, King Missile III. The Pencilina, an incredible double-necked zither-like contraption, is Reed’s own one-off invention, making Satellite and The Harpoonist the world’s only band to feature it.
WATCH AND SHARE “BALLET IN A PHONE BOOTH” HERE
Today, the band shares the first glimpse into those sights and sounds with the video for the new single “Ballet In A Phone Booth”, the trippy, groove-heavy, rock ‘n’ soul lead single featuring a guest appearance from Royal Canoe’s Matt Peters.
“Ballet In A Phone Booth” is a direct reference to Terry O’Reilly’s ‘Age of Persuasion’ referring to the art of making commercials in 30 seconds and the absurdity of our short attention spans in these times. “I wrote it at the Banff Centre on one of their 106 pianos,” says Shawn Hall. “To me it reflects the spiralling of our current predicament and how easy it is to be lost in our collective mad descent, while still being lovingly engaged and aware of our situation.”
Director Peter Ricq said of the video, “I had this idea for a video using vintage animated landscapes as a theme. When I started editing all these images together, what kept popping up was ‘Man vs. Nature’. We are really losing the beauty that our world has and even had to offer. You'd think that after all these decades, we wouldn't need to be reminded by now, but it's obviously never-ending. Also as a bonus, I'm trying to hypnotize the audience to get on the dance floor and shake their booty.”
Be on the lookout for more new music from Satellite and The Harpoonist coming in the near future.
In the meantime, tune in on April 27 to watch Shawn Hall perform Satellite And The Harpoonist songs for National Arts Centre Canada Performs Live Stream Series.
Photo Credit: Kelsey Vansickle // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES
SATELLITE AND THE HARPOONIST ONLINE
FACEBOOK
TWITTER
INSTAGRAM
