DEBRA-JEAN CREELMAN ANNOUNCES NEW LP, THRESHOLD - SHARES FIRST SINGLE

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Debra-Jean Creelman has figured out her own perfect recipe for music making. “When I'm giving voice to my vulnerability, that's when the magic arrives,” says Creelman. “I've been re-learning how to trust my instincts, and so far I'm being shown that they're good. I am a singer first and foremost and now I’m leaning into, and not apologizing for, that strength. I used to feel lesser because I didn't play all the instruments and arrange all the songs, but I've grown to realize that the skill set I have is good enough.”

On Threshold, her newest album out July 16, 2021, via new imprint Modern Laundry Recording Club, Debra-Jean has surrounded herself with a supportive cast of creatives who make her feel her most free. “I've been fortunate to get to know so many amazing artists over the past two decades. Looking back, I can see that I was sort of subconsciously taking note of who I wanted to work with in the future”. 

Today, Creelman shares the first single from Threshold, “Muse Needs A Wife”, which finds Creelman questioning whether or not she's meant to live a conventional life. Can she remain her most powerful self within a domestic partnership, or is she someone who's meant to live for their art?  "I have yet to answer that question," she explains. "It feels like there's a 50’s housewife and a road-dog warring it out inside of me.” Sonically the tune bounces along, but as you listen deeper you can hear Creelman ready to burn down the home she has nurtured with an eerie calm as she sings, "I am itching to level it all to the ground...you are not the mirror I projected you to be."

LISTEN AND SHARE “MUSE NEEDS A WIFE” HERE

BUY / SHARE “MUSE NEEDS A WIFE” HERE

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For Threshold, Creelman turned to her main collaborator Joseph Hirabiyashi (Jo Passed) who also produced, mixed, and engineered the LP. A fellow Vancouver Community College music school alumni, circumstance led Jo to have a hand in her first solo demos back in 2013 (helmed by the virtuosic Jesse Zubot) when she traded him vocal lessons for recording time. So, she was well aware of Jo’s multi-faceted abilities when she enlisted his help in asking his parents, prominent Butoh dancers Barbara Bourget and Jay Hirabayashi, to perform in music videos for her 2019 release Triggers & Mirrors. The family operates KW Studios, a multipurpose space in the Woodward's Heritage building that Debra-Jean now feels is her creative home, and where Threshold was recorded. Again, her intuition organically led her in the right direction.

 The album heavily features string arrangements from Hirabiyashi, James Meger (bassist/co-producer), Jesse Zubot, Josh Zubot, along with performances by long-time friends Molly Guldemond (Mother Mother), Louise Burns, and Peggy Lee (Cello). But the focal point is unapologetically Debra-Jean's voice. Her vision on this project was to use the vocals as  bed tracks, and strings as the predominant harmonic foundation of the recordings.

It would be remiss to not talk about the history and influence of one of Debra-Jean's first projects, the incomparable indie-rock misfits Mother Mother who have recently found themselves with a multitude of new fans thanks to TikTok. Interestingly, it is their earliest songs that seem to have caught fire, of which Creelman was an integral part of along with the Guldemond siblings, Ryan and Molly. Together with producer Howard Redekopp they recorded the independently released Mother, and after signing to Last Gang Records, Touch Up and O My Heart. Having also connected in music school, their music didn’t quite fit into the pre-streaming top 40 radio categories of the day, yet it seems the world has caught up. "Ryan’s songwriting might have been a bit ahead of its time…." Debra-Jean ponders, "but now those tunes have found a new life and that makes me very happy. There was something so potent and magical about that early stuff.  Mother Mother has worked their asses off, and deserve everything that is happening. It gives me goosebumps to feel that rebirth."  There is a beautiful synergy to Creelman's sense of finally being back in touch with her instincts as the universe once again shows her that the connection she creates when using her voice from that soulful place is undeniable. The makings of those early Mother Mother recordings found Debra-Jean and her cohorts so innocent and fresh that they weren't yet playing from anyone else's rulebook, and the full-circle creation of Threshold sees her coming from that same place.

Threshold is a body of work on the brink of catharsis. While Triggers & Mirrors was created in the immediacy of grief and held the confusion and upheaval of a "crash course in mortality", Threshold finds Debra-Jean delving into the deeper truths of the human experience, on a steadfast path towards light and release. 

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THRESHOLD TRACKLIST
01 Threshold
02 Muse Needs A Wife
03 Conduit
04 Faith Is Easy
05 Colour Blind
06 Flatline Sum
07 Animal
08 Body Is Breathing
09 Music Box

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MORE ABOUT MODERN LAUNDRY
Threshold, the new full-length album by Debra-Jean Creelman, is the debut release from Modern Laundry Recording Club. Modern Laundry is a Canadian, artist-run collective record label that focuses on Bandcamp for digital distribution and only uses streaming services such as Spotify and iTunes for singles. Artists currently include: Debra-Jean Creelman (Mother Mother), Desert Bloom, Gay Hollywood (DIANA, Army Girls and Austra), Silver Pools (The Winks), and Ten Moon.

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ALYSON McNAMARA SHARES THIRD VIDEO/SINGLE FROM UPCOMING LP, LET ME SLEEP

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With one month to go before Alyson McNamara releases her third LP, Let Me Sleep, the acclaimed songwriter is sharing the new video for the album’s second track, “Waiting”. The song “really sits in that feeling of being alone that we’ve all experienced,” says McNamara. “It’s about wanting someone you can’t have and being haunted by their misleading presence. The verses of this song came so easily, as they are fairly observational, but I was stuck on the chorus for months. I kept coming back to it, and finally in the studio I realized what I wanted to say, and it was really cathartic. This song is about coming to a place of bitter-sweet acceptance and moving on.”

WATCH AND SHARE “WAITING” HERE

BUY / STREAM “WAITING” HERE

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MORE ABOUT LET ME SLEEP

Produced, mixed, and engineered by Daniel McNamara and recorded in a whirlwind week at Taurus Recording in Toronto, Let Me Sleep sees Alyson moving from a four piece band to a trio with her longtime collaborators, Daniel McNamara (bass) and Kevin Richards (drums). The stripped-down sound overhauled the direction of Let Me Sleep. “Through performing as a trio, I realized how much space there was left for my vocals,” Alyson explains. “I was always curious about where the middle ground was between having that full-band sound and maintaining the intimate feeling of watching a singer songwriter.”

Out June 4, 2021 via Ghost Pepper Records, Let Me Sleep was written in various locations including The Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity and a sun-soaked apartment in Toronto. No matter the place, Alyson was alone during her writing sessions. “My favourite ideas always seem to arrive freely when the house is empty.” she says.

WATCH AND SHARE “SHUTTING DOWN” HERE

BUY / STREAM “SHUTTING DOWN” HERE

This solitude culminates in an album full of thoughtful musings on love and regrets, and reminds listeners to be patient with both themselves and others. “That’s Today” finds Alyson talking through her mistakes with her shadow but on the interlude “Worry Not”, Alyson is alone playing the piano and, showing off her incredible vocal control, assures us: ‘worry not for me’.

“I think music and songwriting is so important for me because I have a very jovial personality in social settings, but my music is so pensive and calm - it’s a real part of my true self,” Alyson says. “Sharing my songs is an opportunity to be seen fully.”

WATCH AND SHARE “AFTER HOURS” HERE

BUY / STREAM “AFTER HOURS” HERE

Despite the solitariness behind the lyrics, there’s a heartening communal feeling to Let Me Sleep. On “Won’t Be Sold”, Alyson touches on the heart of this feeling when she assures listeners, ‘You are not the only one who’s feeling lonely.’

“I want people to see me when they listen to Let Me Sleep,” says Alyson. “But I also want people to be able to listen to the record and see themselves.” 

PRE-ORDER LET ME SLEEP HERE

Alyson has toured across Canada with JUNO Award-winning band Said The Whale accompanying on-going collaborator Dave Monks (Tokyo Police Club). She has recorded and performed with Canadian supergroup Anyway Gang and has opened for artists such as Sloan and Gregg Allman. She has accompanied and shared the stage with Canadian trail blazers Catherine Maclellan, Kaia Kater, and Sarah MacDougall. Alyson has appeared on Paste Magazine NYC, BTR Live Studio and CBC First Play Live and has recorded with acclaimed producers Rob Schnapf (Elliott Smith, Beck), Gus van Go (Sam Roberts, Whitehorse) and Howard Bilerman (Arcade Fire, U.S Girls).

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LET ME SLEEP TRACKLIST
01 After Hours
02 Waiting
03 Shutting Down
04 I’m Right Here
05 It’s Only Time
06 Got All Night
07 That’s Today
08 Faithful Company
09 Worry Not
10 Won’t Be Sold
11 It’s Easy

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TREEPHONES CODES NEW VIDEO FOR “A BOARDING PASS”, NEW LP OUT THIS WEEK

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“A Boarding Pass” is the fourth single from the upcoming Treephones  — the musical moniker of Stephen Trothen — full-length album Pink Objects, which is available everywhere this Friday.

The song describes an awkward scene at an airport between two people as they wait to board a plane. “Lyrically, I was thinking of airports as these in-between places where people are just anonymous and stuck together. I found myself imagining a scene and writing about two people waiting — having one character engrossed in a book and someone else bored and wasting time on their phone and wondering (and googling) about the people and things around them.” 

The new single arrives complete with a video from Trothen that is a screen capture of a computer program that he wrote in the visual coding language Max/MSP. With all of the connections and code in plain view, the program moves randomly through an image sequence of him blowing up a balloon, while also displaying the lyrics and some visual graphs of the audio of the song. 

“Since I was going to be busy strumming the guitar with that pink box on my head, I had to figure out exactly how many milliseconds were between each lyric and automate the changes so it could be captured in one take" he explains. “It is kind of in communication with the song in that I scheduled everything, but then I didn’t have any control as it played out.” And why a balloon? "Well, the song is basically about something blowing up in a person's face, so I thought it'd be fun to present the metaphor literally.”

WATCH AND SHARE “A BOARDING PASS” MUSIC VIDEO HERE

BUY / STREAM “A BOARDING PASS” HERE

The ten song titles on Treephones’ new album Pink Objects read like an inventory of things found stashed away in a closet or neglected drawer. With every song named after an object, the concept album takes the approach of a short story collection and focuses on the interactions and relationships of characters centred around these items. The album was written and recorded at home by Trothen who also handled all but a few of the performing duties. The result is a set of songs that weave beautifully evolving textures into a carefully arranged sound that matches the directness and understated complexity of its lyrics.

WATCH AND SHARE “FUZZY DREAM MACHINE” HERE

BUY / STREAM “FUZZY DREAM MACHINE” HERE

Pink Objects was mixed by Calvin Hartwick (Daniel Caesar, METZ, Cadence Weapon) at Dream House Studios and mastered by Phil Demetro at Lacquer Channel. The second concept album from Treephones, Pink Objects is a great leap forward for the self-recording Trothen in both songcraft and production, with each of the 10 songs being as full sounding as they are intimate and personal — never getting lost in their own conceptual ambitions as they flow from from one object/song to the next.

Why pink? “I actually came up with the title early on after becoming fixated on all things pink," says Trothen. "Pink is so vibrant and striking it sometimes seems unreal when you see it on a flower or bird. Pink noise is fascinating and nice sounding too. The colour also encodes so much culturally, particularly as it relates to emotions and the body. So for Pink Objects as a title, the colour pink to me suggests a liveliness like it is pulsating with some life-force."

WATCH AND SHARE “A MAP” MUSIC VIDEO HERE

BUY / STREAM “A MAP” HERE

And why objects? “I read that an object becomes a thing when it stops working for us,” says Trothen. “So, in other words, the object is meant to go unnoticed while serving us in some way, and becomes a thing when it breaks or fails. I was interested in how these terms were being defined according to their relation to humans. I wanted to invert that idea with these songs and describe objects that elicit less controlled effects in us: evoking suppressed thoughts or concerns, memories, or facilitating awkward encounters. I think that’s why a lot of the relationships described in the songs are at a moment when they have stopped working or are in need of repair.”

PRE-ORDER PINK OBJECTS HERE

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PINK OBJECTS TRACKLIST
1 Matches
2 Fuzzy Dream Machine
3 Chord Shapes
4 A Swarm of Bees
5 A Watch (Unwind)
6 Seeds
7 A Map
8 The Penny (Obsolete)
9 A Boarding Pass
10 A Photograph

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