BODYWASH RETURNS WITH NEW SINGLE, “COME AND GO”

BODYWASH, THE MONTREAL DUO OF ROSIE LONG DECTER AND CHRIS STEWARD, SHARE “COME AND GO”, OUT NOW VIA LIGHT ORGAN RECORDS

WATCH / SHARE “COME AND GO” HERE
BUY / STREAM “COME AND GO” HERE

Photo Credit : Sasha Khalimonova // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES

Bodywash is the Montreal duo of Rosie Long Decter and Chris Steward, a project they launched after first meeting in college, finding common ground between British dream pop, classic shoegaze, folk, and atmospheric pop. Their self-titled debut EP quickly earned attention in the local Montreal scene, and their 2019 full-length Comforter, sharpened their sound into a distinctive mix of airy vocals, intricate guitar work and pulsing synths. Bodywash returned in 2023 with I Held the Shape While I Could, a darker and more adventurous second album exploring themes of decay, instability, and the shifting meaning of home. 

The record drew renewed attention around singles including “Massif Central” and “No Repair”, and further established the band’s reputation for pairing lush, immersive sounds with lyrical songwriting. Now, Bodywash begin their next chapter with the upcoming single “Come and Go”, a first glimpse of where their sound is heading next. Direct and kinetic, "Come and Go" points forward without abandoning what has made the band stand out: a dynamic interplay between vocals and guitars; adeep feel for tension and release; and songs that balance melody and atmosphere with friction and dissonance

WATCH / SHARE “COME AND GO” HERE
BUY / STREAM “COME AND GO” HERE

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“I wrote ‘Come and Go’ mostly in one go at home, improvising on vocal and bass, and then I brought it to Chris, playing it for him on guitar in the studio,” Rosie explains. “Normally I write on keys and make a demo, and he helps flesh it out, or vice versa. But after our last album we wanted to try writing more in the room together. As we played through the song together, and Chris wrote the riff, it came together really quickly in a shared burst of energy that’s only really possible in-person. The song itself is really influenced by the built environment of Montreal—the forty auto route, the new buildings popping up around the University de Montreal campus, this crazy animal-themed light show in Laval. It describes scenes I’ve shared with my girlfriend and my bandmates here, and the sort of temporary or transitory feeling that comes with living as an artist in Montreal, or anywhere really—the sense that there could always be an end date on the horizon.”

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BODYWASH SHARE NEW VIDEO / SINGLE, “PERFECT BLUE” FROM UPCOMING LP

WATCH / SHARE “PERFECT BLUE” HERE
BUY / STREAM “PERFECT BLUE” HERE

NORTH AMERICAN TOUR DATES CONTINUE APRIL 12

I HELD THE SHAPE WHILE I COULD OUT APRIL 14, 2023 ON LIGHT ORGAN RECORDS

PRE-ORDER I HELD THE SHAPE WHILE I COULD

Photo Credit: Kristina Pedersen // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES

Bodywash — the Montreal-based duo of Chris Steward and Rosie Long Decter — present the final single/visualizer, “Perfect Blue”, from their new album, I Held the Shape While I Could, out this Friday, April 14, on Light Organ Records. Following the “enveloping [and] gorgeously melancholy” (Gorilla vs. Bear) “No Repair”, and the “infinite heights” (FLOOD) of lead single “Massif Central”, “Perfect Blue” is an ear-splitting psychedelic meditation on Steward’s Japanese and British cultural identity. Satoshi Kon’s 1997 psychological thriller of the same name becomes a prism through which Steward projects and refracts his mixed lineage into a murky duality. A pulsating synth motif arches and folds inwards on itself as Steward sings: “to be half is to not be whole.” 

Of the track, Steward states: “‘Perfect Blue’ takes its name and its inspiration from Satoshi Kon’s 1997 animated film. The themes of internal conflict and losing one’s sense of self really resonated with me when I first watched it during the winter of 2021. ‘Perfect Blue’ (the song) is an exploration of the many facets of my own cultural identity. Being both British and Japanese has often felt like a compromise. While it might be easy to romanticize this duality, the reality is that it’s impossible to wholly belong to either culture. What has brought me some solace in the past is their shared appreciation for shoegaze and ‘Perfect Blue’ is an ode to this common cultural heritage. We stacked breathy digital synths (inspired by Masahiro Ikumi’s ominous soundtrack) atop a wave of viscous fuzz guitars, in search of a “perfect blue” - a color the shade of renewal.”

WATCH / SHARE “PERFECT BLUE” HERE
BUY / STREAM “PERFECT BLUE” HERE

There are many places like home, and on I Held the Shape While I Could, home is a mutable thing; a location that is fixed until it isn’t. Across the record, Steward’s abstract guitars and Long Decter’s cascading vocals act as ambient throughlines, blurring the digital and organic, gesturing toward something intangible, just out of reach. Home is a process — the back and forth of guitar riffs and vocal hums, of files sent and received across the ocean. A world imagined and sculpted together. 

WATCH / SHARE “MASSIF CENTRAL” HERE
BUY / STREAM “MASSIF CENTRAL” HERE

WATCH / SHARE “NO REPAIR” HERE
BUY / STREAM “NO REPAIR” HERE

Over I Held the Shape While I Could’s twelve tracks, Steward and Long Decter reflect on their separate and shared experiences of losing a sense of place, the way something once solid can slip between your fingers, and their attempts to build something new from the fallout. As they prepared to release their 2019 debut Comforter, Long Decter and Steward both experienced alienating shifts in their personal lives, leading to a mutual sense of dislocation. They began writing new material that was darker, more experimental, and at the same time more invigorating than the soothing dream pop on Comforter. The resulting I Held the Shape While I Could is a record that lives in the sonics of decay and renewal: breaks that burst forth from a squall of fuzz guitars, drones that glitch and stutter like ice willing itself to thaw. 

PRE-ORDER I HELD THE SHAPE WHILE I COULD

Alongside I Held the Shape While I Could, Bodywash will release Take Form, a 30-page booklet that expands the world of the album. Designed by Yoon Rachel Nam (Desert Bloom, Cedric Noel), Take Form features the complete album lyrics alongside poems, a short story, and guitar tabs by Long Decter and Steward, as well as art by Kristina Pedersen. This 50-copy limited run creates a new resonance for the recordings.

PRE-ORDER TAKE FORM

Take Form Cover Artwork

BODYWASH TOUR DATES
Wed. Apr. 12 - Toronto, ON @ Baby G +
Thu. Apr. 13 - Ottawa, ON @ Live on Elgin
Sat. Apr. 15 - Montreal, QC @ La Sotterenea +
Mon. Apr. 17 - Boston, MA @ O’Brien’s
Tue. Apr. 18 - Philadelphia, PA @ The Fire
Fri. Apr. 21 - Manhattan, NY @ Berlin 

+ w/ Tallies

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I HELD THE SHAPE WHILE I COULD TRACKLIST:
1. In As Far
2. Picture Of
3. Massif Central
4. Bas Relief
5. Perfect Blue
6. Kind of Light
7. One Day Clear
8. Sterilizer
9. Dessents 
10. Ascents
11. Patina
12. No Repair

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BODYWASH PRESENTS NEW SINGLE / VIDEO, “NO REPAIR”

WATCH / SHARE “NO REPAIR” HERE
BUY / STREAM “NO REPAIR” HERE

NORTH AMERICAN TOUR DATES BEGIN THIS MONTH AT SXSW

I HELD THE SHAPE WHILE I COULD OUT APRIL 14, 2023 ON LIGHT ORGAN RECORDS

PRE-ORDER I HELD THE SHAPE WHILE I COULD

"a dynamic and immense ride from start to finish" - The Revue on “Massif Central” single

"A feast of layered synths and glorious textures" - Get Some Magazine on “Kind Of Light” single

"Noise rock shot-through with moments of incredible beauty..." - Clash on Comforter LP

"A seamless amalgamation of celestial melodies, balmy textures and ambitious left-turns" - Exclaim! On Comforter LP

Photo Credit: Kristina Pedersen // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES

Bodywash — the Montreal duo of Chris Steward and Rosie Long Decter — present their new single/video, “No Repair”. from their forthcoming album, I Held the Shape While I Could, out April 14, 2023 on Light Organ Records. Following lead single “Massif Central” and its “infinite heights,” (FLOOD) “No Repair” swells with lap steel by Micah Flavin, evoking a melancholy waltz while Long Decter’s hummed vocals drift in and out of time. “Write it in handfuls of air,” she sings on the ballad, “you were there,” insisting on both absence and presence in the end. “No Repair” features Ryan White on percussion and was mixed by Jace Lasek (The Besnard Lakes) with Harris Newman mastering the track.

Long Decter explains: “In my early 20s I found myself in a disastrous love triangle—or what Chris took to calling my ‘bizarre love oblong.’ It was a mess of bad decisions and repressed queer longing and those things you chase because you hope they will prove you are real. I found myself writing repetitively about light and air and the absence of tactility. ‘No Repair’ came from the decision to let all that go; to try to lose the shape of it. I started writing it in 2019 and finished it with Chris in 2021, letting it simmer over two years of lockdown and sitting with myself. It feels strange and sweet to be releasing it at a time when I have a new sense of ground underneath me and someone to share that feeling with. The video, filmed in my living room (and briefly in an outdoor parking lot during -30 Celsius), puts some of those themes into a different context. Loneliness after a party transforms into a dismantling of things, and rearranging them somewhere else.”

WATCH / SHARE “NO REPAIR” HERE
BUY / STREAM “NO REPAIR” HERE

Over I Held the Shape While I Could’s twelve tracks, Steward and Long Decter reflect on their separate and shared experiences of losing a sense of place, the way something once solid can slip between your fingers, and their attempts to build something new from the fallout. As they prepared to release their 2019 debut Comforter, Long Decter and Steward both experienced alienating shifts in their personal lives, leading to a mutual sense of dislocation. They began writing new material that was darker, more experimental, and at the same time more invigorating than the soothing dream pop on Comforter. The resulting I Held the Shape While I Could is a record that lives in the sonics of decay and renewal: breaks that burst forth from a squall of fuzz guitars, drones that glitch and stutter like ice willing itself to thaw. 

WATCH / SHARE “MASSIF CENTRAL” HERE
BUY / STREAM “MASSIF CENTRAL” HERE

There are many places like home, and on I Held the Shape While I Could, home is a mutable thing; a location that is fixed until it isn’t. Across the record, Steward’s abstract guitars and Long Decter’s cascading vocals act as ambient throughlines, blurring the digital and organic, gesturing toward something intangible, just out of reach. Home is a process — the back and forth of guitar riffs and vocal hums, of files sent and received across the ocean. A world imagined and sculpted together. 

Alongside I Held the Shape While I Could, Bodywash will release Take Form, a 30-page booklet that expands the world of the album. Designed by Yoon Rachel Nam (Desert Bloom, Cedric Noel), Take Form features the complete album lyrics alongside poems, a short story, and guitar tabs by Long Decter and Steward, as well as art by Kristina Pedersen. This 50-copy limited run creates a new resonance for the recordings.

PRE-ORDER TAKE FORM

Take Form Cover Artwork

BODYWASH TOUR DATES
Fri. Mar. 17 - Austin, TX @ Hotel Vegas (SXSW)
Sat. Mar. 25 - Boise, ID @ Treefort Fest - Neurolux 
Tue. Mar. 28 - Portland, OR @ No Fun Bar *
Wed. Mar. 29 - Tacoma, WA @ Spanish Ballroom *
Fri. Mar. 31 - Seattle, WA @ Homegrown in the Basement *
Sat. Apr. 1 - Vancouver, BC @ 604 Studios *
Sun. Apr. 9 - Cleveland, OH @ Grog Shop
Mon. Apr. 10 - Chicago, IL @ Empty Bottle
Wed. Apr. 12 - Toronto, ON @ Baby G +
Thu. Apr. 13 - Ottawa, ON @ Live on Elgin
Sat. Apr. 15 - Montreal, QC @ La Sotterenea +
Mon. Apr. 17 - Boston, MA @ O’Brien’s
Tue. Apr. 18 - Philadelphia, PA @ The Fire
Fri. Apr. 21 - Manhattan, NY @ Berlin 

* w/ Vox Rea
+ w/ Tallies

PRE-ORDER I HELD THE SHAPE WHILE I COULD

DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES

I HELD THE SHAPE WHILE I COULD TRACKLIST:
1. In As Far
2. Picture Of
3. Massif Central
4. Bas Relief
5. Perfect Blue
6. Kind of Light
7. One Day Clear
8. Sterilizer
9. Dessents 
10. Ascents
11. Patina
12. No Repair

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FACEBOOK
TWITTER
SOUNDCLOUD
BANDCAMP
INSTAGRAM