PONDERCAST EPISODE 57 : THE SOUND OF FEELING PT. 2

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Pondercast Episode 57 is Part 2 of The Sound Of Feeling, Laurie Brown’s emotional adventure through the musical intervals that make up western music (checkout part 1 here).  Laurie and Joshua Van Tassel break down music to this subatomic level. It goes a long way to understanding how music has such an emotional impact on us. No wonder they call music a language.

LISTEN AND SHARE PONDERCAST EP 57 : THE SOUND OF FEELING PT. 2

Recently, the Pondercast team added a new item to their online store. The Night Journal is designed to go hand-in-hand(ear?) with our audio guide – you’ll need both for the magic to work. So get your journal, favourite pen and a speaker then let Laurie Brown reintroduce you to your senses as she guides you through seven nights of drawing, writing and designed activities set to the soundscapes of Joshua Van Tassel

FIND OUT MORE ABOUT THE NIGHT JOURNAL HERE

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Pondercast is powered by listeners. If you’d like to share the musical love, you can start by sharing this episode. If you feel like that’s just not enough, please consider becoming a patron of the show via the Pondercast Patreon here. Patrons receive a behind the scenes look at Pondercast, first notice of new episodes, and access to monthly Ponder Playlists. 

Of course, the best way to learn about new episodes and stay in touch while you are up in the clouds is through the Pondercast Newsletter. Sign up here. 

 SUBSCRIBE TO PONDERCAST ON ITUNES / SPOTIFY / YOUTUBE

Recently, Killbeat Music partnered with the team at Pondercast to bring you Ponderbeat, a series of special episodes featuring selections curated by Brown from some of Killbeat’s latest releases. The fifth episode of Ponderbeat is live now, featuring music from Bombay Bicycle Club, Little Scream, Frazey Ford, Bodywash and more.

 LISTEN TO KILLBEAT’S COLLABORATION WITH PONDERCAST - PONDERBEAT EPISODE 05 HERE

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SLOW LEAVES ANNOUNCES NEW LP, SHARES NEW VIDEO FOR LEAD SINGLE

SHELF LIFE OUT APRIL 3 VIA BIRTHDAY CAKE

WATCH AND SHARE “MISS YOU” HERE

BUY / STREAM “MISS YOU” TOMORROW HERE

TOUR DATES BEGIN FEBRUARY 22

PRE-ORDER SHELF LIFE HERE

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Photo Credit : Grant Davidson  // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES

Today, Slow Leaves – Winnipeg singer-songwriter, Grant Davidson – announces his sixth-studio album, Shelf Life, due out April 3 via Birthday Cake. Known for his ability to breathe poetry into the ordinary, the JUNO Master Class alumnus continues his deep exploration of the self with Shelf Life. The 10-track LP leans into themes of romantic memory, domestic duty, artistic ambition, and dreams unfulfilled, underpinning the belief that there is indeed great strength in vulnerability. 

The first single from the LP, “Miss You”, ponders “the slippery quality of time, which is a theme that runs through just about every song I write,” says Davidson. “In a sense, I’m preoccupied with the past, perhaps at the detriment of the present. I’m not great at looking ahead. Naturally, I miss certain things and certain people. I guess that’s life. 

We recorded the song live as a four-piece band and I wanted to capture that quality in a simple video that borrowed from the style of nineteen-seventies television concerts.”

WATCH AND SHARE “MISS YOU” HERE

BUY / STREAM “MISS YOU” TOMORROW HERE

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“Miss You” Single Art // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES

Rooted in reflections on time, Shelf Life is a record about growing up to realize you are not the person you thought you would be. It is a collection of songs that wades between tides of past and present, success and failure, things lost and things found. The result is a collection of musical vignettes, woven together by the loose threads of a tangled life.

Recorded mostly live off the floor, Davidson teamed up with Rusty Matyas (Weakerthans), Damon Mitchell (New Meanies), and Rejean Ricard (Telepathic Butterflies) to bring the album to life.

The release of Shelf Life follows Davidson’s critically acclaimed works Enough About Me (2017) and Beauty Is So Common (2014), both garnering heavy rotation on CBC Radio 2. The Winnipeg Free Press described Enough About Me as “a gentle breeze of exquisite playing and keen observations that will reward listeners again and again and again.” The album also garnered Davidson a nomination for a Western Canadian Music Award.

Every song is an invitation to step inside Davidson’s inner world—a space of beauty and wisdom, coloured outside the lines. With warm voice and guitar, Davidson uncovers a humanity that shines in even the darkest corners. 

PRE-ORDER SHELF LIFE HERE

TOUR DATES
Feb 22 - The Ship & Plough - Gimli, MB
Feb 29 - Times Change(d) High & Lonesome Club - Winnipeg, MB w/ Micah Erenberg
Apr 14 - Ironwood Stage & Grill - Calgary, AB
Apr 15 - Station on Jasper - Edmonton, AB
Apr 18 - The Stand Easy Legion - Jasper, AB
Apr 19 - Bo’s Bar and Grill - Red Deer, AB
Apr 23 - Capitol Music Club - Saskatoon, SK
Apr 24 - Flav’r Country Ranch - Langenburg, SK
May 13 - The Foundry - Thunder Bay, ON
May 15 - Black Sheep Inn - Wakefield, QC w/ Graven
May 16 - Dakota Tavern - Toronto, ON w/ Kelly Sloan
May 17 - URSA mtl - Montreal, QC
May 20 - The Garnet - Peterborough, ON
May 21 - Phog Lounge - Windsor, ON
May 23 - The Townhouse - Sudbury, ON

More Dates TBA

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SHELF LIFE TRACKLIST
01 Looking Out My Window
02 Miss You
03 Sink Full Of Dishes
04 Time Was On Your Side
05 Autumn Rain
06 Wishes
07 Half Of The Bed
08 Try Again In The Morning
09 Without A Care
10 Sentimental Teardrops

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PUP SHARE LIVE VIDEO FOR “MORBID STUFF” FILMED BY AUDIENCE

PUP’S NEW VIDEO FOR “MORBID STUFF” FILMED LIVE IN LONDON ON HANDHELD CAMERAS BY 19 FANS

WATCH AND SHARE “MORBID STUFF” LIVE HERE

NORTH AMERICAN TOUR DATES BEGIN FEB 20

THIRD ALBUM, MORBID STUFF, NOMINATED FOR 2020 JUNO AWARD

"Morbid Stuff just still sounds like friends having fun and making catchy, cathartic punk anthems for teens and almost-adults alike — offering a brief, but much needed respite from the hell that is everyday life...their strongest album to date." - Exclaim! (9/10)

“Morbid Stuff is one of the best fast-and-loud records you’ll hear this year...While they’re filed under “punk” at the record store, that label doesn’t begin to do them justice.” - Georgia Straight

“A stupidly catchy and thoroughly good-humoured collection of shout-along anthems...the album is like a big, warm hug from a close friend who’s finally lured you out of your darkened apartment after three days in bed telling you you’re not alone, you’re not the first person to be sad and you will get through this,” - Toronto Star

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(“Morbid Stuff” Live In London)

Following the end of the band’s recent world tour, a run that had them on the road for 9 months, PUP today share the video for “Morbid Stuff”, recorded live and shot on cheap handheld cameras handed out to 19 gig-goers the band personally connected with in advance of their recent London dates. As premiered yesterday on the fans’ social media accounts, the clip showcases the sweat-stained euphoria of the band’s shows and once again captures the unique bond between PUP and the people that come to their gigs, screaming every word.

WATCH AND SHARE “MORBID STUFF” LIVE HERE

Taken from the critically-acclaimed album of the same name – which was was recently nominated for a 2020 JUNO Award and was the #1 Album of 2019 on !earshot’s year end charts – today’s release isn’t the first time they’ve collaborated on visuals with fans, for the “Free At Last” video, which served as a love letter to their fans, the band called on people to record their own versions of a song not-yet-released, supplying only chords and lyrics to hilarious and impressive results. 

Redefining the relationship between artist and fans, they’ve often let fans feel as much a part of PUP as the four people onstage, creating zines that connect on a more intimate level than social media, used in the past to leak information of upcoming releases like the single “Kids” through fans all pushed via their fan-facing Little Dipper label imprint.

Beginning February 20 the band will head back out on the road for a run of North American tour dates with festival stops this summer at Coachella, Boston Calling, Shaky Knees, and more. Full dates can be found below. It was recently announce that following 9 months touring last year, the band had offset the entire tour’s emissions through Less.ca. To raise the funds necessary, vocalist Stefan Babcock set to create 50 personalized one-of-a-kind tattoos for specific fans, all of which he’d connected with directly, again blurring the line between the band and its fans.

MORE ABOUT MORBID STUFF

Formed in Toronto five years ago, PUP, comprised of Stefan Babcock, Nestor Chumak, Zack Mykula, and Steve Sladkowski, quickly became favourites of the punk scene with their first two, critically-beloved albums, winning accolades everywhere from the New York Times to Pitchfork, from NPR and Rolling Stone, and more. Now, with Morbid Stuff, PUP have grown up and doubled down on everything that made you love their first two records. It’s gang’s-all-here vocals, guitarmonies, and lyrics about death. Lots of them.

Fitting to their ethos, their new album takes the dichotomy of fun and emotional wreckage in their songs and teeters between gleeful chaos and bleak oblivion while wielding some of the best choruses the band has ever written. Morbid Stuff is also a pretty intense foray into singer Stefan Babcock’s fight with depression, and shows, in perfect PUP fashion, how taking responsibility of his own depression lead him to….laughter. Admitting his depression allowed Babcock to laugh in its face, and the result is that marriage of darkness and joy that made PUP who they are, but in a brand new way.

Indeed, despite its dark subject matter, at times Morbid Stuff is funny as hell, even in the music. It’s the most insightful, sweetest, funniest, sickest, angriest, saddest and most inescapably desperate collection of songs they’ve recorded to date. If their self-titled record was the fuse and The Dream Is Over was the bomb going off, Morbid Stuff is your family sifting through the rubble, only to find you giggling while you bleed to death.

PRAISE FOR MORBID STUFF

"Morbid Stuff is the angriest PUP has ever sounded. But it’s not a cry for help. It’s a cry of freedom, the sound of a band realising that anger is liberating..." - Pitchfork (7.9)

"With Morbid Stuff, the Toronto band made the best album of their career" - Noisey

"This one's worth listening to" - Kerrang! (4/5)

"These guys are heroes" - NPR Music

"Should find happy bedfellows in fans old and new" - Upset (4/5)

"A seamless explosion of ferocity which translates their anger and nihilism perfectly" - DIY (4/5)

"Unifying" - NME (⅘)

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PHOTO CREDIT: Vanessa Heins // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES

FULL BLOWN MELTDOWN TOUR:

Feb 20 - Peterborough, ON - The Venue %
Feb 21 - Buffalo, NY - Asbury Hall Babeville %
Feb 22 - Oshawa, ON - The Music Hall Concert Theatre #
Feb 25 - Phoenix, AZ - The Van Buren ^
Feb 26 - Albuquerque, NM - Sunshine Theater ^
Feb 28 - Houston, TX - White Oak Music Hall ^
Feb 29 - Dallas, TX - Canton Hall ^
Mar 1 - Austin, TX - Emo’s ^
Mar 2 - Oklahoma, OK - Tower Theatre ^
Mar 4 - Omaha, NE - The Waiting Room ^
Mar 5 - Denver, CO - Ogden Theater ^
Mar 6 - Salt Lake City, UT - The Complex ^
Mar 8 - Tacoma, WA - Spanish Ballroom at McMenamins Elks Temple ^
Mar 9 - Seattle, WA - Neptune Theater ^
Mar 10 - Portland, OR - Roseland Theater ^
Mar 11 - Eugene, OR - Sessions Music Hall ^
Mar 13 - Sacramento, CA - Aces Of Spades ^
Mar 14 - San Francisco, CA - The Regency Ballroom ^
Mar 21 - Yellowknife, NT - Snowking’s Winter Festival
Apr 10 - Indio, CA - Coachella Music and Arts Festival
Apr 17 - Indio, CA - Coachella Music and Arts Festival
May 1 - Atlanta, GA - Shaky Knees Festival
May 22 - Boston, MA - Boston Calling Music Festival
Jun 6 - New York, NY - The Governors Ball Music Festival
Jun 12 - Castle Donington, UK - Download Festival
Jun 13 - Kildare, IR - Sunstroke Festival
Jun 19 - Hradec Kralove, CZ - Rock For The People Festival
Jun 20 - Neuhausen ob Eck, DE - Southside Festival
Jun 21 - Scheeßel, DE - Hurricane Festival
Jun 26 - Ysselsteyn, NL - Jera on Air Festival

% - w. Support from Drew Thomson Foundation & Casper Skulls
# - w. Support from Luna Li & Casper Skulls
^ - w. Support from Screaming Females & Drew Thomson Foundation
~ - w. Support from Drew Thomson Foundation

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