LISTEN AND SHARE “WITCHING HOUR” HERE
EMBARKING ON NORTH AMERICAN TOUR APRIL 3RD
NEW ALBUM I FEEL ALIVE DUE APRIL 3 VIA MUSIQUE TOPS
PRE-ORDER I FEEL ALIVE HERE
"Indie pop bliss." - Pitchfork
"One of the most riveting and peerless acts in indie rock" - Stereogum
"One of Canada's most consistent musical exports" - NYLON
Photo Credit : Shelby Fenlon // DOWNLOAD HI-RES
On the heels of announcing their new album, I Feel Alive, out April 3 via their own label Musique TOPS, Montreal four-piece TOPS are sharing a new song. "Witching Hour" is one of the album's deceptively upbeat and jubilant moments and follows the release of the album's title-track last month. It sees singer Jane Penny trying to negotiate the pressure to be feminine and find true feminine power.
Penny explains: "Witching Hour is a song about reckoning. David [Carriere] wrote the chorus of the song, and when he showed it to me I gravitated towards the idea of a witching hour as a time of night for unconscious thoughts and uncomfortable visions. The pressure to be feminine has twisted my experience of my own sensuality in this nightmarish way, and I wanted to articulate that by conjuring the nefarious ways that trauma emerges in dreams. There's a sense of reprisal in witchcraft, of retribution as a means of expression, and I wanted to explore that side of feminine power."
LISTEN AND SHARE “WITCHING HOUR” HERE
"Witching Hour" also arrives ahead of TOPS' tour this Spring. Beginning April 3rd in Las Vegas, they'll make stops in Toronto and Montreal. They'll be joined by Honey Harper, Sorry Girls, and Better Person on select dates. Tickets are available on their website.
MORE ABOUT I FEEL ALIVE
The artwork for TOPS' fourth LP sets the tone for the music enclosed. Inspired by the work of photographer Thomas Ruff, TOPS' vocalist Jane Penny stares bare-faced down the lens-simple and un-posed, yet striking with starkness and vulnerability.
The image captures the fraught nature of being alive, which the 11 tracks on the album explore. Penny's remarkably expressive voice is front and center. On this record more than any other,she sings with passion and energy, without sacrificing the honesty and introspection that gives her voice its depth. The songs cover a range of experiences but at it's heart I Feel Alive is a record about resilience, the ways we can grow from for our pain and the strength that comes from learning to stand on your own as an individual.
I Feel Alive is TOPS' fourth full-length, following 2017's Sugar At The Gate and follows singles "Echo of Dawn" and "Seven Minutes" from last year. Their trademark sound of beguiling melodies over soft-rock grooves, with touches of '80s sophisti-pop and a contemporary experimental palette is intact, but bolder and more expansive. The songs manage to be both immediately catchy and deceptively deep, with Penny's literary lyrics adding an extra dimension to the pure pop hooks. Satisfying yet far from predictable, this is a record to be savoured, revealing itself slowly, gaining power and poignancy with each listen.
For I Feel Alive, the band members convened in a basement studio in Montreal, recording for the first time with keyboardist Marta Cikojevic who joined the band as a live member in 2017. "From the first time we practiced with her it was clear that we were in sync musically, and we found ourselves improvising together at the first rehearsal" says Penny. "Having Marta manning the keys allowed me to reach for my flute, and gave me the chance to integrate my flute playing with the writing process, using it as an expressive instrument rather than more production element which it has been in the past."
She continues: "We'd spent a lot of time apart, not working on new stuff or touring, just living life, all in different cities," says Penny. When we went to make I Feel Alive we all had a good sense of what we were trying to do and a renewed energy towards playing together. The goal was to get in a room together and play, not holding anything back."
"It was a quick process," says guitarist and fellow song-writer David Carriere. "We would work all day writing a song and then demo them the same evening, relying on our natural chemistry as a band to let the songs come into their own." The band's line-up is completed by Riley Fleckon drums.
WATCH AND SHARE "I FEEL ALIVE" HERE
Title track "I Feel Alive" is a bracing pop gem with darker undertones. An ode to new love, Penny sings "I feel alive looking in your eyes" with the exuberance that comes with the early stages of romance, the discovery of a deep love. But love is complicated, and within the joy and happiness is the pain of leaving someone else behind. "When I saw you wanted to spend the night with someone else at home," she sings, "I knew it wasn't right." This honest admission that happiness can come at the expense of others adds another dimension to the song's ecstatic energy. True love defies us to overcome others expectations, and that's a good thing. People may be watching, but why should you care.
Opposing and it, "Colder and Closer" is a sonic departure, with programmed synths and metallic drumming, the song shimmers. A tribute to seeking meaning in an increasingly confusing world Penny sings "Searching constellations/seeing if the stars align." But she doesn't take comfort in the stars, rejecting fate as something arbitrary, though not quite meaningless. "Signs are myths like nations/shapes drawn over crooked lines."The song is swift and lean, a pop confection, but it's also ripe with meditations on the social isolation that plagues casual intimacy. It's a prime example of the way TOPS layer meaning within pop songwriting. Beneath the soaring melodies and crisp production, I Feel Alive balances the giddiness of a new relationship with the agony of leaving old things behind. It's an introspective record that you can dance to, music that hits in an immediate rush but sticks around, lingering like the memory of a perfect doomed love affair-both the joy and the pain, until it becomes a part of your life forever.
PRE-ORDER I FEEL ALIVE HERE
TOUR DATES
4/3 - Las Vegas, NV @ Bunkhouse Saloon*
4/4 - Tucson, AZ @ 191 Toole*
4/5 - Phoenix, AZ @ Valley Bar*
4/6 - El Paso, TX @ Lowbrow Palace*
4/7 - Marfa, TX @ Lost Horse Saloon*
4/9 - Austin, TX @ Mohawk*
4/10 - San Antonio, TX @ Paper Tiger*
4/11 - Dallas, TX @ Club Dada*
4/13 - Memphis, TN @ The Hi Tone Cafe*
4/14 - Atlanta, GA @ Terminal West*
4/15 - Asheville, NC @ The Mothlight*
4/16 - Washington D.C. @ Union Stage*^
4/17 - Philadelphia, PA @ Johnny Brenda's^
4/18 - New York, NY @ Bowery Ballroom*^
4/20 - Boston, MA @ Brighton Music Hall*^
4/21 - Montreal, QC @ Theatre Rialto#^
4/22 - Toronto, ON @ Adelaide Hall#^
4/23 - Detroit, MI @ Deluxx Fluxx#^
4/24 - Chicago, IL @ Empty Bottle#^
4/25 - Minneapolis, MN @ Turf Club#^
4/28 - Vancouver, BC @ Imperial Theatre#
4/29 - Seattle, WA @ The Crocodile#
4/30 - Portland, OR @ Doug Fir Lounge#
5/1 - San Francisco, CA @ The Independent#
5/2 - Los Angeles, CA @ El Rey Theatre#
5/4 - San Diego, CA @ Music Box#5/11 - Berlin, Germany @ Berghain Kantine
5/12 - Hamburg, Germany @ Molotow
5/13 - Köln, Germany @ Bumann & Sohn
5/14 - Münster, Germany @ Gleis 22
5/15 - Amsterdam, Netherlands @ Paradiso
5/16 - Paris, France @ Le Beau festival @ La Station
5/18 - Brighton, UK @ The Hope & Ruin
5/19 - Nottingham, UK @ Bodega
5/20 - Dublin, Ireland @ Whelan's
5/21 - Glasgow, UK @ Stereo
5/22 - Manchester, UK @ YES
5/24 - Bristol, UK @ The Louisiana
5/25 - Birmingham, UK @ Hare and Hounds
5/27 - Lille, France @ La Bulle Café
5/28 - Brussels, Belgium @ Botanique
5/29 - Groningen, Netherlands @ Vera
5/30 - Utrecht, Netherlands @ Ekko
6/1 - Barcelona, Spain @ Primavera Sound @ Sala Apolo
* = w/ Honey Harper
# = w/ Sorry Girls
^ = w/ Better Person
DOWNLOAD HI-RES
1. Direct Sunlight
2. I Feel Alive
3. Pirouette
4. Ballads & Sad Movies
5. Colder & Closer
6. Witching Hour
7. Take Down
8. Drowning In Paradise
9. OK Fine Whatever
10. Looking To Remember
11. Too Much
