WHOOP-SZO ANNOUNCES UPCOMING TOUR DATES, SHARES NEW VIDEO

WATCH AND SHARE “AMARUQ” HERE

NORTH AMERICAN TOUR DATES BEGIN MARCH 5

WARRIOR DOWN OUT NOW VIA YOU’VE CHANGED RECORDS

BUY / STREAM WARRIOR DOWN - PHYSICAL / DIGITAL

“Warrior Down takes you for a sonic hike — sometimes through the wilderness, sometimes through a wasteland — never staying long in one spot or indicating the next direction. With long instrumentals that dance between chaos and calm, it's a subconscious assault on the emotions.” - Exclaim!

“Warrior Down is a perfectly paced and arranged set of songs and instrumental interludes, each a movement in its own right but ultimately in service to the record’s overarching theme.” - Dominionated (#1 Album of 2019)

“Whoop-Szo released its powerful new album, Warrior Down, at the end of 2019, giving us an impossible-to-categorize, rock-psych-sometimes-folk set of 10 songs that draw on vocalist and lyricist Adam Sturgeon's experience as an Anishinaabe-Canadian, writing about the intergenerational trauma within his family and his Anishinaabe community" - CBC Music

“Sitting at the meeting point of sludgy post-metal, and jagged folk-punk, WHOOP-SZO craft melodies that perform the dual function of encouraging your rapt attention, and effectively melting into.” - Beatroute

“Amaruq” Video Still

On March 5, WHOOP-Szo will take their acclaimed new album, Warrior Down, on the road for a run of tour dates throughout the US on the way to SXSW before returning to Canada. Full tour dates can be found below.

Today, the band shares the new video for “Amaruq” which songwriter Adam Sturgeon describes as “a visual summation of the themes conveyed on Warrior Down. It presents a vision of an Indigenous Future, one that defies being molded into the usual narrative of Indigenous identity. The ‘Noble Indian’ looks into the mirror of his past and/or present.”

Video director, editor, and set builder Ross Millar says the song “has a lot of energy, and it immediately gave us the impression that there was an adventurous story to be told visually. The challenge with miniatures is making small characters, structures and landscapes appear much bigger than they are. A lot of it comes down to tricky camera angles, lighting, and various scales to achieve depth and create an interesting cinematic environment for the viewer. 

This video is a product of friends getting together on a small budget and using their combined skills and camaraderie to make something special.”

WATCH AND SHARE “AMARUQ” HERE

Listed as one of The Most Underrated Albums of 2019 by Exclaim!, Warrior Down presents a vast and barren landscape associated with the harsh truth of Canadian History, a post-colonial firestorm harbouring moments of doom and heavy introspection while remaining true to their psychedelic aesthetic. 

WHOOP-Szo is a force of nature, sprung from a mixed-blooded experience of Canadian history with deep Anishinaabek roots. Thunderous and ground-breaking, harmonious and generative—a WHOOP-Szo show envelops audiences in an emotional weather-storm that dances conscientiously between anger and discipline, frustration and hope. They tell us about colonial injustice loudly and punishingly, with haunting chord changes and monolithic distortion. They explore the possibility of wisdom and empowerment, with acoustic melodies that calmly find space within crushing layers of politics and sound. On stage and off, WHOOP-Szo engage communities with a powerful synchrony that invites people to feel and to heal. They are passionate storytellers who knock loudly on the door, and will reward you tenfold for letting them in. 

WATCH WHOOP-SZO LIVE ON CBC q HERE

Warrior Down harnesses their power into a concise, focused 35 minutes on wax, calling out both specific instances of injustice in Canadian history — as we see in “Gerry”, or recalling Sturgeon’s grandfather’s experience at a Residential School (“Gerry”, “Cut Your Hair”) — and broader, wider-reaching ones such as the experience of having race and culture assigned to you by a government that doesn’t represent you (“6.1/6.2”). 

WATCH AND SHARE “GERRY” HERE

BUY / STREAM WARRIOR DOWN - PHYSICAL / DIGITAL

TOUR DATES
Mar 5: Toronto, ON - Baby G
Mar 12: Cincinnati, OH - Mockbee
Mar 13: St. Louis, MO - Lemp Neighborhood Arts Center
Mar 15 : Louisville, KY - Wet Basement
Mar 16: Fort Worth, TX  - Lola’s
Mar 17: Denton, TX - Fannin
Mar 18-20: Austin, TX - SXSW
Mar 21: Hot Springs National Park, AK - Valley of the Vapors Festival
Mar 25: Seattle, WA - Substation 
Mar 26: Portland, OR - No Fun Bar
Mar 27: Boise, ID - Neurolux / Treefort Music Festival
Mar 28: Boise, ID - The Hideout / Treefort Festival
Mar 29: Boise, ID - Tom Grainey's Basement / Treefort Festival
Apr 1: Abbotsford, BC - Carport Manor
Apr 2: Vancouver, BC - TBD
Apr 3: Victoria, BC - Rubber Boots Club
Apr 4: Seattle, WA - Victory Lounge
Apr 5: Portland, OR - Firkin Pub
Apr 8: Regina, SK - T & A Vinyl
Apr 9: Calgary, AB - Palomino
Apr 10: Edmonton, ON - Aviary / Mad Galaxy Festival
Apr 11: Saskatoon, SK - Amigo's
Apr 14: Winnipeg, MB - Good WIll Social Club
Apr 15: Thunder Bay, ON - Apollo 
Apr 16: Sault Ste Marie, ON - Sault Ste Marie Museum
Apr 17: Port Huron, ON - Schwonk Homestead
Apr 18: Toronto, ON - Tiny Record Store (Record Store Day)
Apr 18: London, ON - Grooves Records (Record Store Day)
Apr 21: Quebec City, QC - La Source De La Martiniere %
Apr 22: Montreal, QC - Bar Le Ritz %
Apr 23: Peterborough, ON - TBD
Apr 24: Toronto, ON - Horseshoe Tavern %
Apr 25: Ottawa, ON - 27 Club %

% with Trail Of Dead

MORE PRAISE FOR  WHOOP-SZO

“A true psychedelic group ... For WHOOP-Szo, punk, DIY and psych principles go beyond music scene bubbles and fuse with Indigenous solidarity and healing through music.” - NOW 

“WHOOP-Szo has perfected their eclectic sounds, binding the paradox of indistinguishable familiarity with themes of Canadian history, language, and culture.” - VICE

“It’s scary how good this band is” - Exclaim!

Photo Credit : Rima Sater // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES

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SCOTT HARDWARE SHARES “BLU AGAIN” FROM UPCOMING LP

LISTEN AND SHARE “BLU AGAIN” SOUNDCLOUD / SPOTIFY

ENGEL OUT APRIL 3 VIA TELEPHONE EXPLOSION

“Connecting his love of both dance music and new wave pop, while subtly taking on queer political issues in his lyrics” - VICE

“A sonic leap forward for the Toronto producer, while still maintaining the inherent hazy chillness we fell in love with in the first place” - Silent Shout

“While his club inspirations are easy to spot on debut Mutate Repeat Infinity, he’s still got a least one foot in the indie pop world” - NOW

Photo Credit : Shelby Fenlon // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES

“Blu Again”, the new single from Scott Hardware’s upcoming LP, Engle, "is about feeling ‘elsewhere’” says Hardware. “It’s the fear and confusion of life’s beauty floating in front of you while your brain takes hold, but your heart does not.

The narrator says ‘a mid-day sky over beach, I’ll never see that blue again’, already regretting a moment slipping by." 

Engel, his second full-length album, and first on Telephone Explosion Records is out on April 3, 2020. It will mark the end of a three-year process of writing, recording and letting down his guard (for better or worse.) 

LISTEN AND SHARE “BLU AGAIN” SOUNDCLOUD / SPOTIFY

His last album, Mutate, Repeat, Infinity, was the culmination of a years-long obsession with the HIV/AIDS crisis and how it was shaped by capitalism. Hardware’s early years after coming out were shaped by the courage of people close to him who were dealing with difficult diagnoses. 

“Looking at these situations from a macro/societal lens must have been the only way I could process and share those years of my life and my loved ones’ lives with an audience” Hardware recalls. “From a writing and production standpoint, I was trying to re-imagine various eras of dance music and sound as urgent and vital as they would have in their heyday of the ‘80s and ‘90s.” 

Within a year of moving back (to Toronto) from Berlin, Scott watched Wim Wenders’ Wings of Desire and was immediately filled with its inherent curiosity. The film, in short, follows angels around pre-unification Berlin as they listen to the thoughts of the mortals they are surrounded by. 

“I sought with this album to capture the film’s velvety feeling – in turns funny, depressing, dark and mundane – in LP form” Hardware says. “These songs imagine Wenders’ angels buzzing around my friends, my family and I. Writing from their point of view allowed me unfettered access to my own thoughts about them and myself.” 

In the title track, the subject is in a relationship with a mischievous angel (named Engel,) who is probing his mind against his will. “Here he comes to comfort me, but like a fly around my head I’d sooner swat him dead,” is sung over an off-the-grid deconstructed house piano. A symphony of creaking trains and industry envelops the banging piano and delicate strings on the chorus while our hero complains “He’s here with that look again, he knows what’s happening, inside,” not, it would seem, ready for this level of vulnerability. 

LISTEN AND SHARE “JOY” BANDCAMP / SPOTIFY

“Millionaire” swoops in on a courtship doomed from the beginning: “He’s a Millionaire, and what a Millionaire says goes”. A sense of inferiority follows the protagonist in his efforts date a richer man than himself – the romance being cut short because of the poorer man’s insecurities. He decides: better to be alone than to feel beneath. 

“Millionaire” is the most delicate song on Engel. Sullen guitars glide over a rolling plain of harps, drones and underwater motifs with Deidre Nox’s beautiful vocals bringing an almost camp level of melodrama to its crescendo as Hardware and Nox sing together: “you can feel him like he’s always been there.” 

The song ends on a sour note, in a swamp of drones and fallen electrical wire buzzes – and back where the protagonist began. 

“Survivor’s Guilt” ties Engel to Hardware’s previous work with its premeditation on illness and the grief left in its wake. A digitized voice reads a sister’s eulogy to her brother lost to suicide after years of losing his friends around him to “a disease.” The six-minute instrumental takes respective production cues from both Boyz II Men and vaporwave. A chopped voice asks sadly, ‘How can I survive surviving?’ before Nox appears once again, singing the song (and album) to sleep. 

Engel’s cover art is adorned by an image by artist Chris Curreri called the Insomniac. Curreri’s work winks and nods to queer sex, emotionality and darkness, and this piece is no different. This is work that reaches back to queer artists such as Francis Bacon and brings back with it a timeless everyday horror faced by queers: shame. 

These are artists who visualize monsters and demons hiding in plain sight. Like singing to dead queer ancestors on Mutate, Repeat, Infinity, Hardware is trying to make sense of another queer cross-to-bear, this time coming from within. The image is gory and difficult, not unlike the process of digging shame from one’s spirit. Engel, in its preoccupation with angels, the afterlife and private thoughts holds hands with the image. 

PERFORMANCES
Feb 26- Toronto, ON - The Boat w/ Korea Town Acid & Lee Paradise

DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES

ENGEL TRACKLIST
1. Intro
2. Millionaire
3. Blu Again
4. Joy
5. Engel
6. Left Hand
7. Bound Together
8. Survivor’s Guilt

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BRANDON WOLFE SCOTT (YUKON BLONDE) SHARES NEW VIDEO FOR “RAZOR LOVE” FT. STACEY

WATCH AND SHARE “RAZOR LOVE” (FT. STACEY) HERE

STREAM / BUY “RAZOR LOVE” HERE

BURDEN ON YOUR SHOULDERS EP OUT NOW  VIA DINE ALONE

STREAM / BUY BURDEN ON YOUR SHOULDERS HERE

“...loaded with the kind of floating harmonies, slide guitar and waltzing cadence that the Fab Four specialized in at their peak...this could open up a whole new audience for this talented writer.” - Vancouver Sun

“...searing guitar riffs sound like a broken heart coming apart at the seams,” - Exclaim!

Photo Credit : Roberto Brundo // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES

Today, Brandon Wolfe Scott is sharing his version of Neil Young’s “Razor Love” featuring vocals from STACEY. "When Silver & Gold came out in 2000, I was still in senior high, working at a small record shop at the time,” says Scott. “The best part of working there was getting shipments on new release day and listening to them in the store. I can remember hearing ‘Razor Love’ and thinking, Neil's still got the goods! It's a timeless writing style that stops you in your tracks. I ended up recording this version almost 2 years ago. I would revisit the session from time to time but the vocal never felt right. After revisiting it again this past year, I ended up singing a low harmony under the entire main vocal and that's what sparked the idea that this would make a great duet if the right voice was on it.   

I knew I had to reach out to STACEY, I didn't know her well at the time but was a big fan of her songwriting style and loved her voice. After sending her the session to see if she'd be into taking a crack at it, a day later she sent the session back with two vocal passes. I ended up keeping her first take, her laid back delivery was exactly what the song needed and everything fell into place."

WATCH AND SHARE “RAZOR LOVE” (FT. STACEY) HERE

STREAM / BUY “RAZOR LOVE” HERE

"When Brandon sent me the track I loved it instantly. His production radiates nostalgia and the dual vocal was so sweet and intimate,” says STACEY. “I thought ‘I’ll just try it quick’ one night while laying in bed this past summer. I never sing laying down and didn’t intend for it to be the vocal take that we used but we ended up feeling it was the best one. I love the song and it’s extra special because it sparked a great collaborative and songwriting relationship between Brandon and I. Thanks be to Neil."

Best known as the guitarist and co-songwriter in the JUNO Award nominated Indie rock group Yukon Blonde, his latest EP Burden On Your Shoulders came together in the winter months of 2019, when the band found themselves with time off between tours, giving Scott the opportunity to turn his tiny living room space into a minimal recording set up. 

WATCH AND SHARE “SUMMERS ON FIRE” HERE

“Being fully immersed in the recording process became a comforting experience and a constant learning curve. Working at my own pace, deliberately tracking with limitations, helped me shape a cohesive sound that feels like the most genuine thing I’ve done.”

Scott has settled into a natural songwriting style - paying homage to the golden era of the 70’s drawing inspiration from Al Stewart, Todd Rundgren and Beatle favourite; George Harrison - whilst still maintaining a modern approach through his introspective lyrics laced with lush harmonies.

STREAM / BUY BURDEN ON YOUR SHOULDERS HERE

WATCH AND SHARE “BURDEN ON YOUR SHOULDERS” HERE

TOUR DATES
Feb 21- Kamloops, BC - Brautigan Library(*Sold Out)
Feb 22 - Kelowna, BC - @bnabrewing Tasting Room (tickets sold only at BNA Brewing) 

BRANDON WOLFE SCOTT ONLINE
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