SATELLITE AND THE HARPOONIST (SHAWN HALL) SHARE VIDEO FOR “LEE DORSEY” FROM UPCOMING EP

WATCH AND SHARE “LEE DORSEY” HERE

SATELLITE AND THE HARPOONIST - THE NEW SUPERGROUP FROM HARPOONIST AND THE AXE MURDERER’S SHAWN HALL, FEATURING MEMBERS OF THE DEEP DARK WOODS, THE BOOM BOOMS, AND KING MISSILE III

SATELLITE MAN EP OUT SEPTEMBER 4, 2020

“Lee Dorsey” Video Still

Today, Satellite and The Harpoonist, the new ‘super group’ from Shawn Hall (The Harpoonist) is sharing another new track from their upcoming debut EP, Satellite Man. “Lee Dorsey” is a “tribute to the legacy of Lee Dorsey, a Black American singer from New Orleans whose work was produced by the great Allen Toussaint and backed by the legendary Meters,” says Hall. “In this incarnation the fellas channeled The Beastie Boys and Lee Scratch Perry to tell the story.”

WATCH AND SHARE “LEE DORSEY” HERE

As the great poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow once stated, “The best thing one can do when it’s raining is to let it rain.” And so, in January 2020, as the city’s longest spell of precipitation in over five decades threatened to wash Vancouver into the Pacific, four musicians from disparate sonic territories did just that. Not that they had a say in the matter, they let it rain while gathering at Afterlife Studios to conduct an experiment as radical and historic as the weather outside. 

Shawn Hall of the acclaimed maverick blues duo The Harpoonist and The Axe Murderer was the progenitor, his notion being to assemble three talented friends with whom he had previously worked, yet that had never met each other. Then, during an intense three-day exploration of alchemic creative collaboration within a self-imposed pressure cooker environment, they would record a 6-song EP – all under the gaze of a film crew. So, as the rain smashed down on the City of Glass, Satellite and The Harpoonist was birthed, with every labour pain and its exhausting entry into the world captured on celluloid.

WATCH AND SHARE “SATELLITE MAN” (MUSIC VIDEO) HERE

Joining singer/harmonicist Hall in this extraordinary project – his “people that want to play in the sandbox” – are Geoff Hillhorst (Hammond organ/piano/synthesizers) of award-winning alt-country-folk dreamers, The Deep Dark Woods; Theo Vincent (percussion/congas/vocals) from Vancouver’s funk-soul powerhouse The Boom Booms, and on drums and Pencilina, Brooklyn’s Bradford Reed, of out-there art-rockers, King Missile III. The Pencilina, an incredible double-necked zither-like contraption, is Reed’s own one-off invention, making Satellite and The Harpoonist the world’s only band to feature it.

WATCH AND SHARE “BALLET IN A PHONE BOOTH” HERE

EP Artwork // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES

SATELLITE MAN TRACKLIST
Justine
Lee Dorsey
Satellite Man
Only Love Can Break Your Heart
Soul of the Sun
Ballet in a Phone Booth

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LUKA KUPLOWSKY SHARES NEW SINGLE “POSITIVE PUSH”

NEW LP, STARDUST, COMING ON NEXT DOOR RECORDS OCTOBER 2, 2020

WATCH AND SHARE “POSITIVE PUSH” HERE

PRE-ORDER STARDUST HERE

Photo Credit: Melissa Richards // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES

Luka Kuplowsky announced Stardust, his first full-length release for Next Door Records, last  month and is returning today with the video for “Positive Push”, a compelling shift from the folk-oriented first single “Never Get Tired (of Loving You)”. The new single is dominated by a driving bass line with synth flourishes that, together, are reminiscent of Stereolab’s early work. The contrast of these songs perfectly encapsulates what makes Luka Kuplowsky such an exciting musical voice. His vision, and that of his collaborators, including members of U.S. Girls, Andy Shauf, Bahamas, Julia Jacklin and more, is never limited to genre. 

“Positive Push” is “grasping at something elusive,” says Luka. “The voice of the song is overwhelmed with questions - seeking answers in teachers, family, love. Exhausted and uncertain, the song arrives at the recognition that the voice itself is the vehicle for change and actualization. ‘Sing Sing Sing like a Singer Songwriter / I hope to die a lot lighter than this’.

In recording the vocals live with the band, I often sat hunched on a stool strumming my classical guitar. For this song I put down the guitar and was dancing round the vocal booth. I wanted to get wacky and pop in a deadly serious way. I was listening a lot to The Roches 1989 masterpiece Speak.”

WATCH AND SHARE “POSITIVE PUSH” HERE

Speaking to the music video, directed by his brother Adam Kuplowsky, Luka writes, “J.J. The Clown inspired this video. My mama found J.J. at a roadside antique store outside Toronto. ‘He could star in one of your movies,’ she said to my brothers and I. A week later, we had him dancing atop the St. Lawrence River to the groove of ‘Positive Push’. Surely, there is no symbol for the artist more enduring than that of ‘the dancing clown.’”

While not pining nor sugar coating Kuplowsky’s first single off of Stardust, “Never Get Tired (of Loving You)”, is a love song, looking at love as an intrinsic component for growth, a solidarity between two people hurtling through the chaotic present. It’s not something light or easy. Rather, this love is, as Luka puts it, “a patient attuning.” Gold Flake Paint called it “a tender, almost opulent display… a swirling mix of jazz and folk, a Destroyer-esque melding of glorious vocals and glowing instrumentation that creates its own book of superlatives.” 

LISTEN AND SHARE “NEVER GET TIRED (OF LOVING YOU)” HERE

The first single continues where we left off with Kuplowksy’s Judee Justin Arthur Mary, the reimagined covers EP from earlier this year. With many of the same players as the EP, “Never Get Tired (of Loving You)” features Evan Cartwright (Andy Shauf, U.S. Girls) on drums, Thom Gill (Martha Wainwright, Sam Amidon) on electric guitar and organ, standout jazz player Josh Cole (Josh Cole Quartet, Sandro Perri) on fretless bass, Bahamas’ Felicity Williams (Bahamas) and Robin Dann (Bernice) for backing vocals, and Brodie West (Broken Social Scene, The Ex) on alto sax. 

Stardust sees Luka incorporating strings and horns to accompany the jazz-inflected folk sound that he explored on his EP. The album is truly a cinematic exploration of song by Kuplowksy, who works as an adjunct professor of film in Toronto. His narratives often twist and weave through realism and melodrama, romanticism and surrealism. Kuplowsky has an ability to create non-linear narratives that both feel complete and can leave your head spinning with a simple lyric, such as the standout line on the eponymous “Stardust”, where Luka sings, ‘Did I make an angel blush, with my suffering, my loss?’. 

Kuplowsky explains his heady vision for the new album, saying:

“In Stardust, the voice is a planet and the band, satellites in orbit.
The songs find their flow in this dance, finding balance not in cohesion but rotation.
Similarly, the lyrics are not necessarily narrative or linear, rather they are spheres of thought and
contemplation.

Verses and choruses circle an idea rather than move towards a foregone conclusion. 
Let's extend this metaphor further in another direction.
Stardust is indebted to the creativity of Joni Mitchell, Arthur Russell, John Trudell, and Ryan Driver (among others).

Think of influence not as a mask or screen, but also an ORBIT.
You gotta create your own gravity, or else you're just drifting...

Forever an apprentice in song, 

- Luka Kuplowsky”

With his wonderful new album Stardust, Luka Kuplowsky makes a refreshing argument for the relevance of acoustic music as a place to hold thought; an open space to place impeccably chosen words, ideas and images. A young songwriter with a calm, conversational delivery and an effortless, un-showy grasp of poetry; Kuplowsky humbly picks up the same threads of inquiry that did Cohen, asking the big questions about love, meaning and consciousness. Musically, Stardust triangulates between Hejira and Late for the Sky, finding connections between the purity of simple melody and the tangled modulations of jazz. Luka Kuplowsky makes a music of contemplation, a music alive to the everyday possibilities of epiphany and revelation, an unhurried music that moves with the gentle and curving rhythms of thought.

From the first note, Stardust feels fresh and immediate, and this immediacy is no accident. The album was recorded in just two days, in a studio with almost no isolation, with an all-star band of musicians drawn from the rich jazz and improvisational scenes of Toronto. Vocals and nearly everything else was recorded live, in an act of pure trust, and the album truly captures a performance, an assembly of players discovering the songs in real time.

~ written by Tamara Lindeman (The Weather Station)

PRE-ORDER STARDUST HERE

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STARDUST TRACKLIST
1. Do I Have to Be
2. Never Get Tired (of Loving You)
3. Stardust
4. Crazy Love
5. Rough Times
6. City By My Window
7. Positive Push
8. Sayonara Blue
9. Skyline
10. Stardust (Reprise)
11. Be New

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TAMI NEILSON SHARES NEW VIDEO FOR “YOU WERE MINE”

WATCH AND SHARE “YOU WERE MINE” HERE

CHICKABOOM! OUT NOW VIA OUTSIDE MUSIC

“You Were Mine” Video Still

Today, Tami Neilson shares the new video for APRA Silver Scroll nominated song, “You Were Mine”, from her latest LP, CHICKABOOM!. “This video was directed by my brother Todd, who went full Tarantino, and the song was written with my brother Jay, born out of a conversation we had about life after losing our Dad,” says Tami. “We spoke about how we tend to use traumatic or life-altering events as markers in our lives and it’s suddenly split into two categories: ‘before and ‘after’. That loss became the way we measure time. This song definitely hits differently this year. I think we have all had that line drawn in the sand and our lives will never be the same.”

WATCH AND SHARE “YOU WERE MINE” HERE

No one forgets the first time they saw Tami Neilson. She can hush a room with an original song that channels the hurting spirit of Patsy Cline or the sensuality of Peggy Lee, or bring the audience to its feet on a rockabilly raver. 

Though Tami did have to cancel her world tour in March, which included stops at Willie Nelson's Luck Reunion and her first tour of France (where “You Were Mine” has become a hit), she will be performing at home in New Zealand in September, backed by an orchestra.

Tami spent her lockdown in New Zealand while her brothers were located in Toronto. During that time, they produced a 12 part online series called The Tami Show where fans got a glimpse into the world of Tami including how she makes her beehive, her extensive vintage wardrobe, album recommendations and live performances.

WATCH THE TAMI SHOW EPISODE 1 HERE

Out now via Outside Music, CHICKABOOM!, is an album of “punchy little songs, popping firecrackers that, when stripped back to nothing but a guitar, percussion and two voices, would still go boom!,” says Tami. The new collection brings much personal and family history to the table. Returning in full force to Tami’s recording and live performance zone is her brother Jay Neilson. 

WATCH AND SHARE “YOU WERE MINE” LIVE ACOUSTIC SESSION AT SIRIUSXM

WATCH AND SHARE “ANY FOOL WITH A HEART” HERE

WATCH AND SHARE “TEN TONNE TRUCK” HERE

WATCH AND SHARE “HEY, BUS DRIVER!” HERE

PHOTO CREDIT : Si Moore // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES

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