NEW LP, COOLER RETURNS, OUT JANUARY 22, 2021 VIA KIWI CLUB / SUB POP
WATCH / STREAM “WAITING IN LINE” HERE
Photo Credit: Laura-Lynn Petrick // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES
Kiwi Jr. is sharing an official video for “Waiting in Line”, a new offering and highlight from Cooler Returns, their forthcoming album. The video was directed by Laura-Lynn Petrick and captures a day in the life of the band in their homebase of Toronto, Ontario.
"We like the candid and casual approach of director Laura-Lynn's previous videos, including Weyes Blood, Jessica Pratt, Michael Rault, Twist, and she was excited by our idea to wander around downtown Toronto while it was something of a ghost-town." says singer Jeremy Gaudet.
WATCH / STREAM “WAITING IN LINE” HERE
Buildings burning in every direction; macabre unknowns in your friendly neighbour’s basement; undecided voters sharpening their pencils: under pressure we could call Kiwi Jr.’s Cooler Returns “timely.” But what year is it, again? On their sophomoric smash-up released world-wide by Sub Pop Records, Kiwi Jr. cycle through the recent zigs and looming zags of the new decade, squinting anew at New Year’s parties forgotten and under-investigated small town diner fires, piecing together low-stakes conspiracy theories on what’s coming down the pike in 2021. Put together like a thousand-piece puzzle, assembled in flow state through the first dull stretch of quarantine, sanitized singer shuffling to sanitized studio by streetcar, masked like it's the kind of work where getting recognized means getting killed, Cooler Returns materializes as a sprawling survey from the first few bites of the terrible twenties, an investigative exposé of recent history buried under the headlines and ancient kings buried under parking lots.
Not so long since their debut Football Money in archaeological time, unending gray eons later in the dog years of quaran-time, spiritually antipodean Canadians Kiwi Jr. return to disseminate this year's annual report to the shareholders, burying the incriminating numbers in the endless appendices of a longform narrative record, a 3,000 word tract for stakeholders to pore over.
WATCH AND SHARE “UNDECIDED VOTERS” HERE
Cooler Returns - memories of Augusts past, unrepressed and transcribed fast - go down easier thanks to meaningful changes enacted in 2019’s KiwiCares Pledge: delivering on a promise to transition from Crunchy to Smooth by 2021, the caveman chug of Football Money has been steamed and pressed with the purifying air of a saloon piano - operated with bow-tie untied - and a spring green side-salad of tentatively up-tempo organ taps and freshly fluted harmonica.
A chronically detuned spin of the dial through swivel-chair distractions and WFH daydreams, an immersive ctrl-tab deluge cycling through popular listicle distractions like the unentombing of Richard III, or the deja vu destruction of the Glasgow School of Art, Kiwi Jr. sing this song to an indoor audience, crisscrossing canceled, every other prestige distraction source wrung dry, only songwriting remaining to deliver engrossing tales to the populace, just how I imagine it worked in the old days. Fixing loose ingredients into a sturdy whip, Kiwi Jr. beam in live from the 9-5, striding into 2021 with a mastered brainwave that comes equally from the back room of the record store as the penalty box. And how do we, left holding this box of deliberate entanglements, sign off to those as yet uninitiated, undecided, uncertain, unseen, absent return coordinates - Best Wishes, Warm Regards, Good Luck? Cooler Returns, Cooler Returns, C o o l e r R e t u r n s !
WATCH / STREAM “COOLER RETURNS” HERE
For Canada buyers only, the first 200 LP copies available on Bandcamp will be on white vinyl. Kiwi Club Records will be distributed to Canadian stores via Fontana North.
Kiwi Jr. Cooler Returns has seen praise from the likes of MOJO, who in its four-star review, raves, “sustaining momentum near-flawlessly across 13 songs…proves Kiwi Jr. have the skills to match their smarts." Uncut says, “Canadian absurdists’ return is a lyrical delight”, DIY offers this, “The band rattle through a seemingly inexhaustible supply of hooks and melodies (4/5).”, and NARC proclaims, “Cooler Returns is a bloody good album full of vivid charm (4/5).”
As for “Cooler Returns,” the album’s title track, it spent 3 weeks in the U.S at #1 on the commercial alternative specialty chart. Additionally, Kiwi Jr. has also seen international airplay from The Current, WFUV, WFMU, WFPK, Music Choice, KRCL, KRCC, SiriusXMu, SiriusXM “The Verge,” Rodney Bingenheimer on SiriusXM’s “Underground Garage,” WKQX, KTCL, 91x, WDET, WLUM, KDHX, KJEE, KPNT, KROX, KACV, WEQX, WPYA, WQRR, KXRN, KBRE, KBUU, BBC Radio 1, BBC 6Music, CBC 1, CBC 2, Indie 88, X929, X100.7 and The Best Show with Tom Scharpling.
PRAISE FOR KIWI JR.
"the East Coast-via-Toronto band return cooler than ever with 13 more tightly wound pop-rock tunes that combine Pavement's lackadaisical wit with complex song structures and razor-sharp technical proficiency" - Exclaim!
“A scratchy post-punk jam with some seriously funny lyrics.” [“Cooler Returns”] - Stereogum
“The latest glimpse into their 2021 debut album, “Undecided Voters” is an upbeat indie rock song filled with layers of social commentary woven under the seemingly random surface of the lyrics.” - PASTE
“Very catchy and very timely” [“Undecided Voters”] - Brooklyn Vegan
“As we prepare for perhaps the most theatrical and gladiatorial political debate in history, ‘Undecided Voters’ is simultaneously extremely funny and painfully prescient.” - The Line of Best Fit
“On paper, the lyrics of Kiwi Jr.’s ‘Cooler Returns’ reads like a mildly anxious stream-of-consciousness that careens from an uncomfortable Super Bowl Sunday to being “strung out on the back of your ATV / throwing dead birds into the air”. But the song’s also a jangly, indie rock earworm that’ll lodge itself in that part of your brain that loves Pavement.” [“Cooler Returns”] - NME
COOLER RETURNS TRACKLIST
1. Tyler
2. Undecided Voters
3. Maid Marian’s Toast
4. Highlights of 100
5. Only Here for a Haircut
6. Cooler Returns
7. Guilty Party
8. Omaha
9. Domino
10. Nashville Wedding
11. Dodger
12. Norma Jean’s Jacket
13. Waiting in Line
