TREEPHONES SHARE NEW VIDEO FOR “A MAP” FROM UPCOMING LP, PINK OBJECTS

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“A Map” is the second single from the upcoming Treephones  — the musical moniker of Stephen Trothen — full-length album Pink Objects (out May 7).

The song tells the story of a couple taking a road trip with a number of unexpected events interfering — specifically some rain and a fox that appears in the middle of the road during the return drive. In a larger sense, “A Map” is about the desire to plan and the commonplace nature of the unexpected. “I was thinking of the map as an object that presents and promises a sense of order and organization that is fixed” says Trothen “and how un-mappable items almost always introduce slight detours.”  

The track is built around a finger picked guitar part, a rolling drum pattern, sparse saxophone, and a synth patch that approximates the Doppler effect of a car honking its horn as it drives past.

The video for the song features a continuous shot from the backseat of a car while the driver flips through the “A Map” lyrics on the car radio display. The shot ends with a few unexpected dance moves from someone in a fox suit, a fist fight, as well as the reveal of some potential camera trickery.

WATCH AND SHARE “A MAP” MUSIC VIDEO HERE

BUY / STREAM “A MAP” HERE

The ten song titles on Treephones’ new album Pink Objects read like an inventory of things found stashed away in a closet or neglected drawer. With every song named after an object, the concept album takes the approach of a short story collection and focuses on the interactions and relationships of characters centred around these items. The album was written and recorded at home by Trothen who also handled all but a few of the performing duties. The result is a set of songs that weave beautifully evolving textures into a carefully arranged sound that matches the directness and understated complexity of its lyrics.

WATCH AND SHARE “FUZZY DREAM MACHINE” HERE

BUY / STREAM “FUZZY DREAM MACHINE” HERE

Pink Objects was mixed by Calvin Hartwick (Daniel Caesar, METZ, Cadence Weapon) at Dream House Studios and mastered by Phil Demetro at Lacquer Channel. The second concept album from Treephones, Pink Objects is a great leap forward for the self-recording Trothen in both songcraft and production, with each of the 10 songs being as full sounding as they are intimate and personal — never getting lost in their own conceptual ambitions as they flow from from one object/song to the next.

Why pink? “I actually came up with the title early on after becoming fixated on all things pink," says Trothen. "Pink is so vibrant and striking it sometimes seems unreal when you see it on a flower or bird. Pink noise is fascinating and nice sounding too. The colour also encodes so much culturally, particularly as it relates to emotions and the body. So for Pink Objects as a title, the colour pink to me suggests a liveliness like it is pulsating with some life-force."

And why objects? “I read that an object becomes a thing when it stops working for us,” says Trothen. “So, in other words, the object is meant to go unnoticed while serving us in some way, and becomes a thing when it breaks or fails. I was interested in how these terms were being defined according to their relation to humans. I wanted to invert that idea with these songs and describe objects that elicit less controlled effects in us: evoking suppressed thoughts or concerns, memories, or facilitating awkward encounters. I think that’s why a lot of the relationships described in the songs are at a moment when they have stopped working or are in need of repair.”

PRE-ORDER PINK OBJECTS HERE

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PINK OBJECTS TRACKLIST
1 Matches
2 Fuzzy Dream Machine
3 Chord Shapes
4 A Swarm of Bees
5 A Watch (Unwind)
6 Seeds
7 A Map
8 The Penny (Obsolete)
9 A Boarding Pass
10 A Photograph

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MONTREAL JAZZ-FUNK OCTET BUSTY AND THE BASS ANNOUNCE NEW EP ET SUITE 

“ET” FROM THEIR 2020 LP EDDIE IS TRANSFORMED INTO FOUR NEW, DISTINCT, SONICALLY-DIVERSE ITERATIONS, INCLUDING BASS FROM EARTH, WIND & FIRE LEGEND VERDINE WHITE 

ET SUITE OUT MARCH 17 VIA ARTS & CRAFTS

HEAR THE BRILLIANTLY FUNKY NEW SINGLE “ET PART II: VENUS” FT. TERRELL MORRIS, KALLITECHNIS & TIKA THE CREATOR HERE

PRE-ORDER ET SUITE HERE

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Photo Credit: Maya Fuhr // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES

Today, Canadian 8-piece soul-jazz collective Busty and the Bass announce their new EP, ET Suite, via Arts & Crafts. ET Suite reworks the track "ET" from their album Eddie released in August of last year, with the band transforming it into four new, distinct and sonically diverse iterations. The EP features the legendary Verdine White of Earth, Wind & Fire as well as afro-soul singer Pierre Kwenders, and a trio of artists from the band’s Montreal community: Terrell Morris, Kallitechnis, and Tika the Creator

BUY / STREAM “ET II: VENUS” FEATURING TERRELL MORRIS, KALLITECHNIS, AND TIKA THE CREATOR HERE

ET Suite rethinks jazz improvisations in the era of Covid, pushing the limits of collaboration. Recorded entirely in isolation, each instrument was tracked independently during the fall of 2020. The 15-minute five-song ET Suite flows from the original psychedelic funk cut into a silky, smoothed out R&B rendition into an instrumental groove with a bassline courtesy of Verdine into the candle-lit afro-soul crooning of Pierre, all finally culminating in a wild free-jazz freak out. The EP showcases the group’s uncanny ability to seamlessly flow between genres, combining funk, jazz, and hip-hop into a sound that is as energetic as it is centering.

“Contrary to how we’ve recorded in the past, every single element of this song was recorded in isolation, including each instrument from the band,” says Chris Vincent (trombone). “There were lots of discussions and listening sessions but as far as the recording process, each instrument was recorded completely independently. There’s an element of this that actually plays into the themes of the music. The ET Suite is really a space traveling journey from one isolated planet / atmosphere to the next and that transportation to isolated spaces is exactly how the creative process worked.”

“The idea to create a suite for ET came to us on a sunny day in June in Parc Laurie,” says Louis Stein (guitar). “We wanted to flip the idea of a remix on its head and instead of just handing off stems to various producers to see what they’d come back with, we took the challenge into our own hands. We agreed to make a suite instead of a remix, extend the song into a 15 minute journey — taking the listeners through a completely new interpretation of the track where everything from the instrumentation to the verses were reimagined, while always falling back to the song’s original hook, a reminder of the suite’s origin. Within hours of that conversation Chris had a working skeleton going of what the suite could look like and the pieces starting to come together around it. We reached out to several artists we’d been wanting to work with for a while and despite the enthusiastic responses, getting in the studio together was not easy. Flashback to the day the pandemic hit: we were in LA with a studio session booked to record Verdine but the studio and our LA show that night were cancelled in the whirlwind of news that arrived that day. Months later, studios were still closed and our producer Neal Pogue, was instead forced to drive up to Verdine’s house and record his bass part from a mobile studio in a van.”

PRE-ORDER ET SUITE HERE

The octet of Nick Ferraro [vocals, alto sax], Evan Crofton a.k.a. Alistair Blu [vocals, keys, synths], Scott Bevins [trumpet], Chris Vincent [trombone], Louis Stein [guitar], Milo Johnson [bass], Eric Haynes [keys, piano], and Julian Trivers [drums] first burst onto the scene in early 2015, releasing a pair of EPs—GLAM [2015] and LIFT [2016]—before unveiling 2017’s full-length debut, Uncommon Good and in the time since have amassed over 30 MILLION streams worldwide. In addition to packing houses on headline tours, including recent SOLD OUT shows at NYC’s Bowery Ballroom and LA’s Troubadour, they graced the stages of international festivals such as Made in America, Osheaga, Pinkpop, Montreal International Jazz Festival, The Great Escape, Ottawa Bluesfest, and Rifflandia, playing alongside the likes of Radiohead, Anderson .Paak, and Lana Del Rey. Most recently, the band released their sophomore album Eddie in August 2020, garnering rave reviews from critics and fans alike. 

PRAISE FOR BUSTY AND THE BASS

"An undeniable live performance and a sound that’s best described as a lovechild between jazz, hip-hop, and electro-soul." - Complex

"Some fresh beats along with a juicy melody and you’ve got yourself an aural feast at which a jazzy, funkalicious hip-hop-infused experience awaits you." - The Huffington Post

"...a collection of reflective compositions showcasing their marriage of jazz, hip-hop and electro-soul influences" - Jazziz on Eddie

“If we need to pick a song of the summer – consider Out of Love, a funky, bubbling slice of R&B that cools the edge like tonic does to gin” The Globe and Mail on “Out Of Love”

"The overall vibe is that of a basement make-out party with dim lights, smoke-filled air, and a pile of R&B based rock, funk and soul 45s endlessly dropping down on the automatic record changer. The album should be played at a lower volume than most." - PopMatters on Eddie

“...an album filled with expert musicianship.” - Erie Reader on Eddie

"Combining their love of funk, soul, hip-hop, gospel and dance, Busty and the Bass is one of the baddest in the land when it comes to delivering unified sounds for the masses." - Okayplayer

"...drips with gold, beaming a timeless warmth, innocence, reflection, and adventure on a summery feel-good jazz-funk electro-soul pop fusion." - Atwood Magazine on Eddie

“This Montreal-funk eight-piece pulls out all the stops on its guest-laden new album. It’s Cool.” The Vancouver Sun on Eddie

STREAM / BUY EDDIE HERE

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ET SUITE TRACKLIST
01 ET (Album Version)
02 ET Part II: Venus (feat. Terrell Morris, Kallitechnis & Tika The Creator)
03 ET Part III: Jupiter (feat. Verdine White)
04 ET Part IV: Neptune (feat. Pierre Kwenders)
05 ET Part V: Mars

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JASON COLLETT SHARES NEW ANDY SHAUF PRODUCED SONG / VIDEO, ANNOUNCES BEST OF LP

FROM BROKEN SOCIAL SCENE TO HIS PRESTIGIOUS SOLO CAREER, JASON COLLETT CELEBRATES TWO DECADES WITH BEST OF LP, DUE OUT MARCH 19 VIA ARTS & CRAFTS

BUY / STREAM ANDY SHAUF PRODUCED “CRAB WALKING HOME IN THE RAIN” HERE

WATCH AND SHARE “CRAB WALKING HOME IN THE RAIN” MUSIC VIDEO HERE

PRE-ORDER BEST OF HERE

"Collett dispenses with the mundane conventions of the singer/songwriter genre as he forges portraits both intimate and worldly over engaging arrangements and lyrics." - Paste Magazine (on 'Idols Of Exile' ★★★★☆)

"What Collett does know... is craftsmanship. While so many insurgent folkies treat sonics and structure as afterthoughts, Collett suffuses his music with a level of playfulness and variety that's reflective of his membership in the acclaimed indie-rock collective Broken Social Scene." - Pitchfork (on 'Rat A Tat Tat' ★★★☆☆)

"Jason Collett is difficult to musically pigeonhole... even if the album is mainly about loss and the results of a sagging economy on the working class, the songs never sink to the downbeat morass of its socio-economic subject matter. On the contrary his voice... is boyishly refreshing even when the music is as stark" - American Songwriter (on 'Reckon' ★★★★☆)

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Jason Collett has worn many hats over a story-filled career now spanning twenty years. He sprang from the close-knit movement-defining Toronto collective Broken Social Scene, earning success in his own right as an indie rock troubadour with a warm and poetic tone. Now, Jason Collett’s career-spanning Best Of album will be released March 19 on his lifelong label Arts & Crafts. The thirteen song collection crystalizes moments from an ever-changing era, fusing vital threads that connect us to our musical family.

Best Of is spearheaded by the singer-songwriter’s first new recording since 2016’s Song And Dance Man. “Crab Walking Home In The Rain” was arranged and produced by beloved indie folk artist Andy Shauf, marking his first production for another artist. Shauf’s signature touch – chiming guitars, sprinkled with piano, interjections from the clarinet section – lift Collett’s lyrical slights-of-hand in a seamless stroke of inverted melancholy. “Crab Walking” is less a lament for times disappeared than it is a unifying call for the present. “Old haunts and landmarks that once were and are no longer. Conjuring good memories of good times,” Collett reminds. 

BUY / STREAM ANDY SHAUF PRODUCED “CRAB WALKING HOME IN THE RAIN” HERE

WATCH AND SHARE “CRAB WALKING HOME IN THE RAIN” MUSIC VIDEO HERE

Andy Shauf shares, "I’ve been a fan of Jason Collett for a long time so when he asked me to work on a song of his, I was really excited. I’ve never really felt that I had the right personality to be a producer - guiding the session and making people feel at ease - so when Jason explained that his idea was for me to produce the instrumental on my own for him to sing on, I was even more excited. Recording and arranging are definitely my favourite parts of the process, so to get to do just that to an already great song was awesome. I’ve always seen Jason as a bit of a crooner for some reason, so I tried to take the song a bit further in that direction."

Jason Collett appears every few years with a new songbook of sharp-witted musical commentary, each with a unique sonic tint. His music continues the tradition of everlasting artists like Nick Lowe, Neil Young, Kris Kristofferson, and Tom Petty, a treasured scribe of our place and our time. A member of the Arts & Crafts label from start to present, Jason Collett’s Best Of is a document of a true artist, endemic to our creative community.

PRE-ORDER BEST OF HERE

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BEST OF TRACKLIST
01 Bitter Beauty
02 Blue Sky
03 Fire
04 Hangover Days
05 I’ll Bring The Sun
06 Charlyn, Angel of Kensington
07 Through The Night These Days
08 Lake Superior
09 Love Is A Dirty Word
10 My Daddy Was A RocknRoller
11 Song And Dance Man
12 Love You Babe
13 Crab Walking Home In The Rain

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