HILDEGARD (HELENA DELAND + OURI) DETAIL SELF-TITLED DEBUT LP, SHARE NEW TRACK

HILDEGARD SELF-TITLED DEBUT LP OUT JUNE 4 VIA CHIVI CHIVI

WATCH AND SHARE “JOUR 1” HERE

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PRE-ORDER HILDEGARD HERE

Photo Credit: Jetro Emilcar // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES

Over just eight days in the studio in 2018, experimental singer-songwriter Helena Deland and multi-instrumentalist and producer Ouri (Ourielle Auvé) discovered an innate creative connection, building and bouncing ideas off of one another, developing an intuitive approach to composition and sound. The resulting self-titled album, Hildegard is wholly its own. Out on June 4, 2021  as their debut release on Chivi Chivi, today Deland and Ouri have also shared the propulsive and thrilling opening track, “Jour 1”, with an accompanying music video. The duo describes “Jour 1” as being “about processing by partying, and the clarity that sometimes comes with it.” 

WATCH AND SHARE “JOUR 1” HERE

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“Jour 1” Single Artwork // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES

The eight tracks on Hildegard fuse together into a sonic sphere, and are named for each day Deland and Ouri spent together. Deland’s folk background balances against Ouri’s nocturnal world of electronic and dance music. Two figures find space to meet, somewhere between light and dark, liquid and solid, heaven and earth. They weave in and out of each other. Weightless vocals and aphoristic lyrics hover over kinetic beats and throbbing bass. The meeting place sounds something like dusk, or dawn.

From this alchemy arises the figure of mystic, healer, composer, and visionary 12th century nun, Hildegard of Bingen, from whom Deland and Ouri drew inspiration. Hildegard was a woman of science, music, and spirituality, as well as a symbol of nurturing strength. In her 12th century presence, she wrote prophecies, poems, and treatises; she experienced otherworldly visions and recorded them, passing them down through generations. Deland and Ouri invoke Hildegard as a carrier of the magic they felt working with each other, the separate entity that was born as they blended together. Artist Melissa Matos developed a visual language for the project that reflects this melding and switching of identities, imagining Hildegard as both a contemporary and historic presence. A tangling of two identities beyond the possibility of retreat.

Hildegard is a testament to the intensity of coming together, losing yourself in one another, emerging as something new. Throughout the album, the boundaries between self and other are thin as light. Call and response grow into a third element: the sound of a fantasy, a nightmare. Or maybe even a vision.

Last month Hildegard released another album highlight, “Jour 2”, and saw coverage from Pitchfork, Fader, Paste, and Gorilla vs. Bear who said that the duo “left us enchanted and clamoring for more of their thrilling and transportive experimental electronic pop.”

PRE-ORDER HILDEGARD HERE

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HILDEGARD TRACKLIST
1. Jour 1
2. Jour 2
3. Jour 3
4. Jour 4
5. Jour 5
6. Jour 6
7. Jour 7
8. Jour 8

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JOSEPH SHABASON REVEALS “SO LONG” FROM THE FELLOWSHIP

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JOSEPH SHABASON SHARES AUTO-BIOGRAPHY IN THE FORM OF INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC WITH NEW LP, THE FELLOWSHIP,  OUT APRIL 30, 2021 VIA TELEPHONE EXPLOSION & WESTERN VINYL

PRE-ORDER THE FELLOWSHIP HERE

Photo Credit : Colin Medley // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES

Today, saxophonist Joseph Shabason is sharing “So Long”, the track that closes out his upcoming album, The Fellowship (out April 30 via Telephone Explosion and Western Vinyl). The album follows a chronological arc that spans three generations covering his parents’ early lives, his own spiritual and physical adolescence, and his subsequent struggle to eschew the problematic habituations of such a conflicted past. 

In the narrative arc of the album, “So Long” represents “me leaving religion behind,” says Shabason. “I wanted it to feel hopeful and melancholic at the same time....a new chapter free from guilt and fear but also one where I have to leave behind a community of people and beliefs that brought me a lot of joy over the years. When I was producing it I kept thinking that thematically speaking, I should be the soloist in the song instead of Nicole Rampersaud, but the more I listened the more her playing felt like the perfect send off. She manages to capture the exact feeling of what I was going for way better than I think I ever could. When I listen to the record I am always waiting for this song because of how great her and Bram Gielen and Phil Melanson's playing works together. Three people soloing at the same time but managing to all leave space for one another.”

Using mournful brass and glassy keys, the aptly titled “So Long” represents the slow walking away that Shabason had to do mentally and emotionally, even long after the illusion had been cracked open. “It took me at least another twelve to fifteen years to fully deprogram myself from all the guilt and shame that was bred into me by religion, but I think that I’m finally free from it,” says Shabason of his present-day outlook. “This song is a final goodbye  to that life… an exhale and deep inhale before I start a new chapter.” 

LISTEN AND SHARE “SO LONG” HERE

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Across eight tracks that mesh spacious, jazz-laced composition with fourth-world and adult-contemporary tonality, The Fellowship sketches an auditory map of the transcendence, unity, conditioning, and eventual renunciation of his upbringing in an Islamic and Jewish dual-faith household. The resulting album bears the name of the insular Islamic community Shabason’s traditionally Jewish parents belonged to from a time before he was even born; a mental and spiritual push pull which continued shaping, even controlling, his outlook well into his adulthood.

“Life With My Grandparents” commences The Fellowship in overcast hues. A cassette recording of a child’s voice pops in and out of a murmuring brass tone as both elements drift like memories receding  forever into the past. “My parents grew up in really difficult households. Both of my father’s parents had just survived the Holocaust only six years before he was born.” Shabason explains, cutting right to the root of what might have led his parents to diverge from their inherited spiritual conventions. "My grandparents were deeply traumatised from having lost so many friends and family members, and even if the war hadn’t happened I don’t think they would have been particularly emotionally available.” 

The title track of The Fellowship swings toward relief and reflection, and buoys the mood up to something childlike. It is suffused with saxophone, upright bass, chorus-drenched guitar, and  digitized pan flute; the kinds of 90’s jazz timbres that mark a time in Shabason’s adolescence when the dilemmas of his family’s faith were still obscured by comfort, community, and a dash of the forgivable naivete of early youth. At the same time, the piece shows Shabason at his most melodically athletic, darting around chord changes with fervor for the subject at hand. 

WATCH AND SHARE “THE FELLOWSHIP” HERE

By “13-15” the pendulum is fully back on the side of apprehension as galloping percussion, an unrelenting synthetic marimba, an off-key wood flute, and jittering electric guitar tell a story of doubt and anger, dressed in fourth-world atonality. “By that time,” says Shabason, referring to the age denoted in the track name, “I was smoking weed and really getting into my head. According to my religion, smoking weed was  gonna land me in hell, and all my friends who drank were also on the path to hell. The whole thing seemed totally absurd. The idea of a God that was that petty and vengeful made no sense. Those thoughts just swirled and created this background dissonance that existed all throughout my early teens. Middle school was fucked.” 

“15-19” is the sadness that follows outrage, when the dust settles and the pieces need putting back together, yet they simply won’t fit in light of a newfound perspective. As such, this final movement is bathed in tragic, futile optimism. Under a bed of half-tempo RnB, muted trumpets glow like dying embers catching the wind. Shabason elucidates, “at that point, I’d discovered punk and hardcore and decided to be straight edge. It provided me with a community and a great cover for why I didn’t drink or do drugs. It felt like this really cool disguise. It kept me from questioning why I was doing it in the first place, but underlying it all was sadness. Why were my gay friends going to hell? Why did women have to be modest and not men? Why did God want to punish me for so many things? Was I going to hell because I had sex with my girlfriend? None of it made sense, but I was so completely brainwashed that I never thought to seriously question it. Instead, I just slipped up more and more, did drugs, fooled around, and tried to put  the divine ramifications of my actions out of my head.” 

LISTEN AND SHARE “0-13” HERE

LISTEN AND SHARE “ESCAPE FROM NORTH YORK” HERE

“Comparative World Religions” is a caffeinated gamelan named for the college course that caused Joseph – and so many other young people engrossed in inherited repressive ideologies – to see the irreconcilable nature of his beliefs from the outside in. Like the class itself, it stands apart from the  backdrop of The Fellowship by replacing the seesaw of religious ecstasy and uncertainty with the type of  transcendence that can only be arrived at through factual illumination. 

On The Fellowship, as on prior albums that bear his name, Joseph Shabason does what only the best instrumental music makers can: tell a story with emotional clarity that conveys even the subtlest of feelings, all without singing a single word. As wordless as ever – with as complex a theme as ever – this album may be his most emotionally articulate yet. Most importantly, those lost in the woods of repression and self-doubt that organized religion can be at its worst now have The Fellowship to help guide them into a softer light. 

PRE-ORDER THE FELLOWSHIP HERE

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THE FELLOWSHIP TRACKLIST
1. Life With My Grandparents: 4:51  
2. Escape From North York: 3:38 
3. The Fellowship: 5:14  
4. 0-13: 2:37 
5. 13-15: 5:10 
6. 15-19: 7:01 
7. Comparative World Religion: 3:00 
8. So Long: 7:07

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BANDCAMP

AUSTRA ANNOUNCES ‘I FEEL YOU EVERYWHERE’ LIVE STREAM FROM ROY THOMSON HALL

WATCH THE LIVE STREAM OF AUSTRA PERFORMING AT ROY THOMSON HALL ON APRIL 29, 2021 AT 3PM ET

TICKETS ARE PAY WHAT YOU FEEL (WITH $5 USD MINIMUM) - AVAILABLE HERE

BUY / STREAM HiRUDiN HERE

Producer, songwriter, and creative force Austra celebrates the one-year anniversary of the release of her 2020 album HiRUDiN with a livestream from the Roy Thomson Hall stage for a special solo concert on Thursday, April 29 at 3pm ET. Tickets are ‘pay what you feel’ with a minimum purchase of $5 USD and available HERE. The stream will be available for 24 hours.

HiRUDiN  features the tracks “Anywayz” and “Mountain Baby” and this performance marks the first time that these tracks and others from the album were performed live. 

In her own words, Austra reveals more about this intimate, virtual performance: 

“heartbreak is something that moves you
it changes your dna,
the essence of who you are,
of who you thought you were.
when everything you know to be stable,
safe, immovable,
suddenly breaks,
it’s a spiral of grief, uncertainty, and internal chaos.

in 2020 i experienced a heartbreak and
just as one might expect from
      a singer,
i recorded a live performance to help
move through it.

i hope you will join me in celebrating love,
celebrating our ability to love,
and our ability to soothe ourselves through
the resilience of our bodies,
      our voices”

• Austra

PRAISE FOR HiRUDiN

“…a collection of brutally honest and therapeutic tales of love, loss and moving on...it’s her strongest offering to date." – BeatRoute

“Stelmanis traces a deeply personal journey of growth, queerness and toxic relationships. Named after the anticoagulant released by leeches, HiRUDiN fittingly explores the parasitic nature of toxicity and the healing that it can call forth." - Exclaim!

“...the most engaging, vital and ambitious album of her career. HiRUDiN is fuelled and defined by her recent emotional turmoil...It’s one of the most beautiful breakup albums you’ll hear this year." - Tinnitist

"Austra's most inventive album yet" Evening Standard

“Delicious” - The Independent

“Brilliant” DIY

"Revenge-pop bangers" The Line of Best Fit

"A deep dive, but a cathartic one" Sunday Times

"Her strongest cuts in some time" Uncut

"One of the most underrated pop artists working today" Beats Per Minute

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