GEORGIA HARMER ANNOUNCES DEBUT ALBUM, STAY IN TOUCH, SHARES NEW VIDEO

WATCH AND SHARE GEORGIA HARMER’S SELF-DIRECTED VIDEO
FOR NEW SINGLE “ALL IN MY MIND” HERE

BUY / STREAM “ALL IN MY MIND” HERE

DEBUT LP, STAY IN TOUCH, OUT APRIL 22, 2022 VIA ARTS & CRAFTS

PRE-SAVE STAY IN TOUCH HERE

"one song in, it's clear that she possesses the kind of effortless musical ability that comes from a life surrounded by great art. ...a Big Thief and Phoebe Bridgers-sounding reflection on youthful abandon and the incomparable presence that accompanies it." - CBC Music on "Headrush"

“For Georgia Harmer, it’s a matter of when, not if. The Toronto songwriter’s serene debut single, ‘Headrush,’ displays a rare skill for wrestling obvious emotion — in this case, naked nostalgia — into sound.” - SPIN, 22 Artists to Watch in 2022

“[Georgia Harmer] continues to be mesmerizing as ‘Austin’ progresses; she burrows into a deeply appealing vibe that reminds me of a slightly rootsier spin on the guitar-powered indie melancholia of early Wye Oak.” - Stereogum

“[‘Austin’] recalls Feist or Land of Talk with extra rootsy guitar twang.” - Brooklyn Vegan

"Harmer gets grittier on “Austin”, and this side of her is awesome. A grizzled guitar opens the track before a steel guitar and rhythms join the fray. This is the sound of a world that is dark and full of mystery and uncertainty." - The Revue on "Austin"

Photo Credit: Gemma Warren // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES

Toronto-based musician Georgia Harmer announces her debut album, Stay In Touch, out April 22 on Arts & Crafts. Recently, she released the new single “Austin” which also appears on the record and is currently making its way up the CBC Music Top 20 chart. Today, Harmer is sharing the single “All In My Mind” which arrives complete with a video she directed and edited herself. 

Harmer calls herself a sentimental person, and Stay In Touch is full of romanticism—a rare quality in an irony-soaked culture. The closest Harmer gets to irony is on “All In My Mind”, a song that looks back on a relationship where she was made to feel crazy. The song is about “being gaslighted,” says Harmer. “I wrote it during a long period of emotional manipulation that made me question my own reality. I had enough sad songs and I just wanted to rock out.” 

Of the video, Harmer says “I wanted to lean into the melodrama of the subject. Something bigger than a person needed to be the source of my paranoia. The house and the lights are what ultimately drive me to run away, but it’s the boys in the basement who were messing with my head all along. This is the first song I wrote for my album, and begins a long journey of self-growth through my deep entanglements with the feelings of others.”

WATCH / SHARE “ALL IN MY MIND” HERE
BUY / STREAM “ALL IN MY MIND” HERE


MORE ABOUT STAY IN TOUCH
Across Stay In Touch, Harmer captures ineffable moments with expressive detail: the euphoric memory of a summer’s day so perfect you want to live inside it forever, the dusty heat of a Texas afternoon, a tingle of melancholy on a solo walk home after a party. With a wisdom and poise that belies her youthful age, Harmer has penned an emotionally resonant collection of songs that articulate the ways in which even the most fleeting experiences can forge bonds between strangers, create families out of friends, and one by one form the joys and sorrows that make up a life.

Harmer has been making music since childhood, recording her own songs since age 10. She hails from an artistic family, including her aunt and labelmate Sarah Harmer (Georgia’s parents, both professional musicians, met while playing in Sarah’s band). While still a teenager, she hit the road as a backing vocalist for Alessia Cara, touring and playing late night TV for many months. But when it came time to make her own album, Harmer knew she needed to find her own people. After dropping out of university to pursue music full-time, Harmer began jamming with jazz students at Humber College in Toronto; guitarist Dylan Burchell, drummer Julian Psihogios, and bassist David Maclean, and engineer/producer Jasper Smith assembled to record at ArtHaus in Dufferin Grove. “It was nice because we could just play how we’re used to playing, crammed in a room together, and capture the natural feeling of that.” Smith didn’t tell Harmer that he had never engineered a record before until after it was complete.

WATCH / SHARE “HEADRUSH” HERE
BUY / STREAM “HEADRUSH” HERE


Stay In Touch spans everything from intimate folk and strummy country to sophisticated jazz and pop-kissed rock. Harmer and her band created musical landscapes that live up to the lyrical richness of the songs. The record sparkles with the lightning in a bottle feel of a band in thrall to their musical chemistry, adding more depth to the record’s themes. Stay In Touch is inspired both by the relationships of Harmer’s past and the joy of finding your people in the here and now. It’s an unforgettable statement from a new artist with a heartbreakingly simple message: when you stay in touch with the experiences that have shaped you, you stay in touch with yourself. 

LISTEN / SHARE “AUSTIN” HERE
BUY / STREAM “AUSTIN” HERE

PRE-SAVE STAY IN TOUCH HERE


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STAY IN TOUCH TRACKLIST
1. Talamanca
2. Headrush
3. Know You Forever
4. Austin
5. All In My Mind
6. Be Here
7. Homes
8. Top Down
9. Go Soft
10. Strongest Person
11. Just The Feeling

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OURI ANNOUNCES NEW PROJECT BT002: SELF HYPNOSIS TAPE DUE FEBRUARY 25

LISTEN / SHARE LEAD SONG "FIGURE PROFANE" HERE

PRE-ORDER BT002: SELF HYPNOSIS TAPE HERE

ANNOUNCES NORTH AMERICAN + EUROPEAN TOUR DATES

WATCH OURI’S CBC MUSIC ‘THE INTRO’ SESSION HERE

BUY / STREAM FRAME OF A FAUNA HERE

"effortless and sublime" - PAPER Magazine

"a richly rewarding left turn" -The FADER

Frame of a Fauna presents a compelling archive of Ouri's many musical personas. It's a nuanced encapsulation of her sound from underground DJ to fully-rounded composer. “ Exclaim!

"a master at crafting synth soundscapes that flow with ease and unexpectedly morph and shapeshift over the course of the track while grounding it all with her own airy vocals." - CBC Music

"expertly guides listeners through a narrative of anticipation, climax and release" - Office Magazine

"equal parts comforting and transcendent" - V Magazine

"dials in swooping sounds, echoey vocal syllables, a glitchy beat, tentative chords; the dance beat solidifies, falls away and reappears" - The New York Times

Photo Credit : Kane Ocean // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES

Montreal-based multi-instrumentalist and producer Ouri announces her first offering of 2022 with the project bt002: self hypnosis tape. The 7-track project is meditative and ambient in nature, with piano-driven instrumentals from Zach Frampton showing off a different side of Ouri's abilities for something more improvisational. Along with the project's announcement, Ouri shares the lead single "Figure Profane" which sees contributions from Frampton. The cyclical, entrancing track introduces the ethereal and cerebral sound of the self hypnosis tape to listeners. "I shaped this project after capturing several recordings I made with Zach over the course of last summer,” says Ouri. “I wanted to offer myself a moment to study the melodic and harmonic features of my music and cut the rest out, allow repetition to happen but always keep the melody as the ultimate leader."

LISTEN / SHARE LEAD SONG "FIGURE PROFANE" HERE

bt002: self hypnosis tape arrives on the heels of Ouri's debut album Frame of a Fauna released last year. Frame of a Fauna takes the Canadian artist's knowledge of big orchestral sound, and creates her own fusion. The cycle of birth, death, and constant rebirth sends Ouri transcending through the creation of this album, as she explores what lies inside the lining of the big dharma wheel: trauma, control and vulnerability. Frame of a Fauna features the stand-out songs "Ossature", "High & Choking Pt 1", "Chains", and the Antony Carle collaboration "Felicity".

Additionally, Ouri is announcing a string of North American and European tour dates. Beginning with her performance at Noise Pop Festival supporting Arooj Aftab on February 22nd, Ouri will then play two shows in Los Angeles on February 23rd and 24th before joining Smerz for a string of dates including a stop at home in Montreal on March 12. Ouri will also be performing a headline show in New York City on March 23rd before heading on her European run beginning with Brickside Festival in April.

Last year Ouri also released a joint project with Helena Deland, Hildegard, which received widespread critical acclaim with Pitchfork praising the collaboration as "pure creative symbiosis" and The FADER describing as, "a hypnotic composition that ebbs in and out of darkness, mining strength in synchronicity."

Ourielle Auvé, known professionally as Ouri, grew up in France and moved to Montreal at the age of 16 with dreams of becoming a composer. As Ouri developed her compositional ability, as well as her production and vocal chops, she integrated herself with late-night DJ sets in Montreal's underground rave scene and was eventually selected to take part in Red Bull Music Academy's Montreal Bass Camp. From there, her profile began to grow as she headlined Boiler Room's Montreal showcase, toured with the likes of Yves Tumor and Jacques Greene, released her first EPs Superficial and We Share Our Blood, and collaborated with fellow Montreal artist Helena Deland on the interdimensional Hildegard.

PRE-ORDER BT002: SELF HYPNOSIS TAPE HERE

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BT002 : SELF HYPNOSIS TAPE
1 Ouri & Zach Frampton - figure profane
2 Ouri - boucles
3 Ouri - étude du toucher
4 Ouri & Zach Frampton - trio
5 Zach Frampton - rêverie
6 Zach Frampton - arabesque
7 Ouri - étude du marteau 

TOUR DATES
2/22 - San Francisco, CA @ Gray Area*
2/23 - Los Angeles, CA @ Zebulon
2/24 - Los Angeles, CA @ Floating
2/26 - Seattle, WA @ Fremont Abbey Arts Center^
3/3 - Atlanta, GA @ The Earl^
3/4 - New York, NY @ National Sawdust^
3/6 - Chicago, IL @ The Empty Bottle^
3/12 - Montreal, Mutek @ Winter Series, Club Soda ^
3/23 - New York, NY @ Public Records
4/9 - Durham, NC @ Brickside Festival
4/28 - Copenhagen, DK @ Rust
4/30 - Manchester, UK @ Mood Swings @ Yes
5/1 - Brussels, BE @ Les Nuits Botaniques
5/2 - London, UK @ Oslo
5/6 - Paris, FR @ La Boule Noire

* = with Arooj Aftab
^ = with Smerz

MORE ABOUT OURI
Ouri grew up in France, in a family of mixed french and afro-carribean descent. She began playing the harp and piano at 5, but at 7 she found unity in the cello. A self proclaimed introvert who’d rather dash off on her own than feel disconnected in the wrong crowd- she arrives in Montreal at the age of 16 to pursue a degree in composition.

Montreal’s rave scene is where her artistry began to take shape - establishing herself in the community as a producer, DJ, and composer. Lending her skills to various collaborations, she strengthened her sense of self, but also her affinity for transforming sonically into any genre, playing any role.

In 2018 she was invited to MISM x Boiler Room’s Montreal show, signed to Ghosty (international) & Make it Rain Records (Canada) for the release of her EP ‘We Share Our Blood’ and was asked to make official remixes for the likes of Tokimonsta. Her growing notoriety let her support Jacques Greene, Yves Tumour & Kllo live in concert.

Evolving beyond her affirmed DJ persona, she breaks out of the underground to come up for air - where she collaborates with folk artist Helena Deland. They merge in a dimension of their own, and Hildegard is born.

Now in her debut album, she shatters the oftentimes submissive and distant approach to ambient sound to finally take up space and connect to her own experience.

Ouri explores the intricate formation of shape in Frame Of A Fauna. The intangible is held and the unseen is sung as it inspects the framework of the body- how emotional hardship can imprint, and in turn deform the skeleton. If the bones are the container that stands the test of what is being contained- What is the residue of happening? And where does it go? She notices the way time can rupture a rib cage, pull out the collar bones, or make a fist out of fingers.

She takes her knowledge of big orchestral sound, and creates her own fusion, puncturing the classical with industrial abrasions and electronic nuance. Ballads and drum samples take melodies out of the middle ground. She finds home in the new hybrid- but first she must stretch the old structure to make a clearing.

The album begins in a bedroom in London, and hops to Berlin where she witnessed her sister give birth - and sees its completion a year later after a sudden trip to Brazil, where she said her last goodbye to her mother.

The cycle of birth, death, and constant rebirth sends her transcending through the creation of this album, as she explores what lies inside the lining of the big dharma wheel: trauma, control and vulnerability. She starts outside and builds as she asceneds inward, which is how she transforms the universal, into a personal space, not for the lost, but rather for those who are in suspension.

She sculpts chaos with layers of texture, only to ask you to find her voice within it, “Hold on, hear it out and chase me” she sings.

Sound fills to the brim, cello meets synth, becomes lush and ethereal, only for her feather light voice to slither in with ferocity. You weed through the sound to meet her in her sincerity. In this way we are listening twice- for what she wants to say, and what she wants to feel- which are not always the same. 

She invites you to be comfortable in the lucid, to be sensual without the sexual, in the possibility of communicating what you may not yet know.

She edits lyrics to Ossature in a final revision to include hope in her perspective, and records GRIP in record time in a sweeping fit of grief in honour of her mother.

Conscious not to define herself within any one structure, but to cascade her own spectrum of sound- in Frame Of A Fauna Ouri shows us everything she can do, while what comes next is everything she will.

OURI ONLINE
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OMBIIGIZI RELEASES DEBUT LP, SEWN BACK TOGETHER

COLLABORATION BY ZOON AND STATUS/NON-STATUS OUT TODAY ON ARTS & CRAFTS

WATCH / SHARE “SPIRIT IN ME” HERE

BUY / STREAM SEWN BACK TOGETHER HERE

"With all these styles woven together as part of an essential and ongoing social conversation, Sewn Back Together is ultimately a work of healing. With introspective, emotional resonance and formidable guitar tones, OMBIIGIZI's noise cuts through the static, loud and proud” -  Exclaim!

"Together, Monkman and Sturgeon show new plaintive depths to their writing, crafting a tribute to the joys and innocence of childhood." - Under The Radar

"Ombiigizi’s debut, Sewn Back Together, flows like a river, finding a path forward against all obstacles" - Dominionated

Photo Credit : Rima Sater // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES

Today, OMBIIGIZI, (pronounced om-BEE-ga-ZAY, meaning s/he is noisy) is celebrating the release of their debut album, Sewn Back Together, and sharing the new visualizer for album centerpiece “Spirit In Me.” Frayed electric guitars, multidimensional percussion, and huge emotive melodies show the essence of OMBIIGIZI on “Spirit In Me,” with the power of family at its core. Of the track, the band says, “We each have our own story to tell, but putting our circle together in honour of our ancestors helps us weave a future.”

It’s our prophecy 
The spirit in me
I look to the past after all that’s been cast
And whose land are you on 
We’ve known all along 
Get sewn back together 
Yea we’re still survivors

WATCH / SHARE “SPIRIT IN ME” HERE

A collaboration between Zoon (Daniel Monkman) and Status/Non-Status (Sturgeon), OMBIIGIZI are Anishnaabe artists who explore their cultural histories through sound. An amalgam of their unique Indigenous heritages and personal musical architectures, Daniel and Adam imbue their lyrics with their families' storytelling, revealing truths and finding common ground amidst their differences. The debut album Sewn Back Together is a fusion of individuality – a reflection on Adam and Daniel's commitment to each other as collaborators and distinct members of their community.

WATCH / SHARE "CHERRY COKE" HERE

Putting aside the tonal nuances of their previous work as Zoon and Status/Non-Status (formerly known as WHOOP-Szo), OMBIIGIZI strips back the waves of distortion to reveal themselves, their voices, writing and improvising for the sake of the song. The family on Sewn Back Together includes the production duo of Kevin Drew of Broken Social Scene and Nyles Spencer of The Bathouse Studio. Recorded there in fast and intentional sessions during the summer of 2021, Drew and Spencer – along with musicians Eric Lourenço and Drew McLeod from Status/Non-Status and Zoon, respectively – helped steer this collision of divergent artists into some glorious sonic territory steeped in shoegaze, dream pop, anthemic rock, Chicago post-rock, and 2nd wave emo. While not always getting to play and perform alongside other members of their community, OMBIIGIZI is a coming together – with Sewn Back Together, a resounding statement shaped by healing and the guidance of culture.

WATCH / SHARE "RESIDENTIAL MILITARY” HERE


ESSAY BY WAUBGESHIG RICE:
The Anishinaabe revival is accelerating. Our artists are becoming more resurgent in all realms: telling the stories, singing the songs, and creating the imagery to further solidify our everlasting presence on this land. The soundtrack to this movement is diverse profound, and beautiful. The Anishinaabe sonic revolution is richly layered and wide-reaching, inspiring and influencing all generations to gather, sing, and speak, as we’ve always done. And at the core of this renewal are artists like OMBIIGIZI.

Adam Sturgeon and Daniel Monkman have come together in the spirit of making noise in a good way for our people. They have documented this moment in time while paying homage to the ancestors who kept our language and stories alive. There is a deep respect and love embedded in these songs for Anishinaabe sounds and voices. These songs proudly tell family and community stories, and they exquisitely conjure a hopeful future that will result from our current collective efforts to share our realities with each other and the world.

 Sewn Back Together is a passionate journey. It meanders like a nurturing stream, weaving in and out of the tangible and spiritual worlds, as all time-honoured Anishinaabe stories and songs have done. It harkens back to ancient melodies and rhythms while using modern tools and instruments to centre us in our identities as the original storytellers of this land. It is essential listening as we forge our future and reclaim and revive who we are.

Sewn Back Together Album Art // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES

 OMBIIGIZI - SEWN BACK TOGETHER - TRACKLISTING
1. Cherry Coke
2. Residential Military
3. The Once Child
4. Niiyo Biboonagizi 
5. Ogiin
6. Spirit In Me
7. Yaweh
8. Birch Bark Paper Trails 
9. Zaagitoon 

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