OURI SHARES JACQUES GREENE REMIX OF “HIGH & CHOKING PT.1”

Photo Credit : Kane Ocean // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES

Released last year, Ouri’s (Ourielle Auvé) Frame of a Fauna takes the Canadian artist's knowledge of big orchestral sound, and creates her own fusion. Today, she reveals the Jacques Greene remix of album standout track, “High & Choking Pt. 1”. “Having Jacques Greene remix one of my tracks was a dream,” says Ouri. “I remember his music being my main soundtrack while taking the metro to the conservatory in France, right before I moved to Montreal. It feels so good to hear ‘High & Choking Pt. 1’ through the JG filter.”

Jacques Greene adds “Whenever people ask me of artists from Montreal that excite and inspire me, Ouri is at the top of the pile. Shape-shifting and always breaking new ground. Frame of a Fauna is an amazing album I've come back to often. It was a joy to be asked to remix High & Choking, pt 1. For a hazed out loft in Chabanel.“

BUY / STREAM “HIGH & CHOKING PT.1” JACQUES GREENE REMIX

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Recently, the Montreal-based multi-instrumentalist and producer announced 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.

BUY / STREAM BT002: SELF HYPNOSIS TAPE HERE

bt002: self hypnosis tape arrived right on the heels of Frame of a Fauna, which finds Ouri exploring the cycle of birth, death, and constant rebirth; transcending through the creation of this album, as she explores what lies inside the lining of the big dharma wheel: trauma, control and vulnerability. 

BUY / STREAM FRAME OF A FAUNA HERE

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."

Known professionally as Ouri, Auvé 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.

Read more about Ouri at : www.killbeatmusic.com/ouri

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

TOUR DATES
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 Smerz

PRAISE FOR OURI

"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

OURI ONLINE
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SAM JR. (BROKEN SOCIAL SCENE) DEBUT LP OUT TODAY, SHARES NEW VIDEO

Photo Credit : Jayme Keith ​​// DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES

The day has finally arrived for Sam Jr. (aka, Sam Goldberg Jr.) to share his self-titled debut album with the masses. In celebration, he’s unveiling the video for album track “Na Na Na Na Na” from animator Strawberry One Of A Kind (Casper Tayari).

"The song is about looking back on the things you've done in the past,” says Goldberg. “When I was young, I was often rushing to experience everything as fast as possible without thinking of the consequences. Just looking for thrills. Burning away my innocence. I probably should have slowed down a little because sometimes I feel like a cranky 95 year old that never wants to do anything.

I had a moment of self reflection on a walk one day watching some kids running around a park. Two kids we're laughing uncontrollably while throwing a broken tree branch around. Simple pleasures that as you get older leave you because you've had those experiences already and it's no longer fun. So you keep searching. But you need to be careful of some paths you wander because we all have some things our eyes have seen we wish we could scrub from our minds. You go too far past a line and you can't go back. But hey life is for the living as they say, so if you want to live in a van with five dogs and two squirrels knitting sweaters to sell down at the beach, go for it!”

Of the video Tayari says, "my story concept behind the animation was a future where nature can hardly exist and any kind of wildlife is instantly put out by a dark artificial intelligence reigning over the universe. A lone drifter travels through the galaxies to do his best to protect and preserve the last remaining wildlife." 

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

“Na Na Na Na Na” Single Art // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES

MORE ABOUT SAM JR.’S DEBUT LP
Fuzzed out guitars with psychedelic laced wah wahs and bongos?? And flutes? rock oozing buzzed out hippie rock ? Evil nihilist ooze-rock slacker fuzz? There’s a lot of play within that framework of Sam Jr.’s new self-titled debut so we’ll leave it to you to decide for yourself what Sam Jr. is all about when the appropriate moment comes. 

“My concept for awhile making this record was actually ‘What would the Dude’s band from The Big Lebowski sound like?’” laughs Goldberg, the titular architect behind this long-overdue solo stepping-out. “I’m not sure it landed there at all, but I think I was trying to harness the easygoing nature and spirit of that character. I’m a hardwired optimist and a mellow person overall, and I wanted that to come across in the songs.” 

Meantime, you’re probably wondering how such a confident ‘debut’ could pop out of nowhere. Well, that’s because it didn’t. This Samuel Goldberg, Jr., chap looks oddly familiar, right? And that name… it rolls off the tongue nicely, yes, but it also rings a bell. So where exactly have you seen this guy before? Because you know you’ve seen him before. 

You have indeed seen Sam Goldberg before. And you’ve seen him pretty much everywhere, that’s where. If you’ve kept even a casual eye on the Canadian pop landscape for the past 25 years or so, in fact, Sam Goldberg, Jr., has been hiding in plain sight the whole time as a vital member of an uncanny number of bands with whom you’re either already acquainted or – and no judgement here – should perhaps be ashamed of yourself in hindsight for previously failing to get acquainted with. 

WATCH / SHARE “KEEP IT BURIED” HERE
BUY / STREAM “KEEP IT BURIED” HERE

There’s the globetrotting group hug known as Broken Social Scene, of course, which has counted Goldberg as a stable conscript since 2007 and whose ranks have over the years helped launch the likes of Metric, Stars and Leslie Feist to a modest form of indie-rock greatness. But there’s also Uncut, a truly formidable noise-rock “guitar band’s guitar band” that made evangelicals of its far-flung followers but never quite grasped as a whole how huge it could have been to properly follow through on its generous promise. There’s Bodega, whose subtly transfixing 1997 debut album Bring Yourself Up got gobbled up and murdered by an international major-label deal gone wrong and remains to this day one of the best Canadian records of all time (“That first Bodega record is fucking great,” concurs Goldberg) that pretty much no one has ever heard. There’s Bionic, a punk-rock pseudo-supergroup originally of combined Doughboys, Change of Heart and, yes, Bodega extraction that could reliably melt your face from the get-go but ultimately proved too volatile to survive for long in any consistent form. There’s Hawaii, a duo whose eponymous 2003 one-off LP will easily satisfy your next desire for a late-night (Slow)dive into (Mazzy)stardom if you bother to sleuth it out. And there’s Yardlets, another duo that was so sardonically ‘meta’ in its expert appropriation of au courant 21st-century ‘psychedelic goth shoegaze punk’ trends across two albums released in 2012 and 2015 that it actually managed to make you feel uncomfortable for enjoying its own music. 

Good company and a consistently high – indeed, often too-good-for-its-own-good – standard of quality all around, then. Goldberg even notched a high-profile Felix Prize nomination for “Producer of the Year” in Quebec in 2014 for his work on Kandle’s In Flames. But while one hates to invoke the “always a bride’s maid, never a bride” metaphor because Sam is a damn good catch and would look splendid in peach chiffon whether he was headed to the altar or not, there’s always been a sense amongst his friends, acquaintances and admirers that Sam Goldberg, Jr. hasn’t properly received his due. 

LISTEN / SHARE “YOU LOCK THE DOOR, I BROKE THE WINDOW” HERE
BUY / STREAM “YOU LOCK THE DOOR, I BROKE THE WINDOW” HERE

So here you have Sam Jr., which is Goldberg taking a undiluted and unfettered deep dive into the black buzz-bin catacombs of the soul and having a bit of a laugh at his own expense while doing it, in much the same manner the Jesus and Mary Chain or Suicide were always kinda winking at you while they were wallowing. And it’s all Sam Jr., for the record, save some bongo-mad percussion work from Miles Dupire-Gagnon of Elephant Stone and Anemone, guest vocals from Toronto chanteuse Tess Parks and a sprinkle of cornet, sax and flute (yes, flute) here and there. Goldberg handled the rest of the instrumentation himself, observing a strict palette of sounds otherwise limited mainly to fuzz- and wah-wah-afflicted guitars, bass and a bit of synth. And he kept things strict for a reason. 

“I’ve played with bands my whole life and I’ve been working with other artists or producing other artists forever and, y’know, I’ve had people for years asking me ‘When are you gonna make your own record?’ I just kept getting that. So finally I just went ‘Why not? I should just start a record,” says Goldberg. “So I started a record in 2018 that I finished at the beginning of the COVID pandemic. And I hated it. It took me quite a while to finish and by the time it was done, I didn’t like it. I didn’t like the sound of the record, I was singing out of my register like Mariah Carey and there were just too many ideas - a zillion ideas - going on. And I didn’t like the songs. The songs just weren’t there for me, weren’t doing it for me.” 

Despite suffering “that deep, disgusting feeling” of investing a lot of time and money and effort into something he couldn’t even trick himself into standing behind, Goldberg sucked it up, shelved the record and “started from scratch again.” 

WATCH / SHARE “SWEET FACE” FT. TESS PARKS HERE
BUY / STREAM “SWEET FACE” FT. TESS PARKS HERE

At least he’d deduced from that experience what he didn’t want to do the second time around. And so, after hearing from a friend with great interest about the amount of time Scottish electro-weirdos Boards of Canada would invest in deciding upon which highly specific set of sounds they would use for each recording, for Sam Jr.’s forthcoming “real” first album he decided he would take the same rigorously self-limiting approach. And that cracked the whole thing wide open. He had an entire record finished in months. 

“Once I found that palette of colours that worked it came together so quickly. I was shocked at how fast it came together,” Goldberg recalls. “For some reason, I was loving the sound of the wah-wah. And I loved the sound of ‘fuzz,’ a really fuzzed-out rhythm guitar. And that was kind of it. But I would also try to limit myself to, like, five tracks. It would always just be ‘I’m gonna record the rhythm guitar, there’s only gonna be one rhythm, there’s always gonna be a wah guitar happening.’ That sort of thing. I really made an effort to minimalize everything. There are barely any elements happening. There’s just the rhythm, the bass, the guitar, there’s drums and there’s lots of percussion. And you know what? I love the sound of bongos so there’s a lot of bongos going on. Which is kinda weird, but I was just really into bongos. 

“There are minimal elements, but when they happen they’re there for a reason. There’s no fluff there just to be buried in the mix. Everything’s there for a reason. I’m trying to keep people engaged, but I’ve also been listening to music and playing music my whole life so I just wanted to make something enjoyable for myself that, hopefully, other people might want to listen to, as well.” 

Read the full biography by Ben Rayner : www.killbeatmusic.com/samjr

UPCOMING PERFORMANCES
Mar 19 - Toronto, ON - Baby G

Album Artwork by : Walter Silver // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES

SAM JR. TRACKLIST
01 You Lock The Door I Broke The Window 
02 Sweet Face (feat Tess Parks) 
03 Na Na Na Na Na
04 Keep It Buried 
05 Quarter To Apocalypse 
06 World Bangin On My Door 
07 Dippp 

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JENNY BERKEL SHARES NEW VIDEO FOR “KALEIDOSCOPE” FROM UPCOMING LP

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

THESE ARE THE SOUNDS LEFT FROM LEAVING SET FOR RELEASE MAY 13, 2022 VIA OUTSIDE MUSIC

PRE-SAVE THESE ARE THE SOUNDS LEFT FROM LEAVING HERE

Photo Credit : Rima Sater // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES

This May, Jenny Berkel will release These Are the Sounds Left from Leaving courtesy of  Outside Music and today the celebrated musicians is sharing another new track from album, “Kaleidoscope”, a dissonant and poetic consideration of the importance of care and precision in language, both in the broader political landscape and in intimate emotional ways. Swirling strings by Colin Nealis (Andy Shauf) counteract the tight underlying groove of the song, adding to a kaleidoscopic effect. "In recent years, we’ve been so overtly bombarded by disinformation and misinformation, creating what feels like a kaleidoscope of chaos,” says Berkel. “I wanted the sound of ‘Kaleidoscope’ to match that feeling.”

The video for “Kaleidoscope” was filmed at Halifax’s indoor theatre for Shakespeare by the Sea. Like Berkel’s previous single, “You Think You’re Like The Rain”, this video was also directed by Meg Hubley (they/she) and filmed by Nicole Cecile Holland (she/her), both of Phyllis Rising Productions. “Meg came up with the idea of setting it in a steadily shrinking room full of old televisions,” says Berkel. “The surreal and ethereal figure in the video is played by Mads Higgins (they/them), a performance and movement artist who swirls around the room—and around me—in a series of graceful and eerie poses. Throughout the video, the television screens broadcast different, often more vulnerable versions of me, as well as footage of the figure, who gradually comes closer and closer. The song was written while thinking about truth-telling, the importance of accuracy in language, and the effects of mis- and disinformation; we wanted the video to somehow evoke the feeling and effect of lies while also conveying the feeling of a need for escape.”

WATCH / SHARE “KALEIDOSCOPE” HERE
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MORE ABOUT THESE ARE THE SOUNDS LEFT FROM LEAVING

“I wrote the album in a tiny apartment, at a time when everything felt big and overwhelming,” says poet and songwriter Jenny Berkel about her new album, These Are the Sounds Left from Leaving. She was living in a brownstone walk-up full of radiant light and the ever-present soundscape of a leaky bath faucet. It was a sudden move at the time — a spontaneous departure from touring, bustling city life, being many things to many people — that landed Jenny in a space of self-imposed stillness.

“The songs themselves are a study of proximity, bringing big fears into small spaces,” says Jenny, reflecting on the album. “They’re intimate examinations of a world that often overwhelms.” Each song is set in the micro-world of a keen feeling observer, trying to parse a mindful moment in a setting where it feels impossible to drop a truth anchor—a post-Trump, heavily gaslit world where perceptions of reality remain distorted.

The album sees Jenny taking on a producer's role, co-producing alongside Dan Edmonds and Ryan Boldt (The Deep Dark Woods) with string arrangements by Colin Nealis (Andy Shauf). The album’s first single, “You Think You’re Like The Rain”, also sees contributions from the critically acclaimed folk duo Clayton Linthicum and Kacy Anderson (Kacy & Clayton).

WATCH / SHARE “YOU THINK YOU’RE LIKE THE RAIN” HERE
BUY / STREAM “YOU THINK YOU’RE LIKE THE RAIN” HERE

“Kaleidoscope”, is a dissonant and poetic consideration of the importance of care and precision in language, both in the broader political landscape and in intimate emotional ways. From the heart-wrenching confusion of interpersonal manipulation, it extrapolates a collectively felt disorientation at the kaleidoscopic swirling of disinformation and misinformation. “Lavender City” is a more intimate look at lies. A breakup song with crescendo-ing strings, insistent percussion, and hopeful harmonies, it’s about gaining the capacity to see clearly again – but with the painful entailment of anatomizing the lies that drew you in. Looking beneath them to see what’s inside.

Songs like “July” and “Just Like A River” embody a similar dichotomy but feel more like mellow meditations; they are recreations of moments where small, specific reveries gave way to more sprawling contemplation–but in an appreciably peaceful and illuminative way. “July started as a tiny chorus written for somebody I thought I could maybe love someday,” Jenny says with a smile, in a conversation about the seeds of the album’s singles. “It was a hot summer, one that reminded me of being a small child in the middle of July in southwestern Ontario. It’s a love song, but it’s also a nostalgic song that expresses how memory shifts and shapes you, and how the stories we tell become who we are.” 

“I wanted the songs to feel like living creations that capture a living moment,” says Jenny about envisioning the recording process. “I wanted that theme of big fears in small spaces to be heard and felt as a coexistence of intimacy and menacing permeability.” Recorded live off the floor at the Sugar Shack with engineer Simon Larochette, the album sparkles with its intended intricacies. Musically, it feels both close and expansive. Each song unfolds like a widening web of poetic associations, narrated by nostalgic piano, pondering strings, glittering guitars—and Jenny’s hauntingly immersive vocals. At times, songs end with an unravelling, the music splintering apart into disintegration like a lingering open question. Warm and dark, soft with stabs of madness, These Are The Sounds Left From Leaving is a cohesive collection of spare songs that bloom lushly with detail. 

Whether you’re reading Jenny’s poetry—in her debut chapbook Grease Dogs with Baseline Press — or listening to her songs, you’ll experience her drawing layers of far-reaching concern into particular moments, like concentric waves rippling inward toward a lone cast stone. These Are The Sounds Left From Leaving showcases the perspective of a unique storytelling artist, with an evocative practice that hinges powerful narratives on the intricacies of a multifaceted musicality. A songwriter immersed in poetry, a poet immersed in music—her work in all its forms is an invitation into a world of relatable introspection, in which even absences can be sculpted into vividly memorable verse. 

PRE-SAVE THESE ARE THE SOUNDS LEFT FROM LEAVING HERE

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THESE ARE THE SOUNDS LEFT FROM LEAVING
01 Just Like A River
02 Kaleidoscope
03 Watch You Fade
04 July
05 Lavender City
06 Under A Sky
07 You Think You’re Like The Rain
08 Invisible You
09 Song Of Yourself
10 Here Comes The Morning

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