A crew from Toronto’s latest rock station indie88 came down to our studio to shoot us performing/recording live. Here’s a pretty uptempo version of our first single, “The Hedonist.”
Visit the indie88 site here: http://indie88.com/video-papermaps-the-hedonist/
Hey,
Sorry we’ve been so slow to blog, but we’ve been so BUSY. We’ve got SO MUCH to cover here – I want to rely on pictures and links mostly. First off, I’d like to give a BIG THANK YOU to the folks of Beserker Lion (Bethany and the people of the amazing band, This Ship) for putting on such a great Hali show for us! This Ship are an amazing Halifax-based pop band and we can’t wait to do something with them here in T-dot ville and we also really enjoyed the math-rock styling of Pioneer Video. Either band is welcome on our turf! While in Halifax a bunch of things happened – like this NYC Blog started streaming our entire album (http://www.blackbookmag.com/music/blackbook-exclusive-stream-papermaps-gritty-darker-lights-1.65667) and we learned that we got into the 2013 CMJ Music Marathon in NYC (Saturday Oct 19 @ LeftField Bar). Pretty cool. We also found an awesome comic book shop with awesome friendly (and cute) staff in Halifax called Strange Adventures where we more treasures like this:
We also played Fredericton on our way out of the Maritimes and hit up Belle Montreal where we played an excellent show with the very excellent songwriter/guitarist Patrick Krief (fans of the seminal act, The Dears should pay particular attention). In Montreal we found an excellent Mexican Restaurant
I wish I remember the name, but it was only a block away from the Divan Orange. Please note the apple-pop. Very authentic!!! I had a great vegan salad, myself…
While on the road we learned that Darker Lights is was already charting nationally on college radio and climbing the Earshot! National Chart at #23.
When we got back from Montreal we had several video shoots to do. One was in our own studio with the people from Toronto’s newest radio station, indie88. This will be seen very soon on their website (where you can vote to hear our latest single, The Hedonist, BTW).
The other video shoot took place at a semi-secret location on/near the University of Toronto St. George Campus. A real-live FRAT HOUSE to be exact. This was the principal photography for our the official “The Hedonist,” music video. We had an open call for people to come out, dress up, appear in the video, drink bear, shake booty and jump around on a mattress. WE THANK EVERYONE WHO CAME OUT!!!
I’m not sure when the video will be released – probably sometime next week!! Stay tuned!!!
While this was happening, we learned that the very same song had entered the CBC Radio 3 R3-30 chart at #7!!!
That leaves us with one last announcement. Our CD release party!! @ Handlebar (159 Augusta Ave.) Thursday Oct 17.
FB Event: https://www.facebook.com/events/217668495063862/
We will be playing with Betty’s other band, Burn Baby Burn, the excellent The Effens and Locomotive 8. Our set time is 11:20 but COME EARLY and the cost of admission is $7 without CD and $15 with CD (that’s a $2 discount on the CD).
We’ve been busy. You know how you can tell? No blog post for weeks – no words here at the HQ – even as our newest album, Darker Lights is about to drop. All the work that goes along with releasing an indie record these days has gotten in the way… our apologies.
So there’s a lot going on…
First, the very first sound to be leaked from Darker Lights can be found and listened to here at: exclaim.ca. “The Hedonist,” just happens to be one of our heaviest selections from the new album…there’s more to it than that.
Second, we have a tour coming up (8 Shows in two weeks, plus 2 video performances). Here are the dates (also on Exclaim.ca). I was toying with naming this tour the “Follow Us Around Tour,” but opted to call it the “Autumn 2012 Tour” and to make some blog posts under that title instead. So stay tuned for my tour diary as it happens from the road (complete with photos, etc.). Meanwhile, here are the details:
September 28, Avante Garde Bar, Ottawa ON (w/ Danielle Knibbe, Brittanny Kwasnick and Greg McEvoy $5 doors 9PM)
September 30, Plan B, Moncton NB (details TBA, $5)
October 1, Gus’ Pub, Halifax NS (w/ This Ship and Pioneer Video, $5 doors 10PM)
October 4, Cellar Pub, Fredericton NB (w / The Kendra Gale Band)
October 7, Divan Orange, Montreal (details TBA)
October 11, Jimmy Jazz, Guelph ON (w/ the Ednas, $FREE$, doors 11PM) – join us after the Elwins show across the way!
October 12, Foxx Lounge, Barrie ON (details TBA)
October 17, Handlebar, Toronto ON (w/ Burn Baby Burn, Locomotive 8 and The Effens, $7, doors 8PM)
Third, expect more “leakage” in the coming weeks. The album officially drops Tuesday October 8 but astute followers will be treated to more sights and sounds before then…meanwhile we’ll start packing for our trip…
Poster:
So it’s official. The Canadian street date for Darker Lights (cat. no. SK2050) is Tuesday October 8, 2013. On Tuesday October 8 Darker Lights will be released by Sparks Music and will be distributed both physically and digitally by Universal Music Canada – that’s within Canada. There will be international distribution as well (more on that in later posts) but people outside of Canada will be able to get the album in digital or physical form from the Sparks Music Store and bandcamp. Of course you will be able to stream Darker Lights on Rdio and other similar services.
It will be a great relief to finally get this baby out there for you to hear. Until then, here’s another page from the lyric notebook:
-d
Meanwhile, the beautiful David Kleiser artwork was finished last Friday, approved and sent OUT so the first run CDs of Darker Lights are now in production. That means that some selected media outlets and people dear to our hearts will be receiving their complimentary promotional copies in the coming weeks, probably in September. Exciting! People, if you feel entitled to a comp copy please contact me with your mailing address and the reason why you think we might forget you. You probably already have my contact info but it can be found here. BTW, we are still playing the Rivoli this Saturday night. Canadian tour dates shall be announced in the coming weeks.
Thanks for reading.
-d
It’s July 30 and we’ve been sitting on the final mastered and sequenced sounds of our latest album, Darker Lights since July 5th!!! Needless to say we’re itching to share or at least do something over here but there’s a bit process still going on. Some of that process is too boring to mention here (i.e. talk of “focus tracks,” exact release dates, mail out times and long leads, etc. etc.,) but some of it is freaking cool. For instance we are collaborating with one of the most exciting young visual artists (and talented musicians) in Canada, David Kleiser to design and illustrate our album cover. Those of you who may have ordered our limited edition vinyl for Inferior Ghost probably received, as a bonus insert, a print of his excellent poster for our August 28, 2012 appearance at the Legendary Horseshoe Tavern.
All these meetings over copious amounts of coffee in the well-lit offices at Sparks have been fruitful. Soon we will announce a release date (we’ve narrowed it down to 2 possibles) and other exciting news.
Also coming soon will be some Fall season tour dates.
Meanwhile, we’ll be making a hometown appearance at the Rivoli, Saturday August 10 with friends Duck Duck Goose Goose and Wild Domestic. But you know this already, don’t you? Here’s the FB event. Please join!
https://www.facebook.com/events/202725856557587
Cheers,
-dean
The new album is finally done! Done! At least the music part is. I actually completed mixing more than a week ago (Sunday June 23) at the amazing 6 Nassau in Kensington Market. The record is being mastered by Noah Mintz at Lacquer Channel as I write this. We are quite proud, excited and eager to share but I have to say it’s been a difficult but rewarding experience. I guess we say that about every release don’t we? It’s true. Our previous release, Inferior Ghost, was hard to make because I had to close down my recording studio (which was where we wrote/rehearsed) and at the same time we had to finish up and promote what should have been a full-length album but ended up an EP. I guess you can say there was a period of homelessness for us. We had no studio or rehearsal space between doing the last tracks for Inferior Ghost and touring to promote it. Inferior Ghost is really our half-finished sophomore album.
This latest album, Darker Lights, was difficult to make too. Musically, we had to start over from scratch because we lost two members right after the Inferior Ghost tour. I junked all the songs I was writing for our original lineup. We had to re-invent our approach and ultimately our sound. We also had to re-establish our home base – now a great little private studio we call Echo Valley. We had to write new material and we still had show commitments to honour. Darker Lights really began in the fall of 2012 with a writing phase tempered by a bout of writer’s block. We didn’t start recording “proper” until mid-February. Andy joined us in March and it is now early July. It took us 21 months to record our debut album and we did Darker Lights in five months – still, I feel it’s our best work yet.
There are nine new compositions and one “remake” of an Inferior Ghost song (which is like a whole new song now). The album (as of this writing) is just shy of 4o minutes long. It’s darker, heavier, more guitar-driven and more moody than the first album. That’s about all I can say at this point. We’ve been pretty good about keeping the work private so far – only sharing among ourselves and our inner circle. I’m proud to say that 90% of the record was tracked at our own Echo Valley studio and the remaining 10% was tracked at 6 Nassau at the beginning of a 15 day marathon mix session. Everything was engineered by myself and Nathan Vanderwielen.
Currently, we are working on a sequence for the record and should be putting the physical presentation together soon. Once we have a sequence I’m going to share some lyrics here on the blog – but no sounds yet…There is no official release date for Darker Lights. My guess is that it will be released sometime mid to late Autumn. I’m sure there will be a few teasers out there soon. Stay posted for more news.
p.s.
Next Toronto appearance: August 10 at the Rivoli.
-dean
Hello.
First, it’s NXNE week here in Toronto so we will be appearing at the venerable Rancho Relaxo, Saturday June 15 at 1AM. NXNE passes will get you in and cover is TBA which means relatively cheap compared to other venues. It’s one of TO’s best kept secrets that Rancho is the place to be in the wee hours of NXNE week, especially during the closing weekend. It’s usually packed with REAL MUSIC FANS – all nicely tipsy.
Second, it’s been radio static here at pmaps dot net and that can only mean one thing: we’ve been hard at work in the studio. In fact, we took a break this week for NXNE and will be returning to the studio – in this case, Nassau 6 in Kensington – this coming Monday to resume and complete our work. Why the studio change, you might ask? Well that’s because we are in the final mixing stage now. 90% of the recording part of the record was completed at our own Echo Valley studios but we’ve taken the tracks to another studio to get our hands on even more vintage gear and to get another perspective, etc., etc. Both our good friend, Nathan Vanderwielen and myself are doing all the mixing.
So what’s the new album going to be like? Well, to sum it up this is one for the freaks and geeks. Prom queens and star quarterbacks need not apply, although you’re welcome to try. In past blog entries I dropped some song titles. Here’s another tidbit: The name of the album, due out this fall, is DARKER LIGHTS.
Photographic evidence:
more vintage gear ...
…
Dean and Nathan mixing ...
Andy at the Grand Piano
…
Dean and Andy add additional guitars and bicycle to the tracks...
Hi,
It’s been a while. As you probably know we’ve been working in our studio on new songs and this past Monday, with some help from Nathan, we finally laid down the foundation for three new songs: “Nothing/The Memory Song,” “One by One” and “Vanauley Walk.” It was a fun-filled and zany marathon session (!) but we felt these three songs were ready for capture. The next couple of weeks will be spent choosing takes and recording the overdubs for these songs – things like guitar, synth and vocals, etc. We’ve already started that, in fact. There are two other songs in the works, but I’ll write about them another time.
As of this writing, there are not many live shows on the horizon for PAPERMAPS (check the shows page). We will be appearing at this year’s NXNE Festival here in Toronto. Our showcase time is Saturday, June 15 at the venerable Rancho Relaxo (300 College St.)- 1AM sharp! Other bands on the bill include PKEW PKEW PKEW (gunshots), The Quiet Company and 2 Live Drew.
As promised, here are some studio pictures (all taken by Andy):
Here’s our typical bed track session set up…not much different than a rehearsal except the baffling the the extra microphones.
“What a mess!” Nathan V does his thing. Bobby’s behind the drums.
“ARG! This is hard!” Me working out a challenging bass part for “One by One,” a song penned by Betty where I play the bass. Everyone else looks on…
Betty deciding which amp sounds best…Alas there are no photos of our photographer, Andy. Next time!
It’s been radio silence for an unprecedented time here at Pmaps dot net, but that’s because we’ve actually been very busy. We’ve been busy writing and honing in on new material, we’ve been busy re-arranging the studio for more functional recording sessions, and then re-arranging it back for more practical rehearsal/writing sessions and then back again … yesterday, Nathan moved most of the guitar amps against one wall and all the guitars (there’s close to 20 of them) against another – all the amps won’t fit on one wall it seems. It can get quite messy. I’ve been experimenting with the 2-Track Studer A-80 tape machine (best echo device ever). Bobby’s been coming in on his own just to do his fundamentals – it staves off the boredom between rehearsals and bed tracking. I finally put all my favourite gizmo’s onto one pedal board / flight case. Andy (Lord of Noise) built this pedal he simply calls UGLYFACE, “the oscillating 8-bit fuzz,” which I liken to a grounded flying saucer – I recorded a new guitar solo in “The Hedonist” with it. It sounds…AWESOME. He’s going to build some custom pedals for Betty’s bass. There’s a bunch of new and old synths hanging around too – we might use them. We re-convene on Monday… with luck you can add one more song to the list: “Poor City.”
Here’s a video of Andy showing his creation:
-d