#mesa mesa

Have you ever experienced seasons of musical antipathy? Periods when you want to listen to anything but the tunes that you have in your collection, because there must be something more interesting out there? The last few months have been like that for me, and I found myself digging more into foreign musical terrain, from the hyper local to the ubiquitously popular.

In the midst of this whole process, I bought myself an impromptu trip to Toronto for the NXNE Festival, And, mincing through its hundreds of artists, found some noisemakers that are worth perking your ears to.

First up, Toronto's Mesa Mesa. Their name recalls alien landscapes of the California coast, these wind-eroded geographic features that stand out from its surroundings like tabletops. Similarly, their music chips away at its rock and electronic structures and reveals something layered and noteworthy. Check them out, and if you're in town for NXNE, come see them with me.

Hi, Some of you may have already noticed – we are not that band any more.  In my opinion, this is a good thing. Bobby, Betty and myself have been working on new material as a three-piece for a few months now. It’s been a slow, and at times awkward, but very rewarding process.   I know this sounds funny coming from the main songwriter but I finally feel like we are making the music I’ve always wanted to make –  it’s just much more focused.  That doesn’t mean we won’t be expanding our ranks  - in fact we have plans to add a new member very soon but meanwhile we have established a great vibe that we want to continue nurturing.

Way back in June 2012, while I was finishing up the final mixes for Inferior Ghost, we moved all our stuff out of what was once Chemical Sound and into a new space. At first the space was an empty white-washed shell with no electrical outlets, harsh lighting and a big chaotic mountain of gear in the centre – a quite daunting scene actually – but eventually with the help of some friends (namely Cameron Harding and Owen Norquay of Mesa Mesa, Jay Sad and Nathan Vanderwielen) we began building our new headquarters and named the studio/workspace, Echo Valley. Unlike Chemical Sound, Echo Valley is not a commercial studio but rather a shared facility where cool producers work and cool bands rehearse and record. Now that the studio is fully functional I am cheerfully looking forward to committing our new songs and vibe to tape.  I intend to document the process here at papermaps.net, so look for more updates about the new album – things like pictures, video clips, lyric scans, etc.

The upcoming show at the Horseshoe Tavern (Thursday Feb 7) will be the three of us  and we are going to play at least three (maybe four) new songs that we plan to record shortly after that show. The rest of the set will be comprised of back catalogue songs that we still enjoy playing and work best in our new configuration.  One song we will not play is “Reunion.”

What else??? Oh, we’ve moved our mailing list to a new mail service.  If you want to subscribe to our mailing list just look at our previous post here on tumblr.

I want to thank everyone who supported these past 3 years, especially those who continue to support us – and all you newcomers!

cheers,