CO/NTRY on Facebook | CO/NTRY on Bandcamp | CO/NTRY on Twitter | CO/NTRY on Soundcloud

CO/NTRY is an adult-contemporary post-punk duo comprised ofNewfoundland-born/Montreal-based artists Beaver Sheppard and David Whitten. Though the bandlikes to think of themselves as genre-neutral, their music cycles through a wide variety of styles withmanic indifference. The name — originally “Country” — was chosen because it was confusing andimpossible to search for online, in the tradition of enigmatic acts like Boston and Chicago. Lifestyleproclivities led the band to become a major part of the city’s seedy after-hours scene, where theenthusiastic reception they received from intoxicated audiences gave them the inflated sense ofconfidence they needed to continue. Fans of their music included employees of Montreal label TurboRecordings, who helped enable the recording of their first album, Failure, the product of a singlethree-hour studio session. CO/NTRY entered negotiations to sign a contract with Bethlehem XXX —a restaurant/art collective/performance space where Sheppard served as head chef — which hasbeen described as Andy Warhol’s Factory if the point was to never produce anything at all. Afteragreeing to a record deal with the restaurant’s owner, the band decided to leak the album viaFacebook the very next day, figuring it would supply a better narrative for future band bios. The bandhas received a host of ostensibly favourable reactions from the press. Brooklyn Vegan describedthem as “clearly not giving a fuck” while Complex Magazine called them Montreal’s best band/artproject. The readers of these content platforms are entirely free to adopt these opinions as their own.CO/NTRY is on the cusp of releasing its second album, Cell Phone 1, through Montreal labelFantôme Records in April 2017. They plan to remain friends for the foreseeable future.

Hnry Flwr official site | Hnry Flwr on Facebook | Hnry Flwr on Instagram

HNRY FLWR is an icon, a band, a brand– gold clad, star-eyed and philosophically sincere. But the occult chill-wave persona comes from humble and earnest beginnings. Born into a cult in Iowa, HNRY FLWR grew up meditating and moving around the world with a psychic mother who claims to remember being born. And there is something strangely meditative about the lyrical dream pop they create as a band in Brooklyn, NY.

The world is an increasingly complex place and HNRY FLWR has had a stand out year despite the project’s own complex nature. Their “brilliant” (GoldFlakePaint) debut EP, FLOWERAMA, was released in the summer of 2017 on Paper Garden Records and quickly began going viral on Spotify with over 500,000 streams. The “melodic, danceable, and devastating” (Alt Citizen) EP was produced by David Groener Jr, (who has worked with The National, Glen Hansard, and more). The HNRY FLWR band has evolved and transformed with members of Foxygen, A Place to Bury Strangers and The Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger all playing with HNRY FLWR both in the studio and live.

Norwegian Arms official site | Norwegian Arms on Soundcloud | Norwegian Arms on Facebook | Norwegian Arms on Twitter | Norwegian Arms on Instagram

Three years, two EPs and one album since his Siberian sojourn, Keith Birthday of Norwegian Arms has turned his focus away from the confines of his tiny apartment in the Taiga which largely informed the songs on Wolf Like a Stray Dog. That doesn’t mean that the sunny folk music generated by his time in Tomsk, Russia has become any less relevant, or that the sound has changed drastically. Instead, it’s morphed from real-time cultural awe and suffering to nostalgia, and while the memories remain, new ones have taken their place. That being said, nothing has, or perhaps ever will, replace the childhood mandolin on which these songs are written, perhaps the only constant in this ever-evolving project.

In the time since returning to his native Philadelphia, Birthday has found new beauty in the wreckage that surrounds his post-industrial warehouse apartment. Dilapidated buildings, shifting friendships, and late night bicycle rides inform this new batch of songs, a celebration of deeper personal understanding. Still deeply influenced by his continued travels, these new songs draw from trips to South America and Europe, and the sense of Wanderlust remains.

Still obsessed with languages and their systems, Birthday refers to these new songs as imperfective, referring to verb ‘aspect’ present in Slavic languages, which focuses on the current process, not a past event or a future result. He still feels strongly that it’s about the journey, not the destination.