Ottawa/Montreal pop ensemble make their first trek east this month with four dates in New Brunswick.
The folks in the Ottawa/Montreal psych pop ensemble, Future States, do not waste any time. Just weeks after their debut full-length album Casual Listener was released, the band are making their first trek to the East Coast, a tour that includes four New Brunswick performances.
“I think never having been out east before is making it a lot more exciting than the sort of regular tour around Southern Ontario to cities that we’ve spent a lot of time in,” said Future States’ Brodie Conley. “Just walking around new cities is a lot of fun, especially in fall when you can grab a coffee and explore. A couple of us caught some of the Shifty Bits/Oh Hi shows that happened in Montreal this summer and we’ve been hearing great things about the arts community in Fredericton, so we’re really looking forward to meeting a ton of new people, and to play with one of Fredericton’s finest, David in the Dark.”
Casual Listener features nine tracks of peculiar pop music that follows two previous EP and a couple of singles. It’s also the band’s first release for the Portland, OR label, Golden Brown.
“Golden Brown has been amazing and is made up of a team of people who just really love weird music,” said Future States’ Brodie Conley. “They’ve been instrumental in helping us release this album to a wider audience and are just generally awesome people.”
Montreal’s Chairs will join Future States for all East Coast dates. Learn more about them here.
About Future States:
Future States is a psychedelic pop band who make music that rewards repeat headphone listens as much as it inspires fevered dancing. Their music is built on layers of weaving keys, woozy guitars, and sampled sounds, paired with a propulsive rhythm section. On top of these dense textures sit pristine pop melodies and reverb-soaked harmonies.
Based out of Montreal and Ottawa, Future States consists of Chuck Bronson (Guitar, Vocals), Brodie Conley (Guitar, BV), Daniel Gélinas (Drums, BV), Nicolas Hyatt (Keys, BV) and David Lacalamita (Bass, BV). Their unique sound emanates directly from their collaborative ethos. The band draw from varied musical backgrounds and educations —experimental composition, psych/prog, jazz, indie rock, and folk —working diligently together until each song becomes more than the sum of its individual parts. This process is aided by Gélinas, who acts as the band’s in-house recording engineer. The result is a tapestry of musical influences, put together like a puzzle that yields a satisfying whole.
Recorded over a two week period at a church in Northern Ontario, Casual Listener, their first full length LP, sees Future States charting a path between two poles of their musical interest — pop songcraft and improvisation. The arrangements for Apostolic, Lulu, Wish You Well and Violencia highlight the former, with carefully orchestrated melodic and rhythmic ideas, and meticulous attention paid to instrumental layers. In contrast, You Got It All Wrong, Regress to the Mean and the album’s multiple interlude tracks showcase how the musical relationships within the band play out in real-time, with loose arrangements made possible by the freedom to improvise together and record late into the night in the church-turned-studio. The quiet album closer Sudo Su pairs Bronson’s abstract lyrics with delicate vocal harmonies, eerie church organ, an ethereal ringing bell, and pizzicato cello performed by Christine Bronson, sampled and carefully re-arranged by Hyatt into Norman McLaren-esque percussive pops. Together, the songs on Casual Listener are testament to the venn-diagram that is Future States’ music— experimentation that feeds into polished pop.
On Tour:
Future States + Chairs | November 4, 2016 | Taco Pica | Saint John, NB | View Event
Future States + Chairs + David in the Dark | November 5, 2016 | The Capital | Fredericton, NB | View Event
Future States + Chairs + Sorrey | November 6, 2016 | Baba’s Lounge | Charlottetown, PEI | View Event
Future States + Chairs + The Everywheres + No Problem | November 10, 2016 | Gus’s Pub | Halifax, NS | View Event
Future States + Chairs + Jon McKiel | November 11, 2016 | Thunder and Lightning| Sackville, NB
Future States + Chairs + David in the Dark | November 12, 2016 | Bar Le Coude | Moncton, NB | View Event
