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Multi-disciplinary artist Vivek Shraya has a body of work that crosses the boundaries of music, literature, visual art, theatre, and film. Among her list of accomplishments is an impressive catalog of music—including the Polaris Prize-nominated Part-Time Woman with Queer Songbook Orchestra (2017) and Angry by her band Too Attached (2018), which CBC described as one of “Canada’s most incisive, radical and galvanizing albums.” 

After twenty years of releasing music independently, Vivek will make her label debut with Baby, You’re Projecting, a visual album which comes out on Mint Records on May 12, 2023. Unlike her previous musical offerings, which were more sonically compartmentalized, Vivek endeavoured to create a genre-fluid album. Inspired by great female-fronted pop records (including janet. by Janet Jackson, Sheryl Crow’s self-titled album, and Lemonade by Beyoncé), Baby, You’re Projecting holds the breadth of Vivek’s sound and style in one space. Ranging from house to hip hop to country, Vivek’s singular voice and songwriting holds the record together and resonates in every genre. 

Produced by and co-written with frequent collaborator James Bunton (Donovan Woods, Ohbijou), Baby, You’re Projecting is a break-up album that explores Vivek’s tenuous relationships with men. The danceable “Good Luck (You’re Fucked)” is an empowering pop anthem for women and femmes clapping back at male fragility. The swelling ballad “He Loves Me Until He Hates Me” exposes the underbelly of male affection against a backdrop of sharp strings by Drew Jurecka (Dua Lipa, Rose Cousins). And the twangy “Colonizer” circles around the unique complexity of being in an interracial relationship. The record also features performances by Alanna Stuart (Bonjay), Christine Bougie (Bahamas, Amy Millan) and Kimmortal. 

Baby, You’re Projecting is being co-released with a 12-minute film titled “He Loves Me Until He Hates Me,” set to songs from the record and directed by award-winning cinematographer Gabriela Osio Vanden. Taking inspiration from 90’s classics like The Bodyguard and erotic thrillers, the film creates a meaningful (and playful) look at the unpredictability of masculinity—how it can fluctuate in insidious ways within a relationship, how one can be worn down in this type of power dynamic, and worse, how that can turn into lateral violence towards other women.

Tracklist

1. Quitter
2. Sinister Sister
3. Baby, You're Projecting
4. He Loves Me Until He Hates Me
5. I Miss My Friends
6. He Doesn't Listen To Me
7. Hate Club
8. Good Luck (You're Fucked)
9. Colonizer
10. I Have To Forgive Myself
11. Cut Me Out

Baby, You're Projecting is out on Mint on May 12, 2023 and will be available digitally and on vinyl. Pre-orders are now available here.

Declaring their resolution to party down in 2023, Miesha & The Spanks are hitting the town with a fresh coat of lipstick, a dapper bolo tie and a vibrant new single, “It’s My Year,” the first single off their forthcoming album titled Unconditional Love In Hi-Fi. 

Doin’ it all for the glam, the Calgary-based duet smashes through the subterfuge of self-doubt like a house of mirrors. A John Hughes movie come to life, Miesha’s siren to banshee self-actualization manifests in an array of fervent guitar riffs and the rhythmic method of Sean Hamilton’s cardiac-arrest-reversing percussion.

Recorded at the world-renowned National Music Centre (Calgary AB) under the capable ears of producers Daniel Farrant and Paul Rawson, this new single and its accompanying video cast a golden glow of optimism over the future.

Flourishing alongside alt-rock show ponies Wet Leg, Alvvays, Fleshwater, Black Mountain and Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Miesha & The Spanks are set to shatter expectations in 2023. It’s a new era, and Joan Jett and Cyndi Lauper are the preeminent deities of divadom. Get primed to unpack your hot pants and freestyle your way through the roaring twenties. The sparkling single, “It’s My Year,” pops the cork on endless possibilities with sassy, coquettish vocals and a decadent carpe diem vibe.

Shouting out her rebellious philosophy with an impressive hardcore energy, Miesha’s mindset clears the calendar with an affirming blast of radio-rock. Flashy dips and double-proof highs swirl in harmony as the pair shimmers and shimmies through every grungy note and impassioned chorus.

Another tantalizing banger that teases more from their forthcoming full-length album, “It’s My Year” unveils a provocatively adventurous side of Miesha & The Spanks’ anthemic indie rock jams, while breaking out the first scrappy-yet-danceable hit of 2023.

Watch the music video | Stream the song

Words by Christine Leonard 

Mint Records is thrilled to team with Only A Visitor to release the Vancouver quintet’s fourth album and Mint debut, Decay.

The announcement comes with a new single and music video for “Fraud of Finery,” directed by Lief Hall.

“It was incredibly inspiring bringing together the dance improvisations of Justine Chambers and the beautiful music of Only A Visitor. It was an exciting challenge to find that perfect interplay between the movement and sound…I looked for those gestures and musical forms that had a kind of indescribable resonance together.” - Lief Hall

Only A Visitor’s Robyn Jacob describes “Fraud of Finery” as “a song about being close but yet so far, reaching over barriers of communication, and showing love and connection through the digital versus the tactile. The music takes a simpler turn with a meandering, stripped down chord progression that cycles through each verse. A slow, romantic waltz that reaches into the chorus with expansive harmonies on the lyrics ‘be apart, be a part.’”

Watch the video for "Fraud of Finery"

About Only A Visitor

Described as “Bjork's light-footed nymph child,” (Beatroute) Vancouver quintet Only A Visitor bring a precise and buoyant live energy to song-crafting with their “kaleidoscopic compositions” (Dusted Magazine). Fusing together avant-pop, jazz, classical, and DIY influences and substituting guitar with three-part harmonies that “display a delightful innovation” (HuffPost), they have released three albums to date and have recently signed to Mint Records for their fourth release, Decay. Since forming in 2015, they have appeared at the Montreal, Halifax, Ottawa, Toronto, and Vancouver Jazz Festivals and the Vancouver Island Music Festival, among others, and have toured Canada and internationally. With drummer Kevin Romain, bassist Jeff Gammon, and vocalists Emma Postl and Celina Kurz, classically trained but DIY-nurtured songwriter and arranger Robyn Jacob wraps gently asymmetrical sonic tendrils around pop skeletons.

Decay was recorded, engineered, and mixed by Joseph Hirabayashi and mastered by Brock McFarlane at CPS Mastering. With their additional finesse, Only A Visitor capture a vibrancy at once fluttering and serene. They reach a harmonic balance that seems impossible on paper but lives in each of Decay’s nine tracks and works as well as the delicate vocal interplay between Jacob, Postl, and Kurz; hear for example “Degree by Degree,” an undulating track in constant motion. Sparse, spacious arrangements on “All You’ve Held” and, most exemplary of all, the a capella “A Whole of a Life” allow the dynamic vocal range between each singer to rise to the fore. Never pushy with forward-thinking sensibilities reminiscent of the Dirty Projectors and Joanna Newsom, Decay is a subtle suite that contains more depth than its levity suggests.

Only A Visitor’s exacting sound is deceptively relaxed and playful on Decay, leaning on the darker side compared to past releases. Exploring themes such as memory and its disappearance, the ephemeral and cyclical nature of existence, the chain of generational knowledge transfer, and the fruitful potential of things breaking down, the album is a nod towards returning: to the places of your childhood, to the land, to living with integrity and sincerity through a whole life and towards its end.

Pre-Orders for Vinyl/CD/Digital are now available on the Mint Webstore.

“The Vancouver quartet is restless and ruthless, making rowdy post-punk that questions and analyzes everyday life.”  –Stereogum

“Dumb lace their upbeat songs with jagged dissonance to keep things weird.“ –Exclaim! 

“The sound is the sort of angular-but-melodic new wave that doesn’t grow old like punk and hardcore did long ago” –Vancouver Sun

DUMB had a classic start as a DIY outfit back in 2015, playing their first shows in the dining room of a tear-down in east Vancouver. The four band members, Franco Rossino, Shelby Vredik, Pipe Morelli, and Nick Short, were all part of a larger group of friends that jammed and partied together often. Seven years later, the band is set to release their third LP with Mint Records, Pray 4 Tomorrow—self-recorded at Choms, a studio co-owned by Nick Short and Franco Rossino. DUMB has toured extensively in North America and Europe, played with Wolf Parade and Dilly Dally, and are known for their catchy punk rhythms, squealing guitar feedback, and strongly spoken lyrics. 

Over the years DUMB’s songwriting has developed, and on Pray 4 Tomorrow their pop sensibilities manage to shine through the dissonant tones and syncopated rhythms borrowed from Yo La Tengo and Devo. Consider “Excuse me”, which finds a Beach Boys-esque melody placed gently atop the drop-tuned dissonance of Rossino and Short’s duelling guitars, or “Gibberish”—a heavy hitting post-punk bop that culminates in a melodic instrumental piano outro. DUMB is doing their best to balance their noisier tendencies with pretty melodies, in an approach similar to San Francisco’s Pardoner. 

Rossino’s vocals have matured from abstract rambling towards nuanced commentary, often poking fun at his own self-righteous attitude towards the stress of living in the information age. In “Out of Touch”, Rossino yells “I can see you talking but it sounds like simulations, I’m not sure I’ve got the patience, I’m already full of shit”. In “Gibberish” Rossino sings “thank you kindly but I think I’ll keep my eyes closed” on wanting to shut out the constant stream of targeted advertising. 

Pray 4 Tomorrow is DUMB’s most refined album to date, but also their most eclectic mix of influences. There’s something for everyone on the album, with two Specials-influenced Ska interpretations, a couple of folk tunes with vocals from bassist Shelby Vredik, and a series of Minor Threat style B-side rants, all enveloped in the unique post-punk sound that the band has honed over the years. 

Tracklist

1. Foot Control 
2. Gibberish
3. Excuse Me? 
4. Pull Me Up
5. 30 Degrees 
6. Strange is the Morning 
7. Quarter Stereo 
8. Dropout
9. Sleep like a Baby 
10. Watch this Drive
11. Out of Touch
12. Fully Compromised 
13. Pensar
14. Desolation 
15. Civic Duty 
16. 77 
17. Grey Area 
18.  The Entertainer

RIYL: Pardoner, Parquet Courts, Fake Fruit, Ought, The Specials, Lithics, Pavement

Pre-orders for Pray 4 Tomorrow are now available on Bandcamp and the Mint web store. Out November 11, 2022.

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This project is funded in part by FACTOR, the Government of Canada and Canada’s private radio broadcasters.

Ce projet est financé en partie par FACTOR, le gouvernement du Canada et les radiodiffuseurs privés du Canada.
 

Vancouver-based queer synth pop icons Kellarissa and Devours have released an end of summer banger called “Change My Mind” and share upcoming joint tour dates.

Kellarissa (Larissa Loyva) and Devours (Jeff Cancade) were drawn to one another as kindred spirits longing to carve out a space for their queer, pop-infused synthwave. After touring together in 2018, it was a natural progression to collaborate on a song, which finally materialized in the fall of 2020 in the form of "Change My Mind". They've been patiently scheming ever since to unleash it upon unsuspecting fans. Cancade laid out the tracks and fleshed out the chorus, while Loyva contributed the verses, their voices effortlessly blending together to create a bittersweet anthem about having second thoughts in a relationship.

Listen to the song here.

Tour Dates:

8/21 - Record Release Show @ The Lido (Kellarissa w/ The Golden Age of Wrestling)
9/3 - Wonderhorse (Devours)
9/8 - Victoria - TBD
9/9 - Nanaimo @ City Hole
9/10 - Cumberland @ Masonic Hall
9/11 - Gibsons @ ‘Postrophe
9/17 - Vancouver @ Anza Club w/ Total Chroma
10/1 - Pop Montreal (Kellarissa)

‘My life: a slow clap progression, pace rising; to celebrate in the smallest finding - feels right to show admiration that grows,’ Mark Grundy begins on “Slow Clap”, the first track from Heaven For Real’s sophomore full-length Energy Bar, out September 16 on Mint Records.

Formed in 2012, and consisting of songwriter twins Mark and J. Scott Grundy (Quaker Parents) and their frequent collaborators, drummer Nathan Doucet and synth player/percussionist Cher Hann, the Toronto by way of Halifax project has been taking time to shape the follow-up to their 2016 Mint debut, Kill Your Memory. Springboarding from their early 2022 EP, Sweet Rose Green Winter Desk Top Tell This Side Autumn Of The Fighter Hot In A Cool Way, they describe the project as a “living collaboration”, one that strives to compress life’s truths into a distorted reflection of all of its facets. It’s this that drives Energy Bar–a hyper, trash-compacted mosaic of the band ten years in that’s simultaneously dreamlike and alive.

Recording the album with Jonas Bonnetta at Port William Sound, H4R aimed to cultivate an electrically charged live energy, which they fuse with rich and playful compositions. Tracks like “Lately” and “Energy Bar” are defined by tireless, wired drums, around which are woven buoyant guitar lines, sounding at times like the weirder shades of bands like Meat Puppets, Prefab Sprout and even early Cate Le Bon. Included too are hints of The Feelies, Mdou Moctar, Built To Spill and Cast; Heaven For Real’s approach is an experimental one, yet one unafraid to embrace genre as a tool for expression.

“Slow Clap” introduces the themes of the record; those of winking affirmations, of accepting all the different angles of reality, and of keeping one’s eyes open to the tactile physical world (Can You Believe It?). The lyrics here are incisive yet poetic, and you believe them when they opine: “I won’t take the grit of confession way lightly.” “Do Your Worst” is a meditation on frustration and dishonesty, while “Wait in the Doorway” is an oblique kind of love song. On album highlight “Years In My Mirage”, a nervy, subtly-built tension is released into feverish guitar licks, while dissecting  the brutal futility of chasing a preconceived path. 

This is a rare kind of album, capturing with gentle truth the endless streams of wonder and failure that make up the everyday. There’s a dense and mysterious world here, with grasps at brief moments of understanding before it all shifts again. They bookend the record with the closing track “Noon Riser”: “We are more than all that we confess.” “It’s hard to admit what you are, and even then you are more than that. And that’s hard too; but don’t worry.”

"Multiple spins reveal a fully functioning universe that becomes increasingly familiar as one's ear-holes begin to acclimate to the pressure changes." - James Christopher Monge, Allmusic

"These folks are creating artsy pop that has some peculiar qualities but is ultimately very listenable and TOTALLY addictive." - Babysue.com

Tracklist:

1. Slow Clap
2. Do Your Worst 
3. Wait In The Doorway 
4. Energy Bar
5. Further The Thrill 
6. Lately 
7. Underwater Song 
8. Years In My Mirage 
9. Take It Away 
10. Noon Riser 

RIYL: The Feelies, Mdou Moctar, Built To Spill, Cate Le bon 

Publicity
Tom Churchill | Hive Mind PR
churchill@hivemindpr.com

Questions?
Contact info@mintrecs.com 

Pre-orders available on the Mint web store

Few bands torpedo the ears with as much intensity as Kamikaze Nurse. Since forming in 2018, the Vancouver quartet have captivated audiences with scorching music that’s been described as “ethereal skronk,” “Deleuzian rock,” and the “best of the ‘90s.” In 2019, they released their first full-length, Bucky Fleur, via Agony Klub. This spring, Kamikaze Nurse make their Mint Records debut with the focused and dynamic Stimuloso.

Combining the word “stimulus” and the Spanish suffix “-oso,” Stimuloso explores—and elicits—just that: a stimulated, excited feeling. Whereas Bucky Fleur engulfed listeners in swirling chaos, Stimuloso presents an evolution, taking risks in playful introspection and refined composition. The turbulent title-track defines the album’s mood and message, that through the entanglement of love and hate, life and death, and starts and stops, a potent, vitalic charge arises.

The 10 tracks on Stimuloso began gestating soon after Kamikaze Nurse finished recording Bucky Fleur. “Aileen” was written in response to a friend’s passing in 2019. The undeniably poppy ballad “Come from Wood” wrote itself after singer-guitarist KC Wei listened to the Pixies’ B-side “Into the White” on repeat for months, all the while pondering the song’s simplistic, mysterious allure. “Never Better”’s meditative mantra, “Ya never / Get better,” circles back over itself like a My Bloody Valentine zen painting, culminating in a soothing state of bliss. These three songs lay the foundation for the rest of the album, which came together through an organic and increasingly collaborative songwriting process between Wei, guitarist Ethan Reyes, bassist Sonya Eui, and drummer John Brennan. 

In 2020, amidst the first wave of the pandemic, the members spent six months self-recording instrumentals for Stimuloso in their jam space. After another weekend completing vocals at Rain City Recorders, they handed off the album to Deerhoof’s Greg Saunier, who further endowed Stimuloso with swagger and teeth through his skillful mixing.

Characteristic of Kamikaze Nurse, whose name comes from activist-philosopher Simone Weil’s unfulfilled humanitarian death wish, Stimuloso draws inspiration from an array of sources including David Cronenburg’s gut-wrenching tragedy Dead Ringers, the free-flowing, vaguely narrative poetry of John Ashbery, and Mao Zedong’s “Iron Girls,” icons of changing gender norms during the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Softly spoken lines of poetry combine with recurring motifs of animals barking, snapping, and growling to conjure a sensory universe both ethereal and familiar.

Kamikaze Nurse’s evocative integration of melody and noise, along with their interests in film, literature, and history, creates a narrative world containing its own internal logic. Pushing beyond genres and conventions, there isn’t a dull moment as Stimuloso propels listeners through a gamut of emotions ridged with dizzying highs. 

“That shit is good, damnit” -Dan Bejar

“Not an easy feat to gel these big-sonic influences into your own thing” -Carey Mercer

Tracklist
A1. Boom Josie*
A2. P & O
A3. Stimuloso
A4. Aileen
A5. Dead Ringers
B6. Never Better*
B7. Pet Meds*
B8. Come From Wood*
B9. Work + Days
B10. ubobo

*Focus Tracks 

Out June 3, 2022 on Mint Records. Pre-orders available on Bandcamp and the Mint Webstore.

New EP Sweet Rose Green Winter Desk Top Tell This Side Autumn Of The Fighter Hot In A Cool Way Out March 25 on Mint Records

Watch video here | Listen here

Vancouver, BC – March 10, 2022 – Today the Toronto by way of Halifax art rockers Heaven For Real announce their new EP, Sweet Rose Green Winter Desk Top Tell This Side Autumn Of The Fighter Hot In a Cool Way and share a lyric video for “Sweet Rose,” out now. 

“Sweet Rose” is the first track from Sweet Rose Green Winter Desktop Tell This Side Autumn Of The Fighter Hot In a Cool Way, and the accompanying lyric video features wavy visuals and text by the band’s own Cher Hann and Mark Grundy.

“Sweet Rose” is a song mostly about how specialness fades, how the idea of beauty is beholden to your own shifting experience, and how nobody is going to align exactly with the way you see things–and trying to find understanding in and of that. 

The first three singles from the EP, “Sweet Rose,” “Green Winter,” and “Desk Top” are available on streaming platforms now. The full 6-song EP is set for release on Mint Records on March 25.

Kellarissa offers redemption to lost souls searching for meaning in dark places. Voice Leading, her fourth full-length album with Mint Records, is a vulnerable, self-realized ode to female desire, regret, shame, self-compassion, and cautious healing. 

To accompany the announcement of her forthcoming record, she shares a music video for the title track: a mysterious music video about obsession, perception and desire. Watch it here.

Kellarissa (Finnish for “in the basement”) is the solo moniker of experimental pop artist Larissa Loyva, whose two-decade-long output of exacting pop music also includes her critically acclaimed collaborations with Nicholas Krgovich in the chamber pop band p:ano, synth-pop duo Fake Tears, early pop-choir ingenues The Choir Practice, as well as stints as a touring member of How to Dress Well and Destroyer. She is best known for layering vocals and synthesized sounds, and for making abstract themes relatable through her questioning lyrics and poetic sensibilities.

Kellarissa composed Voice Leading during lockdowns and times of uncertainty, allowing her to explore her psyche through her music: “Creating in this vacuum had a wild effect on me, had me constantly doubting my own abilities. My imposter syndrome was off the charts at times. But I pushed myself to continue writing and recording, and to face the effects problematic drinking and pent-up mental anguish had on my creativity and sense of self; it gave me the perspective to discover areas in which I needed help and healing in my life.” 

Although the album was self-produced and recorded, Kellarissa enlisted the help of Jesse Gander (Japandroids, The Pack a.d.) and Jeff Cancade (Devours, The Golden Age of Wrestling) for final mixing touches, and the record was mastered by Ryan Morey (Daniel Romano, Yves Jarvis). The result is a saturated sonic tableau of cinematic synths and soaring crystalline vocals, artfully produced pop music that can be placed with the likes of Perfume Genius as well as more idiosyncratic producers like Laurel Halo.

Voice Leading is Kellarissa’s most conceptual record yet, situating listeners in an enigmatic hall of possibility. References to Anne Garréta’s 1986 Oulipan nightclub novel Sphinx are woven throughout the album. On “Bad Influence” and “After Hours,” cerebral pop turns are inflected with the savvy dance energy of nineties iconoclasts like Björk and Pulp. Synth-driven title track (and lead single) “Voice Leading” flirts with affairs of the mind and the agony of not knowing. There’s a scenario Kellarissa can’t quite put her finger on in “Anemoia,” where déjà vu is veiled by anxiety and dread: “I’m feeling a nostalgia for a place I’ve never been.”

Creating this record was Kellarissa’s antidote for challenging times. With Voice Leading, she is able to take the infinite depth and formlessness of the club and give it edges, corners: a pulsating shape that plumbs the dark spaces hollowed out by yearning, restraint, and despair in an attempt to crack the enigma and let in the light.

RIYL: Perfume Genius, Kate Bush, Björk, Laurel Halo, Nite Jewel

Track Listing
A1. Exposition
A2. Desire Path
A3. Anemoia
A4. Voice Leading
A5. Bad Influence

B6. Sphinx
B7. To The Wind At Morn
B8. Dread
B9. Tempting Fate
B10. After Hours
Bonus track for CD & Digital: 11. Fantasy Impromptu (Instrumental)

Pre-order Voice Leading on the Mint web store and Bandcamp until the release date: April 1, 2022. 

The Pack a.d. and Mint Records have teamed up once again to awaken the dormant beast that is Unpersons.

Originally released on September 13, 2011, Mint Records is releasing a 10th anniversary edition of Unpersons by The Pack a.d. on “haunted” glow-in-the-dark vinyl with a foil cover. 

This limited 10th anniversary reissue of Unpersons celebrates an album that established The Pack a.d. as a band by which to compare others. 

Shredding and pounding their way through every song, The Pack a.d. swallows you whole inside their own fearless Franken-blend of heavy psych pop/garage-rock. 

Unpersons was recorded at the legendary Hive Studios with engineer Jesse Gander and famed Detroit producer (The White Stripes, The Detroit Cobras, Electric 6) Jim Diamond, who insisted on flying in to produce the record firsthand. After the sessions, the band went back to Michigan to perfect the mix together. 

The result was a flawless record that took all the snarl, piss, vinegar, venom and vitriol heard on The Pack a.d.’s first three albums into a realm distinctly their own. Any prior reference to other rock duos like The Kills or White Stripes became no longer relevant after Unpersons. 

10 years later, singles from Unpersons are still some of The Pack a.d.'s most recognizable and beloved, including fan favourites “Sirens” and “Haunt You”.

Long live The Pack a.d.!

“The riffs are raw and raunchy, the drums hit like a punch to the gut, and the no-bullshit production highlights the two-piece’s primal power.” 

- Alex Hudson, The Tyee 

“The Pack is not just another garage-blues duo, it’s one of the best, it’s pushing that loose sound in its own direction. It’s a feat to make hard-driving rock feel desolate, simultaneously woodsy and industrial.”

- Mike Ostrov, Nine Bullets

Pre-order this special reissue of Unpersons, which arrives February 4.