Pre-order my new record!
Plus, some songs for your summer
First things first. My new album, THEMES, will be out this fall, and you can pre-order it now. I will have a lot more to say about the record in the coming weeks and months, but for now I’ll just say that it’s the most epic, but also weirdest, WP album to date; that it features appearances from Peaches, Mocky, Taylor Savvy, Murray Lightburn, Katie Moore, Michael Feuerstack, Andrew Scott of Sloan, and many other collaborators; and that I’m very excited about it.
It comes out in October, and we’ll be doing a few shows for the occasion – the first WP shows in six years. We had our first band practice the other day; it was raw, sloppy, and fun as hell. This album has been in the works for a long time, and I can’t wait to share these songs with you. At the risk of repeating myself, pre-order it here. WP fans in Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto have the local delivery option of saving the delivery fee and having the record dropped off at your door – or pick it up at our show when we play your town this fall (dates to be announced soon).
I got a lot of really nice feedback about the first single, “Tears,” and I’m grateful for that. The second single, “On y va,” is out now on all the platforms. The vibe is somewhere between 60s French crooner and 80s psychedelic garage-rock. My longtime friend and collaborator, artist and animator Philippe Blanchard, did the animation for this video.
I recently watched the Pee-Wee Herman documentary, Pee-Wee As Himself, and it has really stayed with me. It’s a great portrait of his life story, but even more compelling is the picture that emerges of Paul Reubens’ personality, both mischievous and controlling – his continuous efforts to manipulate and undermine the filmmaker make for a whole other level of dramatic interest. Highly recommended.
We also saw Pavements, the Pavement semi-documentary. I more or less agree with Carl Wilson’s take on it, although I think I liked it a little more than he did – the bromantic fantasy of these aging indie-rockers reconnecting with their music and their audience hit all the right sentimental notes for me.
Speaking of Pavement: back in 2006, I recorded an electro-house cover of the Wowee Zowee deep cut “Kennel District.” There were a lot of sloppy indie-rock covers of mainstream pop songs floating around, and I wanted to flip the script. It was on the Lost Illusions limited edition CD, a live fan fave for some years, and a video of us performing it even caught the attention of Pavement’s Spiral Stairs, but for various reasons (my label at the time, bless their hearts, preferred keeping things “under the radar” to doing legal legwork) it never ended up on digital services. So this summer, when my digital distributor was soliciting cover songs for a small fee, I thought this could be the time, a mere 19 years after the fact. Anyway, you can now enjoy it on Spotify, Apple Music, or your streamer of choice (uploading covers to Bandcamp still requires some legal wrangling on my part, so don’t hold your breath for that).
(Incidentally, I am very much aware that Spotify is not a nice company. This is not actually news. The fact is, none of the big tech platforms, including the ones on which people are making their righteous anti-Spotify statements, are particularly ethical last time I checked. Although I honestly have a lot of respect for artists who pull their music from Spotify on principle, the fact is that Spotify is the biggest streaming service by an enormous margin – and right now, I need my music to be more accessible to the public, not less. Is that wrong? It might be. I’m still chewing on it, and I may have more to say and/or change my mind at a later date, but for now, I’m still on there…)
In other news
I did a tribute to Brian Wilson (and his brothers) on my CKUT show. You can listen to it here. I also made a Spotify playlist of the set (I made a slight tweak, swapping one Dennis Wilson song for another). I worked hard on this set, digging up a bunch of covers, deep cuts and alternate versions, and I hope you enjoy it.
My new music column in Maisonneuve is out (apparently now paywalled, so I guess subscribe or pick up a print issue).
I reviewed Andy Brown’s Why Fish Piss Matters for the Montreal Review of Books. As I say in the review, Fish Piss was an essential influence in my major life decision to move to Montreal many years ago. I have a few medium-sized criticisms of the book, but overall I liked it.
Hope the summer is treating you well. More soon!
xo WP.