Figure Walking is drummer Rob Gardiner (Conduct, Pip Skid) and Canadian independent music stalwart Greg MacPherson (baritone guitar, vocals, keys). Based in Winnipeg, minutes from the geographic centre of North America, Figure Walking makes music that is at once unmistakably local (fighting through the isolation and limitations of what is essentially a mixed up, outpost town) and reflective of the complex lives being lived beyond the horizon.

Recorded in Montreal and Winnipeg, the band’s second album, Vertical/Horizontal paints a colourful portrait of a beautiful world spiraling through the heartache and mystery of late stage capitalism. As ever, MacPherson’s storytelling pulls the curtain back and offers an up-to-the-minute report; characters fighting the law, crossing the Canadian border into North Dakota, born on a holiday, living with tragedy and winning in style. Vertical/Horizontal will be released by Disintegration Records on September 11, 2020.

Vertical/Horizontal marks MacPherson’s tenth studio album as lead and principal songwriter, and fourth collaborating with Gardiner. Figure Walking has shared bills with a wide range of artists, from Mike Watt + The Missingmen to the Hold Steady, Father John Misty to The Beaches. This music is anchored by MacPherson’s underrated guitar playing and trademark universality but it is Gardiner’s physicality and post rock sensibility that give Figure Walking an uncommon musical aesthetic. Figure Walking’s previous record, The Big Other, was long-listed for the Polaris Music Prize.