DARCYS ANNOUNCE NEW ALBUM, REVEAL NEW TRACK
CENTERFOLD OUT NOVEMBER 4 VIA ARTS & CRAFTS
LISTEN TO AND SHARE “SAN DIEGO, 1988” HERE
SUMMER TOUR DATES CONTINUE THIS WEEK
"[The track] practically begs you to pack up your bags and head west to the sprawling Pacific Coast." - Consequence Of Sound
"Darcys embody the recklessly bold artistic ambition that is significantly harder to find today." - Esquire
PHOTO CREDIT : MAYA FUHR
Renowned Toronto critic Ben Rayner once notably dubbed Darcys “pathologically ambitious.” One of the band’s earliest champions, few in the media have ever better contextualized their career, or could set the tone for the record they’re about to release.
November 4 marks the arrival of a new studio album, Centerfold, via Arts & Crafts - the latest from one of Canada’s most fearlessly creative, adventurously experimental groups, and represents the culmination of almost a decade of challenging their own limitations. Today, courtesy of Consequence of Sound comes “San Diego, 1988”, from the upcoming album which follows summer radio hit, “Miracle.”
"San Diego, 1988" is a suburban romantic saga “about giving into the fantasy of escapism and defending the idea of a simpler kind of love,” says the band’s drummer and lyricist Wes Marksell. “‘All we need is each other and the open road,’ or so the story goes.”
Through half a dozen releases in as many years, including the Polaris Music Prize and JUNO Award-nominated album Warring, and three other official releases with Arts & Crafts, Darcys remain as unique for their varied approach to writing and releasing music as they have at times been held back by it. In 2014, multi-instrumentalist Jason Couse and Marskell, the group’s founding members, intent on forging ahead as a duo, set the stage for the band’s greatest self-imposed challenge – making a credible pop record worthy of global attention.
Cue Centerfold: 10 shimmering songs that pull together glossy production and airtight hooks, including aforementioned funk-tinged summer anthem “Miracle”, and the sparkling, desert-creased heartache of “Arizona Hwy”. The album, inspired by the shameless maximalist lean of 1980s classics like Back To The Future and Blade Runner and the era’s grandiose pop efforts, be they from Bowie or Chic.
Evolving through a painstaking process wherein the duo generated more than 50 songs, and over two years of extensive recording in New Zealand, Los Angeles, Banff and Toronto, the album was produced by Grammy-award winner Shawn Everett (Alabama Shakes, Julian Casablancas) with an eye to making truly expansive pop songs that are retro-hued yet rooted in the sounds of today. “We knew we wanted the record to sound modern, pop-minded and sun-bleached,” says Marksell. “Once we managed to assemble our production team I was confident we were going to have one of the best sounding records coming out of Toronto.”
That team, which included mixer Matty Green (TV On The Radio, The Weeknd) and mastering engineer Emily Lazar (Vampire Weekend, Haim), came together throughout 2014 and 2015 and turned the band’s great pop experiment into a very real record. “Gone is the epic, guitar-led rock and in its place, some slick studio pop that is primed for mass consumption,” music journalist Cam Lindsay noted via Noisey around the release of the album’s lead single “Miracle.”
WATCH AND SHARE THE OFFICIAL VIDEO FOR “MIRACLE” HERE
But consumption aside, the goals of this project and process are the same for Darcys as they have always been – to make records that defy the listener to categorize the artist, or pigeonhole a song. “There was never an agenda to sacrifice anything,” Marskell added in response to questions about whether the band planned to “sell out” with Centerfold. “Was the implication really that we were going to make a shitty record? We’re not really working with a formula and there was never an obvious next record for us. If anything, a pop record seems as logical as anything else.”
But there’s nothing especially logical about it. The 10 songs on Centerfold see the Toronto-based duo exploring consistent themes of escapism and manifest destiny, inspired from the front seats of a borrowed El Camino and night drives through the Hollywood Hills, looking down on golden coast lines and reflecting on stories of dreams chased, met and more often, brutally dashed.
The band played their first live date in two years this May in Toronto for Red Bull Sound Select, and will continue a string of dates throughout the summer, including two sold out nights in Vancouver with AWOLNATION this weekend as well as stops in Edmonton for SONiC Boom Festival, in Calgary for X-Fest and Victoria for Rifflandia Festival. More dates will be added soon.
ACCLAIM FOR “MIRACLE”
“An outlandish exploration of pop ambition" - Clash
“Radio-ready, near-perfect earworm” - Complex
“Infectious, retro-tinged electro-pop” - Exclaim!
“Primed for mass consumption" - Noisey
CENTERFOLD TRACKLIST
01 Studio City
02 Miracle
03 San Diego, 1988
04 Virtual Reality
05 Arizona Highway
06 Coming Up For Air
07 I Want It All
08 Alibi
09 Black Diamonds
10 Lip Service
TOUR DATES
Aug 11 - Vancouver, BC @ The Commodore Ballroom w/ AWOLNATION
Aug 12 - Vancouver, BC @ The Commodore Ballroom w/ AWOLNATION
Sep 03 - Edmonton, AB @ Sonic Boom Festival
Sep 04 - Calgary, AB @ X Fest
Sep 09 - Niagara Falls, ON @ Jackson Triggs w/ ARKELLS
Sep 18 - Victoria, BC @ Rifflandia
