WATCH / SHARE “MOTHER TO ME” HERE
DEBUT LP, VOL. 1, OUT NOW VIA VICTORY POOL RECORDS
BUY / STREAM VOL. 1 HERE
MOONRIIVR IS THE NEW PROJECT FROM GAVIN GARDINER (THE WOODEN SKY) AND CHAMPAGNE JAMES ROBERTSON (LINDI ORTEGA), FEATURING BEN WHITELEY (THE WEATHER STATION), AND LYLE MOLZAN (KATHLEEN EDWARDS)
TOUR DATES IN JANUARY 2024 // TICKETS HERE
“Sounds as if Buddy Holly and Chris Isaak made a record with Damien Jurado. The slowmotion-surf on “10,000 suns” as well as the Folk-Blues “Run” with it’s sizzling analogue amps are outstanding.” - Rolling Stone (Germany)
Photo Credit : Colin Medley // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES
MOONRIIVR, the quartet of vocalist Gavin Gardiner (The Wooden Sky), guitarist "Champagne" James Robertson (Lindi Ortega), bassist Ben Whiteley (The Weather Station), and percussionist Lyle Molzan (Kathleen Edwards) recently released their idiosyncratic indie-folk debut LP, titled Vol. 1. Today, the band is releasing a video for their track, "Mother To Me", which was featured on the aforementioned LP.
"This song celebrates those relationships in life that are strong enough to withstand even the fiercest gales." said Gardiner of the track. "I’ve been learning to accept that time changes everything and sometimes you just have to be ok with where you are today and let tomorrow be tomorrow."
Crafted with a Tascam 388 tape recorder, Vol.1 is representative of an amalgam of influences, laced with sweetly reverberating slide guitars, wonky string synths, and nimble percussive environments that Rolling Stone DE said, "Sounds as if Buddy Holly and Chris Isaak made a record with Damien Jurado."
MOONRIIVR's knack for creating sonic worlds that are at once lightly trippy and wholly inviting means that, as much as Vol. 1 draws on inspirations from decades past, it maintains a pleasing, distinctly out-of-time feel. The band's album rollout included tracks like, "Midnight at the Garden Hotel", "Bachelor Nation", and "The Hypnotist", which all released alongside their own videos.
WATCH / SHARE “MOTHER TO ME” HERE
MORE ABOUT MOONRIIVR
The story of MOONRIIVR’s incarnation began in the spring of 2020, early days of the pandemic. Gavin Gardiner – best known as the front person for JUNO Award-nominated indie-folk mainstays The Wooden Sky, and as a producer and engineer at All Day Coconut studios for artists such as Fiver, Jason Collett, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson – visited his friend “Champagne” James Robertson at the Robertson family farm north of Toronto. After years touring as lead guitar with acts like Lindi Ortega and Dwayne Gretzky, Robertson was similarly adrift during those strange early pandemic days. The two had been circling around each other in the Toronto music scene when the chance to collaborate landed in front of them. Armed with a vintage Tascam 388 tape recorder, mellotron and a nylon string guitar the two got stuck in and quickly realized they had stumbled onto something special.
WATCH / SHARE “FLOWERS ON THE FIRE ESCAPE” HERE
The songs on MOONRIIVR’s aptly titled debut, Vol. 1, came together on an old analogue tape machine, laced with sweetly reverberating slide guitars, wonky string synths, and nimble percussive environments. MOONRIIVR's knack for creating sonic worlds that are at once lightly trippy and wholly inviting means that, as much as Vol. 1 draws on inspirations from decades past, it maintains a pleasing, distinctly out-of-time feel. The band half-jokingly likened the album to ‘Buddy Holly meets Krautrock’, and strange as it sounds it's not far off the mark.
WATCH / SHARE “BACHELOR NATION” HERE
WATCH / SHARE “10,000 SUNS” HERE
Thematically, the songs are wide ranging, providing a winning contrast to the laser focus of MOONRIIVR's sonic architecture. Running the gamut from personal reflections on finding pleasure in the minutiae of everyday life on “Blonde Hair Now” to meditations on some of the more disturbing and inescapable developments in world politics over the last few years (“Midnight at the Garden Hotel”, “Flowers on the Fire Escape”), Gardiner deftly addresses these seemingly disparate thought-poles with a balance of opacity and directness. While not beating the listener over the head, Gardiner doesn’t shy away from uncomfortable topics, be it climate change or navigating friendship schisms that developed around divergent pandemic politics. It's the kind of record that can thrum warmly in the background but also pays dividends for those listeners willing to dig a little deeper.
WATCH / SHARE “MIDNIGHT AT THE GARDEN HOTEL” (LIVE PERFORMANCE VIDEO)
WATCH / SHARE “THE HYPNOTIST” (LIVE PERFORMANCE VIDEO)
After this initial round of writing and recording sessions at the farm, the two decamped back to Toronto where they roped in first-call bassist Ben Whiteley (The Weather Station, Basia Bulat, Julia Jacklin) and percussionist extraordinaire Lyle Molzan (Kathleen Edwards, Corb Lund), and continued tweaking and refining their sound during weekly sessions at All Day Coconut. The two added a new layer of depth to the proceedings, with Whiteley's tasteful, earthy bass playing providing a warm anchor to the music, and Molzan largely eschewing a standard drumkit in favour of triangles, congas, and other sundry percussive items.
WATCH / SHARE “BLONDE HAIR NOW” HERE
Finally, MOONRIIVR returned to the farm to pull the whole thing together. They set up shop in the garage, placing guitar amplifiers in cars and opening and closing the car doors to adjust sound leakage during recording. The 30 degree July heat made it necessary to keep the garage doors open, letting the natural ambient sounds of their rural environs seep into the background of the songs. Gardiner in particular delighted in this refreshing change from the status quo, re-setting himself with this open-ended, at times magical creative process, which he says “really opened up a whole new musical world to me that I had heard in the music I loved.”
BUY / STREAM VOL. 1 HERE
TOUR DATES:
Jan 25, 2024 - Red Deer, AB, Canada - Bo's Bar and Grill
Jan 26, 2024 - Edmonton, AB, Canada - Winterruption Festival
