MOONRIIVR - THE NEW PROJECT FROM GAVIN GARDINER (THE WOODEN SKY) & ‘CHAMPAGNE’ JAMES ROBERTSON (LINDI ORTEGA) FEATURING BEN WHITELY (THE WEATHER STATION), AND LYLE MOLZAN (KATHLEEN EDWARDS) - SHARE FIRST SINGLE VIA VICTORY POOL RECORDS
WATCH / SHARE “BLONDE HAIR NOW” HERE
BUY / STREAM “BLONDE HAIR NOW” HERE
Photo Credit : Colin Medley // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES
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 realised they had stumbled onto something special.
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 Whitely (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 Whitely'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.
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.”
WATCH / SHARE “BLONDE HAIR NOW” HERE
BUY / STREAM “BLONDE HAIR NOW” HERE
Today, they share the first single from that recording session, “Blonde Hair Now”, which Gardiner marks as “a celebration of the small moments in our days that make up our lives, a beautiful homage to the gravity of the simple everyday decisions that shape our world.
“This song imagines a world where it’s dancing at SUN Studios with the ghost of a young Roy Orbison or fast asleep between Richie Valens and Buddy Holly in the backseat of that ill fated flight.”
“The recording is from the very first session we did in the studio, fumbling through the day trying to make light of what, if anything, MOONRIIVR might be. As the picture unfolded we tried on numerous occasions to beat it but kept returning to this version, warts and all.
Watch for more new music from MOONRIIVR in the near future.