BODYWASH SHARE NEW VIDEO / SINGLE, “PERFECT BLUE” FROM UPCOMING LP

April 11, 2023

WATCH / SHARE “PERFECT BLUE” HERE
BUY / STREAM “PERFECT BLUE” HERE

NORTH AMERICAN TOUR DATES CONTINUE APRIL 12

I HELD THE SHAPE WHILE I COULD OUT APRIL 14, 2023 ON LIGHT ORGAN RECORDS

PRE-ORDER I HELD THE SHAPE WHILE I COULD

Photo Credit: Kristina Pedersen // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES

Bodywash — the Montreal-based duo of Chris Steward and Rosie Long Decter — present the final single/visualizer, “Perfect Blue”, from their new album, I Held the Shape While I Could, out this Friday, April 14, on Light Organ Records. Following the “enveloping [and] gorgeously melancholy” (Gorilla vs. Bear) “No Repair”, and the “infinite heights” (FLOOD) of lead single “Massif Central”, “Perfect Blue” is an ear-splitting psychedelic meditation on Steward’s Japanese and British cultural identity. Satoshi Kon’s 1997 psychological thriller of the same name becomes a prism through which Steward projects and refracts his mixed lineage into a murky duality. A pulsating synth motif arches and folds inwards on itself as Steward sings: “to be half is to not be whole.”

Of the track, Steward states: “‘Perfect Blue’ takes its name and its inspiration from Satoshi Kon’s 1997 animated film. The themes of internal conflict and losing one’s sense of self really resonated with me when I first watched it during the winter of 2021. ‘Perfect Blue’ (the song) is an exploration of the many facets of my own cultural identity. Being both British and Japanese has often felt like a compromise. While it might be easy to romanticize this duality, the reality is that it’s impossible to wholly belong to either culture. What has brought me some solace in the past is their shared appreciation for shoegaze and ‘Perfect Blue’ is an ode to this common cultural heritage. We stacked breathy digital synths (inspired by Masahiro Ikumi’s ominous soundtrack) atop a wave of viscous fuzz guitars, in search of a “perfect blue” - a color the shade of renewal.”

WATCH / SHARE “PERFECT BLUE” HERE
BUY / STREAM “PERFECT BLUE” HERE

There are many places like home, and on I Held the Shape While I Could, home is a mutable thing; a location that is fixed until it isn’t. Across the record, Steward’s abstract guitars and Long Decter’s cascading vocals act as ambient throughlines, blurring the digital and organic, gesturing toward something intangible, just out of reach. Home is a process — the back and forth of guitar riffs and vocal hums, of files sent and received across the ocean. A world imagined and sculpted together.

WATCH / SHARE “MASSIF CENTRAL” HERE
BUY / STREAM “MASSIF CENTRAL” HERE

WATCH / SHARE “NO REPAIR” HERE
BUY / STREAM “NO REPAIR” HERE

Over I Held the Shape While I Could’s twelve tracks, Steward and Long Decter reflect on their separate and shared experiences of losing a sense of place, the way something once solid can slip between your fingers, and their attempts to build something new from the fallout. As they prepared to release their 2019 debut Comforter, Long Decter and Steward both experienced alienating shifts in their personal lives, leading to a mutual sense of dislocation. They began writing new material that was darker, more experimental, and at the same time more invigorating than the soothing dream pop on Comforter. The resulting I Held the Shape While I Could is a record that lives in the sonics of decay and renewal: breaks that burst forth from a squall of fuzz guitars, drones that glitch and stutter like ice willing itself to thaw.

PRE-ORDER I HELD THE SHAPE WHILE I COULD

Alongside I Held the Shape While I Could, Bodywash will release Take Form, a 30-page booklet that expands the world of the album. Designed by Yoon Rachel Nam (Desert Bloom, Cedric Noel), Take Form features the complete album lyrics alongside poems, a short story, and guitar tabs by Long Decter and Steward, as well as art by Kristina Pedersen. This 50-copy limited run creates a new resonance for the recordings.

PRE-ORDER TAKE FORM

Take Form Cover Artwork

BODYWASH TOUR DATES
Wed. Apr. 12 - Toronto, ON @ Baby G +
Thu. Apr. 13 - Ottawa, ON @ Live on Elgin
Sat. Apr. 15 - Montreal, QC @ La Sotterenea +
Mon. Apr. 17 - Boston, MA @ O’Brien’s
Tue. Apr. 18 - Philadelphia, PA @ The Fire
Fri. Apr. 21 - Manhattan, NY @ Berlin

+ w/ Tallies

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I HELD THE SHAPE WHILE I COULD TRACKLIST:
1. In As Far
2. Picture Of
3. Massif Central
4. Bas Relief
5. Perfect Blue
6. Kind of Light
7. One Day Clear
8. Sterilizer
9. Dessents
10. Ascents
11. Patina
12. No Repair

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BODYWASH PRESENTS NEW SINGLE / VIDEO, “NO REPAIR”

March 8, 2023

WATCH / SHARE “NO REPAIR” HERE
BUY / STREAM “NO REPAIR” HERE

NORTH AMERICAN TOUR DATES BEGIN THIS MONTH AT SXSW

I HELD THE SHAPE WHILE I COULD OUT APRIL 14, 2023 ON LIGHT ORGAN RECORDS

PRE-ORDER I HELD THE SHAPE WHILE I COULD

"a dynamic and immense ride from start to finish" - The Revue on “Massif Central” single

"A feast of layered synths and glorious textures" - Get Some Magazine on “Kind Of Light” single

"Noise rock shot-through with moments of incredible beauty..." - Clash on Comforter LP

"A seamless amalgamation of celestial melodies, balmy textures and ambitious left-turns" - Exclaim! On Comforter LP

Photo Credit: Kristina Pedersen // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES

Bodywash — the Montreal duo of Chris Steward and Rosie Long Decter — present their new single/video, “No Repair”. from their forthcoming album, I Held the Shape While I Could, out April 14, 2023 on Light Organ Records. Following lead single “Massif Central” and its “infinite heights,” (FLOOD) “No Repair” swells with lap steel by Micah Flavin, evoking a melancholy waltz while Long Decter’s hummed vocals drift in and out of time. “Write it in handfuls of air,” she sings on the ballad, “you were there,” insisting on both absence and presence in the end. “No Repair” features Ryan White on percussion and was mixed by Jace Lasek (The Besnard Lakes) with Harris Newman mastering the track.

Long Decter explains: “In my early 20s I found myself in a disastrous love triangle—or what Chris took to calling my ‘bizarre love oblong.’ It was a mess of bad decisions and repressed queer longing and those things you chase because you hope they will prove you are real. I found myself writing repetitively about light and air and the absence of tactility. ‘No Repair’ came from the decision to let all that go; to try to lose the shape of it. I started writing it in 2019 and finished it with Chris in 2021, letting it simmer over two years of lockdown and sitting with myself. It feels strange and sweet to be releasing it at a time when I have a new sense of ground underneath me and someone to share that feeling with. The video, filmed in my living room (and briefly in an outdoor parking lot during -30 Celsius), puts some of those themes into a different context. Loneliness after a party transforms into a dismantling of things, and rearranging them somewhere else.”

WATCH / SHARE “NO REPAIR” HERE
BUY / STREAM “NO REPAIR” HERE

Over I Held the Shape While I Could’s twelve tracks, Steward and Long Decter reflect on their separate and shared experiences of losing a sense of place, the way something once solid can slip between your fingers, and their attempts to build something new from the fallout. As they prepared to release their 2019 debut Comforter, Long Decter and Steward both experienced alienating shifts in their personal lives, leading to a mutual sense of dislocation. They began writing new material that was darker, more experimental, and at the same time more invigorating than the soothing dream pop on Comforter. The resulting I Held the Shape While I Could is a record that lives in the sonics of decay and renewal: breaks that burst forth from a squall of fuzz guitars, drones that glitch and stutter like ice willing itself to thaw.

WATCH / SHARE “MASSIF CENTRAL” HERE
BUY / STREAM “MASSIF CENTRAL” HERE

Alongside I Held the Shape While I Could, Bodywash will release Take Form, a 30-page booklet that expands the world of the album. Designed by Yoon Rachel Nam (Desert Bloom, Cedric Noel), Take Form features the complete album lyrics alongside poems, a short story, and guitar tabs by Long Decter and Steward, as well as art by Kristina Pedersen. This 50-copy limited run creates a new resonance for the recordings.

PRE-ORDER TAKE FORM

Take Form Cover Artwork

BODYWASH TOUR DATES
Fri. Mar. 17 - Austin, TX @ Hotel Vegas (SXSW)
Sat. Mar. 25 - Boise, ID @ Treefort Fest - Neurolux
Tue. Mar. 28 - Portland, OR @ No Fun Bar *
Wed. Mar. 29 - Tacoma, WA @ Spanish Ballroom *
Fri. Mar. 31 - Seattle, WA @ Homegrown in the Basement *
Sat. Apr. 1 - Vancouver, BC @ 604 Studios *
Sun. Apr. 9 - Cleveland, OH @ Grog Shop
Mon. Apr. 10 - Chicago, IL @ Empty Bottle
Wed. Apr. 12 - Toronto, ON @ Baby G +
Thu. Apr. 13 - Ottawa, ON @ Live on Elgin
Sat. Apr. 15 - Montreal, QC @ La Sotterenea +
Mon. Apr. 17 - Boston, MA @ O’Brien’s
Tue. Apr. 18 - Philadelphia, PA @ The Fire
Fri. Apr. 21 - Manhattan, NY @ Berlin

* w/ Vox Rea
+ w/ Tallies

PRE-ORDER I HELD THE SHAPE WHILE I COULD

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BODYWASH ANNOUNCES NEW ALBUM, I HELD THE SHAPE WHILE I COULD, SHARES NEW SINGLE

January 26, 2023

I HELD THE SHAPE WHILE I COULD OUT APRIL 14, 2023 ON LIGHT ORGAN RECORDS

WATCH / SHARE “MASSIF CENTRAL” HERE
BUY / STREAM “MASSIF CENTRAL” HERE

PRE-ORDER I HELD THE SHAPE WHILE I COULD

"A feast of layered synths and glorious textures" - Get Some Magazine on “Kind Of Light” single

"A dreamgaze masterpiece" - The Revue on “Kind Of Light” single

"A lush, throbbing, dream-pop track mingled with enough gaze to make any fans of bands like My Bloody Valentine and Cocteau Twins take notice" - 3hive on “Kind Of Light”

"Noise rock shot-through with moments of incredible beauty..." - Clash on Comforter LP

"A seamless amalgamation of celestial melodies, balmy textures and ambitious left-turns" - Exclaim! On Comforter LP

Photo Credit: Kristina Pedersen // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES

Bodywash — the Montreal duo of Chris Steward and Rosie Long Decter — announces its new album, I Held the Shape While I Could, out April 14 on Light Organ Records, and shares the lead single/video, “Massif Central”. Over I Held the Shape While I Could’s twelve tracks, Steward and Long Decter reflect on their separate and shared experiences of losing a sense of place, the way something once solid can slip between your fingers, and their attempts to build something new from the fallout. On lead single “Massif Central”, stark guitars and relentless drums accompany Steward’s whispered vocals as he recounts an experience of bureaucratic purgatory: a typo in a government letter caused Steward to lose his legal work status in Canada.

“After eight years living in Canada, in the Spring of 2021, a government clerical error caused me to lose my legal status here,” Steward explains. “As a UK national, I lost my right to work. My savings trickled away during months where I could do little but pace the corners of my apartment. I was prepared to pack my bags and leave as the life I’d hoped to construct for myself seemed to vanish into a bureaucratic abyss.”

“‘Massif’ is the sound of wailing into a cliff and not knowing if you’ll hear an echo,” continued Steward. “The spoken word is inspired by a squirrel that was trapped in the wall behind my bed, clawing its way to salvation. With the help of friends, family, music, and a few immigration lawyers (and the rest of my savings), I’m now a permanent resident here. But this song remains as testament to my experience with an exploitative institution.”

The accompanying video by Jordan Allen is a stunning collage of live footage, distorted visuals, and eerie graphics. “With ‘Massif Central,’ we wanted to encapsulate the panic and urgency that Chris experienced, and have the abstracts portray the anxiety and hopelessness one can feel at the hands of bureaucracy,” Allen adds. “I chose graphics that heavily leaned into feelings of being lost in a maze, with towering structures and horizon lines pulling you into them. The idea was that the camera would be both a CCTV view of the band, but also glitching to reveal the more emotionally internal visual aspects.”

WATCH / SHARE “MASSIF CENTRAL” HERE
BUY / STREAM “MASSIF CENTRAL” HERE

Steward and Long Decter met in college in 2014, but didn’t immediately share a musical language. Chris grew up in London listening to British dream pop and classic shoegaze; Rosie was raised in Toronto on folk and Canadiana. Working toward their own blend of airy vocals, intricate guitar work and atmospheric synths, they released their debut EP as Bodywash in 2016 and their first full-length, Comforter, in 2019.

As they prepared to release Comforter, Long Decter and Steward both experienced alienating shifts in their personal lives, leading to a mutual sense of dislocation. They began writing new material that was darker, more experimental, and at the same time more invigorating than the soothing dream pop on Comforter. In 2021 they took these songs into the studio, sharing them with longtime drummer Ryan White and recording/mixing engineer Jace Lasek (Besnard Lakes). The resulting I Held the Shape While I Could is a record that lives in the sonics of decay and renewal: breaks that burst forth from a squall of fuzz guitars, drones that glitch and stutter like ice willing itself to thaw.

PRE-ORDER I HELD THE SHAPE WHILE I COULD

DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES

BODYWASH ONLINE
FACEBOOK
TWITTER
SOUNDCLOUD
BANDCAMP
INSTAGRAM