By Regina Sienra / Picture by Lindsey Rewuski
Life on the Canadian prairies seems to be marked by extremes. Think of the weather, for example: blissful summers and harsh winters. The starring antagonisms and paradoxes of their hometown seem to be the moving forces behind 100% Sunshine, Slow Down Molasses’ new album.
Through the eleven songs that form this record, the Saskatoon band acknowledges the trick is to always bring out the most of both parts – despite the tongue-in-cheek feeling this thought can instill, and how it is perfectly reasonable to carry the anxiety triggered by these conditions on your sleeve.
100% Sunshine was produced by experimental Saskatoon musician Chad Munson and mixed by Tony Doogan (known for his work with Mogwai and Belle & Sebastian) in Glasgow. “He manages to find a great balance between the huge, widescreen wall of sound stuff we love and getting clear, concise rock sounds,” singer and guitarist Tyson McShane told OurBasement a few months ago.
For the second time, the band had a consistent line up as they walked into the studio – a contrast between the shapeshifting pop collective that served as a foundation for the band’s earlier recordings. “The new songs came very quickly and we actually took time off from playing live. We had a six month period where we didn’t play live, which was the longest we’ve gone without playing a show in about seven years” said McShane. Most of the songs on 100% Sunshine were written between July 2015 and February 2016.
Joining McShane are bassist Chris Morin, Jordan Kurtz on drums, guitarist/keyboardist Aaron Scholz and Levi Soulodre on guitar. Keyboardist Jeanette Stewart will not join the band in the supporting tour for 100% Sunshine, but she played on the album as well as writing and singing on the last couple tracks.
With this album, Slow Down Molasses has reached the balance between hazy and direct, dream-like and forceful. 100% Sunshine is a carefully detailed collection of songs that depict the band’s will to push the boundaries of their sound. From the loud “Moon Queen” to the haunting “You Made Me a Ghost”, the band’s craft shines bright and proves to be of a world-class quality.
Stream 100% Sunshine below or get it on Bandcamp.
hello
I enjoyed reading the above atricle
i couldn’t have made that comment sound more like spam if I tried
i should be on here some after 1pm blog time, depending on my internet connection
Good morning!
Good morning! Hope everyone had nice Labour Day weekends, if yesterday was a holiday for you!
Re: Labor/Labour Day, this is celebrated Canada-wide, and I thought the US celebrated it too, does the UK? Oh and Good Morning all!
Hope everybody had almost as much fun on their holiday weekends as these blokes:
https://vimeo.com/175683637
Michael, the answers appears so much “shit, no!” that the wiki article is written up in “reverse”: it concerns “Labour Day” as being May 1.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labour_Day
loozrboy, nothing as exciting as that. My best will have been going down a short, steepish, windy hill bikepath at 30 kph on my pedal bike. Fun, but not as thrilling as that slip n slide.
@BfO: Well, it beats not hurtling down a hill at all :).
Arugula! That slip and slide looks pretty damn fun.
There is a hill — the one to, and down from, Champlain Lookout, in Gatineau Park, which is so long, so steep, and has such a curve that I’ve ‘had’ to brake on it the couple of times I made it up there. Probably have to back off going much faster than 50-55 kph.
I wish my weekend included a slip and slide like that one! What fun!
top of the morning to ya.
Shonica hosted a nice lil Royal Canoe stop on the album release listening party tour this past Friday night, it was pretty fun. #rchousecall on instagram and find Royal Canoe on facebook for pictures.
Great idea by the band to put the album in the hands of the fans, they were loving it seemingly. Some good chit chat ensued. The band said that Shonica had the best sounding stereo of the houses they’d been to.
We have a fireworks festival on the long weekend here in Toontown. I saw Friday’s from the balcony of a condo along the river, which was pretty sweet.
then Saturday, when down with the plebes to mill about in the ridiculous crowds. Made our way to one of the bridges to watch the ‘works, where it was less crowded.
And sat by the fire in the backyard, with my new privacy fence.
that was it. pretended to clean up some junk that’s been laying around all summer – tidy and put things away – but didn’t get very far
FYI: you can enter a contest to be at the Chixdiggit Beer! launch and show in CGY.
http://exclaim.ca/contests/article/chixdiggit_beer_launch
I spent Sunday evening rubbing elbows with every teenager in the GTA at Wonderland, which is the only place I’m aware of to put on a fireworks show on Labour Day weekend around here. Monday I just stuck around the house, and grilled some steaks and drank some beers as tradition dictates.
Helloooo!
I think this album rules.
POLARIS 2017. Or something.
Reginula, when you get here: a) I enjoyed the well-written articlet abve. It reads well. b) I spotted an errant “a” in “has reached the balance between *a* hazy and direct, dream-like and forceful”.
@Benoit Thanks for reading. It has been fixed! Thanks for pointing it out.
“abve”, in mine. Hah!
Good morning!
Hi everybody!
I’ve missed a bunch of posts, my phone is having problems with the page. It keeps reloading & comments, when it stays put for a moment, are cut off on the right margin.
Maybe it’s my phone? It’s a 4s & hasn’t been updated recently…
anyhoo, made it to the laptop, back to school day whee/wah, missed y’all…
Great article @Reg!
@MissMaloo, it affects all iPhones, mine included, which is why I access this on my kindle
@lucky Thank you so much for reading!
I’ve been really missing R3 lately, sewing in the trailer isn’t quite the same. I’ve listened to KEXP, This American Life, The Signal. All really good but all Canadian Indie with a real humanoid is what I wish we had. 🙁
I guess I’ll have to adjust to playlists & try more radio stations…sniff.
@Garf ah, thanks. Sorry if this has been discussed already, I’ll catch up on the posts I missed tonight hopefully. Maybe it will be fixed? (ducks in case this is a contentious comment)
@reg but of course! I’m so proud (I feel weird saying proud, don’t know why, maybe the insinuation that it reflects on me which it doesn’t but for lack of anything better, impressed doesn’t quite hit it…) of you & everybody else for creating this. It really is so awesome! xo
@MissMaloo, the issue is caused by the plugin
that gives us updating comments so I/we
need work out a way to stop it running on
iPhones
i am going to do some last minute shopping
@Reg, do you know your Hogwarts house?
Garf, I thought it was just older versions of iOS/Safari?
i think somone menioned it on a 5 as well and they can run the current ios
Good morning everyone!
our cto is here
You talkin’ about me @Garf? @Reg… just fired up the playlist on Spotify, got a lot of work ahead today.
@Justin yes 🙂
@Garf Always aspired to be a Ravenclaw
re:Garf 10:15 Doesn’t that figure? One solution becomes another problem. This is why I could never EVER work with computers. You are all heroes.
Sergers are temperamental enough.
Speaking of which, back to it…
(Hi Justin, big hug!)
@Justin Today’s playlist is an album –which I hope you like–
@Lucky Absolutely! I appreciate that feeling a lot.
@Garf for the plugin, it likely is alterable at the code level to watch specific user agents, such as the iPhone 4, and not have itself run. I don’t own an iPhone 4 so it is hard for me to fix on the fly.
Now I’m trying to find a reliable Sorting Hat test for you guys, haha.
@Reginula – there is one on Pottermore (www.Pottermore.com), but you will need to create an account before you can be sorted
(Also, guys, if you like the album we featured today, it would mean a lot if you shared this review on TW/FB/Smoke signals)
Who else did something on the long weekend? I didn’t have one. (._. )
Spent the weekend with extended family at a small cottage near Apsley, ON. Fifteen people, one bathroom!
I very much enjoyed my long weekend and I didn’t do much of anything. It was the first weekend since mid July to just chill. We went out for dinner with friends a couple times but the rest was just relaxing and listening to music. Ahhhh….
Long bike ride, BBQ, patio fires, yard maintenance, and beer.
Pretty standard around here.
@Wes O____O
@Russ I was wondering about how complicated it is to get from DET to Grand Rapids. I’m still obsessed with this folk band I discovered recently, but apparently they only tour that area.
@Darbs That’s nice! 😀
My aunt and uncle used to have a cottage on Jack’s Lake, near Apsley; it’s beautiful up there!
@janet, yes, ’tis lovely. You can see the stars at night. We were on Chandos Lake.
GR is a straight shot out I-96 from DET, Reg.
2 h 23 min (157.8 mi)
I need to get my Spotify Discover Weekly playlist algorithm back on track. The last couple have been missing the mark.
Good afternoon everyone!
What a weekend it was, between Royal Canoe coming over to my house and my daughter’s 30th Birthday, it was busy. So, so much FUN!
Sorry Reginula, no time to write anything about Friday night.
@Shonica – That is so awesome that you were part of that Royal Canoe thing! ROMO!!!
@Wes, I’m familiar with Chandos and some of the surrounding area, but I don’t think I was ever on that lake.
Darbar,
I saw one of the RC band members today at Lil Sister Coffee today, he told me and my daughter our place was the classiest stop they made that night, haha, they loved the local roasted coffee from Dogwood, the D’usse cognac and the apple crisp I made 🙂
I had a smiley face after that last comment and it didn’t so up? 🙂 🙂 🙂
@Shonica – Fantastic! That sounds wonderful.
A minimalistic poster featuring subway systems from around the world. Mexico City is on the second line, third from the right. I spotted Toronto. Can you? 😀 http://www.citylab.com/navigator/2015/12/a-minimalist-poster-of-all-the-major-subways-in-the-world/418557/
Montreal and Vancouver are there too, but I don’t remember those well.
@reginula, very interesting — the subway map poster and the other art on that site. It’s interesting to me how random they seem. I would have expected more consistency from city to city.
hello, myb train was cancelled (boo!) which means I have to change at Doncaster (boo!) but we have free wifi on the train (meh!)
I saw a lot of highway over the long weekend. It was the end of our 8500km, 25 sleeps in our VW Westfalia trip; Inuvik and back!
BTW but not really as it is not a side note; this site is looking better every time I come back. Contrats to everyone who is putting in such an effort!
don’t look at me, i’m just the intern/tea boy around here
Garfield, you’re also the curator of the Weekend Word Weave, which is always a fun post!
shonica, thanks for having us over! That Crisp was awesome. The in-laws came to visit on Saturday and there was lemon meringue pie, and then a wedding on Sunday with good food and drink, and then ice cream on Monday! So I had a long weekend full-o-treats. No complaints (but a bigger belt needed perhaps).
Thanks ft, I’m glad you both made it over.
@Janet, I was but I let it go due to lack of interest
@morgana The things you must have seen! Whoaaaaa.
@reginula it was pretty amazing to see the variety of animals including trumpeter swans in boreal forest, a bison in our camp site, wolf tracks that were massive and a live sighting from inside the van … moose, bear, Fisher, red fox, Lynx and so much more. Then the scenery! Wow, I am going to work on editing and posting some pics tonight on FB. I don’t think the Northern Lights ones worked at all but that was a nice treat to see them.
@Morgana Looking forward to seeing those pics! Oh, it all sounds so amazing! How cold did it get?
Oh, and the people! I had dinner at YVR with my Mom and lunch with @deiru in Whitehorse. My sister lives in Whitehorse now so stayed with her for a few nights, Dawson City with an old school chum as well as a friends who has lived in his VW for five years now and is currently based out of Dawson City … and then there is all the new friends we made on the way:)
@reginula it got down to 5 one night. we have a Propex heater so sleeping is cozy but setting up and taking down camp every day got tiring and at times chilly.
In Dawson City I saw this poster … hey, how do I attach pictures now?
@Morgana, just post the link for now and I will put the image into the comments when I have admin access at home
@Garf – To do it that way the image would have to have a link. So we have to upload pictures to something first, send you the link and you put it up. Far too much trouble for most things for me but whatever works. I need to start using my flicker again me thinks.
@DBS, that is the only we can do it for now, unless we hosted the image. Instagram works if you know how to cheat the system a bit.
The other problem is not everyone can post HTML code in the comments but know if you need admin access or not yet
I completely understand Garf. It is not a big deal. I know when I tried to post something and you suggested that, I just thought it wasn’t worth the trouble because it wasn’t a big deal. If I have something I really need to share I will let you know.
I should make a list of things I need to look into for the site
@darbar I have decided that it is not that important as well.
It was a poster of Basia Bulat, Joel Plasket and others who were all scheduled to play in Dawson City. It gave me the warm fuzzies for you all while I was so far away:)
That would have been cool to see that poster.
Dawson City Music Fest is on my bucket list to get to.
+1 for DCMF having a bucket list spot.
My bucket list comprised: galvanised steel, plastic (vinyl), wood (dugout), wood (staves), etc.
comprises?
We booked our flights last week, using points, Winnipeg to Whitehorse for DCMF 2017! We have been trying to get there for three years and are determined to do so, booking those should help get us there! Woo hoo!
@Shonica – Now you have given me FOMO!!