JUNIOR BOYS ANNOUNCE NEW ALBUM WAITING GAME OUT OCTOBER 28 ON CITY SLANG
SHARE LEAD SINGLE/VIDEO “NIGHT WALK”
Junior Boys – the Hamilton, Ontario, duo of Jeremy Greenspan and Matt Didemus – announce their sixth studio album, Waiting Game, out October 28th on City Slang, and share the lead single/video, “Night Walk.” Six years since their last album, 2016’s Big Black Coat, Waiting Game finds the pair in a tender and contemplative mood; a switch-up from their punchy, R&B-infused dance melodics.
In the years since making Big Black Coat, Greenspan co-produced and mixed two albums for Jessy Lanza, cared for and then mourned his father, and built a recording studio in Hamilton. In early 2020, Didemus joined Greenspan there, jamming and recording for several weeks before returning home; by March, the Covid-19 pandemic forced the world into lockdown.
In this uncertain period, drawing from Didemus’s co-writing and musicianship, Greenspan wrote and recorded Waiting Game. The album’s additional musicians are Canadians, too; Caribou collaborator Colin Fisher performs saxophone throughout and Bonjay frontwoman Alanna Stuart supplies vocals on a track.
In the spring of 2020, Greenspan walked Hamilton’s lake and waterfall trails and listened to music by older heroes, some of whom had recently passed away: Florian Schneider, Jon Hassell, and McCoy Tyner along with John Martyn and Sly Stone. These gentle, world-building songs made him consider how the dynamic range of contemporary popular music has been misused, prioritizing volume over depth and detail. “A weird fact of the perception of sound is that you hear more accurately at lower levels of volume,” says Greenspan. Inspired, he thought, “What if I created an immersive environment of what he has named ‘peripheral music’, as it were, by recording huge amounts of material but layering it imperceptibly into as quiet a place as I can?”
To do this, Greenspan made some key moves. He employed American engineer Lou Clark, recommended to him through his longtime Mastering Engineer Bob Weston, to build a studio that prioritized a synth room and a mixing room. For final mixing equipment, he paired a Studer A80 quarter-inch master tape recorder with the Dolby Spectral Recording (SR) noise reduction system. In the studio, he “re-amplified” his synths and keyboards, like the Yamaha DX7, by plugging them into guitar amps and recording them on microphones. All together, Greenspan became convinced that quiet dynamism was the mode of Waiting Game.
The titles and lyrics of Waiting Game orbit around a singular theme: the feeling of waiting around for something, anything, to happen. During his walks through an eerily quiet Hamilton, Greenspan tuned in more closely to other people’s conversations. When he heard a phrase that seemed interesting, he wrote it down verbatim, and when he came across something beautiful or odd, he wrote down a description of it. This patchwork style of lyric-writing feels light and bright, with a sense of freedom.
Lead single “Night Walk” imagines a person who has gone missing, who has no desire to be found. “They are being searched for by day, and can only go out at night,” says Greenspan. “The daytime itself is an invasion of privacy and the night city is a camouflage.” The video was edited by Mike Jerome using footage of the TV show “Night Walk” created by slow television pioneer Michael Spivak. The video footage was shot at night, in and around Yorkdale subway station in Toronto in 1986.
Greenspan concludes, “Waiting Game is intended to give the listener some respite. I like the idea of people putting it on a home and exhaling in relief, even if that relief is tinged with some sadness.” In this, Junior Boys have made an album that reflects the quiet beauty of the world, so long as you’re prepared to truly listen.
Junior Boys
Waiting Game
(City Slang)
Release Date: October 28, 2022
Tour Dates
Tue. Jan. 17 – Edmonton, AB @ Starlite Room
Wed. Jan. 18 – Calgary, AB @ Commonwealth Bar & Stage
Fri. Jan. 20 – Vancouver, BC @ Hollywood Theatre
Sat. Jan. 21 – Seattle, WA @ Neptune Theatre
Sun. Jan. 22 – Portland, OR @ Star Theater
Tue. Jan. 24 – San Francisco, CA @ Fillmore
Thu. Jan. 26 – Los Angeles, CA @ Fonda Theatre
Fri. Jan. 27 – San Diego, CA @ Casbah
Wed. Feb. 22 – Cambridge, MA @ Sinclair
Thu. Feb. 23 – Brooklyn, NY @ Music Hall of Williamsburg
Fri. Feb. 24 – Washington, DC @ Black Cat
Sat. Feb. 25 – Philadelphia, PA @ Underground Arts
Mon. Feb. 27 – Carrboro, NC @ Cat’s Cradle
Tue. Feb. 28 – Atlanta, GA @ Aisle 5
Wed. Mar. 1 – Nashville, TN @ Basement East
Thu. Mar. 2 – Chicago, IL @ Metro
Fri. Mar. 3 – Detroit, MI @ El Club
Sat. Mar. 4 – Toronto, ON @ Danforth Music Hall
Tickets Available HERE
Artist Links
Background Photo Credit: Hollie Pocsai & Dilyara Mukhamedzhanova
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