On March 19, Toronto-based band Tearjerker will release their new EP Deep End (pre-order). Today the band presents the EP's first single "Lost." The single debuted today at Flood Magazine and the track will be on all streaming services this Friday to add to your favorite playlists. On the song Flood Magazine says,"'Lost' matches the humming lo-fi sounds of their earlier years with a slightly more upbeat demeanor." Teajerker's Micah Bonte says, "Lost" is the first single from our EP, Deep End which we recorded at home in 2020. In the hauntingly upbeat song we reminisce, "it's been one hell of a ride/ I wanna go to heaven, but I can't decide" before a hum-along chorus that feels familiar and hopeful. It's a letter to a friend that you couldn't be there for, and a reminder to slow down and treat people well."
The three members of Tearjerker (Micah Bonte, Trevor Hawkins and Taylor Shute) have been passing bedroom recordings back and forth over email since the band's inception in 2008. As of 2021, not much of that process has changed. Sure, a brief moment near the end of 2019 saw the band attempting to shake things up by escaping to a quiet little cottage in North Ontario. It's where they began writing and recording a handful of songs with all three members actually in the same room, something they had rarely done. When the pandemic hit in early 2020, the group was forced to cancel their plans to record an entire album this way, and-for better or worse-returned to their original methods.
With the beginnings of those cottage recordings, the band slowly pieced together their latest EP, Deep End. The result is a quick rip through the band's consciousness, revealing a hazy landscape that's half lush gardens, and half on fire. But rather than slipping away into the ether, the record is firmly connected to the reality of everyday life.
Musically, a Tearjerker composition is never truly finished. Many of Tearjerker's arrangements begin as demos, often voice-memos hastily recorded by Taylor or Micah on a phone. Other times there really is no demo at all. A song might begin as a beat or loop of percussion created by Trevor, with the very first inkling of a song only appearing during the recording process itself. In either case, layer upon layer of instrumentation is added over long periods of time, sometimes up until moments before mastering. The band embraces this iterative exercise, only allowing for brief moments of escape from Taylor's constant weaving of instruments throughout each track. But those moments are not a void space. Trevor's addition of samples and found sounds produce an often unsettling world that listeners are transported into.
From this wall of sound, memorable hooks and melodies emerge, breaking through the noise, gripping the listener and refusing to let go even long after the song has finished. As Pitchfork wrote of the band's music: "Hear it once, and feel it become part of your under-the-breath murmuring for the rest of your day."
Lyrically, the tracks on Deep End explore themes of love, loss and chance paranormal encounters. "Poor Me" describes an embarrassing out-of-body experience, and "Little Ghost" encourages the listener to look inward for personal growth, but also to the sky in case a UFO zips by.
Part of a cache of demos recorded by Shute in 2020, "Lost" is a pop song for slackers. Bonte's vocals, however, include a warning for multitaskers, "one thing at a time, doin' so much you're gonna lose your mind."
Deep End's closer and title track was birthed as a drunkenly improvised riff at a crowded (pre-COVID) housewarming party in 2019. It's the fleeting sort of creative moment that's usually lost to time if not recorded in some way. But after discovering a friend's instagram story that captured the riff, the band were able to use it as a foundation to build a song. Eventually working it into the kind of classic Tearjerker song that swims in waves of instrumentation, with Bonte lamenting: "Constant sleep-in, on the weekend, off the deep end." While the band's individual members pull inspiration from a variety of different sources, the music of Tearjerker manages to find it's singular voice.
Listen here:
Photo Credit: Dan Robb
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