ROYAL CANOE

"The genre-defying Winnipeg 6-piece unleash the restraints on inspiration allowing their sounds to traverse territory that more referentially self-conscious pop groups wouldn't cross." - CBC RADIO "Royal Canoe have established themselves as musical mad scientists, throwing rock, pop and hip hop into a blender to create catchy-as-hell, dance floor-ready songs with odd time signatures and distorted vocals. Think of them as the child that would result, however inexplicably, if the Beatles, Peter Gabriel, Vampire Weekend, Outkast and Fever Ray had a hymn sing followed by an orgy." - The Uniter "[Hold on to the Metal is] four minutes of unashamed, unabashed, rot-your-teeth-sweet indie pop, and boy is it addictive" - Crack in the Road Royal Canoe is a group of musicians on a mission to construct ambitious, inventive music. The songs are thick with catchiness, rich in rhythm and are consistently pushing against the boundaries of pop music. They spend almost every day in a shit-hole rehearsal space writing hooks, singing through effects pedals, scrawling lyrics on scraps of paper, and constructing heavy beats in odd time signatures. They create samples by running conventional sounds through unconventional pieces of gear, drumming on bathtubs and garbage cans, listening to Big Boi and manipulating bits of old records. The band calls Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada home – the enigmatic prairie city, which has served artists as both an abundant, creative watering hole and a debilitating quagmire. The city's mood swings from euphoric summers spent biking with beers, fence-hopping residential pools and climbing abandoned roof-tops to harsh, bitter winters that are countered first with defiance, then self-loathing, then denial, then "you've got to be f*cking kidding me." Royal Canoe's songs are, in part, an effort to make sense of the resentment and romanticism of the city's divergent identities.