Toronto’s sad indie post hardcore punk rockers FOND (members of the acclaimed post-hardcore bands Animal Faces, Low Sun, and Shahman) are releasing their self-titled debut this Friday, July 21st, via Toronto’s Art of the Uncarved Block (whose winter compilation we featured with a special feature HERE), and we’re thrilled to give you the exclusive first listen of the full record below!
With their debut LP, FOND injected a solid dose of a dreamy elegance to the 70s/80s post punk and grungy 90s post hardcore foundation of their atmopsheric craft. With an amalgam of many styles and their own unique feel, they’ve managed to bring an intimate aura and infuse their sound with rich authenticity and nostalgia, which is both comforting and ear-grabbing. No matter what pace they’re setting, it’s enthralling from start to finish.
Here’s what the band’s drummer Rob Johnson had to say about the project:
“The formation of a new band spawns an existential problem between its creators. This dilemma is resolved only when they begin to learn each other’s musical language and begin a discourse that becomes a singular movement; like a series of tributaries meeting to form a river. This singularity expresses an artistic marriage. Every gathering, every note, blooms and becomes a conversation. This record is a culmination of that ageless and mysterious process.”
For this project, the members of Fond dug deeper into their record collections, drawing inspiration from classic bands like Slint, Wire, Polvo, The Breeders, and Meat Puppets while maintaining the sullen post-hardcore sound of their previous groups. Fond’s self-titled debut was recorded at Burlington, Ontario’s B-Town Sound in one whirlwind six-hour live off the floor session with producer Colin Young, before Naray and Van Horne completed its intimate vocals in their homes. Young has helped shaped the sound of Fond’s label Art of the Uncarved Block with recent recordings for their labelmates Worst Gift and Humanities, alongside many of the trio’s earlier bands.
Paying tribute to the predecessors of their genre, Fond’s debut looks for radical changes from late ’70s post-punk to Touch and Go/SST era bands of the ’80s and ’90s, while sharpening them with their inescapable penchant for sullen post-hardcore. The result is a time warp of influences, from the audacious backbones of Wire and Polvo to the stormy lull of Slint and the spacious, dreamlike pop of The Breeders and Meat Puppets.
“We had combed through the late ’90s and lived through the early 2000s, so it’s been exciting to listen back to older records while uncovering different tones, textures, and recording techniques,” explains drummer Rob Johnson. “For this project, we thought it’d be cool to pick out some of those things while reproducing them in our own way.”
As the co-founder of Art of the Uncarved with his twin brother and Low Sun/Shahman bandmate Peter, Rob Johnson is driven to carve out a space for their artists and surrounding community among Toronto’s musical microcosms. Following the closure of Soybomb, the label has found a new home for its events at The Dupe Shop, a store that both sells and produces cassettes alongside hosting all-ages music events. Bridging a gap between the label’s heavier bands, the hushed folk of Peter Johnson’s solo project Tang, and the off-kilter pop of Triples (featuring Eva Link from Buzz Records band PONY), they seeks unexpected crossovers and turn no one away.
“It’s hard to say where we fit in Toronto, because we’ve all kind of been outsiders here throughout our quote unquote careers,” says Rob Johnson. “I think it’s still yet to be seen where we belong but that’s kind of nice because it gives us a chance to set our own rules and standards and keep a lot of control over what we do. Some of our bands play outside the shows that the label does, but it’s honestly not often. I see us as outsiders who are inclusive to anyone that’s excited and wants to get involved.”
Fond’s self-titled debut album will be released by Art of the Uncarved Block on July 21st, 2018. It is now available for pre-order here.
Fond is the musical amalgamation of both new and old. Leaving the comfort of the aged and stale landscape of rehashed post-post… post-punk, they set off to carve out their own era. They experiment first by repurposing the genre’s classic melodic archetypes; building tone-driven songs that ebb and flow, restoring the sounds of a once burgeoning scene to its youthful radiance. Paying tribute to the predecessors of their genre, they delve into some of the earliest corners of rock and roll looking for the edge of those historical and radical genre changes while sharpening them with their inescapable penchant for sullen post-hardcore. The result is a hurricane of influences, a wrestling match between the confident, audacious backbone seen in Wire and the stormy lull of Touch and Go era bands such as Slint and their later tendrils. Fond is an unapologetic rock and roll band. Like it or not, it seems that eventually we truly do become our parents. Lucky for us, most of our parents “rocked”.
Fond Album Release Shows will take place in Mississauga and Toronto this weekend:
July 20th – Mississauga, ON – Symbiotica w/ Low Sun, The Alcoves
July 21st – Toronto, ON – The Dupe Shop w/ Blankscreen, TiptoesJuly 27th – Hamilton, ON – Little Grasshopper w/ Love Serum, Low Sun, Bad Crush
