MTL's Prism Shores Releases Youthful Dream Pop Track "Tennis Shoes"

Prism Shores. Photo courtesy of Paul Atwood

Days away from the release of their debut album Inside My Diving Bell, Montreal-via-Charlottetown indie-poppers Prism Shores have released their latest single “Tennis Shoes”. Staying true to the band’s sonic influences of dream pop and shoegaze, the track sketches ponderances of malaise and angst that glide us perfectly into the fall’s chill.

Speaking to the track’s deeper construction, vocalist, guitarist and keyboardist Jack Mackenzie shared:

“It’s one of the oldest songs on the record, [and] we’ve been playing it live since about 2019. It’s one of the more mid-tempo moments on the album; our attempt at making a more sensitive track, inspired by both the angstier side of 80s UK indie on labels like Sarah Records and the 90s dream pop of bands like Luna, Pale Saints, Cocteau Twins, and Slowdive. It’s built around a rhythm section of bass, drums, and guitar tracked live to tape. Atop that are some 12-string guitar overdubs and two interweaving, droning lead parts by our guitarist Nathan [Cann] that really cement the atmospheric qualities of this track. The lyrics, like most songs on the record [Inside My Diving Bell, out September 23], take a reflexive, maybe navel-gazing approach. This record is like a coming-of-age document; the lyrics on this song find me wrestling with the more uncomfortable emotions and headspaces I found myself in heading towards my early twenties, feeling a sense of inertia or listlessness and wanting a change.”

The brooding uncertainty of “Tennis Shoes” offers a further taste of what is to come with Inside My Diving Bell, complementing the youthful insecurity of its previous singles “Acrobat” and “Diving Bell”. The rest of the record promises to deliver higher recording fidelity and new musical avenues for Prism Shores, all while balancing with its beloved sense of shambolic character through the natural energy of its live-off-the-floor bed tracks.

Recorded throughout the pandemic at Halifax’s Ocean Floor Recording, Prism Shores teases Inside My Diving Bell as a “scrappy, yet carefully considered proof of concept” — as the band contends with late-adolescent directionality and experiments with sonic depth, their debut full-length LP pledges to chart a promising course that is bound to resonate.

Stream “Tennis Shoes” below!

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Prism Shores

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Rebecca Judd is the features editor of Also Cool Mag.

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Halifax Escape Artists Century Egg Talk Embracing Change on New EP "Little Piece of Hair"

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Halifax four-piece Century Egg are putting Atlantic Canada on the map with their beaming fusion of garage rock and mandopop. The band recently announced signing to hometown label Forward Music Group in anticipation of their EP Little Piece of Hair , out this coming Friday, May 7th, 2021. Just like their namesake, Little Piece of Hair is long-awaited, with the promise to delight and leave a lasting impression. Opening with blitzing pop-punk shaker “Do You Want To Dance?”, Little Piece of Hair reminisces shoulder-to-shoulder bopping at your favourite venue on a Saturday night.

Coming hot on the heels of their recent collaboration with Debaser's Mood Ring ("The world’s tiniest and most introspective music recommendation engine") and the We Can Play EP, Little Piece of Hair is the band’s loudest, clearest mission statement to date, marking another exciting addition to Forward Music's recent run of releases alongside Wolf Castle and Paper Beat Scissors. Boasting a new rhythm section of bassist, Matty Grace (she/they) and Meg Yoshida (she/her) on drums, Century Egg is a band reborn whilst still incorporating the dance-punk bliss of previous Egg outings, only bolder, brighter, and harder-hitting.

We got the chance to connect with Century Egg on the importance of creative outlets, managing band dynamics while writing songs over email, and their plans following the release of Little Piece of Hair. Read our full interview below!

Zoë Argiropulos-Hunter for Also Cool: Hey Century Egg! Thank you so much for chatting with Also Cool. To start, you've been described as escape artists: How do you achieve this way of being through your creative outlook and how did this come into play when producing Little Piece of Hair? 

Century Egg: We’re four individuals with full-time obligations, and the band is just one of our creative outlets. Our band gives us a chance to temporarily take a break from reality, but also reflect on it and bring something back to it. We are all artists in our own right, and the band is a way to collaborate and express our appreciation for each others’ art. 

Also Cool: In that vein, escaping isn't always about running away, right? It can also describe setting oneself free, or embracing change. On Little Piece of Hair, you've commented that the songs are about "finding yourself." What inspired that concept for this album, and how did it come together? 

Century Egg: When the songs arrived, they just spilled out. They can be coping mechanisms, they can be power fantasies, or else just about processing what’s going on right now.

AC: On that note of embracing change, you’ve introduced a new rhythm section in your latest lineup — during a pandemic no less! How have these additions impacted the project?  

CE: Different people bring different experiences to the band, and it is a much more collaborative process now. Each person brings something to the table that may not have previously been introduced due to our varied influences. Specifically our song “无路可退” (“Cornered”) was created over email. Matty (she/they) wrote the bassline first, before Megumi (she/her) added her drum parts, before Robert (he/him) and Shane (she/her) finalized the arrangement. This was done totally over email during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, and brought about a newer darker sound that may not have come forth if the circumstances were different.

Century Egg, photo courtesy of the band

AC: Something I’m always curious to ask about is how artists are influenced by their physical environment and surrounding community. Has Halifax and it's music scene had any particular impressions on this album specifically? 

CE: Maybe not necessarily Halifax, but the global landscape and the state of the world have definitely had an impact on Century Egg as a band, and it has come through in our writing. Ultimately the Halifax music scene has been predominantly white, cis and straight. We are not that. We embrace our diversities and look to encourage this growth within our scene.

AC: To end off, how are you planning to celebrate this release, and what can we expect from Century Egg in the coming months? 

CE: For starters, we have two upcoming music videos that will be released in the coming months for “Do You Want to Dance?” and “Little Piece of Hair.” Sadly, we had planned a bit of a record release show — as we were invited to play Flourish Festival in Fredericton, New Brunswick — but now will be attending remotely via a pre-recorded live set, as our corner of the world has collapsed on itself a little bit. We are looking forward to playing shows the moment we can, but for the time being, we have to embrace and navigate our restrictions and look to plan for the future. This includes trying to reach new audiences via the internet and working on a full length LP that will hopefully see the light of day in 2022. Change was going to come one way or another anyway.

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LITTLE PIECE OF HAIR

Out via Forward Music Group May 7, 2021

1. Do You Want To Dance?
2. I Will Make Up A Method
3. Ring A Bell
4. Little Piece of Hair
5. Riddle To Place
6. Cornered

Written by Century Egg:
Shane Keyu Song (she/her), Robert Drisdelle (he/him), Matty Grace (she/they) and Meg Yoshida (she/her)

Recorded by Franc Lopes at Ocean Floor
Mixed by Robert Drisdelle
Mastered by Dave Williams at Eight Floors Above

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Century Egg

Instagram | Facebook | Bandcamp

Preorder Little Piece of Hair here

Zoë Argiropulos-Hunter (she/her) is the co-founder and managing editor of Also Cool Mag. Aside from the mag, she is a music promoter & booker, and a radio host & DJ.

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