Ali M Forbes plus support from Katie Stelmanis (Toronto, Canada), Dan Hartland & Mrs
Not content with simply leading his band Envy & Other Sins to pop glory in 2008 with their debut album We Leave At Dawn (A&M Records), lead singer/songwriter Ali Malpas Forbes is itching to take his music in a different direction.
Teaming up with producer Andrew Savours (The Killers, PJ Harvey, Yeah Yeah Yeahs) has created refreshing new sounds – heavy beats pin down hypnotic mandolin melodies and chiming glockenspiels. 80s synths intertwine effortlessly with gypsy violin lines, while Forbes’ delicate vocals knit the materials together into a curious patchwork of musical styles. Think a marriage of Thom Yorke’s ‘Eraser’ and Fleet Foxes, or Nick Drake versus Hot Chip.
Multi-instrumentalist Ali skips from mandolin to guitar to ukulele to banjo to whatever comes to hand. In collaboration with an ever-shifting musical collective, including young musician of the year finalist John Garner (violin) and Envy sticksman Jim Macaulay, the result is what can only be described as one of the most innovative noises of 2009: future folk.
Katie Stelmanis is 24 years old and resides in Toronto, Canada. She has been making music her whole life, first as a student of piano and voice, then as a guitar player in Toronto’s riot grrl trio galaxy, and now as an art-pop composer that falls somewhere in between. She released a record called “Join US” with the Blocks Recording Club in January 2008, and in October a split 7″ with Fucked Up on Matador Records. Join Us reached #2 on Canada’s college radio charts within a week of its release, and yielded comparisons to Kate Bush, Klaus Nomi, and Spiritualized. Her travels have taken her across Canada and all around Europe – sharing the stage with the likes of Final Fantasy, Jens Lekman, Junior Boys and Iron and Wine. This spring we will see another 7″ release this time with Vice records and a full length follow-up shouldn’t be far behind.
