If You Blink, You Could Miss It: NYC Albums to Look Out For
Foxes in Fiction – Ontario Gothic 12” (September 23 via Orchid Tapes)
Cover up the pain with prettiness. That’s the big secret to coping with life’s drawbacks, right? Then it doesn’t hurt so much (right?). Though Ontario Gothic draws from Foxes in Fiction proprietor Warren Hildebrand dealing with the loss of his brother, it’s beauty is crushing. Single “Shadow’s Song” drips in pastels, household Canadian violinist Owen Pallett and cellist Ansel Cohen lend a hand when it waltzes off into blissful la-la land. To foil the dreaminess of it all, Hildebrand’s keeps each element afloat, never sounding washed out, deserving of all those Bradford Cox comparisons that have been thrown his way in recent years. Despite the lyrics that are occasionally decipherable (“pain,” “crashing down” “fill the void, a place you thought your destroyed”), the track’s longest-lasting takeaway is its funnel of choirboy “oohhhs.” This time, beauty comes out on top.
*Side note: Though not based in NYC, you’ll also want to keep an eye out for Elvis Depressedly’s New Alhambra, slated for release on Hildebrand’s own (and Brooklyn-based) Orchid Tapes in November. This is on account of his 2013 EP including a song called “Pepsi/Coke Suicide,” and it sounding this bummed out.