Amour Fou

After playing together in various punk and hardcore bands for years, brothers Justin and Dylan Ludwig formed Amour Fou in the fall of 2005, in the tightly knit musical community of Regina, Saskatchewan. Largely disillusioned by the increasingly polished, politically apathetic direction of contemporary hardcore, the brothers strove to create a sound that captured the spirit and passion of the music they grew up on and continued to inspire them. Two pieces were all they needed; by restricting instrumentation to just an overdriven bass and drums, the band was forced to create within parameters that didn’t allow for frills or extras, instead thriving on raw, intense drive and the brothers’ unbridled energy. Drawing from Hakim Bey’s Temporary Autonomous Zone, the band’s philosophy was built upon the ideals of educated defiance, community and “poetic terrorism.” The demo Art Sabotage was recorded that winter, and the band’s early sound was heavily influenced by 80s hardcore, 90s skate punk and Youth Crew fury: the songs were short, fast, and unapologetically scrappy.

Amour Fou began seriously playing shows in the fall of
2006, becoming instant favourites in the Regina scene and going on to share the stage with bands like Propagandhi, The Ripchordz, Go It Alone and Wednesday Night Heroes. Over the course of Amour Fou’s brief career, the band has developed a more mature, disparate sound while remaining true to their thrash roots. In September 2007 the band entered the studio to record its debut full-length, entitled Grow Your Own, and laboured on the album in the months that followed. The result is a culmination of the band’s varied influences and aggressions, a self-determined call for action to a global community at the crossroads.

Grow Your Own, released by upstart Young Soul Records on March 18, 2008, “examines tones, textures, and pure thrashing over the course of fourteen short tracks” (prairie dog, Feb. 08). Influenced by such dynamic landmarks as The Shape of Punk to Come and Analphabetapolothology, the record savours every terrifying high and moment of respite equally, a soundtrack for the not-too-distant-future: violent, hysterical, and built upon the ashes of the old.

2008 will see Amour Fou touring extensively in support of the record. As well, the band (influenced by subversive art movements the world over) will further refine the dizzying videoscapes that have become trademark of the brothers’ vicious live show. Working diligently to promote D.I.Y. ethics, environmental sustainability and issues of human justice, the band ultimately sees its art, in every capacity, brash and beautiful, as a weapon, an instrument of change, an educated, dynamic and intense new voice in progressive thrash.