Young Galaxy
Montréal, Quebec, Canada | INDIE
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Press
Montreal band Young Galaxy have announced their follow up to 2011's Shapeshifting. Ultramarine is out April 23 via Paper Bag. The album was recorded in Gothenburg and produced by former Studio member Dan Lissvik, who also produced Shapeshifting. That's the cover, above, and check out the album's trailer below. - Pitchfork
Don't fret, Young Galaxy fans. Even if you managed to miss the dance-minded indie kids on their most recent run of North American gigs, which actually just wrapped last night (September 25), you'll have another chance to check out the troupe on their newly announced dates supporting icy new wavers Austra.
Following some European dates, Young Galaxy will link up with their Paper Bag Records labelmates, as well as Toronto-based mediaeval folksters Tasseomancy. While initially it had been reported that Young Galaxy would share the stage with the pair of acts for a couple of U.S. concerts, they'll now be travelling with them all the way from Vancouver to Waterloo, ON. - Exclaim!
"... Young Galaxy have always been good at glancing skyward, but Lissvik provided them the jetpacks necessary to travel there..."
"... Young Galaxy make explicit the type of evergreen romanticism mostly implied by bands like M83 and the Dears. Songs like "We Have Everything" will make you want to seize your inner libertine and/or power through your modest gym workout..."
"... Shapeshifting isn't proper dance music-- let's call it dance-inflected pop-- but it is fantastic and unbound..." - Pitchfork
A new Young Galaxy video that is live action and not animated arrives just in time for Halloween. As you can see above it stars two ghosts… or at least two people dressed up in white sheets who at one point seem to be re-enacting the credits for Little House On The Prairie. - Much Music
The excitement around Young Galaxy ‘s new material has been mounting over the last year, and this week saw Pretty Boy released on Soundcloud… and boy the wait has been worth it. The Montreal-based melancholic synthpop group has come back with a track that is stamped with their use of tropical/balearic rhythms and heartwarmingly bleak vocals of Catherine McCandless. ‘Pretty Boy’ is the first single to come from their fourth album ‘Ultramarine’ due out in April and deals with the theme of loving someone no matter what other people think… some kind of war cry, in fact. While we wait for the new album, check out the last LP Shapeshifting which is practically perfect synthpop. - Swide (Dolce & Gabbana E-Magazine)
Montreal's Young Galaxy underwent a compellingly icy makeover on 2011's Shapeshifting thanks to producer Dan Lissvik. Last year, we were excited to learn that the group had once again teamed up with the former Studio member, and those sessions have now resulted in another full-length. Entitled Ultramarine, it will arrive on April 23 via Paper Bag Records.
Unlike Shapeshifting, which was recorded in Montreal and then sent to the producer in Sweden, the band laid down Ultramarine at Lissvik's studio in Gothenburg. A press release explains, "Once they arrived in Sweden they reinvented the material, together. But the live performances' visceral energy stayed at the forefront — these songs aren't mixing-board creations, they are kinetic, inhabited, and full of breath."
Much like the album that preceded it, Ultramarine is said to feature electronic pop songs that appeal to headphone listeners and dancefloor fiends alike. All of the songs are sung by Catherine McCandless, with fellow vocalist Stephen Ramsay evidently taking a backseat.
That's the album cover above. Scroll past the tracklist below to watch a brief trailer, which will give you some idea of the chilly pop that this album has in store.
Ultramarine:
1. Pretty Boy
2. Fall For You
3. New Summer
4. Fever
5. Hard to Tell
6. What We Want
7. Out the Gate Backwards
8. In Fire
9. Privileged Poor
10. Sleepwalk with Me - Exclaim!
“Pretty Boy” is a moving, New Order-esque dance-pop anthem that bodes very well for the new record, which, unlike the band’s previous long-distance Lissvik collab Shapeshifting, was recorded with the Swedish producer at his studio in Gothenburg. - Gorilla vs. Bear
“Fall For You” is lifted by big, unpredictable drums and a tropical feel. The track also gives us another opportunity to swoon over Catherine McCandless’s yearning vocals as she sings the sings the song’s title over and over again. - Stereogum
For a certain kind of romantic, us-against-the-world anthems should always be set to yearning, arpeggiated New Order-style electro-pop that brings to mind tragedy and triumph. The original version does all this and pulls it off beautifully, but Peaking Lights' sparkling remix elevates the song to another plane. They lend the song a Balearic flair with the addition of what sounds like hand percussion, stretching the track and extending the jammy sequenced sections to provide a huge injection of drama. - Pitchfork
Discography
Studio Albums
Invisible Republic (2009)
Shapeshifting (2011)
Ultramarine (Coming April 23, 2013)
EPs
YG No Art (2010)
Versus (2011)
Shoreless Kid/Youth Is Wasted On The Young (2012)
Photos
Bio
Ultramarine is the name and colour of Young Galaxys fourth LP, the first album they have made away from Montreal, across the sea, all together.
Like 2011's Shapeshifting, Ultramarine was made with electronic producer Dan Lissvik (Studio); but this time it was made in Gothenburg, Sweden, at Lissviks studio; this time five musicians stood in a room with Lissvik, playing their instruments; this time every song was sung by co-founder Catherine McCandless, with eyes on a blue horizon.
These are ten tracks of shining, glimmering electronic pop songs that scatter across the dancefloor, swim through headphones, ringing out like a cold new summer. A modern record, beautifully now, and in a way more direct than anything Young Galaxy have ever made. This band has always loved pop music; here they lean into this love, finding lyrics that speak more to the beat than to intimate autobiography.
In being away from home we felt like we could risk more, McCandless says. Take bigger chances. Things we didnt think would work, we tried anyway. Whereas Shapeshifting was compartmentalized songs recorded in Montreal, sent to Lissvik to transmute Ultramarine came to Gothenburg as a live work, the sum of a performing bands blood and sweat. Once they arrived in Sweden they reinvented the material, together. But the live performances visceral energy stayed at the forefront these songs arent mixing-board creations, they are kinetic, inhabited, and full of breath.
Lissvik likes to do a lot of takes. Sharing a single small apartment, Young Galaxy played and played, building a new mission statement. McCandless spent an entire week recording vocals. I cant act. I cant fake it, she says. And although Ultramarine is more direct than previous records have been, with songs of azure longing, Young Galaxy havent lost their other aspect: a willfulness, a purposeful independence, and a sense of darkness, unilluminated. If a song is too sweet, its not right. As lighthearted as Ultramarine can be as much as you can dance to it there is also something elemental, something underneath. As McCandless puts it: Music is a doorway into an engine room.
From out of that engine room, dazzling new songs. Ultramarine rings and shoves, clear as rhythm, hidden as heartbreak. A record becomes timeless by being of its time, by singing out its ambition, with hooks & hooks & the promise of something more.
Young Galaxy have toured Canada, the United States and Europe several times. Theyve opened for the likes of Junior Boys, Austra, Arcade Fire, Death Cab for Cutie, Peter, Bjorn and John and Stars. Their music is regularly played on taste maker stations: KEXP, KCRW, KVCO, Daytrotter, and Sirius XM to name a few. They have also licensed their music to: Kellogg's Special K, Aritzia, Covert Affairs (NBC), Saving Hope (ABC), The L.A. Complex (CW), Awkward (MTV), and more.
Young Galaxy are Catherine McCandless, Stephen Ramsay, Stephen Kamp, Matthew Shapiro and Andrea Silver.
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