Wednesday, May 11
OK Productions & Tight Bros present:
Born Ruffians
On An On
All Ages / Doors at 8:30pm / $12adv / $15dos

Born Ruffians

RUFF, the newest album from Born Ruffians, is an exploration into self and aesthetics. It’s a collection of scrubbed raw anthems that are defiantly optimistic, imaginatively arranged, and performed with a sense of bloodlust. In contrast to previous records from this Canada-based quartet, RUFF is simultaneously a return to form and a departure from convention. It is at once a culmination and a disassembly of the band’s history and dynamics.

RUFF took shape from a singular focus on the work itself, and exploration into the relation of candor, immediacy and art. “We had one overarching goal this time out: to make the album we wanted to make. We took nothing else into consideration,” says bassist Mitch Derosier.

Over four albums, Born Ruffians have developed a signature aesthetic that encompasses tightly wound, trapezoidal songs frothing over with hooks and wryly cathartic lyrics. The group has garnered favourable comparisons to such quirky pop infiltrators as the Talking Heads, The Pixies and The Strokes. Onstage, the band is arousing and assaulting, coming off somewhere between a riot and a soul revue. Born Ruffians are Luke Lalonde (guitar/vocals), Mitch Derosier (bass), Andy Lloyd (guitar/keyboard) and Adam Hindle (drums).

RUFF was written in ebbs and flows: the origin of some tracks stretch back to 2013 and others came together in a matter of days, or in a single band practice. Jeff McMurrich (Jennifer Castle, The Constantines, Fucked Up) recorded RUFF in just three weeks in Toronto. The band’s trusted friend Rusty Santos (Animal Collective, Eric Copeland, Owen Pallett) – who produced their acclaimed album, Red, Yellow & Blue, and its follow up, Say It – mixed RUFF in New York. When it comes to RUFF, its seeming naivety is its power. Throughout the album, unabashed emotive and sonic contradictions are laid bare in order to pose questions on what it is to be, and to critically examine 21st century myths of celebrity that go hand in hand with such accounts. Individual tracks energetically race through conflicting personalities, worlds, moods, and sounds, while the dreamlike album artwork (illustrated by Lalonde) redoubles a sense of tumult.

RUFF opens with the lilting “Don’t Live Up,” a track that’s blissfully deceptive in that, somewhere along the way, it morphs into modulated pop, establishing the album’s tone of unbridled creativity. A mood swing nature also permeates the album’s leadoff single, “We Made It,” which manages to be both meditative and explosive. It trades in extremes of interlocking grooves with talk-sung vocals for the verses, and then rushes skyward for the infectious chorus. Other RUFF standouts are the sedately embittered “Fuck Feelings,” the menacingly optimistic “Stupid Dream” and the irreverently empowering “(Eat Shit) We Did It.”

RUFF stands as a poignant marriage of form, content and process that is without a doubt Born Ruffians’ most focused and mature work to date.

ON AN ON

ON AN ON is an American experimental-pop band out of Minneapolis, MN, made up of long-time friends and collaborators, Nate Eiesland (vocals, guitar), Ryne Estwing (bass, vocals) and Alissa Ricci (keys, vocals). On July 24, 2015 they will release their sophomore album And The Wave Has Two Sides.

“This is another first record for us in a way.” says keyboardist Alissa Ricci “This time we came into the studio as a band. ‘Give In’ (our debut) was us learning to think less and trust our instincts. What you hear on that record is a band beginning. It’s mysterious, and flawed, and honest.”

Formed in 2012, ON AN ON began when the trio congregated in the Toronto studio Stars & Sons with producer Dave Newfeld to start a brand new band. “We didn’t plan what we were going to sound like ahead of time. We just had some demos and a blank slate. It felt like selling all of your possessions and starting fresh”, states Ricci. Their debut Give In captured the origins and exploration of their new sound in real-time.

“We had each been in bands prior to ON AN ON and had day jobs and careers, but we just decided to go for it”, says Eiesland, “We gave all that up so we could jump into the deep end of something new. It was a risk, but it felt right, and as an artist if you don’t trust your gut you’re screwed.” Critics confirmed that the risk had paid off. Give In topped many best of 2013 lists andON AN ON were touted by TIME, NPR and MTV as one of the new bands to watch in the first year of their existence.

After touring across the US and Europe for a year and a half, pairing with artists such as Junip, Tennis and Geographer, and at festivals including Bonnaroo, Governor’s Ball and Iceland Airwaves, the band returned to their hometown of Minneapolis to begin writing what would become their sophomore follow-up. During this period, the band began to explore live tracking, allowing them to approach the writing process more collaboratively, vocalist Nate Eiesland adds, “By tracking everyone in the same room at one time, we tried to capture the interaction between the parts we were playing. There’s a subtle energy to things that get recorded that way; a tension in the sound. When we would make it to the end of what everyone in the studio knew was THE take, there was always this moment of pure electric silence. It was a magic feeling.”

One of the most important factors during this process was to continue to explore new musical territory and to build on the sound they had developed while touring. “Making another Give In would have been the easy thing to do”, says bassist Ryne Estwing. “This time we wanted to make something more direct and visceral. We decided to use a more old school recording approach to capture that immediacy.” With a fresh collection of songs written, ON AN ON ventured to California to record at the famous Sunset Sound in Los Angeles with legendary producer Joe Chiccarelli (White Stripes, Spoon, The Shins, My Morning Jacket). The influence of sun-drenched Californian landscape can be clearly heard in the new record, pushing the vibrancy and the energy of their debut to ever-greater heights.

The first insight into the record is the hauntingly suspenseful “Drifting”. This track encapsulates the band at their most vulnerable yet; “Drifting is inspired by falling asleep behind the wheel and trying to forget unforgettable things. We’ve never had a song that sounded this naked.” Second single “It’s Not Over” shows the band in an entirely different light, delivering a summer dance-floor anthem, with a driving bass line and inescapably catchy, highly-processed drum beat. The song “is about long-term love. It’s about regaining a sense of context to help in the moments, or the seasons, of insecurity that are a part of loving someone forever”, says Eiesland. “It’s funny that the first two songs we put out from this album are the ones that were the furthest from our comfort zone.”