Dearly Beloved will release Times Square Discount on October 25 viaFuture Shock Records. The Toronto outfit is the creative braintrust of vocalist/bassist Rob Higgins and vocalist/percussionist/Theremin abuser Niva Chow and the new album features Dimitri Coats of OFF! on guitar, James Di Salvio of Bran Van 3000 and M83 conscript Jordan Lawlor.
Dearly Beloved hits the road in Europe + UK with Sebadoh on Friday and today, shares the ‘coming of age’ video for sonic statue, “Close Encounters” – with emphasis on the coming. Director Marc Sidelsky says, “The video is essentially a simple tale of the hormonal drives of a suburban teenage boy but most importantly, it all builds to a terrific climax.” The track is out Friday on DSPs.
Times Square Discount is, as Higgins puts it, “a rabbit-hole record,” and one partially born of “bingeing on Kubrick and drugs” and ruminating upon such fancies as “How do we make Kubrick an album?” and “How do you make an album version of The Shining?” in the van long enough for it to set in that the band’s thirst for weird and/or forbidden knowledge and collective capacity for conducting on-site empirical researchi could be put to far better use in each of the cities that it visits than simply bingeing on Kubrick and drugs in a van.