The Canadian Avant-garde folk artist, Mappe Of – a moniker for Tom Meikle – is today sharing the beguiling new single ‘Unkno’ – listen here. Released in the wake of ‘Ailynn’, ‘Unkno’ is the latest to be lifted from the forthcoming nine-track sophomore record, The Isle Of Ailynn, which is due for release on November 1, 2019 via Paper Bag Records.
Recorded at Bathouse Studio, Ontario (operated by the multi-award-winning Canadian band, The Tragically Hip) with longtime collaborator Will Crann and engineer Nyles Spencer (Broken Social Scene, Gord Downie), The Isle of Ailynn documents a fantasy world through nine different landscapes that draw parallels between a mythological space and everyday conflicts, troubles and fears within our lives. ‘Unkno’, which makes up one of the nine distinct environments, sonically situates Meikle alongside the likes of Grizzly Bear and The Antlers, pulling on resplendent string sections and Meikle’s velvet-soft vocals.
Speaking about the new single, Meikle says: “‘Unkno’ explores how violently the barriers of distance, language and culture can separate us when our hearts and minds are closed. The second half of the song features these two distinct vocal lines, one descending and the other ascending, that I like to envision as the two parties in this fictional land having this same core belief, yet somehow manifesting it in nearly opposite ways.”
The Isle of Ailynn looks to follow-on from the Toronto-based artist’s critically acclaimed 2017 debut, A Northern Star, A Perfect Stone (tipped by Stereogum, NPR, Consequence of Sound and Paste) marking a more focused theme and progressive understanding of genre and songwriting. Meikle’s debut release would find him on tour with the likes of Martha Wainwright and Bahamas whilst amassing over five-million streams on DSPs. UK dates are set to follow the new release in early 2020, these to be announced shortly.