Shapeshifting (album)

Last updated
Shapeshifting
ShapshiftingAlbumCover.jpg
Studio album by
Young Galaxy
ReleasedFebruary 8, 2011
Recorded2010
Genre Synthpop, sophisti-pop, nu gaze [1]
Length42 mins.
Label Paper Bag Records
Producer Dan Lissvik
Young Galaxy chronology
Invisible Republic
(2009)		Shapeshifting
(2011)		 Ultramarine
(2013)
Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
SourceRating
Metacritic 79/100 link
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar half.svg [2]
Consequence of Sound B [3]
Pitchfork 7.6/10 [4]
Resident Advisor 4.0/5 [5]
Slant Magazine Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar half.svgStar empty.svg [6]

Shapeshifting is the third studio album by Young Galaxy, released on Paper Bag Records in February 2011. It was produced by Dan Lissvik of the Swedish duo Studio. Reviewed in Pitchfork , Andrew Gaerig called it the band's "finest record". [7]

Young Galaxy is a Canadian indie pop/dream pop band formed in 2005 in Vancouver, whose members are husband and wife, Stephen Ramsay and Catherine McCandless.

Paper Bag Records is a Canadian independent record label, artist-management company and music publisher, founded in 2002 and based in Toronto, Ontario.

Dan Lissvik is a Swedish musician and producer. Together with Rasmus Hägg he founded the award-winning group Studio. In November 2008, he released his first solo album entitled 7 Trx+Intermission, which was followed by an album in June 2009 from The Crepes consisting of him and Fredrik Lindson from The Embassy.

Contents

The album was named as a longlisted nominee for the 2011 Polaris Music Prize. [8]

The 2011 edition of the Canadian Polaris Music Prize was presented on September 19, 2011 The winner was Arcade Fire, for the album The Suburbs.

Production

The album was recorded by the three-piece in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, then sent to Gothenburg, Sweden, where Lissvik reworked the material. [9] The band and producer collaborated using Skype to communicate over the nine-month duration. [10] The group's method to composing the songs was described by songwriter/singer/guitarist Stephen Ramsay as "[i]nstead of picking up a guitar and finding the most brilliant melody we could, we tried to erase the shape of the songs." [11] The band moved away from traditional verse-chorus structures towards a more "impressionistic" approach. [11] Songs were written by Ramsay and McCandless, with Stephen Kamp playing bass.

Canada Country in North America

Canada is a country in the northern part of North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic to the Pacific and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering 9.98 million square kilometres, making it the world's second-largest country by total area. Its southern border with the United States, stretching some 8,891 kilometres (5,525 mi), is the world's longest bi-national land border. Canada's capital is Ottawa, and its three largest metropolitan areas are Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver.

Gothenburg City in Västergötland and Bohuslän, Sweden

Gothenburg is the second-largest city in Sweden, fifth-largest in the Nordic countries, and capital of the Västra Götaland County. It is situated by Kattegat, on the west coast of Sweden, and has a population of approximately 570,000 in the city center and about 1 million inhabitants in the metropolitan area.

Sweden constitutional monarchy in Northern Europe

Sweden, officially the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Scandinavian Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north and Finland to the east, and is connected to Denmark in the southwest by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund Strait. At 450,295 square kilometres (173,860 sq mi), Sweden is the largest country in Northern Europe, the third-largest country in the European Union and the fifth largest country in Europe by area. The capital city is Stockholm. Sweden has a total population of 10.3 million of which 2.5 million have a foreign background. It has a low population density of 22 inhabitants per square kilometre (57/sq mi) and the highest urban concentration is in the central and southern half of the country.

Style

The album is described as a departure from their previous recording, Invisible Republic . Lissvik's more electronic-oriented roots resulted in "dance-inflected pop", as opposed to their more dream pop style on earlier records. [7] Although Ramsay and McCandless share vocal duties on the recording, Shapeshifting sees singer/keyboardist Catherine McCandless moving into more of a "lead-singer role". [12]

<i>Invisible Republic</i> (album) 2009 studio album by Young Galaxy

Invisible Republic is the second album by the Canadian indie rock band Young Galaxy, released August 25, 2009 on Fontana North.

Dream pop is a subgenre of alternative rock and neo-psychedelia that developed in the 1980s. The style is typified by a preoccupation with sonic texture and atmosphere as much as melody. It often overlaps with the related genre of shoegazing, and the two genre terms have at times been used interchangeably.

Video

Animated videos for "We Have Everything" and "Peripheral Visionaries" were produced by Los Angeles-based animator Sinbad Richardson. [13] Both videos made part of the official selection of the Fest Anča animated film festival in Žilina, Slovakia.

Track listing

  1. "Nth"
  2. "The Angels Are Surely Weeping"
  3. "Blown Minded"
  4. "We Have Everything"
  5. "For Dear Life"
  6. "Peripheral Visionaries"
  7. "High and Goodbye"
  8. "Phantoms"
  9. "Cover Your Tracks"
  10. "B.S.E."
  11. "Shapeshifting"

Formats

Released on compact disc and in MP3 format, the LP was also released in limited-run, 180-gram white and blue-marble vinyl editions. [14]

Compact disc Optical disc for storage and playback of digital audio

Compact disc (CD) is a digital optical disc data storage format that was co-developed by Philips and Sony and released in 1982. The format was originally developed to store and play only sound recordings (CD-DA) but was later adapted for storage of data (CD-ROM). Several other formats were further derived from these, including write-once audio and data storage (CD-R), rewritable media (CD-RW), Video Compact Disc (VCD), Super Video Compact Disc (SVCD), Photo CD, PictureCD, CD-i, and Enhanced Music CD. The first commercially available audio CD player, the Sony CDP-101, was released October 1982 in Japan.

MP3 is a coding format for digital audio. Originally defined as the third audio format of the MPEG-1 standard, it was retained and further extended—defining additional bit-rates and support for more audio channels—as the third audio format of the subsequent MPEG-2 standard. A third version, known as MPEG 2.5—extended to better support lower bit rates—is commonly implemented, but is not a recognized standard.

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References

  1. ↑ Cohen, Ian (2013-04-25). "Young Galaxy Review". Pitchfork.com. Retrieved 2013-04-27.
  2. ↑ Collar, Matt. "Young Galaxy: Shapeshifting". AllMusic . Retrieved 4 June 2018.
  3. ↑ Young, Alex (5 April 2011). "Young Galaxy: Shapeshifting". Consequence of Sound . Retrieved 4 June 2018.
  4. ↑ Gaerig, Andrew (9 February 2011). "Young Galaxy: Shapeshifting". Pitchfork . Retrieved 4 June 2018.
  5. ↑ Miller, Derek (4 March 2011). "Young Galaxy - Shapeshifting". Resident Advisor . Retrieved 4 June 2018.
  6. ↑ Cinquemani, Sal (15 February 2011). "Young Galaxy: Shapeshifting". Slant Magazine . Retrieved 4 June 2018.
  7. 1 2 Gaerig, Andrew (February 9, 2011). "Young Galaxy Shapeshifting". Pitchfork.com. Retrieved 23 February 2011.
  8. ↑ "2011 Polaris Music Prize Long List announced" Archived 2015-10-02 at the Wayback Machine . aux.tv, June 16, 2011.
  9. ↑ Hudson, Alex (November 11, 2010). "Young Galaxy Announce New Shapeshifting LP, Enlist Studio's Dan Lissvik to Produce". Exclaim.ca. Retrieved 22 February 2011.
  10. ↑ Cinquemani, Sal (February 15, 2011). "Young Galaxy: Shapeshifting". Slant Magazine. Retrieved 22 February 2011.
  11. 1 2 Perusse, Bernard (February 11, 2011). "New Music Feb. 8, 2011: Young Galaxy, Cut Copy, The Streets, ... And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead". Montreal Gazette. Retrieved 23 February 2011.
  12. ↑ Gormely, Ian (February 8, 2011). "Young Galaxy — Shapeshifting". CHARTAttack. Retrieved 23 February 2011.
  13. ↑ "Video Premiere: Young Galaxy – "We Have Everything"". Gorilla vs. Bear. February 2, 2011. Retrieved 23 February 2011.
  14. ↑ "Shapeshifting". Paper Bag Records. February 8, 2011. Retrieved 23 February 2011.
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