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UR 041: I'VE NEVER MET A STRANGER

by PICASTRO

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1.
HANGMAN 03:29
2.
3.
4.
5.
CHAOS HANDS 04:31

about

"I’ve Never Met a Stranger is a testament to [Picastro's] enduring greatness" - Foxy Digitalis

Prologue by Owen Pallett:

I read an interview with Picastro in 2000 or 2001, and was struck by the uniqueness of Liz Hysen’s commentary. I listened to “Red Your Blues”, loved it, and e-mailed Liz to say so. A few months later, I joined the band, playing a terrible-sounding student viola as best as I could.

Touring with Picastro was, in retrospect, hilarious. Sometimes we shared bills with like-mided acts— Xiu Xiu, Born Heller— but more often than not, we shared the stage with more straight-ahead rock bands, an odd contrast to Liz’s dry-cracked songs.

I got a desk job in 2004 and left the band so I could focus on it, but Liz and I remained close friends, and I continued to contribute to subsequent Picastro albums. Picastro’s albums always showed a band that was in a state of transition, restless, searching for a sonic niche. As time went on, the albums kept getting better and better, more and more distinctive. Picastro’s body of work is a monument to longevity, a demonstration that an idea sometimes needs a decade (or two) to be fully realized. With every subsequent release, Liz’s singular vision with this project becomes more and more tangible, the discreteness of her work from the zeitgeist becomes more pronounced. This new album is a testament to this.

From Liz:

This covers EP was brought about by the uncertainty of things, the joy of not knowing and the magic created by music that falls outside of boundaries. Picastro has existed as a musical entity for a long time, too weird to be a pop band, too many songs to be considered experimental that it was time to celebrate like minded musicians and bands that have influenced our sound The theme for the album was simple and predictably set off by the pandemic; human’s aren’t comfortable when they don’t know what is going to happen and their routines are disrupted so profoundly. But what about the magic of not knowing? What about using the time to re-connect with your friends and peers in a slow and easy way?

“I’ve never met a stranger” evolved out of these concepts and the musicians who contributed to this project represent the ways in which we can all connect and represent our cities, our communities, our relationships as best we can. All the songs were chosen based on their lyrical content starting from Pale Blue Eyes “sometimes I feel so happy, sometimes I feel so sad” at the start of the pandemic, running to Richard Dawson’s “Man’s been struck down by hands unseen”. The magic of all these bands and musicians for me has been their inability to fall neatly into any one category; The Silt, Elfin Saddle, Fire on Fire, Richard Dawson and the Velvet Underground all elegantly skirt around several genres at all times. I am grateful for all these bands and all the musicians who performed on the record.

credits

released January 6, 2022

Karen Ng: sax and flutes on Pale Blue Eyes
Chris Cummings: organ, synth on Pale Blue Eyes
Brandon Valdivia: percussion on Tell Me White Horses
Germaine Liu: flute, percussion on Chaos Hands
Nick Storring: electric cello, clavinet & mandola on Pale Blue Eyes
Luka Kuplowsky: vocals, synth on Tell Me White Horses
Matt Dunn: vocals on Pale Blue Eyes
Mike Duffield: drums on Man’s Been Struck By Hands Unseen
Soren Brothers: vocals, guitar, melodica on Hangman
Tim Condon: moogs on Chaos Hands, bass and guitar on Man’s Been Struck by Hands Unseen, bass on Hangman
Liz Hysen: vocals on all songs, piano on Pale Blue Eyes, strings/arranging weird shit on Chaos Hands, guitar on Tell Me White Horses, Hangman, Man’s Been Struck By Hands Unseen.


Extra special thanks to Tim Condon who not only played on the songs but mixed, mastered and performed his magic on all of them.

Art work by Victor Gáspari

Video for Hangman by Colin Medley

Hangman: (Fire on Fire) 3:41
Tell Me White Horses: 4:15 (The Silt)
Pale Blue Eyes: (Velvet Underground) 7:04
Man Struck Down by Hands Unseen (Richard Dawson)
Chaos Hands: (Elfin Saddle) 4:40

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about

ur audio visual Toronto, Ontario

ur is an independent record label. the urwelt is the primeval world. ur is also the name of a 6,000 year old sumerian city. our goal is to support art which searches for the common ground where these meanings overlap, a timeless space that is both urban and primeval. ... more

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