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The Dears share an excerpt from their ‘Times Infinity’ short film (due 2018) on the eve on their 11 date UK headline tour that includes a London Oslo show on October 7.
Filmed in Mexico City by portrait photographer Richmond Lam, this exclusive preview was cut to an alternate version of I Love You Times Infinity which features isolated tracks from the studio recordings. The ‘Times Infinity’ film is an intimate document of the band’s international comeback tour dates across this year – watch in the video box.
The October shows – which follow a sold-out UK tour from The Dears in February this year – will be rounded out with a rare solo show from frontman Murray Lightburn at St Pancras Old Church on October 20.
The release Volume Two earlier this year saw the completion of a body of work which founding members Lightburn and Natalia Yanchak recorded over a two year period between Toronto’s Revolution Recording and Montréal’s Thee Mighty Hotel2Tango. Speaking about the process, Lightburn says of the final mix sessions for Volume Two: “At the hotel2tango, it had been a 20 hour day. I worked deliriously towards finishing Volume Two.
In part it was because I knew precisely how it was all supposed to fit together but mostly because there was another band’s session coming within just hours. It really recalled those overnight mixing sessions for No Cities Left, complete with a fresh-faced Howard (studio co-owner Bilerman) arriving in the morning, coffee in hand, asking, ‘how did it go?’ I still don’t really know. But I did my best.”
The Dears have majored in bristling honesty throughout their 25 year-strong career, and Volume Two is no less candid, with the microscope turned on Lightburn and Yanchak themselves. Propelled by driving bass-lines, fractious early single ‘Of Fisticuffs’ doubles down on the propulsive agitation of Times Infinity’s first instalment, typifying the universal, everyday tightrope of choosing which battles to fight. For Lightburn and Yanchak – married with a young family of their own – a sense of protecting what’s important runs deep through Volume Two, though rendered with disarming tenderness.
The Dears emerged out of the early Noughties Canadian indie renaissance, cementing their orchestral-pop- noir sound with celebrated debut album End of a Hollywood Bedtime Story, in 2000. In 2001 and 2002, they released the EPs Orchestral Pop Noir Romantic and Protest, as well as a collection of unreleased songs, Nor the Dahlias. In 2003 they released their second full-length album No Cities Left, and a string of highly anticipated shows at SxSW ’04 launched their international career. Gang of Losers was released in 2006, was well received by the press, and was shortlisted for the Polaris Music Prize. A tumultuous transitory period followed. The Dears emerged, stolid, with another meticulously crafted classic, Missiles in 2008, and later 2011’s Degeneration Street.
UK October Headline Tour
5 October OXFORD Academy 2 http://bit.ly/dears-oxford
6 October BRIGHTON The Haunt http://bit.ly/dears-brighton
7 October LONDON Oslo http://bit.ly/dears-london
9 October PORTSMOUTH Wedgewood Rooms http://bit.ly/dears-portsmouth
10 October MANCHESTER Deaf Institute http://bit.ly/dears-manchester
11 October NEWCASTLE Academy 2 http://bit.ly/dears-newcastle
12 October GLASGOW King Tuts http://bit.ly/dears-glasgow
13 October LIVERPOOL Academy 2 http://bit.ly/dears-liverpool
15 October DUBLIN The Grand Social http://bit.ly/dears-dublin
16 October BELFAST Empire Music Hall http://bit.ly/dears-belfast
20 October LONDON St Pancras Old Church (Murray Lightburn solo show) http://bit.ly/2h3oHKu