Toronto’s Kiwi Jr.Cooler Returns, the follow up to their acclaimed debut Football Money, is available now on CD/LP/CD/DSPs worldwide through Sub Pop, with the exception of Canada through the band’s Kiwi Club imprint.
[Photo credit: Warren Calbeck]
Buildings burning in every direction; macabre unknowns in your friendly neighbor’s basement; undecided voters sharpening their pencils: under pressure we could call Kiwi Jr.’s Cooler Returns“timely.” But what year is it, again? On their sophomoric smash-up released world-wide by Sub Pop Records, Kiwi Jr. cycle through the recent zigs & looming zags of the new decade, squinting anew at New Year’s parties forgotten and under-investigated small town diner fires, piecing together low-stakes conspiracy theories on what’s coming down the pike in 2021. Put together like a thousand-piece puzzle, assembled in flow state through the first dull stretch of quarantine, sanitized singer shuffling to sanitized studio by streetcar, masked like it’s the kind of work where getting recognized means getting killed, Cooler Returnsmaterializes as a sprawling survey from the first few bites of the terrible twenties, an investigative exposé of recent history buried under the headlines & ancient kings buried under parking lots.
Not so long since their debut Football Money in archaeological time, unending gray eons later in the dog years of quaran-time, spiritually antipodean Canadians Kiwi Jr. return to disseminate this year’s annual report to the shareholders, burying the incriminating numbers in the endless appendices of a longform narrative record, a 3,000 word tract for stakeholders to pore over.
Cooler Returns - memories of Augusts past, unrepressed & transcribed fast - go down easier thanks to meaningful changes enacted in 2019’s KiwiCares Pledge: delivering on a promise to transition from Crunchy to Smooth by 2021, the caveman chug of Football Money has been steamed & pressed with the purifying air of a saloon piano - operated with bow-tie untied - and a spring green side-salad of tentatively up-tempo organ taps & freshly fluted harmonica.
A chronically detuned spin of the dial through swivel-chair distractions & WFH daydreams, an immersive ctrl-tab deluge cycling through popular listicle distractions like the unentombing of Richard III, or the deja vu destruction of the Glasgow School of Art, Kiwi Jr. sing this song to an indoor audience, crisscrossing canceled, every other prestige distraction source wrung dry, only songwriting remaining to deliver engrossing tales to the populace, just how I imagine it worked in the old days. Fixing loose ingredients into a sturdy whip, Kiwi Jr. beam in live from the 9-5, striding into 2021 with a mastered brainwave that comes equally from the back room of the record store as the penalty box. And how do we, left holding this box of deliberate entanglements, sign off to those as yet uninitiated, undecided, uncertain, unseen, absent return coordinates - Best Wishes, Warm Regards, Good Luck? Cooler Returns, Cooler Returns, C o o l e r R e t u r n s !
Kiwi Jr. Cooler Returns has seen praise from the likes of MOJO, who in its four-star review, raves, “sustaining momentum near-flawlessly across 13 songs…proves Kiwi Jr. have the skills to match their smarts.” Uncut says, “Canadian absurdists’ return is a lyrical delight”, DIY offers this, “The band rattle through a seemingly inexhaustible supply of hooks and melodies (4/5).”, and NARC proclaims, “Cooler Returns is a bloody good album full of vivid charm (4/5).”
More on Kiwi Jr.: “A scratchy post-punk jam with some seriously funny lyrics.” [“Cooler Returns”] - Stereogum
“The latest glimpse into their 2021 debut album, “Undecided Voters” is an upbeat indie rock song filled with layers of social commentary woven under the seemingly random surface of the lyrics.” - PASTE
“Very catchy and very timely” [“Undecided Voters”] - Brooklyn Vegan
Dinked Edition:
Kiwi Jr.
Cooler Returns
Tracklisting 1. Tyler 2. Undecided Voters 3. Maid Marian’s Toast 4. Highlights of 100 5. Only Here for a Haircut 6. Cooler Returns 7. Guilty Party 8. Omaha 9. Domino 10. Nashville Wedding 11. Dodger 12. Norma Jean’s Jacket 13. Waiting in Line
Cooler Returns is now available for preorder through Sub Pop. LP preorders from megamart.subpop.com and select independent retailers in the US will receive the limited Loser edition on translucent gold colored vinyl (while supplies last). Preorders through select independent retailers in the UK and Europe will receive the Loser on white colored vinyl (while supplies last).
There is an additional limited edition version of Cooler Returns from participating Dinked retailers in the UK that will be available on yellow colored vinyl with a signed print and a sequentially numbered obi strip (while supplies last).
“A jaunty rocker that immediately aligns them with Australian favourites (and now label-mates) Rolling Blackouts CF, “Undecided Voters” takes precisely 0.5 listens to get under your skin, being as it is so packed with vibrant guitars, propulsive percussion and ever-appearing earworm melodies…” - Beats Per Minute
“If their debut Football Money, which so gratifyingly warmed the sceptics within us with their comfortably layered hooks and dry sardonic perception of the metropolitan dream, was their run for local town mayor – ‘Undecided Voters’ is their big money shot at the senatorship.” - So Young
“As we prepare for perhaps the most theatrical and gladiatorial political debate in history, ‘Undecided Voters’ is simultaneously extremely funny and painfully prescient.” - The Line of Best Fit
“The track channels a breezy 90s sort of indie rock anthem of sorts, that feels part slacker anthem and something much grander and anthemic at the very same time.” [“Cooler Returns”] - We All Want Someone To Shout For
“The four-piece’s refined pop sensibilities haven’t entirely escaped them in light of those cracks coming completely unglued early on in the track. If anything, they sound like a vehicle headed downhill without any brakes, momentum balling up, and a shit-eating grin worn on each of their faces approaching collision.” [“Cooler Returns”] - Recommended Listen
“On paper, the lyrics of Kiwi Jr.’s ‘Cooler Returns’ reads like a mildly anxious stream-of-consciousness that careens from an uncomfortable Super Bowl Sunday to being “strung out on the back of your ATV / throwing dead birds into the air”. But the song’s also a jangly, indie rock earworm that’ll lodge itself in that part of your brain that loves Pavement.” [“Cooler Returns”] - NME
“Having heard the new album, Cooler Returns…we can attest that they have lost exactly none of the naïvety of style that had them create such infectious tunes the first time around.” - Louder Than War
Today, Japanese quartet CHAI are thrilled to announce their new album, WINK, out May 21st on Sub Pop. Ahead of its release, they present lead single/video “ACTION.” Their third full-length and first for Sub Pop, WINK contains CHAI’s mellowest and most minimal music, and also their most affecting and exciting songwriting by far. WINK is a fitting title then: a subtle but bold gesture. A wink is an unselfconscious act of conviction, or as CHAI puts it: “A person who winks is a person with a pure heart, who lives with flexibility, who does what they want. A person who winks is a person who is free.” YUUKI noted that “With this album, we’re winking at you. We’re living freely and we hope that when you listen, you can wink and live freely, too.”
WINK is now available to preorder from Sub Pop. LPs purchased through megamart.subpop.com, and select independent retailers in North America will receive the limited Loser edition on colored vinyl (while supplies last).
CHAI is made up of identical twins MANA (lead vocals and keys) and KANA (guitar), drummer YUNA, and bassist-lyricist YUUKI. Following the release of 2019’s PUNK, CHAI’s adventures took them around the world, playing their high-energy and buoyant shows at music festivals like Primavera Sound and Pitchfork Music Festival, and touring with indie-rock mainstays like Whitney and Mac DeMarco. Like all musicians, CHAI spent 2020 forced to rethink the fabric of their work and lives. But CHAI took this as an opportunity to shake up their process and bring their music somewhere thrillingly new. Having previously used their maximalist recordings to capture the exuberance of their live shows, with the audiences’ reactions in mind, CHAI instead focused on crafting the slightly-subtler and more introspective kinds of songs they enjoy listening to at home—where, for the first time, they recorded all of the music. Amidst the global shutdown, CHAI worked on Garageband and traded their song ideas—which they had more time than ever to consider—over Zoom and phone calls, turning their limitations into a strength.
While the band leaned into a more personal sound, WINK is also the first CHAI album to feature contributions from outside producers (Mndsgn, YMCK) as well as a feature from Chicago rapper-singer Ric Wilson. CHAI draw R&B and hip-hop into their mix (Mac Miller, the Internet, and Brockhampton were on their minds) of dance-punk and pop-rock, all while remaining undeniably CHAI. Whether in relation to this newfound sense of openness or their at-home ways of composing, the theme of WINK is to challenge yourself.
Lead single “ACTION” was a response to watching the Black Lives Matter protests unfold across America and the world in June of 2020 while the band was in Japan.
“Seeing how the world came together during the protests really moved me,” said YUUKI. “I wanted to dedicate that song to the year of action.” The band further elaborates: “The world as we know it has changed, but even with that, it’s still a world where nothing really changes. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if there more ACTION rooted in happiness? Be the change that you want to see!…I’m going to be the pioneer in seeing the world I want to see, meeting the people I want to meet! We start off by expressing the fun in ACTION with this music video♡ Why don’t you join us?! It’s that type of song♡.”
CHAI came to see WINK—with its home-y feel—as a collection where each song is like a new friend, something comforting to rely on and reach out to, as the album was for them throughout 2020. This impulse towards connection is in WINK’s title, too. After the “i” of PINK and the “u” of PUNK—which represented the band’s act of introducing themselves, and then of centering their audiences—they have come full circle with the “we” of WINK. It signals CHAI’s relationship with the outside world, an embrace of profound togetherness. Through music, as CHAI said, “we are all coming together.” In that act of opening themselves up, CHAI grew into their best work: “This album showed us, we’re ready to do more.”
Gerald Clayton’s “Theme From MLK/FBI” is from the award-winning film MLK/FBI and is now available on all DSPs and on a 7” single along with Preservation Hall’s Jazz Band’s “Lift Every Voice & Sing,” worldwide from Sub Pop.
Clayton’s “Theme…” is a gorgeous, affecting, and chilling arrangement that acts as the perfect accompaniment to the film’s tragic and searing storytelling. A two-time Grammy nominee for 2021, Clayton is “a pianist of great touch and soulful exposition,” according to the New York Times. He is also the Musical Director of the Monterey Jazz Festival’s Next Generation Jazz Orchestra, and has released five acclaimed albums including Two-Shade, Life Forum, Tributary Tales and, most recently, his debut on Blue Note Records, Happening: Live at the Village Vanguard.
Preservation Hall Jazz Band’s “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” the group’s uplifting version of the black national anthem, was recorded specifically for MLK/FBI. The song was released in December with an official video that features footage from the film, and was co-directed by Preservation Hall Jazz Band’s Ben Jaffe and Kenneth Alexander Campbell.
“Theme From MLK/FBI” is the B-side on the aforementioned 7” on single with Preservation Hall Jazz Band’s “Lift Every Voice & Sing” on the A-side, and is available to order now through Sub Pop.
MLK/FBI recently won the Critics’ Choice award for “Best Archival Documentary” and IDA awards for “Best Feature” and “Best Director” for director Sam Pollard. The film is earning raves from the likes of The Atlantic, Entertainment Weekly, New York Times and has been covered in interviews with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, The New Yorker Radio Hour’s Jelani Cobb along with today’s segments from Good Morning America and NPR’s Fresh Air.
MLK/FBI is the first film to uncover the extent of the FBI’s surveillance and harassment of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Based on newly discovered and declassified files, utilizing a trove of documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act and unsealed by the National Archives, as well as revelatory restored footage, the documentary explores the government’s history of targeting Black activists, and the contested meaning behind some of our most cherished ideals. The film is produced by Benjamin Hedin, and written by Hedin and Laura Tomaselli.
MLK/FBI is now in theatres and available from video-on-demand services and is distributed by IFC Films.
What the critics are saying about MLK/FBI: “One of the most urgent films of the year…” - Vanity Fair
“Powerhouse doc. Rewarding. Meticulously damning.” - Los Angeles Times
“Sam Pollard has assembled an engrossing, unsettling documentary…Rigorously focused on the facts of the past, the movie is also as timely as an alarm clock.” [“10 Great Movies at the New York Film Festival”] - New York Times
“Artfully assembled. It may be the best of this year’s very impressive slate. Illuminates the darkest, most insidious corners of American power and racism—past and present.” - Entertainment Weekly
“The film is a sobering watch and a timely reminder that King’s struggle for racial justice wasn’t straightforward, nor is it close to complete.” [“4 Films You Need to Watch This Fall”] - The Atlantic
Striking while the iron is ice-cold and at least 6 ft away and most definitely masked-up, Sub Pop Records is expanding our retail empire, from one to two locations, with a new space!
The recently-opened Sub Pop on 7th is a tightly-curated (some might say tiny) new store located at 2130 7th Ave., in Seattle’s South Lake Union neighborhood. The store collects the cream of the crap from Sub Pop and Hardly Art, including t-shirts, hats, hoodies, various knick-knacks, trinkets, and objets d’art conspicuously emblazoned with the words “Sub Pop,” as well as actual vinyl LP copies (aka “records”) of every Hardly Art and Sub Pop release currently in print. Within the limits of Covid safety measures, Sub Pop on 7th is open now. And (unlike the practically world-famous Sub Pop Airport Store…) you don’t risk a cavity search to get in!
“This is Sub Pop’s flagship store. It’s long on goodies and short on hours, so beat the rush,” says the label’s co-founder/president Jonathan Poneman.
To celebrate the opening of Sub Pop on 7th, visitors can enter to win a $50 gift card good towards any of the aforementioned goodies in the new shop. Visit us in store and simply sign up for the Sub Pop Mega Mart email list for a chance to win. No purchase is necessary to enter. We will select two #subpopon7th gift card winners per week through February 28th, 2021. We will, of course, remind you often through one or, more likely, all of the following altogether official Sub Pop channels: Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.
Sub Pop on 7th looks forward to joining our unsuspecting new neighbors including retail outlets Amazon 4-star and South Lake Union Bouquet, food and beverage establishments Casco Antiguo and Joe & The Juice, and the Bright Horizons early education & preschool center. As the adage goes, “Variety is the spice of South Lake Union.”
About Sub Pop
Founded by Bruce Pavitt and Jonathan Poneman in 1988, Sub Pop Records is a medium-sized independent record label based in Seattle, WA.
With early releases by Nirvana, Mudhoney, Soundgarden, and TAD, the label is often associated with something called “the grunge movement.” Exploitation of this association has frequently proven financially fruitful. Later years saw record album releases from such moderately-to-somewhat-well-known artists as: The Shins, Iron and Wine, The Postal Service, Band of Horses, Flight of the Conchords, Fleet Foxes, Sleater-Kinney, Beach House, Washed Out, Shabazz Palaces, The Head and the Heart, Orville Peck, Weyes Blood, and Father John Misty, among many other very talented and deserving artists whose managers will be contacting us shortly about inclusion in the preceding list. Not content to rest on our laurels with that deeply impressive roster of talent, Sub Pop has also boldly stumbled into the realm of fully intentional comedy with releases by David Cross, Patton Oswalt, Flight of the Conchords, Eugene Mirman, Jon Benjamin, Sarah Silverman, and soundtracks from Bob’s Burgers, and Rick and Morty.
At Sub Pop Records, it is our intent to market and sell the recorded music (and related merchandise) of artists which some shifting definition of “we” really and truly love. We mean to represent these artists as faithfully and diligently as possible and hold out hope that this is enough for us to remain solvent in the face of the well-documented collapse of the music industry at large. We also enjoy laughter, good times and the company of friends.
LOCATION / STORE HOURS / CONTACT INFO
2130 7th Ave., Seattle, WA 98121
(Free parking with validation at 2121 8th Ave. and 2021 7th Ave.)
Multimedia auteur Chad VanGaalen has delivered a phenomenal animated video for “Samurai Sword,” (premiering on YouTube + Adult Swim’s Toonami) the first single from World’s Most Stressed Out Gardener, his new album — out on CD/LP/DSPs March 19th, 2021 worldwide through Sub Pop and in Canada from Flemish Eye. The thirteen-track effort, which also features “Nightwaves,” “Starlight,” “Where Is It All Going?,” and “Flute Peace,” was written, performed, recorded, and mixed by VanGaalen at his Yoko Eno Studio in Calgary, Alberta, and mastered by Ryan Morey in Montreal, Quebec.
VanGaalen says of “Samurai Sword,” “I had just ripped a bunch of old leaking copper pipe out of my basement in a reno job that I jumped into willy nilly. Realizing how magical the pipes sounded, I put them on some dirty styrofoam and banged out the janky beat that introduces the song! Garbage is life.”
He continues, “It just spilled out in a couple minutes. I didn’t try to stop it because I was smiling like I was just cruising through my neighbourhood. Simple like a sandbox. An ode to the simplicity. It’s hard to let things be simple. But simple is easy on the mind, and being jovial in song is something I find really difficult. Why? What?”
As for the “Samurai Sword” video, he elaborates, “I was drawing black and white plant backgrounds for this song because of the great old samurai movies of the past. I like how nature sometimes takes the lead. I was getting all knotted in my mind about the sky. I looked at my dad’s watercolor paintings of a sky, and felt like I couldn’t get the feel right. So, I just borrowed his sky for a scene and then I realized that my dad’s paintings were perfect and already full of real life energy. I used them to finish the video and felt like we got to go on this quest together. In my mind. Fuck time.”
The video for “Samurai Sword” gives viewers a peek into VanGaalen’s surrealistic world, expanding the 2:04 album version to a gloriously weird extended version with a 3:39 run time, and can now be viewed via VanGaalen and Adult Swim’s YouTube channels. The video will also see its broadcast television premiere on Adult Swim’s Toonami, the network’s popular weekly anime programming block, on Saturday, January 30th.
VanGaalen has also created the “Samurai Sword Scavenger Hunt” contest, with Easter eggs hidden throughout the video. He’s sharing a list of some of these hidden objects every week, and challenging fans to find them. He says, “To stop myself going squirrely over the last few months, I started hiding things as I animated this video.”
Every week for the next three weeks (through February 18th, 2021), one lucky person will win a prize pack of stuff from VanGaalen, including a copy of World’s Most Stressed Out Gardener, as well as some unique personalized items made by VanGaalen himself. At the end of the contest one person will be awarded a grand prize (You need to enter all three phases to win the grand prize!). To enter, please visit https://chadvangaalen.com/samuraisword.
More on Chad VanGaalen’s World’s Most Stressed Out Gardener by Sean Michaels: 2020 was a terrible year for gardening. It was terrible for peppers, it was terrible for tomatoes, it was terrible for the condition of the soul. But Chad VanGaalen somehow raised a garden all the same: carrots and sprouts and broccoli and a revivifying new album, all of them grown at home. He likes to eat directly off the plant, he says—”I get down on my knees and graze. It’s nice to feel the vegetables in your face”—and the 13 songs on World’s Most Stressed Out Gardener were harvested with just such a spirit: in their raw state, young and vegetal, at the very moment, they were made (read more at Sub Pop).
Chad VanGaalen World’s Most Stressed Out Gardener
Tracklisting: 1. Spider Milk 2. Flute Peace 3. Starlight 4. Where Is It All Going? 5. Earth From a Distance 6. Nightwaves 7. Plant Music 8. Nothing Is Strange 9. Inner Fire 10. Golden Pear 11. Nightmare Scenario 12. Samurai Sword 13. Water Brother
Surprise! Today, Yuno has returned and stars in the official video for “Somebody,” his irresistible emo-pop single, directed by Jordanna Koffsky. The song is his first new recorded output since the release of 2018’s Moodie and is available now worldwide from Sub Pop.
Yuno says of the single, “Spending so much time at home during the pandemic brought back a lot of feelings from my adolescence. I grew up as somewhat of a loner–spending most of my time isolated in my bedroom, and I wanted to capture the parallels between my life now and the life of my younger self. I drew a lot from the pop-punk, post-hardcore, reggae, and southern hip hop that I’ve loved throughout my life. I feel like my 14-year-old self would be very proud.”
“Somebody,” was written by Yuno Moodie, produced by Moodie and Christoph Andersson, mixed by Andersson and mastered by JJ Golden.
[Photo credit: Jordanna Koffsky]
Yuno is currently at work on the follow up to Moodie, his acclaimed Sub Pop debut.
