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Ducks LTD. Ducks Ltd. are a Toronto band featuring Australian lead guitarist Evan Lewis and U.K born U.S. raised singer bassist and rhythm guitarist Tom McGreevy. As Ducks Ltd. the two thrive on skirting the edges of buoyant jangle pop and driving power pop. Their latest album Harm s Way contains anxious songs that McGreevy explains are about struggling. About watching people I care for suffer and trying to figure out how to be there for them. And about the strain of living in the world when it feels like it s ready to collapse. Harm s Way is an undeniable evolution of Ducks Ltd. s songwriting process. Where their critically acclaimed 2021 debut Modern Fiction and 2019 EP Get Bleak were self recorded and self produced in a Toronto basement here they made an LP in Chicago with producer Dave Vettraino and some of their favorite musicians. These collaborators include Finom s Macie Stewart Ratboys Julia Steiner and Marcus Nuccio Dehd s Jason Balla Moontype s Margaret McCarthy Lawn s Rui De Magalhaes Dummy s Nathan O Dell and Patio s Lindsey Paige McCloy. Ducks Ltd. s touring drummer Jonathan Pappo also appears on the LP. The band first showed this collaborative streak on a 2023 covers EP which featured guests like Mo Troper Ratboys Illuminati Hotties and Jane Inc. that boasted renditions of songs by The Cure The Feelies and The Jesus and Mary Chain. Where those songs started as ideas on days off from tour Harm s Way is also a product of writing on the road while supporting acts like Nation of Language and Archers of Loaf. When we got signed we had played maybe five or six shows ever says McGreevy. After last year it s well in the hundreds. Those things change your perception of your own music and songwriting. This well earned and road tested confidence made the making of this LP their most intuitive and organic yet. Our relationship is built on trust and we don t let our egos come into the creative process in any way says Lewis. We have this really great thing where every decision with the band is filtered through both of us. Here especially we really figured out how to make something that truly sounds like us. The Bug Club The way you re saying it prolific isn t the right word for The Bug Club. You ve got to say it with the trademark Welsh lilt and pay due homage to this inimitable band s origins in the renowned hit factory of Caldicot South Wales. Do that and you re about right with how to summarize a group who ve released ten singles two albums two EPs three things nobody knew how to describe and an album under a different band s name all since 2021 and while playing 200 gigs a year. The Bug Club is Tilly Harris Bass Vocals and Sam Willmett Vocals Guitar . Their first offering for the label is Quality Pints a track that deals with the pressing concerns of any conscientious touring outfit taking to heart the rule of the three R s as penned by renowned fellow pints fan Mark E Smith of The Fall: repetition repetition repetition. If it s that important which it is it s worth saying again. Initially comprising the songwriting core of Willmett and Harris with Dan Matthew on drums The Bug Club started plying their trade in 2016. They were signed by UK label Bingo Records in Autumn of 2020 and their first single We Don t Need Room For Lovin was released in February 2021. It quickly established The Bug Club as the tongue in cheek and live focused antidote to the previous year s penned in pandemic drudgery. BBC 6 Music s Marc Riley was an early champion hammering the single booking the band in for a session as soon as it was allowed and rightfully praising songwriters capable of singing the whole alphabet in a two minute song and making it work. EP Launching Moondream One came next complete with 7 comic book and free jingles radio stabs are something of a forte for the band followed by Pure Particles whose vinyl release included a board game brimming with cult references. Fed up with the conventional approach they then released Intelectuals : a standalone track that was actually a five track song suite like some kind of streaming model snubbing Telecaster bashing answer to Bach. Highbrow musos took a lyrical beating for the ages. Second standalone release Two Beauties marked release number two for 2022 and built up to the appearance of debut album Green Dream in F by October. Lead single It s Art encapsulated The Bug Club s ethos good and proper: they re only in this for fun you re not supposed to feel it. But they re self effacing because everybody does feel it. And it feels great. The following January they decided to pull their fingers out get some disguises and support themselves on tour as Mr Anyway s Holey Spirits. A live album documented this then they got abstract with titles and put out picture disc Picture This!. By the autumn of 2023 it was time for forty seven track poetry infused double album Rare Birds: Hour of Song. Their most ambitious realization of The Bug Club s creative world so far typically smart and surreal wordplay as well as their standard enthusiastic obscenity met with everything from raucous punk to gentle anti folk. Ivor Cutler seemed to have left his surreal stamp somewhere the fully illustrated picture book included with the record helped suggest that but they d never heard him until somebody else made the comparison. Happy accidents abound. Things went pair shaped with Sam and Tilly in 2024 after Dan swapped his sticks for his gardening tools and a quiet life in the countryside. During a trip to America they caught the eye of Sub Pop. And guess what: new music is hurtling towards their ever growing loyal fanbase who can look forward to a year for The Bug Club with stuff going on constantly. Who d have thunk it?
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