New Fries share video for “Mary Poppins’ Pockets” via NOWNESS

New Fries share video for “Mary Poppins’ Pockets” via NOWNESS

-‘More’ out November 25 via Telephone Explosion

VIDEO: “Mary Poppins’ Pockets”
NOWNESS

(Photo Credit:  Photo by LePetitRusse – click image for high-res version)

Toronto experimental band New Fries will release the mini-LP ‘More’ on November 25 via Telephone Explosion. This week the band premieres the video for “Mary Poppins’ Pockets” with NOWNESS. Directed by Scott Gelber, the video is an attempt to make a story out of unrelated stock footage. Gelber explains the videos narrative: “Frank (Hume Cronyn) and Faye Riley (Jessica Tandy) are an elderly New York City couple living in a depressed part of town. There, they run a diner as well as an apartment building, which is home to a poor but friendly group of people. One day, Frank and Faye learn that a property developer wants them to sell the apartment. When they refuse, their diner is vandalized. However, Frank, Faye and their tenants are aided by mysterious flying saucers, which help them repair the diner and fight back.”

New Fries was formed by Tim Fagan, Jenny Gitman, and Anni Spadafora in Summer 2012 and was later joined by Ryan Carley in Fall 2014. A mix of seasoned musicians, visual and performance artists, the band was built from a spirit of discovery, not concerned with creating a particular sound or relying on a formal musicianship. The alchemy of its members’ experiences is best felt at a live show from the band’s performative dynamics and simple but insistent sound.

New Fries work to blur the lines of what constitutes as ‘band’, ‘visual art’, and ‘performance art’.While in residence at Video Fag, an artist-run/performance gallery space in Toronto, the band recorded music, built an installation (a fake teenager basement for other “non-players” to make music in), and designed a text-based vinyl window display inspired by David Fair’s “I Taught Myself How to Play Guitar”.

The band has released an EP ‘They/I’ (self-released), a cassette ‘Fresh Face Forward’ (Pleasence Records), and a 7″ record ‘JUICE’, split with Halifax-based Old and Weird (Pleasence Records). The ‘Fresh Face Forward’ cassette was later re-issued as a LP on One Big Silence Records in early 2016.

Their newest release, 10” ‘MORE’ (Telephone Explosion Records), due November 25, is the band’s most dynamic release to date. Working with engineer Graham Walsh (of Holy Fuck), the album mixes the urgencies or ‘quickness’ of their early songwriting with a more intentional consideration of format (the “impossible” to market/sell 10”) and evolved instrumentation, widening the use of electronics. The result is an artifact that best contains the intensity of their live show.

They play shows regularly across Ontario and have toured the East Coast of Canada many times. They have shared the stage with The Pop Group, Chain & the Gang, Waxahatchee, Holy Fuck, Parquet Courts, and Fucked Up. Uniquely, they performed at a variety of Toronto-based art venues including Art Gallery of Ontario, Mercer Union, and XPACE Cultural Centre.

Tour Dates:
11/18 Montreal, QC – Casa Del Popolo (M for Montreal) w/ Bernardino & Cindy Lee
11/19 Ottawa, ON – TBA
12/01 Toronto, ON – Garrison (Record Release)
12/03 Hamilton, ON – Strangebarn
12/04 Guelph, ON – Silence

(click artwork for high res)