Corridor unveils the single Topographe and announces the upcoming release of Junior, their third album and first one via Bonsound in Canada and Sub Pop worldwide. With this next effort due out on October 18th, the group makes the most dazzling, immediate and inventive album of their young career: 39 minutes of darting and dodging guitars, spiraling vocal harmonies, and the complicated, goldenrod nostalgia of a Sunday mid-afternoon. The album was produced by Emmanuel Éthier, engineered by Samuel Gemme, mixed by Éthier and Gemme in Montreal at ReelRoad Studios, and mastered by Josh Bonati at Bonati Mastering in New York.
Watch and share the music video for Topographe via YouTube.
The single is available on all music services.
Starring the four band members, the new Monty Python-esque animated video for Topographe was directed by Corridor’s own Jonathan Robert. While I've explored and mixed many different techniques in my past music videos, it's the first time that I took the process this far, blending all of them together in one place, he says. The melting pot of stop motion, green screen, illustration, animation, collage, and live video is the visual equivalent of the progression of the song: a simple idea that takes amplitude through repetition.
The CD and vinyl for Corridor’s Junior are now available for pre-order via our online store. In addition, a "Sunny Side Up" special edition vinyl will be available in Canada only, in limited quantities.
While the band unveiled several tour dates back in July, Corridor has extended its international tour schedule in support of Junior, which spans October 23rd in Philadelphia at Boot & Saddle and currently ends December 13th in Los Angeles at Moroccan Lounge. New highlights for this time frame include: Brooklyn’s Union Pool (October 24th); Nyon, Switzerland at La Parenthèse (October 31st); Soy Music Festival in Nantes, France (November 2nd); and Vancouver, BC at Astoria (December 8th). The our great pleasure, the quartet will stop by their hometown to perform at Le National on November 22nd, as part of M for Montreal. For further tour information, head over here or see dates below.
About Junior
Corridor are a group from Montreal and their Sub Pop debut, Junior, was made just yesterday. The rock'n'roll band had barely inked their record deal when they surfed into studio, racing against time to make the most dazzling, immediate and inventive album of their young career: 39 minutes of darting and dodging guitars, spiraling vocal harmonies, and the complicated, goldenrod nostalgia of a Sunday mid-afternoon.
This ain't Corridor's first rodeo. Junior is the band's third full-length and their third recorded with their friend, producer (and occasionally roommate) Emmanuel Ethier. However 2015's Le Voyage Éternel and 2017's Supermercado were made languorously, their songs taking shape across whole seasons. This time Dominic Berthiaume (vocals/bass), Julian Perreault (guitar), Jonathan Robert (vocals/guitar/synths), and Julien Bakvis (drums) permitted themselves no such indulgence. The band were committed to releasing an album every two years, and for Junior it required a blitz. If you want to release something this fall, we need the masters by the 10th of May, the label had warned them. Winter was already in its last throes: on March 1st, Corridor went into studio; in mid-April, Corridor came out. They had somehow created Junior and it was, if we may be so bold, spectacular.
Singers, two guitars, bass, drums: the timelessness of the setup underpins the timelessness of the sound, a rock'n'roll borrowing from each of the past six decades—punk and pop, psych and jangle, daydream and swoon. This is music that's muscular, exciting and full of love, its riffs a kind of medicine. Whereas Corridor's past work could sometimes seem overstuffed, twenty ideas to the same song, the new work is hypnotic, distilled. Part of the beauty of the thing is that we didn't have time to think about it, says Berthiaume. Six of Junior's 10 tracks were conceived during a single weekend. Fewer jams, fewer overdubs—no fortnight in the countryside, secluding themselves in a chalet. Even the artwork came in the nick of time: in spite of other, meticulous, masterpieces, Robert's "shitty last-minute collage" (of an egg saying hello) was the one his bandmates went for.
Sub Pop have never before, in their 33-year history, signed a Francophone act. Maybe the band's magic springs from their ingenious hooks, their topaz-tinted vision. Maybe it's the panache of Québec's insurgent underground scene, or the camaraderie of Robert and Berthiaume, who have played together since they were 14. Probably it's all of these, and none of them: Junior is a joy, a hasty miracle, because it's so much damn fun to listen to.
Tour dates
23/10 Philadelphia, PA // Boot & Saddle
24/10 Brooklyn, NY // Union Pool
25/10 Washington, DC // Comet Ping Pong
29/10 Amsterdam, NL // Paradiso (à l’étage)
31/10 Nyon, CH // La Parenthese
02/11 Nantes, FR // SOY Music Festival
04/11 Paris, FR // Point Ephémère
06/11 London, UK // The Waiting Room
08/11 Hamburg, DE // Hafenklang
09/11 Berlin, DE // Westgermany
10/11 Kortrijk, BE // Sonic City Music Festival
20/11 Toronto, ON // The Garrison
22/11 Montreal, QC // M for Montreal Festival (Le National)
28/11 Quebec City, QC // l'Anti
04/12 San Francisco, CA // Milk Bar
07/12 Portland, OR // Bunk Bar
08/12 Vancouver, BC // Astoria
10/12 Seattle, WA // Barboza
13/12 Los Angeles, CA // Moroccan Lounge