Sargeant X Comrade look to a lo-fi future with third album

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When Sargeant X Comrade had been internet hosting cabarets at Arts Commons in 2022, the soul and hip-hop duo borrowed a tune from their upcoming third album to be the theme tune for a high-concept “discuss present.”

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It was a part of Arts Commons’ TD Incubator, a growth program for rising artists that emphasizes those who mix creative varieties of their work. Vocalist Yolanda Sargeant and producer Evgeniy Bykovets had been named fellows of program, which had them working with 22 artists for the 2022/2023 season and overseeing 4 cabarets. Additionally they borrowed the title of the album, Lo Fi Future, for the discuss present, which was described as “Johny Carson in Outer House.” Sargeant X Comrade would open every cabaret by performing the sultry,  strings-sweetened soul-pop quantity Travelin’ in House — one in all many standout tracks on Lo Fi Future — which might even be carried out once more on the finish of every cabaret by the collaborating artists who shaped the home band that evening.

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“We wished to foster connections between the rising artists in the neighborhood with the residency we had been doing,” says Sargeant. “For the album, we simply hope to encourage an entire new era of artists. Every thing is full circle and also you simply put it on the market and also you don’t know what the impact one some is who’s taking in that info.”

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All of it appears to suit properly into what has more and more turn into the Calgary duo’s modus operandi over the previous few years. Sargeant X Comrade’s roles as musicians, mentors, record-label house owners and common community-builders in Calgary’s hip-hop and underground music scene are likely to overlap. In reality, organizers of the TD Incubator program from Arts Commons came visiting the duo on the Nationwide Music Centre after they had been within the midst of a five-day residency again in April of 2022 that produced Lo Fi Future, which comes out Aug. 4 with an album launch present at Fashionable Love in Calgary. They had been impressed with what the noticed and Sargeant and Bykovets had been appointed fellows the 2022-2023 season. The duo determined the cabarets, whereas giving collaborating artists an opportunity to shine individually, could be organized below the unifying banner of Lo Fi Future, a free theme about utilizing instruments of the previous to forge a brand new future.

The idea truly started as a sonic yet one more than the rest. Since first arriving on the scene in 2014, the duo has been identified for mixing Sargeant’s powerhouse vocals with Bykovets modern manufacturing. That always concerned the latter scouring previous information for distinctive samples and beats. However when Sargeant X Comrade scored the residency on the Nationwide Music Centre, they knew they’d have entry to a gold mine of classic synths and amplifiers and different goodies held within the facility’s everlasting assortment.

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“We went in there with an concept to do that idea album,” Bykovets says. “It’s utilizing all of the retro devices to create the sound of the longer term with old-school classic know-how.”

Whereas the album nonetheless has some samples and benefited from additional manufacturing performed at Bykovets’ Calgary Kingsland studio, a lot of it was created at NMC with a band that included guitarist/bassist Marvin Kee, keyboardist/horn participant Ravi Poliah and percussionist Luis Tovar with soulful backup vocals often offered by Calgary’s Torchettes. What’s really miraculous in regards to the ensuing songs, significantly given the time restrictions, is that they typically got here collectively in bursts of improvisation.

“We simply banged out tracks,” says Sargeant. “We ended up with 15 tracks after that week, it was simply go, go, go. It was cool as a result of sure devices had been devices that a few of us have all the time wished to the touch that we had been capable of truly play. There was some concept of what we wished to do they usually simply got here to life when the devices had been touched.”

Not in contrast to Sargeant X Comrade’s earlier albums — 2020’s Magic Radio and 2021’s The Elephant within the Room — the sounds someway click on along with vitality and craft and preserve a way of unpredictability even when the vibes are mellow. On When the Stars Align, Sargeant’s spoken-word verses flip into soulful melodies beneath advanced rhythms and Poliah’s jazzy piano riffs earlier than opening to rhymes by native rapper Ok-Riz.

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The brand new-agey Pyramid Code options haunting cello performed by Jenny Crane, who was among the many artists Sargeant X Comrade labored with at Arts Commons, ghostly vocals and a clean rap by Toronto hip-hop artist Odario.  With its trippy sci-fi lyrics, Escape the Matrix (Half 1) and Escape the Matrix (Half 2) each function Juno-winning hip-hop artist Prevail taking part in off of Sargeant, who appears like she is singing an old-school James Bond theme.

“We got here into it extra fluid,” Bykovets says. “We had been probably not making ready for something, it was simply extra like free-style and going with the stream. I believe that took the stress off. So long as you don’t put that stress on your self, I believe you will get much more artistic.”

In 2021, Sargeant X Comrade launched Mo Gravy Information to place out each their very own music and like-minded artists. To this point, the label has launched 4 albums together with Ok-Riz’s Peace & Love. Bykovets hopes to spice up the output from the label. Upcoming tasks embrace unreleased materials from Marvin Kee. Kee was a long-time collaborator with Sargeant X Comrade — he will get a co-write credit score on eight of the 12 songs on Lo Fi Future — and staple of their dwell exhibits. He died in March of 2023 simply days after performing with the act at JUNOfest in Edmonton.

“That actually took the wind out of our sails,” says Bykovets. “He was an enormous a part of your entire course of. It wasn’t simply the dwell (present), it was the creation course of as properly. He was a part of the whole lot.

“It nonetheless impacts us,” Sargeant provides. “It was past the music, he was our shut pal. He was like a brother to us. He was household.”

Sargeant X Comrade will maintain an album launch at Fashionable Love on Aug. 4 with Bobby Henderson, Misplaced Decade & DJ Catfishwizard

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