Watch the video for “Wasted On You” above and check out the Norm album artwork and tracklist below. The Toronto-based, Saskatchewan-raised musicians songs unfold like short fiction: theyre densely layered with colorful characters and a rich emotional depth. But it’s very much a noticeable part of Shauf’s sonic universe. Andy Shauf Biography Few artists are storytellers as deft and disarmingly observational as Andy Shauf. On lead single “Wasted On You,” we hear a palpable lean towards jazzy synths rather than the gentle folk and soft-rock acoustics of Shauf’s past work. While Shauf produced and plays every instrument on the album, he’s brought in Outkast, Tyler The Creator and Janelle Monáe engineer Neal Pogue to help craft the album’s slightly synthier sound. Listening through Wilds feels a little like watching the movie Boyhood its chronicling, documentarian hand heightens the tender realism of the couple’s love story. It was a story that I never really got to the heart of, Shauf explains. “But the closer you pay attention to the record, the more you’re going to realize that it’s sinister.” Wilds Andy Shauf It was an album that could have been. “The character of Norm is introduced in a really nice way,” Shauf said in a statement. But unlike the many distinct personalities of The Party and the Judy character that Shauf painted in subsequent releases, Norm looks to follow a far less linear path. Between his solo work and his side project Foxwarren, Shauf is now set to release his fifth album in under five years in the newly-announced Norm.ĭue out on February 10th, 2023, Norm will see Shauf embarking again on the character-specific narratives that he does so well. My focus in on the day-to-day, song to song – to just keep writing and to try and keep having ideas for new songs.It took a while for Andy Shauf to follow up his 2016 breakthrough album, The Party, but now that he’s gotten going, he’s become incredibly prolific in the last few years. “I think you would drive yourself crazy if you were trying to achieve different levels of fame or whatever. “My goal right now is to just try and get better each time I make an album or write a song,” he says. opening for the Lumineers) and appreciates when his audiences connect with his music.īut while he’s proud of his latest album, Shauf is clear he won’t let success distract him from what matters most: writing and recording. Shauf’s desire for solitude ends onstage, however: he tours with a band (they’re currently in the U.K. “It’s just easier for me to work by myself and to come to a conclusion that’s mine,” he says of his solitary creative process. “Those sessions didn’t go very well,” he says simply, explaining his decision to start again – alone – at Studio One in Regina, the city he currently calls home.Īs with his 2012 LP The Bearer of Bad News(created in his parents’ basement over a four-year period) and his 2009 EP Darker Days, Shauf plays all the instruments, with the addition of strings played by Colin Nealis. That’s the reason he scrapped the first iteration of The Party, which he started recording with a band in Germany in 2014. Shauf is also the first to admit that he’s controlling when it comes to making music. “I think they’re all awkward, because they’re filtered through my personal awkwardness,” says Shauf, who admits he’s shy. While he is hesitant to call it a concept album, Shauf, who “prefers writing in stories” more than in “personal narratives,” says each song is centered around a party and focuses on mundane moments and an awkward cast of characters – from a girl who dances alone and un-selfconsciously in the middle of the room, to a guy who steps out for a smoke but can’t find his lighter. “My focus in on the day-to-day, song to song – to just keep writing.” In 2015, he signed with Arts and Crafts in Canada and Anti- in the U.S, and is gearing up to launch his latest full-length album, The Party, in May. Now nearly 29, Shauf is making a name for himself thanks to his quirky, imaginative approach to songwriting and a distinctive voice that has drawn comparisons to Elliot Smith and Paul Simon. I would get in the car and go and play for months.” Upon graduation, Shauf worked odd jobs, but only to support his life on the road. While he’s relieved the album no longer exists (“it’s still pretty embarrassing”), the impulse to make and share his music had taken hold. “I realized, ‘why play other people’s songs when you can play your own’?” Not long after, unable to land a job in the summer before his graduating year, Shauf, who grew up as part of a musical family in rural Saskatchewan, decided he would “stay home and make a record,” eventually selling it to his peers for pocket money. Andy Shauf was in high school when he first discovered songwriting.
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