Hollowlove are an atmospheric electro-pop duo from Canada, comprised of Keith Gillard and Ryan Slemko (Fidgital). They’re releasing a new single quarterly, with all their material using entirely original, analog or acoustic sounds.
On the band’s background, Keith says: “Ryan and I first met when he crashed a party at my place. He’d recently started working at a video game company with my roommate and was familiar with my music. A few months later, he asked me to produce some material for his band at the time, and after that project dissolved, we started writing together. We’ve been working together ever since, and it’s no exaggeration to say we’re best friends.”
Trigger warning: “Serpentine” is a diss song, inspired, or perhaps better – provoked – by the words and actions of a certain 45th President of the United States and the despicable enablers who surround him. Sorry not sorry to any conservative snowflakes who can’t bear the idea of diverse opinions. The song began life as a completely different piece, of which only the groove and the bassline survive. Once Ryan came up with the initial dinosaur-focused lyrics and melody, the whole song quickly came into focus.
“Serpentine” is definitely different than the other songs Hollowlove has released so far. This one is clearly making a point and deals with anger, something we haven’t touched on in our songs before.
As usual, Keith has produced the song without the use of samples, working entirely in hardware with analog synthesizers or acoustic percussion sources. The piece is built around a slightly swung sequence of filtered white noise, an arpeggio on the Prophet 5, and a bassline from the Minimoog Model D, with the Arp 2600 providing dinosaur howls and laughter.
The cover features a new original painting by Ryan, this time focused on caricature, influenced by the political puppets of Spitting Image, rather than the beautiful anatomical studies of previous Hollowlove singles. The artwork is so strong that the music video has been built around it and its creation, ending with a call to action: VOTE OUT STUPIDITY.
Hollowlove’s next new song will be out in November, following the US midterm elections. Two very different songs are ready to go: One celebratory and the other despairing. Let’s see how we feel come November!
LInks
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https://open.spotify.com/artist/6yP391zvvWkwjlUnBqkt2N?si=NaAP9w41RHa_FWI1w-gihg
