Toronto-based singer-songwriter and author Eamon McGrath has premiered his brand new single “Power”. The moody, offbeat track features a guest appearance from Peter Dreimanis of July Talk on background vocals and piano, and is off of McGrath’s upcoming and 6th studio album Tantramar due June 2 via Saved By Vinyl. Listen to “Power” HERE. McGrath has announced a string of tour dates across Canada and in Europe this Spring where he will be playing material from the upcoming record backed by a full band.
2017 was a busy and noisy year for Eamon McGrath who released his critically acclaimed fictionalized memoir “Berlin-Warszawa Express” followed by a sixty-date tour of Mexico, Canada and Europe. The release of the debut LP from Julie & The Wrong Guys (Dine Alone Records) for which McGrath is guitarist, saw more van wheels turn against Canada’s long highways. In between those two releases and the constant touring that followed, McGrath was also selected as the Sappyfest 2017 Songwriter In Residence. SappyFest is an independent music and arts festival produced annually in Sackville, New Brunswick and co-founded by Julie Doiron. The three-week writing and recording retreat that took place in the condemned and abandoned George’s Roadhouse resulted in Tantramar.
McGrath had this to say about the inspiration for the new record: “The concept of the record was to inject myself into the community of Sackville with the aim of using its spaces and the people that inhabit them as both a figurative and literal instrument. I imagined the town being this squeezebox or accordion that billowed as I worked away in solitude at George’s. This is the most focused and ambitious record I’ve done since Young Canadians. I was at the mercy of the peace and quiet of the Tantramar marsh, and to cope, I made as loud and obnoxious a racket as I could.”
Not only do the literal sounds of Sackville make their way onto the recordings—the family of raccoons that lives under the ruins of George’s Roadhouse scurrying beneath the floor, the sound of the train as its whistles blow through town, and the sound of a late-night guerrilla recording session within the long-abandoned and condemned Sackville Music Hall—but McGrath also enlisted help from some of his ongoing collaborators including Leah Fay and Peter Dreimanis from July Talk, Jose Contreras from By Divine Right, and Jaye R. Schwarzer from Cancer Bats and Julie & The Wrong Guys.
As for McGrath’s new label home, Saved By Vinyl formed at CJSW 90.9 FM (the University of Calgary’s campus and community radio station) by two friends who found much success in their 10 years as a label, but after 70 releases, the label went on hiatus.
That is until co-founder Dawn Loucks met Eamon McGrath. She had this to say about their fateful partnership: “Through a series of seemingly random, yet fortuitous events, Eamon’s and my paths crossed. The man isn’t yet 30, has toured Europe 20 times, has written over 300 songs, published a book, and was looking for a record deal in Canada. As he said – ‘I know the label is done, but could I send you some demos?’ And so Saved by Vinyl was resurrected.”
NEW ALBUM TANTRAMAR OUT JUNE 2
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