Guelph
Nathan Lawr came up during the Toronto indie rock heyday that spawned bands like Broken Social Scene and Feist, drumming for seminal Three Gut Records’ bands Royal City and Sea Snakes. In 2000, he started writing his own tenderly clever folk songs, releasing a series of critically-lauded solo albums. In 2010, he started Minotaurs and spent the next 10 years writing, recording, and performing with an 8-, sometime 9- or 10-piece psychedelic funk band. During those years, he cut his teeth as a producer and band leader. Now, after spending almost a decade as a stay-at-home Dad, Lawr has come into his own, finding his voice as a pop singer and releasing his most powerful collection of songs to date.
Recorded over the course of 6 years in various studios in Guelph and Toronto, including Lawr’s own Guelph-based studio housed in the rectory of a former Jesuit Chapel, Apocalypse Marshmallow is a meticulously-crafted, dynamic powerhouse of an album. Veering from Steve Miller/Sloan-esque classic rock (on the title track), to 80’s glam pop (in Terminal Love), to half-time Dire Straits (in Shakey Hands), to triumphant country ballads (in Wandering Eyes). Echoes of Fleet Foxes, The War On Drugs, Tom Petty, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen,
Apocalypse Marshmallow marks a real progression for Lawr. The song included here would not be out of place on a list of some of the best Canadian songs of the last 30 years.
Apocalypse Marshmallow is a celebration of the rough edges and chaos of friendship, family, being a part of a fabric. It’s messy and uncertain but it’s beautiful. “The process of becoming a parent was intense,” Lawr says. “No one ever tells you that you basically wake up a completely different person. Your old life is gone, like totally gone, and you need to mourn it. That can be a messy process. It’s an apocalypse, but it’s also cozy and soft and sweet, like a marshmallow.”
Nathan Lawr’s tracks
published on
published on
published on
published on
published on
published on
published on