Rich Aucoin

Canadian musician Rich Aucoin first gained attention toward the end of the 2000s by matching his ambitious, wide-ranging pop with demanding physical challenges, such as pedaling across the country on a bicycle and completing another trek by long-distance running, each benefiting a separate charity. By the arrival of his debut full-length We're All Dying to Live in 2011, he had forged connections with fellow artists nationwide and earned notice for his gripping stage presence. Later efforts including 2014's Ephemeral and 2019's Release further cemented his standing as a distinctive pop craftsman. Entering the following decade he kept pushing boundaries, first with the 2020 psychedelic American travelog United States and then with 2022's Synthetic, an expansive four-album series centered on uncommon vintage synthesizers; the opening volume earned a Juno nomination, after which he issued Synthetic: Season 2 in 2023.

Born in Halifax, Aucoin issued his first recording, the Personal Publication EP, in 2007. He then cycled from coast to coast to benefit Childhood Cancer Canada while promoting the project. Immediately afterward he joined his older brother Paul Aucoin's Nova Scotian indie supergroup the Hylozoists on tour. The abrupt drop in activity during that run left him with an iron deficiency; once restored, he resumed solo dates, this time jogging between venues to raise funds for the Canadian Cancer Society. Throughout these travels he enlisted numerous friends and musicians from across the country to help shape his 2011 debut We're All Dying to Live, an expansive indie-pop work featuring more than 500 contributors and echoing the Flaming Lips, Daft Punk, and Arcade Fire.

His concerts evolved into elaborate displays of symphonic pop augmented by immersive sensory elements, among them the release of a massive parachute above the crowd. Ephemeral, his 2014 follow-up, matched that breadth while drawing inspiration from the children's novella The Little Prince. He kept performing, composing, and tracking material over the ensuing years, surfacing in early 2018 with the Hold EP. As the title implied, the four tracks functioned as an interim collection, all of which later surfaced on his experimental third album Release, issued in May 2019.

The first release of the new decade, 2020's United States, functioned as a sociopolitical travelogue assembled from impressions gathered during a lengthy cross-country bicycle journey two years prior. It preceded 2022's Synthetic: Season 1, the initial installment of a four-part album project created at Alberta's National Music Centre using its archive of rare historic synthesizers during Aucoin's residency there. After earning his first Juno nomination for that volume, he returned in 2023 with Synthetic - A Synth Odyssey: Season 2, again handling every instrument, among them 40 synthesizers drawn from the same Alberta holdings.