Royal Canoe

Delivering percussive, melody-rich indie pop through extensive multi-instrumentalism and densely layered arrangements, the Winnipeg sextet Royal Canoe first reached national audiences in 2013 with their Juno-nominated second album Today We're Believers. They next supplied a distinctive reading of Beck’s sheet-music-only Song Reader collection, then sustained their exploratory approach on the 2016 album Something Got Lost Between Here and the Orbit, produced by Ben Allen, and the more spontaneous 2021 release Sidelining.

The group assembled in 2010 from the remains of several established Winnipeg bands, centering on the material of frontman Matt Peters while citing early influences that included OutKast, Beck, and the Knife. Alongside guitarist Bucky Driedger, keyboardist Matt Schellenberg, bassist Brendan Berg, and dueling drummers Derek Allard and Michael Jordan, the collective tracked its debut, Co-Op Mode, for Canadian indie Head in the Sand Records. A cross-country tour soon highlighted Royal Canoe’s animated stage energy and intricate, hook-driven sound, after which the Extended Play EP appeared in 2012.

Today We're Believers, released in 2013, placed the band at number 19 on the Canadian National Alternative chart and secured a Juno Award nomination. Festival slots and extensive tours with Alt-J, Bombay Bicycle Club, and Of Montreal followed. In 2014 the members undertook an uncommon project by recording their own interpretation of Beck’s 2012 sheet-music-only collection Song Reader. Co-producer Ben Allen, previously associated with Animal Collective and Gnarls Barkley, joined for the third album, helping enlarge the group’s genre-blending palette on Something Got Lost Between Here and the Orbit in 2016. Three years later they issued the leaner, lyric-centered full-length Waver. After the five-song live EP Glacial in 2020, Royal Canoe recorded Sidelining entirely in the studio during 2021, generating a spontaneous set of new original material.