Last September Southern Shores was but a twinkle in the eyes of Ben Dalton and Jamie Townsend. After a whirlwind year of making daydreamy, nostalgia-soaked electro tunes in Berlin and then releasing their debut EP Atlantic on US experimental pop label Cascine, the pair are gearing up for their next move. Answering to their practical sides, and the desire to tour, they'll uproot and set up shop in Toronto later this fall.
Dalton calls the move a bit of a "double-edged sword," considering Southern Shores just spent the summer honing their live show, with accompaniment from Dalton's brother Seamus on drums and pal Paul Conrod on guitar, who will be staying put in Halifax.
"Jamie and I are going to have to learn how to do it all again from scratch, just the two of us. We're going to have to re-envision how to make it exciting," says Dalton. The band will soldier forward as a foursome until the move, playing a handful of shows this fall including Halifax Pop Explosion and Friday's wholly danceable CKDU Funding Drive kick-off show with Writers' Strike and A.A. Wallace.
"It's a weird type of music to present live. In a way it just doesn't exist in a physical space in the same sense as anything recorded using real drums, real guitar. You have to really embrace the illusion of it, while somehow putting life into it."
Still coming down from the July release of Atlantic, and a glowing Pitchfork review, Dalton says they've gone back and reproduced many of their early Berlin-made tracks to bring them "up to par," and look forward to a winter of making more music. "It's like every time you taste some recognition, all it does is inspire you to try harder."
CKDU Funding Drive kick-off w/Southern Shores, Writers' Strike, A.A. Wallace, Friday, September 16, 10pm, Gus' Pub, 2605 Agricola Street, $5
