la Mitad
Parallel Line (2019)
Mixed by Sandro Perri and Dean Nelson (Beck) the 3rd studio album focuses on the messiness inherent in everyday life with an optimistic bent on always being able to do better. At its centre sits a question: how is our sense of self strung within a multitude of people, places, experiences? The Warhol Dervish String Quartet join a list of old collaborators.
Live at La Sala Rossa (2018)
Recorded live with a specially-commissioned 7-piece chamber ensemble at Montreal’s legendary experimental venue La Sala Rossa. The 9-track album features arrangements written by Tim Crabtree during a residency at the Banff Centre for the Arts in Canada’s Rocky Mountains in the winter of 2016. The album tracks span Paper Beat Scissors’ 10-year catalogue and include 3 songs released for the first time.
All We Know EP (2017)
Centred around a core band of Crabtree (voice and guitar) JJ Ipsen (Hayden) on bass and Marshall Bureau (Great Lake Swimmers) on drums the EP is about thinking you know when you haven’t got a clue. Recorded mainly in rural Ontario with Andy Magoffin (longtime engineer for Great Lake Swimmers) and Richard Reed Parry (Arcade Fire)’s Skybarn studio it features long-time collaborators Pietro Amato (the Luyas, Bell Orchestre – French horn) and Sebastian Chow (Islands – violin), joined by new ones in the shape of the aching viola of Pemi Paull and Andy Magoffin’s alto horn contributions on Didn’t Know with Crabtree adding piano, clarinet, and baritone saxophone to round things out. The EP closer is a cover of the Weather Station’s “What am I gonna do with everything I know”.
Go On (2015)
The 2nd full length studio album focuses on starting again; putting your head down and pushing forward. The songs alternately shimmer and float, while reserving the right to occasionally punch you in the gut for good measure. Produced by Crabtree, Go On was set in motion in London, Ontario in 2013 with engineer Dean Nelson (Beck, Thurston Moore, Bat for Lashes). Fleshed out in Nova Scotia, tracks were bounced around Montreal, New York, and rural Lancashire, before the album was mixed by Graeme Campbell (Buck 65, Rich Aucoin). Long-time collaborators Gregory Burton, Michael Feuerstack and Pietro Amato (the Luyas and Bell Orchestre), as well as Clogs member and the National, Kronos Quartet collaborator Thomas Kozumplik have left their indelible mark on the music.
Paper Beat Scissors (2012)
The full-length debut album produced by Michael Feuerstack and mixed by Arcade Fire drummer Jeremy Gara introduced a wider world to the music of Paper Beat Scissors, catching the ear of the likes of “Whispering” Bob Harris at the BBC as well as Rolling Stone Magazine in Germany. The album obsesses over ends; ends as states of loss, ends as places for reflection, ends as necessary preconditions to new beginnings. Along with a cast of characters that would recur over future releases (Pietro Amato – French horn, Gregory Burton – brass arrangements, Sebastian Chow – violin) the album also features cameos from two of East Coast Canada’s best loved songwriters in Tanya Davis and Rose Cousins.
