On clear vinyl.
Recorded and produced in Toronto by Sub Pop labelmate Dan Boeckner (Wolf Parade, Handsome Furs, Operators).
Follow-up to the 2021 sophomore album, Cooler Returns, about which Pitchfork said: “Sardonic storytelling and mocking asides…an impatient, slacker-rock imagining of a folk album….some chords ring out with George Harrison glossiness while others are as shaggy and impetuous as The Clean —rarely do hi-fi and lo-fi splendors coexist so harmoniously.”
Smash cut to Kiwi Jr.’s third album, Chopper, overseen by trusted pilot Dan Boeckner (Wolf Parade, Handsome Furs) on storied Sub Pop Records. Turning nocturnal with necks mock turtle, our Local Kiwi Jr. takes neon flight off the digital cliff – like The Monkees starring in Blade Runner; like Michael Mann directs Encino Man. Ten songs with synth shimmer, zen gongs with yard strimmer. The signs along the highway read “LESS BAR, MORE NOIR AHEAD.” Ah, those late summer, Joe Strummer, Home on the Range Rover Blues.
There’s a melancholy to all forms of flight, and the view out the Chopper is as hazy as it gets: mission-oriented, both stealth and self-realized. This album is decidedly (yet almost secretly) anti-patio-sunscreen-Beach Boys bachelor cruise sing-a-long. Sure, these songs let a little light through the blinds, but they sting insomnia, corrupt mayors, Kennedy Curses, sex tapes, and deer rifles. Chopper is the bird’s eye view of the big event – a real nighttime character of oil stain, film grain, search light, night flight. It is muscular and fragile; loud yet quiet: both an observer and somehow the observed spectacle itself.
What was slack in the slacker phase, got tauter, with lacquer glaze. Slick gloss, rightened wrongs; murdered boss, promoted pawns. With Boeckner transmitting high-voltage shocks upon every reach for a familiar instrument, Kiwi Jr. expands the palette with string machine song, synthesizered oblong, and Dentyne Classic Menthol vocals from area soprano Dorothea Paas (US Girls, Badge Epoch Ensemble) like the missing piece all along. Kiwi Jr. brings the Chopper to a new space, demilitarizing the technology just like flasks, aviators, and cargo shorts. Graceful in the air above, but when the Chopper lands, there’s chaos on the ground.
01. Unspeakable Things
02. Parasite II
03. Clerical Sleep
04. Night Vision
05. The Extra Sees the Film
06. Contract Killers
07. The Sound of Music
08. Downtown Area Blues
09. Kennedy Curse
10. The Masked Singer
Recorded and produced in Toronto by Sub Pop labelmate Dan Boeckner (Wolf Parade, Handsome Furs, Operators).
Follow-up to the 2021 sophomore album, Cooler Returns, about which Pitchfork said: “Sardonic storytelling and mocking asides…an impatient, slacker-rock imagining of a folk album….some chords ring out with George Harrison glossiness while others are as shaggy and impetuous as The Clean —rarely do hi-fi and lo-fi splendors coexist so harmoniously.”
Smash cut to Kiwi Jr.’s third album, Chopper, overseen by trusted pilot Dan Boeckner (Wolf Parade, Handsome Furs) on storied Sub Pop Records. Turning nocturnal with necks mock turtle, our Local Kiwi Jr. takes neon flight off the digital cliff – like The Monkees starring in Blade Runner; like Michael Mann directs Encino Man. Ten songs with synth shimmer, zen gongs with yard strimmer. The signs along the highway read “LESS BAR, MORE NOIR AHEAD.” Ah, those late summer, Joe Strummer, Home on the Range Rover Blues.
There’s a melancholy to all forms of flight, and the view out the Chopper is as hazy as it gets: mission-oriented, both stealth and self-realized. This album is decidedly (yet almost secretly) anti-patio-sunscreen-Beach Boys bachelor cruise sing-a-long. Sure, these songs let a little light through the blinds, but they sting insomnia, corrupt mayors, Kennedy Curses, sex tapes, and deer rifles. Chopper is the bird’s eye view of the big event – a real nighttime character of oil stain, film grain, search light, night flight. It is muscular and fragile; loud yet quiet: both an observer and somehow the observed spectacle itself.
What was slack in the slacker phase, got tauter, with lacquer glaze. Slick gloss, rightened wrongs; murdered boss, promoted pawns. With Boeckner transmitting high-voltage shocks upon every reach for a familiar instrument, Kiwi Jr. expands the palette with string machine song, synthesizered oblong, and Dentyne Classic Menthol vocals from area soprano Dorothea Paas (US Girls, Badge Epoch Ensemble) like the missing piece all along. Kiwi Jr. brings the Chopper to a new space, demilitarizing the technology just like flasks, aviators, and cargo shorts. Graceful in the air above, but when the Chopper lands, there’s chaos on the ground.
01. Unspeakable Things
02. Parasite II
03. Clerical Sleep
04. Night Vision
05. The Extra Sees the Film
06. Contract Killers
07. The Sound of Music
08. Downtown Area Blues
09. Kennedy Curse
10. The Masked Singer