With 2021 unfortunately tainted by a revolving door of lockdowns and increased restrictions, many bands and artists had their plans disrupted. This included the inability to play the shows they had planned for or get into studios to record new music. We spoke with some bands about their plans for 2022 and shared what we can look forward to seeing this year.
With live shows having already been cancelled, we see many bands taking the lifting of restrictions with a grain of salt.
Everybody is excited to return to playing in-person and it seems like everybody has their eyes locked on the summer with its promising return of live outdoor music, something that often gets affected less by new lockdown measures.
We spoke with Keean Davies about what he and the rest of the band had been up last year and what we can expect to see this year.
“We have a lot of new songs we’ve been working on, through doing our own stuff individually and the few times we’ve been able to get together, obviously when the pandemic allowed and we’ve whittled it down to four songs, and we’re going to be releasing another EP,” said Davies.
While there is the promise of the new EP, he said he could not give us a release date but promised a new single in February to hold us over.
“The last project we wasted a lot of money, pretty much all of our band funds along with our individual stuff,” he continued. “Just to go to Montreal and record in a studio. The guys at Freq Shop in Montreal were phenomenal to us and they let us use their space for longer than we paid for. But it’s really nice to be able to do this on our own.”
While saying he would never trade the experience of the previous EP for the world, Davies feels that working on this new EP on their own means that we will be able to hear No Hits exactly how they want to be heard.
“We’re doing this for a reason, and it’s because we love it. If you love what you’re doing there is no way it can be hard work, and that’s just the way I see it,” said Davies.
“Last year I spent a lot of time working on learning production a lot better, getting really technical with my knowledge,” said Niceotope.
Having spent a lot of time in high school singing in choirs and playing in bands, he felt that his knowledge of music was paticularly good, and he wanted to bring his production knowledge up to the same level.
“It has been such a complicated and challenging thing, but a lot of fun to get in there and learn how to do it,” he continued.
Because of this not a lot was released from Niceotope in 2021. He spent a lot of time focusing on learning and practicing that releasing songs wasn’t the priority.
“I went into 2022 with a goal of minimum releasing a new song every four weeks,” he finished.
On the road to achieving his goal, he has a release set for February with a label in Montreal and another having just been signed with a label in Las Vegas.
“2022 is just consistency, minimum 15 songs in 2022,” he said.
“Straight out of the gate, Das & Hip 2 is dropping right in the beginning of February,” said Dashype.
Das & Hip is a collaborative project between Dashype and Newagehip. Their first one came out in 2020 with the second coming February 4th.
“It’s a project where we get into the studio and just have fun.,” he said “We try to make the silliest beats we can make, and we jut rap nonsense to make each other laugh. The second one brings that to the forefront bringing out our inner children.”
With an interest in all types of music he plans on doing releases outside of Dashype. A new producer tag The Dolphin Threat where he plans on releasing more sample based house music.
In terms of Dashype music, he has a second mixtape, so far unnamed, that is planned to release in March and is comprised of entirely solo tracks.
“I don’t have a lot of solo music out even though I have been writing and producing solo music for almost 6 years now,” he said.
While he is known for his collaborative releases Dashype hope to release more solo work this year. Throughout the years he has amassed a collection of solo songs he wants to release before they “no longer represent” who he is.
“A couple projects, a few music videos and branching into other genres,” he finished.
Originally HBSN had told us his plan was to take a break from music this year. He was going to release a few songs he’d already been working on and then take some time off.
“The reason I wanted to take a break was because I felt like I was forcing my ideas, I didn’t really feel it, I wasn’t feeling what I was making. On the off chance I just started making something and I loved it,” said HBSN.
He wants to focus on finishing the three songs he is currently working on and then make music when he is inspired, rather than trying to rush the process
“Last year was the first year I actually started putting stuff out, before that I didn’t think it was worth putting out… it just ended up getting stuck on my computer,” he said.
While completing the Music Industry Arts program at Algonquin College, he saw his classmates putting out music of their own and felt inspired to do the same.
“Positive feedback was awesome, and it just felt great, so I thought I would keep doing it,” he continued “It’s a very cool feeling creating something that people listen to, it’s awesome.”
“We’ve got a full-length album that’s done, I do the recording and the production for us,” said Sandy Vance. “I’ve been working on the mixes and the production of that for a while. Because the pandemic has affected the flow of being able to work together, we haven’t been able to work in our usual way of getting it all done in one lump and then I spend the time I need mixing it and then we release it.”
With the changing restrictions, Teenage Fiction spoke about how recording was unpredictable. They had to record certain parts in groups so that they could get the most out of the time they had in the studio while also following restriction and lockdown rules.
“About half of them are songs we wrote before 2019 and the other half are what you could probably call COVID tunes,” he joked.
Having now spent a lot of time on mixing, and ultimately, in the final stages of recording, he gave himself the rest of the week to finish the mixes before sending it off to get mastered. The hope is to release singles in the next few months.
“I have a couple of other projects going on in my brain, and Sierra and I have another full-length album where the songs are there, we just work on them and record them,” he said.