New Fries – Press Assets

New Fries was formed by Tim Fagan, Jenny Gitman, and Anni Spadafora in Summer 2012 and was later joined by Ryan Carley in Fall 2014. A mix of seasoned musicians, visual and performance artists, the band was built from a spirit of discovery, not concerned with creating a particular sound or relying on a formal musicianship. The alchemy of its members’ experiences is best felt at a live show from the band’s performative dynamics and simple but insistent sound.

New Fries work to blur the lines of what constitutes as ‘band’, ‘visual art’, and ‘performance art’. While in residence at Video Fag, an artist-run/performance gallery space in Toronto, the band recorded music, built an installation (a fake teenager basement for other “non-players” to make music in), and designed a text-based vinyl window display inspired by David Fair’s “I Taught Myself How to Play Guitar”.

The band has released an EP ‘They/I’ (self-released), a cassette ‘Fresh Face Forward’ (Pleasence Records), and a 7″ record ‘JUICE’, split with Halifax-based Old and Weird (Pleasence Records). The ‘Fresh Face Forward’ cassette was later re-issued as a LP on One Big Silence Records in early 2016.

Their newest release, 10” ‘MORE’ (Telephone Explosion Records), due November 2016, is the band’s most dynamic release to date. Working with engineer Graham Walsh (of Holy Fuck), the album mixes the urgencies or ‘quickness’ of their early songwriting with a more intentional consideration of format (the “impossible” to market/sell 10”) and evolved instrumentation, widening the use of electronics. The result is an artifact that best contains the intensity of their live show.

They play shows regularly across Ontario and have toured the East Coast of Canada many times. They have shared the stage with The Pop Group, Chain & the Gang, Waxahatchee, Holy Fuck, Parquet Courts, and Fucked Up. Uniquely, they performed at a variety of Toronto-based art venues including Art Gallery of Ontario, Mercer Union, and XPACE Cultural Centre.

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