Your cart is currently empty!
Show Review: Fog Lake & Foxes in Fiction & Sugar World (Soda Bar, 1/24/20)
Aaron Powell of Fog Lake has crafted a large sum of soft and exposed “downer-pop” recordings over the years since his conception of the project in 2012. Prior to the beginnings of Fog Lake, Powell had experimented with drone music in his high school years which eventually transitioned into the more pop-driven, lo-fi reverberations heard in the early Fog Lake releases. In recent years, he’s moved to Montreal from his rural hometown of Glovertown (population 2,000) and began writing, recording, and playing with a full band. This in turn has motivated him to take Fog Lake on the road, turning the once bedroom-centric project into an active band, essentially playing shows for the first time after many years of a primarily internet residence.
“California” music video by Tyler Williams of Cult Pictures.
We caught Fog Lake with tour partners Foxes in Fiction at the tail-end of their very first US west coast tour at San Diego’s Soda Bar. Opening for the traveling bands were jangly bedroom-pop duo Sugar World. The new project was formed last year by San Diego locals Katryn Macko and Ryan Stanley. They have since released two singles (“Sad in Heaven” & “We Fell in Love”) and have more to come this year.
Foxes in Fiction is the ambient dream-pop project of Orchid Tapes founder Warren Hildebrand. The Toronto-based artist now resides in New York City running his label, mixing/mastering music for artists, and making his own music; doing it all almost entirely out of his own apartment. His set consisted of a complimentary combination of layered dream-pop and mind-absorbing vocal tones, with each song seamlessly blurring into the next.
Fog Lake’s music is full of emotion and when physically enveloped by it, there’s a level of sincere sentimentality that is hard to ignore. Aaron Powell and his backing band played a set of songs that reached all across the timeline of Fog Lake’s discography. Most of the selections were from more recent album releases Captain (2018) and Dragonchaser (2017), but they did take a dip into 2014’s Virgo Indigo with “It Was Never Enough.” Throughout the wistful set, a projection pairing with The Blair Witch Project shined across the band and stage, creating sort of a raw, fleeting visage over the textured surface. Overall, Powell succeeded in creating an unrepeated moment with his music and was able to seamlessly share that experience with the audience. See a few songs from Fog Lake’s set below and check out more clips from the show on the Radiotrails youtube channel.
Leave a Reply