Having long enticed audiences with their eclectic rock and folk in Canada and America, The Barr Brothers have spread right across from the U.S.A. to the U.K dominating as they go. Returning from a 2 year hiatus and ready to cross the ocean with an Americana rock style new track, The Barr Brothers have set their sights on beguiling Australia with their debut new single ‘It Came To Me’, and new album Queen Of The Breakers due out October 13th, 2017.
The driving, ecstatic ‘It Came to Me’ begins with a squall of guitar and a rush of drums, quickly formed into a mean, bluesy riff textured with classical acoustic harp. Brad Barr’s voice distorts to a rasp, telling the tale of a Zen-like quest for answers to the questions of the universe.
“Since we were kids, Brad and I would sit down at our instruments and, without speaking, launch into playing loud rock and roll at high volume. It was probably in part to drown out the confusing noise of youth and being told what to do all the time, and in part it was a way of communicating with each other in a language that was probably more expressive and fun than our normal middle school banter – it also prevented a lot of fighting over the remote control. All to say, when we went to St. Zenon (In Quebec, to demo songs for the new album) late one night, we sat down together and started playing this one. It came easily and cheerfully, and when Brad started singing “It Came to Me”, I laughed at this almost “snake chasing its tale moment”, a song lyric aware of itself – and so this one came like that, when we sat down with no agenda and tapped into one of our oldest sorts of dialogue,” says Andrew Barr.
The new album arrives after the longest-ever pause in Brad and Andrew Barr’s 20-year career in music. Both became fathers since 2014’s Sleeping Operator was released. In that time, Sarah Page also found ways to completely redefine the harp, its sound, and its role in modern music. ‘Queens of the Breakers’ was born out of reflection of what home and family mean now, after the effects of life on the road.
The Barr Brothers released their debut album, recorded in a boiler room in Montreal, in 2011. Since then they’ve performed on The Late Show twice, several NPR programs, CBC ‘q’, CBS This Morning Saturday, Canada AM, France Inter “Le Nouveau Rendez-Vous”, KCRW Morning Becomes Eclectic and more. They’ve shared stages with The National, The War On Drugs, Patrick Watson, My Morning Jacket, Emmylou Harris and countless others. They headlined the Montreal Jazz Festival in front of 40,000 people and have sold out venues across the world. 2014’s Sleeping Operator was a breakthrough record, with spins on over 50 Triple A radio stations in the US. It was playlisted with all 3 singles and the band did 6 sessions across every BBC Radio stations in the UK. Sleeping Operator is now over 60 million combined streams.
‘Queens of the Breakers’ was engineered by Ryan Freeland (Milk Carton Kids, Ray LaMontagne, Bonnie Raitt) and Marcus Paquin (Arcade Fire, The National). It was recorded in Montreal and St. Zenon, Quebec.
