Something to report

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This article was published 01/05/2024 (555 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Chell Osuntade recently bought a flight case for his guitar; he’s definitely going to need it.

It’s going to be a busy spring for Osuntade and the Winnipeg post-punk quartet Fold Paper. The band will be travelling next week to the United Kingdom for a two-week tour, playing gigs at the Great Escape Festival in Brighton, the Focus Wales festival in Wrexham and the Get Together Fest in Sheffield, along with sets in Glasgow and in London for a showcase organized by the Canadian Independent Music Association.

Even before it played its first local gig in 2022, Fold Paper had already garnered considerable buzz, with Osuntade joined by drummer Rob Gardiner (Figure Walking), guitarist Brendyn Funk (Amos the Kid) and guitarist Alex Kohut (who now runs the microgreen wholesaler Cal’s Crops).

Now, as the band readies for its busiest stretch ever, Fold Paper has announced it’s signing with Toronto’s Royal Mountain Records, celebrating the news with the release of Nothing to Report, the lead single off the upcoming four-track EP 4TO, pronounced “quarto.”

The EP will be released on July 12 through Royal Mountain, whose lineup includes Winnipeg-Montreal act JayWood, slack-rock king Mac Demarco and Toronto electropop mainstays U.S. Girls.

The single was recorded at No Fun Club by Greg Norman of Chicago’s Electrical Audio, who was in town to run a tape-recording seminar.

“They needed a guinea pig band to work with, so No Fun asked us to do it,” says Osuntade.

In a 30-year engineering career, Norman has worked with dozens of artists including the Breeders, as well as that band’s Kim Deal, Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Guided by Voices.

Along with the single, the band is also releasing a music video shot by Buio Assis of BNB Studios. Osuntade calls the video “a reckoning with the notion of people not supporting you or believing in what you’re doing, but still, your name lives on their tongue … It’s this weird, paradoxical feeling of being talked about but also overlooked.”

The EP’s title, 4TO, refers to a method of book printing and folding, where one sheet of paper is divided into four equal parts and folded twice in order to make four pages, Osuntade says.

Before heading out on tour, Fold Paper plays a hometown show on Friday at the Handsome Daughter joined by Beth and Calgary’s Sunglaciers. The Fold Paper lineup for that show, and the forthcoming tour, includes Osuntade, Gardiner, Funk and Mitchell Trainor of the band Blessed.

ben.waldman@winnipegfreepress.com