Second time’s the charm for local musicians on Polaris long list

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This article was published 15/06/2024 (826 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Twice is nice for KEN Mode and Super Duty Tough Work, two Winnipeg bands who are in the national spotlight for reaching the Polaris Music Prize long list for the second time.

The bands are among 40 Canadian artists in the running for the prestigious prize, which comes along with a $50,000 purse from the Slaight Family Foundation.

The Free Press reached out to both groups Wednesday, one day after their latest albums – KEN Mode’s Void and Super Duty’s Paradigm Shift — were announced as nominees for the award at a press event in Toronto.

“It feels good,” Super Duty’s MC Brendan Grey says. “I can only speak for myself, but a lot of blood, sweat and tears went into this record specifically and into this project generally, so I’m glad it’s something that resonated with (Polaris) jurors.”

The nomination for the record, a companion piece to 2020’s Null, came as a surprise to KEN Mode’s Jesse Matthewson, who was nonetheless glad to have the hardcore band’s latest make the cut.

“It’s been strange to see the Canadian music industry celebrate the second thought (Void), while the U.S. industry celebrated the first (Null),” he says. “Null had some of the best reviews of our career, so it was surprising to us that we got a Juno and Polaris Prize nod for Void instead of Null.”

Also contributing to the pleasant surprise was the 11-year gap between this Polaris nomination and the band’s 2013 nod for Entrench.

“It must mean we are doing something right in the eyes of the music media in Canada to have this kind of longevity, I guess?”

For Super Duty Tough Work, the gap between Polaris recognition is much shorter: the band’s debut record, Studies in Grey, an EP, made the long list in 2020. Like Matthewson, Grey — who performs in Super Duty with a rotating cast of jazz-leaning musicians, including Marisolle Negash, Kevin Waters, Ashley Au, Olivier Macharia and Gaby Ocejo — found some solace in the recognition.

“As an artist, you know, you don’t create with the goal of winning awards and all that — at least I don’t — but you can’t deny the fact that these things are able to impact your trajectory and reach,” Grey says.

“As a group that’s kind of been in the shadows, isn’t doing huge numbers on streaming, doesn’t have 100,000-plus followers, that really is not mainstream in any way, it is nice to know that ultimately, people whose job it is to consume and think about music and art appreciate what we bring to the table enough to recognize it in this arena.”

For both groups, the records being recognized were driven by self-exploration and an attempt to make sense of their place in the world.

“The whole Null/Void project was written and recorded in 2021 as a direct reaction to the previous two years of the pandemic and phasing into ‘regular’ society opening back up again. The whole arc covers managing one’s mental health through the mess that we’d all created,” says Matthewson.

Because both bands operate within genres often overlooked by popular radio — noise rock and political, jazzy hip-hop — the nomination serves as a potential avenue for discovery by fans across the country.

“I appreciate that, because I think to a large degree, we’re outsiders,” says Grey of his group, which released a full instrumental version of Paradigm Shift on June 7, featuring a B-side, Watershedding, and two re-released tracks from the Studies in Grey era.

“Not being based in Toronto has definitely made it harder to cultivate and maintain the relationships and support from industry (and artists) that kind of comes easier with just being on the scene and being in that city. So I hope that means the music, the art, the ideas, the analysis, and the presentation resonated with folks across the country, and that they can relate to what’s being said and being presented.”

The long list will be narrowed down to a short list of 10 on July 11, with the eventual winner announced on Sept. 17 at Toronto’s Massey Hall.

Ben Waldman is a Polaris Music Prize juror.

ben.waldman@winnipegfreepress.com