Fake Palms premiere ‘YTMATLDPH’ video

Fake Palms are a Toronto-based band signed to Buzz Records. First conceived as a collection of bedroom demos recorded with a broken drum machine by Michael le Riche in 2011, the project coalesced into a band in early 2015 when le Riche recruited several longtime contributors to Toronto’s music scene, including members of Hooded Fang and Slim Twig’s backing band.

Fake Palm’s most recent single, YTMATLDPH, leans to the heavier side of the band’s output, allowing their rhythm section to stretch its limbs even as le Riche’s delicate falsetto drifts above the fray. le Riche says that the song was a conscious effort to split the difference between Brian Wilson and the Stooges, an idea that first occurred to him in a dream. They have released the video for YTMATLDPH, which is lifted from their self-titled debut LP. Watch it via YouTube below.

The video was directed and hand-animated by Maria Bui and David Missio, with the characters drawn frame by frame and the backgrounds made of paper stop-motion, shot on an iPhone 6 under a makeshift rig made of old VHS tapes and panes of glass.

Fake Palm’s self-titled debut LP is available now worldwide via Buzz Records.

Track list:
1. Fever Dreams
2. Sparkles
3. Melatonin
4. Estates
5. Interlude
6. YTMATLDPH
7. Nerves
8. Half Light
9. Sun Drips

In keeping with Fake Palms’ stripped back bedroom origins, the group value simplicity and directness. For le Riche this approach is almost an idealogical dictate, “our intention is to do the most we can with the limitations we put on ourselves,” he says, “no backing tracks, no samples etc. We want to make music that is an honest representation of the four of us in a room at that time.” The band’s first single, Sun Drips, released in the early spring of 2015, showcased what Stereogum called “the band’s expert infusion of post-punk textures with pop sensibilities,” and married a hard-driving rhythm section and an interest in sonic experimentation to le Ritche’s well-crafted songs, drawing comparisons to Echo & The Bunnymen, This Heat and Fake Palm’s fellow Canadians Viet Cong.

Check them out live at a few upcoming dates – see below.

Tour dates:
9/10 Toronto, ON @ Silver Dollar
9/11 Chicago, IL @ Subterranean
9/12 London, ON @ Call The Office

For more information on Buzz Records, visit buzzrecords.ca.