Ian Blurton’s Future Now played their first show this past New Year’s Eve at Bovine Sex Club in their native Toronto. The project is spearheaded by its eponymous figure, whose career in bands and production goes back decades to his work in Change of Heart, who released their debut album in 1986. Along the way, Blurton has helmed outings for Blood Ceremony, Electric Magma, Cursed, The Weakerthans and a wide swath of others in just as wide a swath of genres, and as one might imagine, his new project benefits from an array of influences. Joined by guitarist Aaron Goldstein, bassist Anna Ruddick and drummer Glenn Milchem, Blurton elicits a vibe in the band’s first single, “Space is Forever,” that brings to mind the sharp-hewn indie quirk of Pinback while tapping into a classic heavy strut with its rhythm and a timeless melody that speaks to hours spent in sunshine and gives its progressive edge an accessible complement.

It does not feel happenstance, which is to say there’s more to come. Blurton will release a solo album in May titled Signals Through the Flames, and the band seems to be so formative that I’m not even sure if “Space is Forever” has anyone else playing on it, but the clearheadedness of its aesthetic moves — the way it drifts smoothly into echoes as it fades — tell the tale of more to come either way. I’ll go one step further and note that New Year’s Eve was like two and a half weeks ago, and I don’t think the four-piece lineup of Ian Blurton’s Future Now were around all that long before that, so there could well be some changes as they continue to take shape. They might, for instance, decide just to call themselves Future Now, since although born out of the Ian Blurton solo-project, they’re a full band now one way or the other. Whatever they end up calling themselves by the time Signals Through the Flames lands, “Space is Forever” is a catchy, tightly-structured but still laid back-feeling cut that sounds fresh even as it taps into familiar genre elements. The power of songwriting laid bare.

Whatever the coming months and beyond (that’s not to say “the future”) might bring for them — as of Twitter two days ago, they were recording a B-side for a new 7″, so it may well be that this song will feature there — I’m happy today to host the premiere of “Space is Forever,” which you’ll find on the ol’ Bandcamp embed below, followed by a few words from Blurton about the track and a couple Ontario live dates.

I hope you enjoy:

Ian Blurton on “Space is Forever”:

The song is about staring into the endless infinity of space and trying to find light in its darkness. It’s about days becoming nights and nights becoming days and the sun and moon leading us through them. It’s about pondering the planetary phases of the solar system and coming to the realization that the future is now.

Ian Blurton’s Future Now upcoming live shows:
Sat Jan 19 Toronto at The Horseshoe Tavern – Biblical, Whoop-Szo, IBFN
Sat Feb 2 Hamilton at This Ain’t Hollywood – Not Of, IBFN, Mount Cyanide

Future Now (the band) has been put together to play shows in support of Ian’s upcoming solo record (Signals Through The Flames, due out in May) and two pre-LP tracks of which Space is Forever is one. They consist of Toronto heavy hitters Glenn Milchem on drums (Holy Fuck/Starvin’ Hungry), Anna Ruddick on bass (Randy Bachman) and Aaron Goldstein on flying V (Daniel Romano) backing Ian, a 35+ year veteran of the Toronto music scene as a musician and producer (Cursed, Tricky Woo, Blood Ceremony).

Ian Blurton on Twitter

Ian Blurton on Bandcamp

Tags: Canada, Future Now, Ian Blurton, Ian Blurton Signals Through the Flames, Ian Blurton's Future Now, Ontario, Signals Through the Flames, Toronto

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 17th, 2019 at 9:51 am and is filed under audiObelisk. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.